,
2
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CONTENTS
PACK
IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW . i
A PHILANTHROPIST 39
A REVERSION TO TYPE 91
A HOPE DEFERRED 129
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE . .179
JULIA THE APOSTATE 217
MRS. DUD S SISTER. . ., ... 253
592771
IN THE VALLEY OF THE
SHADOW
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yet, and the red-and-yellow leaves danced
heartlessly in the wind. A year ago they
had gone on a nutting-party, and Clarice
had raced with the children and picked
up more than anybody else. Now
even to think of her brought that faint
odor of salts-of-lavender and beef-tea that
disheartened him so, somehow, when he
sat by her bed coaxing her into sipping
the stuff.
Some one was coming down the stairs.
It was Peter s step his new one since
last Friday, when they had all, it seemed,
begun to walk and talk and breathe a lit
tle differently. Belden hurried across the
room and caught him at the foot of the
steps.
" Well, old man, how goes it ? " he de
manded, with a determined cheerfulness.
His brother-in-law stared at him
emptily.
" It s to-morrow," he said, gripping the
newel-post, " to-morrow afternoon. Jame
son is coming they ll do it here. Jame-
[4]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
son brings his special nurse for the
the operation, but the other one is due at
five, and you get her just the same. I
told Henry to put up the dog-cart. I
don t know, though maybe the run
about no, the tire s loose. Still, it
might do "
" For heaven s sake, Peter, don t
bother about it ! I ll find a rig. What
else does he say ? "
" He says there s a good fighting
chance a very good one. He says her
grit alone Oh, Belden, what shall we
do ? What shall we do ? "
Peter sat down heavily on the lowest
stair.
" Only last week she was so well
and yet she really wasn t. I suppose he
knows. But it doesn t seem possible
I can t get it through my head. Poor
little Caddy ! She never had a sick day
in her life. No headaches, like most
women, even no nonsense Oh, Bel-
den, what shall we do ? "
[5]
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C Brace up, Peter ; think what a good
fighting chance means, think of that !
It s not as if Caddy were old ; she has
that on her side. She s seven years be
hind me, you know."
Peter scowled. " You re fifty, aren t
you ? "
" Not a bit. Only forty-eight, and
just that, too. Now you go out and get
the nurse, and I ll stay here. It ll do
you a lot of good. Don t mope around
in the house all day what s the use ? "
" I can t leave the house. Honestly,
Belden, I can t. I ve tried twice, and I
just walk right back. It s no good.
There s the cart and you won t be
long, will you ? "
Belden took up the reins with a vague
sense of momentary relief: it was some
thing to do. Under the influence of the
fresh autumn air his spirits rose ; he
found himself enjoying the swift rattle of
the cart and the beat of the horse s feet.
After all, think of Caddy s grit ; think of
[6]
THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW
her fine constitution ! A fighting chance
that was little enough to say, though.
Why couldn t he have put it a little
stronger ? Hitchcock always was a pes
simist.
At the station the usual crowd of well-
dressed suburbanites quieted their horses
and waited impatiently for the express.
As Belden drew up into line, they greeted
him with a subdued interest ; coachmen
left their seats to ask how Mrs. Moore
was to-day, and when could one see her ?
A sudden mist came over his eyes as he
answered briefly, " Very soon I hope."
The train thundered in ; in an incredi
bly short time all the guests and com
muters were hurried off toward town
where was that nurse ?
As his glance wandered through the
thinning crowd, it was met suddenly and
squarely by two brown eyes set in a fresh
pink face framed by dark hair lightly
sprinkled with gray. The second that
he looked into that woman s eyes taught
[7]
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him her character, absolutely, as finally as
if he had grown up with her. One could
trust her to the last ditch, he thought.
She walked straight up to the cart.
" I am the nurse sent for by Dr. Hitch
cock. Are you Mr. Moore?"
"I am Mrs. Moore s brother Mr.
Belden," he explained. " Have you
your checks ? "
" That is all arranged, * she returned
briefly. " I am all ready. May I ask
you to hurry ? Dr. Hitchcock was anx
ious for me to see her before six, when
the fever begins."
His nerves were more sharply edged
than he knew : an instant irritation seized
him.
"There is plenty of room in the back
of the cart," he insisted, " the express
people are very uncertain. Would you
not better give me the checks ? "
She swung herself up beside him with
a firm, assured motion ; for a heavily built
woman she carried herself very lightly.
[8]
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" I think not," she said decidedly,
" the man has started, I am sure. I
would rather lose no time."
He bowed and started the horse : he
disliked her already. To a deep-seated,
involuntary disgust that any woman
should have to earn her living he added
a displeased wonder that one should
choose this method of doing it. There
must be disagreeable details connected
with it, embarrassments, absolute indig
nities : why did they not marry ? This
woman was good-looking enough. She
was very obstinate almost dictatorial.
His idea of womanhood was hopelessly
confused with clouds of white tulle, ap
pealing eyes, and a desire for guidance.
It was impossible to connect any of these
characteristics with the woman beside
him.
For a while they drove in silence.
Then compunction seized him and he
remarked on the beauty of the foliage.
She assented easily, but seemed no more
[9]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
relieved by the speech than embarrassed
by the silence. It was impossible to
treat her as a hired servant : one felt a
strong personality in her. Before they
reached the house he was searching for
conversation that should not bore her.
As they stepped into the wide hall,
where he observed with a shade of dis
pleasure that her luggage had come
before them, Dr. Hitchcock met them.
" Ah, Miss Strong, glad to see you.
Come right up. On time, as usual, of
course ! I was afraid you couldn t make
it. Jameson comes to-morrow, you
know "
They were up the stairs; Belden stood
idly in the hall where they had left him.
He had had an idea of showing her the
house, stating some of the facts of Clarice s
sudden and terrible need of her, indicating
that in a family so jarred from the very
foundations it would be wiser to look to
him than to the bewildered master of the
establishment; but this was not necessary.
[10]
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Evidently she persisted in dispensing
with his services.
His hand slipped to his vest pocket,
but he replaced the cigar uncertainly : it
seemed not quite the thing to smoke.
Ought he to go to Peter? In his mind s
eye he saw the poor fellow haunting the
landing by Caddy s door; he had an idea
that in some way he kept things quiet by
doing this. And how could one be sure
that the troubled creature wanted com
pany?
There was a violent ring at the bell, a
jarring of wheels on the asphalt. The
door flew open and the prettiest little
woman imaginable, all fluffy ends and
scarlet flowers and orris scent, rushed
toward him.
"Oh, Will! Oh, Will!" she gasped,
"isn t it terrible? Where is Peter? Can
I see her ? Oh, Will ! "
Instinctively he took her in his arms
one always did that with Peter s sister
and she put her head on his shoulder and
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cried a little, while he patted her and mur
mured, " There, there ! "
She was so manifestly comforted, and
it was so pleasant to comfort her this
was what a woman should be. He felt
a renewed sense of capacity, of readiness
for even the most terrible emergency.
He led her gently to the great cushioned
window-seat and listened sympathetically
to her excited babblings.
" It will kill Peter it will kill him !
In in a great m-many ways, you know,
Will, Peter isn t so so c-calm as Caddy.
He is just bound up in her. Sup
pose Oh, Will!"
"Don t cry, Sue dear, don t!" he said
soothingly. "She has a good chance a
fine chance, really. These things are
mostly resisting power, you know, and
grit, and think what a lot of grit Caddy s
got!"
" Oh, I know, I know ! Don t you
know when the baby died that first
baby and s-she was so weak she could
[12]
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hardly speak ? c Never mind, P- Peter,
we ll have another ! Oh, dear, she
was so pi-plucky, Will ! And now to
think "
He choked a little. " I know, I know,"
he murmured, cc Caddy s a brick. She
always was."
She sat up, not wholly withdrawing
from his arm, and patted her eyes, breath
ing brokenly. Little gusts of orris floated
toward him.
"Where are the children ?" she asked,
almost herself now.
" They re here Peter wants them one
minute and sends them away the next.
I should send them to grandmother s,
but he won t hear of it."
A light step sounded on the stair. The
nurse appeared on the lower landing.
She was dressed in cool blue gingham ;
the straps of her white apron marked
the firm, broad lines of her bust and
shoulder.
" Is this Mrs. Wylie ? " she said in
[13]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
her clear, assured voice. " Mrs. Moore
would like to see her a moment. Will
you come with me ? "
" I will come directly," and Sue gath
ered together her gloves and hand-bag.
<c She s very good-looking it s a pity
her hair is so gray," she breathed in his
ear. As the two women stood together
a moment on the landing he realized, not
for the first time, that Sue was a little too
small. But he had never thought her
sallow before.
Peter came in by the greenhouse door,
walking slowly, his hands behind his back.
He looked old for the first time in his
jolly, persistently boyish life.
<c Those chrysanthemums are all dry
ing up," he complained fretfully ; " not
one of the blamed servants has done a
thing since since O Lord, Will,
what shall we be doing this time to
morrow ? Where are the children ?
Where s Miss Strong? There s a wo
man for you ! Caddy took to her di-
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
rectly. She s there now. She s talking
to her about the children. Oh, my
God ! "
Belden grasped his hand and they
walked silently up and down the hall.
" Aunt Lucia s coming to-night," Peter
resumed nervously. " She will drive me
mad. Take care of her, will you ? If I
could have choked her off but when
you think she was just like a mother to <
Cad all these years, what can you do ?
She s got a right. You d think she d
have got some sense from living with
Cad so long. I told Henry to go for
her and there you are," he added, as
the cart drew up before the open door.
Belden went slowly down the steps ;
he detested Aunt Lucia, and Clarice had
always stood between them.
" How do you do ? " he began, assist
ing her from the high seat. Her long
crape veil caught in the wheel, and the
numberless black and floating ends of
her costume wound themselves about
[15]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
him as he bent down to disentangle
her.
" Oh, Wilmot, this is a terrible day for
us all, is it not ? Be careful of the hem
of that veil, please. When I kissed
Clarice good-by last Christmas I little
thought what a good-by it was ! Is she
conscious ? You have muddied the boa,
I think, but never mind. Can I see her
once more ? "
" For Heaven s sake, Aunt Lucia,
anybody would think Caddy was in her
grave ! She s a long way from it yet,
thank God ! Of course she s conscious,
and spunky as the as ever. I don t
think you really needed to "
" My dear Wilmot, I prepared Clarice
for her confirmation, I dressed her for
her wedding, and I was here when the
children were born. If you think that I
would fail her in this crisis you have a
very poor idea of my character. But
then, I am perfectly aware that you al
ways had. Oh, there is Peter! My
[16]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
poor Peter ! " She rushed toward him,
and Belden smiled sardonically as his
brother-in-law planted a perfunctory kiss
on her chin.
"This may comfort you, Peter, as it
has me so often in such circumstances.
So short, so true, so helpful. c Under
neath are the everlasting arms / Do you
feel that, Peter ? "
"I I yes, indeed, Aunt Lucia
you must want a bite of something, I m
sure, driving so far."
Peter writhed miserably in Aunt Lu
cia s crape-and-jet arms.
" Not till I have seen her, Peter.
Afterwards I shouldn t mind. I have
brought such a beautiful address by
Bishop Hunter. It was delivered on
the occasion of the death of Governor
, unless I forgot to put it in with
my knitted shawl. I believe I did. I
will send for it directly. When my dear
husband he was so fond of Clarice
died, I read it more than anything else,
[17]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
except the Prayer-book, of course. You
will surely find it a help."
" Yes, Aunt Lucia. Your room is
ready, and "
" Not till I have seen her, Peter."
" Susy is there now, and Miss Strong
says nobody else this evening. To
morrow "
Aunt Lucia drew away.
" Do I understand that Susy Wylie
no relation at all is preferred before the
only mother Clarice has had for all these
5 "
years r
Peter winced. " But you weren t here,
Aunt Lucia," he argued wearily.
" Who is Miss Strong ? "
" Here she is ! " There was great re
lief in Peter s voice. " Miss Strong, my
aunt, Mrs. Wetherly."
" Mrs. Moore sends you her best love,
and wants you to get thoroughly rested,
so that you can see her the first thing in
the morning, Mrs. Wetherly. She says
you are not to let them frighten you."
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As if by magic the formidable frown
faded from Aunt Lucia s forehead. She
smiled approvingly at the nurse.
"Very well. I should like to ask you
a few questions Clarice was always
thoughtful."
They moved away together. The two
men stared at each other.
"How do you account for that?"
Belden queried.
" Oh, it s her calm way and her voice.
You want to do everything she says.
Norah says she s sure Mrs. Moore will
get well now, with her to take care of
her. By George, Will, if she pulls
Caddy through it ll be worth her while,
I tell you."
" Oh, they always do their best. And
they all have that habit, I fancy. It s
part of the training."
Peter looked up surprised.
" You don t like her, eh ? "
" How absurd. I never considered
her particularly. I don t care for mas-
[19]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
culine, dictatorial women, on general
principles "
" Oh, nonsense ! I tell you you ve
taken a grudge against her, and you want
to get rid of it as soon as possible."
" I suppose I have a right to my
opinion," Belden began hotly, but a
wave of remorse surged over him at
sight of the other man s drawn, nervous
face.
<c Any one would think we had noth
ing to do but scrap over a trained
nurse," he said lightly. " She s all you
say, I haven t a doubt, old man, and if
she pulls Caddy through, I ll sing her
praises louder than any of you." *
They sat in silence. A burst of laugh
ter from the kitchen-garden startled them,
and Belden started up as if to check it.
" Don t stop em it s the servants.
Why shouldn t they laugh ? " said Peter
quietly. " I ve been thinking it all over.
If Caddy if if she doesn t get well,
she doesn t want a lot of black and all
[20]
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that. It s bad for the children. And
she said the children oughtn t to grow
up without a mother think of that ! "
" I guess that s all right," said Belden
sadly. " Look at my boy there ! "
A slender, stoop-shouldered lad
slouched by the long hall-window, his
hands in his pockets, an unlighted ciga
rette in his mouth.
" Well, well, we all have our load ! "
Peter s mood had changed utterly, to the
other s astonishment. He seemed gen
tler, more thoughtful, controlled beyond
belief.
" I don t see why we shouldn t smoke,"
he added, and they lighted cigars.
" You see, we talked it all over," he
said, half to himself, "and she s so reason
able and calm, herself. . . . She says
Margaret s going to grow up just like
her. That s a comfort. And there s
the boy."
Suddenly the cigar dropped from his
lips to the floor.
[21]
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"Good God, Belden!" he shouted,
" I kept thinking she d be here, too ! I
forgot I Oh, what rot ! Do you
think I ll stand it? Do you think I ll
put up with it ? Why didn t Hitchcock
know before ? It was his business to
know ! I tell you I ll ruin that man if it
takes every dollar I ve got ! "
Belden stared at him helplessly. Was
this Peter, this red-faced, scowling men
ace ? As he watched him silently the
nurse came in from the greenhouse.
" Mrs. Moore wants to say good night
to you, Mr. Moore," she said, her deep,
clear voice echoing strangely after the
hoarse passion of Peter s rage. " I found
these all picked were you going to
take them to her ? "
Peter drew a deep breath and put out
a shaking hand for the flowers.
" I don t know what s the matter with
me, Will I talk like a fool," he half whis
pered. " I can t get used to this damned
see-saw. First I m all ready for it, and
[22]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
then I m nearly wild. And so it goes
up and down, up and down."
" How is she ? Is it all settled for
to-morrow ? Hitchcock said that per
haps"
" Mrs. Moore is doing very well
really very well. She was a little excited
when Mrs. Wylie was with her, but she
is nicely sleepy now. I think it will be
better to stay only a moment. She will
get a good night s rest to-night, it is so
cool. The weather is on our side."
She smiled into his eyes and nodded
gravely. He brightened and squared
his shoulders. As he went quickly up
the stairs, Belden stopped the woman.
" Tell me," he said authoritatively,
" how is my sister, really ? What do
you consider her chance ? "
She looked him easily in the eyes.
" It is impossible to say," she returned
gravely. "Your sister is a very brave,
self-possessed woman, and seems to have
a good constitution. That is, of course,
[23]
THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW
half the battle. But her case is very
complicated, and until the operation, no
one can tell. You may have every con
fidence in Dr. Jameson. He is a mag
nificent surgeon."
Before her non-committal eyes his own
fell baffled. He was more irritated than
he cared to own. Could she not see
that he was prepared for anything, that
his self-control was as great as her own ?
She treated him like a child ; those pro
fessional reserves, necessary, doubtless, in
the case of Peter and his excitable sister,
were wasted on him. Why could she
not see it ?
" I am quite aware of Dr. Jameson s
skill," he said coldly, " but I had hoped
that you would find yourself able to
break through the professional attitude
sufficiently to give me your real opinion,
which, of course, you must have formed."
She threw him a quick glance. " Ah,
my friend," he thought exultingly, " you
have a temper, then ! " But in an instant
it was gone.
[24]
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" I have told you all I was able to tell,"
she said evenly. " I have been here but
a short time, you know."
She turned and left the hall, and he,
chafing under a sense of merited rebuke,
conscious of a foolish petulance, went
discontentedly into the library. He
seemed to be continually at fault with
Miss Strong, but unable to resist the
effort to master her.
The evening was very lonely and still.
Peter had gone to his room early, and the
children had effaced themselves : Susy
was with them. Aunt Lucia read the
" Imitation of Christ," by the fire. Bel-
den s mind turned unconsciously to the
old days when Caddy and he dreamed
out their future in the nursery. It had
all come out just as she had planned,
except this. Poor little Caddy a fight
ing chance !
The next morning seemed to fly by
them : it was nine o clock, ten, eleven.
At this hour a feverish activity sud
denly spread through the house. They
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
met and passed each other, hurrying,
troubled, secretive ; the servants stum
bled and quarrelled in their purposeless
haste. To Belden, quieting when he
could, sternly optimistic everywhere, at
heart heavy and uncertain, it seemed that
the one anchor of their hopes was this
calm, clear-eyed woman in her uniform
of authority !
Peter hung pathetically on her lightest
word ; the children, dazed and terrified,
ate and exercised at her command ; his
own boy, a strange hard look in his fur
tive eyes, followed her like a dog, and
Aunt Lucia submitted with unprecedented
meekness to an abrupt curtailment of her
interview with Clarice. He himself went
into the bedroom for a moment, half un
certain of the reality of the experience.
It was absurd to remember that he might
never see her, conscious, again his own
little Caddy.
He sat awkwardly on the side of the
bed.
THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW
" Well, little woman, how goes it ? "
"Queen s taste, Will!"
" Good for you ! I m proud of the
Beldens, Caddy Billy acts like a drum-
major."
Her eyes softened.
"The dear boy," she murmured. Their
eyes met. " Look after him" hers said,
and his, " As long as I live! " He stooped
and kissed her lightly. " Mind you look
as well as this to-morrow ! "
" Oh, I shall be all right. Miss Strong
will take care of me. When I think how
I have the best of everything such care
I ve been a very happy woman, Will
dear."
His eyes filled. He threw her a kiss
and went out blindly.
A hand touched his arm. " You ve
done her good," said the nurse softly.
"You stayed just long enough. She ll
take her nap now."
He went heavily into his own room.
Below him a little porch led out from
THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW
the smoking-room, and as he sat lost in
a miserable reverie, voices rose from it to
his window.
" Nobody knows what she s been to
me. As much like a mother as I d let
her. I did everything but the cigarettes,
and I meant to tell her I d do that too,
next month that s her birthday."
Was this his boy, that pleading, shaken
voice ? He looked out : the lad was
fingering Miss Strong s white apron ner
vously. She leaned over the railing of
the little porch, her hand on his shoulder.
"You tell her about it I ll never
smoke another one. It was the last
thing she asked me."
" I ll tell her she will be so pleased,
I know. She asked about you yester
day. I ll let you know as soon as I can."
Belden, a little later, hurried down
stairs, with a confused idea of thanking
her. On the threshold of the library he
paused, amazed. Dr. Hitchcock sat be
fore a small green baize table, studying
[28]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
five playing-cards held fan-shape in his
left hand. Opposite him sat Miss Strong,
holding the pack expectantly.
"You can give me two, my dear, I
think," he said as Belden entered. Look
ing up, he smiled apologetically.
" I dare say you are surprised," he
suggested, " but I have been much exas
perated, Mr. Belden, and a long experi
ence has taught me that nothing so
quickly clears the mind as throwing a
few hands of poker. Miss Strong an
invaluable person is kindly assisting
me. Did I say three ? Yes, of course.
Thank you. We are playing for beans
only, you see."
Belden watched them curiously. She
sat as imperturbably as by Caddy s bed
side, her eyes fixed thoughtfully on her
cards.
" And raise you three," she said.
"Five more. You will excuse me,
Belden, but your aunt, Mrs. Wetherly, is
a somewhat unusually irritating woman.
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
I ll see you. Miss Strong ah, yes, two
pair, queens up."
" What has she done ? "
"She insists that Mrs. Moore shall
not only see Mr. Burchard, to which I
have not the least objection, but that he
shall hold a communion service, directly,
there. Now, if your sister had asked for
this herself, it would be another matter,
but unless this is the case I always re
gard it as a depressing agent. It is a
strain, in any case."
"I think Mrs. Moore will go through
with it very easily, doctor," Miss Strong
interposed, slipping the cards into their
leather envelope and gathering up the
beans. " She will be fresh from her nap,
and it will be very short. She has prom
ised Mrs. Wetherly, you know, and it
would distress her more to break it "
" All right, all right. Have it your
way. Much obliged."
He took the cards from her and went
out.
[30]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
" My aunt is very trying," Belden
began.
" Oh, many people feel so about it,"
she assured him, "especially High Church
people. She only did what she thought
right."
He drew a breath of relief.
"You ll see she s not too tired?" he
asked; and as he went to luncheon he
wondered at the comfort he derived from
her mute nod.
He was roused from the table, where
the dishes left by them were untouched
for the most part, by a disturbance in the
hall.
" It s the priest," the waitress mur
mured, and with a frown he checked her
rising tears.
Aunt Lucia bustled through the room.
"You must come, Wilmot," she whis
pered eagerly, " she asked for you. Peter
is locked into his room, and neither of
the children has been confirmed. Susy,
of course, is a Presbyterian. Not that
[31]
THE VALLEY OP THE SHADOW
dear Mr. Burchard would object he is
so broad. But you have no excuse. Oh,
it is beautiful, Wilmot ! She looks so
lovely!"
He followed her wearily. What did
it matter ? It seemed to him ominous,
terrible but it would please Caddy.
She sat propped up in the bed. Her
cheeks were crimson, her eyes bright.
White chrysanthemums stood in silver
vases, candles burned softly on the white-
draped dresser. Mr. Burchard, in the
hall just beyond, was slipping his surplice
over his head. A faint odor of wine
mingled with the flowers.
Belden dared not look at her. She
was to him, in that moment, mystic, holy,
a thing apart. He dropped on his knees
beside a silvery white apron, his eyes on
the floor, his heart beating hard.
The clergyman entered slowly, the
service began. It was all a murmured
maze to him. Aunt Lucia sobbed quietly
beside him, but as he glanced at her he
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
caught a light on her wet, uplifted face
that thrilled him strangely. Her deep
responses spoke a faith and surety that
swallowed for the moment all her little
sillinesses and obstinacies.
The solemn words grew in intensity,
the candles flickered audibly in the sacred
hush. The clergyman moved toward
the bed, and they heard Caddy s breath
draw out in a deep, shuddering sob ; her
teeth chattered against the cup.
Belden set his jaw; it was cruel, brutal!
They were killing her. His clinched fist
moved blindly toward his neighbor: he
touched her hand and gripped it fiercely.
In front of him on the wall hung a
large photograph of Billy s base-ball nine
in full uniform. He could have drawn
it from memory, afterwards. Billy, he
remembered, was a great catcher. He
held hard to that cool, firm hand.
" be amongst you and remain with you
always. Amen." There was a little stir.
The hand was drawn from his.
[33]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
"Come, now," whispered Aunt Lucia,
and he walked, stumbling and stiff from
kneeling, from the room. At the door
he glanced a second backward, but only
Dr. Hitchcock was to be seen, bending
over the bed. Miss Strong had already
taken away candles and flowers, and
Caddy s triple mirror was back on the
dresser.
Mr. Burchard, in his long black cas
sock, offered his hand cordially.
" I am glad you could be with us, Mr.
Belden," he began, but the other broke
in :
"If you have tired her, if this
makes a difference " he muttered
fiercely, " you will have me to settle
with. Mind that ! "
He hurried down the stairs, his hands
still clinched. Peter was starting off with
the road-wagon. They nodded shortly
at each other.
From then the time raced on incredi
bly. The great surgeon, with his two
assistants, was in the hall ; he was on the
[34]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
stairs ; he was lost to sight. There was
a momentary rush and bustle, the closing
of a door. Peter came out, whispering
to himself, and disappeared somewhere.
The others, clustered in the library, spoke
fitfully.
" They carried her on a cot into the
west room," somebody murmured close
to Belden. It was little Margaret. " I
saw her. She waved her hand at me ! I
threw her a kiss. Miss Strong smiled
at me I love Miss Strong."
Aunt Lucia sobbed. Susy bit her lip
and played with Billy s unwilling hand.
" Where s my father ? Where s he
gone ? " he demanded. cc Who s that
other woman with the apron ? "
Miss Strong appeared at the door.
" She has taken the ether very well in
deed ; they are much pleased," she said
softly. They hung on her words, they
overwhelmed her with questions. She
soothed them like children.
It grew suddenly clear to Belden that
Caddy would die. It must be so. He
[35]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
wondered that they had hoped for any
thing else. He was sorry for them all.
He watched indifferently while Miss
Strong led the children away he knew
she was taking them to their father.
Later, while Aunt Lucia, on her knees,
read through streaming eyes from her
prayer-book, and Susy talked nervously
to him, he watched the firm, full figure
of the woman pacing up and down the
piazza outside, her arm drawn through
his restless boy s.
" God bless her ! " he said aloud.
Afterwards he could never recall the con
secutive happenings of the end. He
saw only separate pictures.
In one, a strange young man opened
the door and said the words that fright
ened them with delight.
In another, a drawn, old, white-faced
man surely not Dr. Jameson leaned
weakly in a chair, while a woman handed
him a tiny glass of colored liquid.
[36]
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
In yet another, a father hid his face
in his little daughter s bosom and sobbed,
with shaking shoulders ; his tall son
smiled bravely over the bent head.
In the last picture he himself bore a
part ; for when he came upon his shy,
suspicious boy clasped in the kind arms
of the woman whose brown eyes, once
seen, had haunted his thoughts ever since,
he gathered them both to him irresistibly.
As he laid his cheek against hers, he felt
that it was wet with tears.
" It lies with you now," he whispered
in her ear, " to give her back to us, well
and strong. He says you can. After
wards "
She drew away from him.
"I I must go. I am so glad I
will do my best," she answered unsteadily.
He caught her hand. "And after
wards ? " he repeated, a growing mastery
in his voice. She tried to meet his eyes,
but her own fell, conquered.
[37]
A PHILANTHROPIST
A PHILANTHROPIST
T SUSPECTED him from the first,"
JL said Miss Gould, with some irritation,
to her lodger. She spoke with irritation
because of the amused smile of the lodger.
He bowed with the grace that character
ized all his lazy movements.
"He looked very much like that Tom
Waters that I had at the Reformed
Drunkards* League last year. I even
thought he was Tom "
" I do not know Tom ? " hazarded
the lodger.
" No. I don t know whether I ever
mentioned him to you. He came twice
[41]
A PHILANTHROPIST
to the League, and we were really quite
hopeful about him, and the third time
he asked to have the meeting at his
house. We thought it a great sign
the best of signs, in fact. So as a great
favor we went there instead of meeting
at the Rooms. I was a little late I
lost the way and when I got there I
heard a great noise as if they were sing
ing different songs at the same time. I
hurried in to lead them they get so
mixed in the singing and it makes
me blush now to think of it! the wretch
had invited them all early, and and
they were all intoxicated !
" I am sorry I told you," she added
with dignity ; for the lodger, in an en
deavor to smile sympathetically, had lost
his way and was convulsed with a mirth
entirely unregretful.
" Not at all, not at all," he murmured
politely. " It is a delightful story. I
would not have missed it a choir of
reformed drunkards ! But do you not,
A PHILANTHROPIST
my dear Miss Gould, perceive in these
little setbacks a warning against further
attempts ? Do you still attend the
League ? It is not possible ! "
"Possible?" echoed his visitor; for
owing to certain recent and untoward
circumstances, Miss Gould was half re
clining in her lodger s great Indian chair,
sipping a glass of his 49 port. " Indeed
I do ! They had every one of them to
be reformed all over again ! It was most
disgraceful ! "
Her lodger checked a rising smile, and
leaned solicitously toward her, regarding
her firm, fine-featured face with flatter
ing attention.
" Are you growing stronger ? Can I
bring you anything ? " he inquired.
Miss Gould s color rose, half with anger
at her weakness of body, half with a vexed
consciousness of his amusement.
" Thank you, no," she returned coldly,
" I am ashamed to have been so weak-
minded. I must go now and tell Henry
[43]
A PHILANTHROPIST
to pile the wood again in the east corner.
There will probably come another tramp
very soon they are very prevalent this
month, I hear."
Her lodger left his low wicker seat
a proof of enormous excitement and
frowned at her.
" Do you seriously mean, Miss Gould,
that you are going to run the risk of an
other such such catastrophe? It is
absurd. I cannot believe it of you ! Is
there no other way "
But he had been standing a long while,
it occurred to him, and he retired to the
chair again. A splinter of wood on his
immaculate white flannel coat caught his
eye, and a slow smile spread over his
handsome, lazy face. It grew and grew
until at last a distinct chuckle penetrated
to the dusky corner where the Indian
chair leaned back against dull Oriental
draperies. Its occupant attempted to
rise, her face stern, her mouth unrelent
ing. He was at her side instantly.
[44]
A PHILANTHROPIST
" Take my arm and pardon me ! "
he said with an irresistible grace. "It
is only my fear for your comfort, you
know, Miss Gould. I cannot bear that
you should be at the mercy of every
drunken fellow that wishes to impose on
you ! "
As she crossed the hall that separated
her territory from his, her fine, full figure
erect, her dark head high in the air, a
whimsical regret came over him that they
were not younger and more foolish.
" I should certainly marry her to re
form her," he said to the birch log that
spluttered on his inimitable colonial fire-
dogs. And then, as the remembrance of
the events of the morning came to him,
he laughed again.
He had been disturbed at his leisurely
coffee and roll by a rapid and ceaseless
pounding, followed by a violent rattling,
and varied by stifled cries apparently
from the woodshed. The din seemed
to come from the lower part of the house,
[45]
A PHILANTHROPIST
and after one or two futile appeals to the
man who served as valet, cook, and
butler in his bachelor establishment, he
decided that he was alone in his half of
the house, and that the noise came from
Miss Gould s side. He strolled down the
beautiful winding staircase, and dragged
his crimson dressing-gown to the top of
the cellar stairs, the uproar growing mo
mentarily more terrific. Half-way down
the whitewashed steps he paused, viewing
the remarkable scene below him with in
terest and amazement. The cemented
floor was literally covered with neatly
chopped kindling-wood, which rose as in
a tide under the efforts of a large red-
faced man who, with the regularity of a
machine, stooped, grasped a billet in either
hand, shook them in the face of Miss
Gould, who cowered upon a soap-box at
his side, and flung them on the floor.
From the woodhouse near the cellar
muffled shouts were heard through a
storm of blows on the door. From the
rattling of this door, and the fact that
[46]
A PHILANTHROPIST
the red-faced man aimed every third stick
at it, the observer might readily conclude
that some one desirous of leaving the
woodhouse was locked within it.
For a moment the spectator on the
stairs stood stunned. The noise was
deafening ; the appearance of the man,
whose expression was one of settled rage
but whose actions were of the coldest regu
larity, was most bewildering, partially ob
scured as it was by the flying billets of
wood ; the mechanical attempts of Miss
Gould to rise from the soap-box, inva
riably checked by a fierce brandishing of
the stick just taken from the lessening
pile, were at once startling and fascinating,
inasmuch as she was methodically waved
back just as her knees had unbent for
the trial, and as methodically essayed her
escape again, alternately rising with dig
nity and sinking back in terror.
The red dressing-gown advanced a
step, and met her gaze. Dignity and ter
ror shifted to relief.
" Oh, Mr. Welles ! " she gasped. Her
[47]
A PHILANTHROPIST
lodger girded up his robe de chambre with
its red silk cord and advanced with decision
through the chaos of birch and hickory.
A struggle, sharp but brief, and he turned
to find Miss Gould offering a coil of
clothes-rope with which to bind the con
quered, whom conflict had sobered, for
he made no resistance.
" What do you mean by such idiotic
actions ? " the squire of dames demanded,
as he freed the maddened Henry from
his durance vile in the woodhouse and
confronted the red-faced man, who had
not uttered a word.
He cast a baffled glance at Miss Gould
and a triumphant smile at Henry before
replying. Then, disdaining the lady s
righteous indignation and the hired man s
threatening gestures, he faced the gentle
man in the scarlet robe and spoke as man
to man.
" Gov nor," he said with somewhat
thickened speech, " I come here an I
asked for a meal. An she tol me would
[48]
A PHILANTHROPIST
I work fer it? An I said yes. An she
come into this ol vault of a suller, an she
pointed to that ol heap o wood, an
she tol me ter move it over ter that
corner. An I done so fer half an hour.
An I says to that blitherin fool over
there, who was workin in that ol wood-
house, what the devil did she care w ich
corner the darned stuff was in ? An he
says that she didn t care a hang, but that
she d tell the next man that come along
to move it back to where I got it from ;
he said twas a matter er principle with
her not to give a man a bite fer nothin !
So I shut him in his ol house, an w en
she come down I gave her a piece of my
mind. I don t mind a little work, mis
ter, but when it come to shufflin kind-
lin s round in this ol tomb fer half an
hour an makin a fool o myself fer
nothin , I got my back up. My time
ain t so vallyble to me as tis to some,
gov nor, but it s worth a damn sight
more n that ! "
[49]
A PHILANTHROPIST
Miss Gould s lodger shuddered as he
remembered the quarter he had surrepti
tiously bestowed upon the man, and the
withering scorn that would be his portion
were the weakness known. He smiled
as he recalled the scene in the cellar when
he had helped Miss Gould up the stairs
and returned to soothe Henry, who re
gretted that he had left one timber of the
woodhouse upon another.
" Though I m bound to say, Mr.
Welles, that I see how he felt. I ve
often felt like a fool explainin how they
was to move that wood back an forth.
It does seem strange that Miss Gould
has to do it that way. Give em some-
thin an let em go, I say ! "
It was precisely his own view but
how fundamentally immoral the position
was he knew so well ! He recalled Miss
Gould s lectures on the subject, miracles
of eloquence and irrefutably correct in
deductions that interested him not nearly
so much as the lecturer.
" So firm, so positive, so wholesome ! "
[50]
A PHILANTHROPIST
he would murmur to himself in tacit apol
ogy for the instructive hours spent before
their common ground, the great fireplace
in the central hall. He never sat there
without remembering their first interview :
her resentment at an absolutely inexcusa
ble intrusion slowly melting before his
exquisite appreciation of every line and
corner of the old colonial homestead ;
her reserve waning at every touch of his
irresistible courtesy, till, to her own open
amazement, she rose to conduct this con
noisseur in antiquities through the rooms
whose delights he had perfectly foreseen,
he assured her, from the modelling of
the front porch ; her utter and instanta
neous refusal to consider for a second his
proposal to lodge a stranger in half of
her father s house ; and the nai ve and
conscientious struggle with her principles
when, with a logic none the less forcible
because it was so gracefully developed, he
convinced her that her plain duty lay
along the lines of his choice.
For as a philanthropist what could she
[5*]
A PHILANTHROPIST
do ? Here were placed in her hands
means she could not in conscience over
look. Rapidly translating his dollars
into converts, he juggled them before her
dazzled eyes ; he even hinted delicately
at Duty, with that exact conception of
the requirements of the stern daughter
felt by none so keenly as those who sys
tematically avoid her.
His good genius prompted him to
refer casually to soup-kitchens. Now
soup-kitchens were the delight of Miss
Gould s heart ; toward the establishment
of a soup-kitchen she had looked since
the day when her father s death had left
her the double legacy of his worldly goods
and his unworldly philanthropy.
Visions of dozens of Bacchic revellers,
riotous no more, but seated temperately
each before his steaming bowl, rose to her
delighted eyes ; she saw in fancy the
daughters and nieces of the reformed in
smiles and white aprons ladling the nu
tritious and attractive compound, earning
A PHILANTHROPIST
thus an honest wage ; she saw a neatly
balanced account-book and a triumphant
report ; she saw herself the respected and
deprecatory idol of a millennial village.
She wavered, hesitated, and was lost.
That very evening saw the establish
ment of a second menage in the north
side of the house, and though a swift re
gret chilled her manner for weeks, she
found herself little by little growing in
terested in her lodger, and conscious of
an increasing desire to benefit him, an
irritated longing to influence him for
good, to turn him from the butterfly
whims of a pretended invalid to an ap
preciation of the responsibilities of life.
For in all her well-ordered forty years
Miss Gould had never seen so indolent,
so capricious, so irresponsible a person.
That a man of easy means, fine educa
tion, sufficient health, and gray hair
should have nothing better to do than
collect willow-ware and fire-irons, read
the magazines, play the piano, and stroll
[53]
A PHILANTHROPIST
about in the sun seemed to her nothing
less than horrible.
Each day that added some new trea
sure to his perfectly arranged rooms, and
in consequence some new song to his
seductive repertoire, left a new sting in
her soul. She had been influencing
somebody or something all her life. She
had been educating and directing and
benefiting till she was forced to be grate
ful to that providential generosity that
caused new wickedness and ignorance to
spring constantly from this very soil she
had cleared; for if one reform had been
sufficient she would long since have been
obliged to leave the little village for
larger fields. She had ministered to the
starved mind as to the stunted body ;
the idle and dissolute quaked before her.
And yet here in her own household,
across her hall, lived the epitome of use-
lessness, indolence, selfishness, and she
was forced to admit it charm. What
corresponded to a sense of humor in her
[54]
A PHILANTHROPIST
caught at the discrepancy and worried
over it.
What ! was she not competent, then, to
influence her equals ? For in everything
but moral stamina she was forced to
admit that her lodger was her equal, if
no more. Widely travelled, well read,
well born, talented, handsome, deferen
tial but persistently amused at her,
irrevocably indolent, hopelessly selfish.
With the firm intention of turning the
occasions to his benefit, she had finally
accepted his regular and courteous invi
tation to take tea with him, and had
watched his graceful management of sam
ovar and tea-cup with open disfavor.
" A habit picked up in England," he
had assured her, when, with the frank
ness characteristic of her, she had criti
cised him for the effeminacy. And his
smiling explanation had sent a sudden
flush across her smooth, firm cheeks.
Was she provincial ? Did she seem to
him a New England villager and nothing
[55]
A PHILANTHROPIST
more ? She bit her lip, and the appeal
she had planned went unspoken that day.
But her desire could not rest, and as to
her strict notions the continual visits
from her side to his seemed unsuitable,
she gave in self-defence her own invita
tion, and Wednesday and Saturday after
noons saw her lodger across the hall
drinking her own tea with wine and plum-
cake by the shining kettle.
If she could command his admiration in
no other way, she felt, she might safely
rely on his deferential respect for the
owner of that pewter tea-service velvety,
shimmering, glistening dully, with shapes
that vaguely recalled Greek lamps and
Etruscan urns. And she piled wedges of
ambrosial plum-cake with yellow frosting
on sprigged china, and set out wine in
her great-grandfather s long-necked de
canter, and, with what she considered a
gracious tact, overlooked the flippancy of
her guest s desultory conversation, and
sincerely tried to discover the humorous
[56]
A PHILANTHROPIST
quality in her conversation that forced a
subdued chuckle now and then from her
listener.
She confided most of her schemes to
him, sometimes unconsciously, and grew
to depend more than she knew upon his
common sense and experience ; for,
though openly cynical of her works, he
would give her what she often realized to
be the best of practical advice, and his
amusing generalities, though to her mind
insults to humanity, had been so bitterly
proved true that she looked fearfully to
see his lightest adverse prophecy fulfilled.
After a cautious introduction of the
subject by asking his advice as to the
minimum of hours in the week one could
conscientiously allow a doubtful member
of the Weekly Culture Club to spend
upon Browning, she endeavored to get his
idea of that poet. Her famous theory
as to her ability to place any one satis
factorily in the scale of culture according
to his degree of appreciation of " Rabbi ben
[57]
A PHILANTHROPIST
Ezra " was unfortunately known to her
lodger before she could with any veri
similitude produce the book, and he was
wary of committing himself. The ex
quisite effrontery with which she finally
brought out her gray-green volume was
only equalled by the forbearing courtesy
with which he welcomed both it and her.
Nor did he offer any other comment
on her opening the book at a well-worn
page than an apologetic removal to the
only chair in the room more comfortable
than the one he was at the time occupy
ing. He listened in silence to her intel
ligent if somewhat sonorous rendering of
selected portions of cc Saul," thanking her
politely at the close, and only stipulating
that he should be allowed to return the
favor by a reading from one of his
own favorite poets. With a shocked re
membrance of certain yellow-covered vol
umes she had often cleared away from
the piazza, Miss Gould inquired if the
poet in question were English. On his
[58]
A PHILANTHROPIST
hearty affirmative she resigned herself
with no little interest to the opportunity
of seeing her way more clearly into this
baffling mind, horrified at his criticism of
the second reading for she had brought
the " Rabbi " forward at last.
"Then welcome each rebuff
That turns earth s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go ! "
she had intoned ; and, fixing her eye
sternly on the butterfly in white flannels,
she had asked him with a telling empha
sis what that meant to him ? With the
sweetest smile in the world, he had leaned
forward, sipped his tea, gazed thought
fully in the fire, and answered, with a
polite apology for the homeliness of the
illustration, that it reminded him most
strongly of a tack fixed in the seat of a
chair, with the attendant circumstances !
After a convulsive effort to include in
one terrible sentence all the scorn and
[59]
A PHILANTHROPIST
regret and pity that she felt, Miss Gould
had decided that silence was best, arid sat
back wondering why she suffered him
one instant in her parlor. He took
from the floor beside him at this point a
neat red volume, and, murmuring some
thing about his inability to do the poet
justice, he began to read. For one, two,
four minutes Miss Gould sat staring ;
then she interrupted him coldly :
cc And who is the author of that dog
gerel, Mr. Welles ? "
" Edward Lear, dear Miss Gould
and a great man, too."
" I think I might have been spared "
she began with such genuine anger that
any but her lodger would have quailed.
He, however, merely smiled.
" But the subtlety of it the immen
sity of the conception the power of
characterization!" he cried. "Just see
how quietly this is treated."
And to her amazement she let him go
on ; so that a chance visitor, entering un-
[60]
A PHILANTHROPIST
announced, might have been treated to
the delicious spectacle of a charming
middle-aged gentleman in white flannels
reading, near a birch fire and a priceless
pewter tea-service, to a handsome mid
dle-aged woman in black silk, the fol
lowing pregnant lines :
" There was an old person of Bow,
Whom nobody happened to know,
So they gave him some soap,
And said coldly, c We hope
You will go back directly to Bow !
And the illustration is worthy of the
text," he added enthusiastically, as he
passed the volume to her.
She had no sense of humor, but she
had a sense of justice, and it occurred to
her that after all an agreement was an
agreement. If to listen to insinuating
inanities was the price of his attention,
she would pay it. She had borne more
than this in order to do good.
So the readings continued, a source of
[61]
A PHILANTHROPIST
unmixed delight to her lodger and a great
spiritual discipline to herself.
As the days grew milder their inti
macy, profiting by the winter seclusion,
led him to accompany her on her various
errands. She was at first unwilling to
accept his escort it too clearly resem
bled a tacit consent to his idleness. But
his quiet persistence, together with his
evident cynicism as to the results of these
professional tours, accomplished, as usual,
his end ; and the wondering village might
observe on hot June mornings its bene
factress, languidly accompanied by a slen
der man in white flannels, balancing a
large white green-lined umbrella, picking
his way daintily along the dusty paths,
with a covered basket dangling from one
hand and a gray-green volume distending
one white pocket.
There was material, too, for the inter
ested observer in the picture of Miss
Gould distributing reading matter, fruit,
and lectures on household economy in
[6a]
A PHILANTHROPIST
the cottages of the mill-hands, while her
lodger pitched pennies with the delighted
children outside. It was on one of these
occasions that Miss Gould took the op
portunity to address Mr. Thomas Waters,
late of the paper and cardboard manu
facturing force, on the wickedness and
folly of his present course of action.
Mr. Waters had left his position on the
strength of his wife s financial success.
Mrs. Waters was a laundress, and the
summer boarders, together with Mr.
Welles, who alone went far toward es
tablishing the fortunes of the family, had
combined to place the head of the house
in his present condition of elegant leisure.
" I wonder at you, Tom Waters, after
all the interest we ve taken in you * Are
you not horribly ashamed to depend on
your wife in this lazy way ? " Miss Gould
demanded of the once member of the
Reformed Drunkards League. " How
many times have I explained to you that
nothing absolutely nothing is so dis-
[63]
A PHILANTHROPIST
graceful as a man who will not work ?
What were you placed in the world for ?
How do you justify your existence ? "
" How," replied her unabashed audi
ence, with a wave of his pipe toward the
front yard, where Mr. Welles was ami
ably superintending a wrestling match,
" does he justify hisn ? "
Had Miss Gould been less consistent
and less in earnest, there were many re
plies open to her. As it was, she colored
violently, bit her lip, made an inaudible
remark, and with a bitter glance at the
author of her confusion, now cheering
on to the conflict the scrambling Waters
children, she called their mother to ac
count for their presence in the yard at
this time on a school-day, and for the
first time in her life left the house with
out exacting a solemn promise of amend
ment from the head of the family.
" I guess I fixed her that time ! " Mr.
Waters remarked triumphantly, as he
summoned his second pair of twins from
[64]
A PHILANTHROPIST
the yard and demanded of them if the
gentleman had given them nickels or
dimes.
The gentleman in question became un
comfortably conscious, in the course of
their walk home, of an atmosphere not
wholly novel, that lost no strength in
this case from its studied repression.
That afternoon, as they sat in the shade
of the big elm, he in his flexible wicker
chair, she in a straight-backed, high-
seated legacy from her grandfather, the
whirlwind that Mr. Waters had so lightly
sown fell to the reaping of a victim too
amiable and unsuspecting not to escape
the sentence of any but so stern a judge
as the handsome and inflexible represen
tative of the moral order now before
him.
Miss Gould was looking her best in
a crisp lavender dimity, upon whose frills
Mrs. Waters had bestowed the grate
ful exercise of her highest art. Her sleek,
dark coils of hair, from which no one
[65]
A PHILANTHROPIST
stray lock escaped, framed her fresh
cheeks most admirably ; her strong white
hands appeared and disappeared with an
absolute regularity through the dark-
green wool out of which she was evolving
a hideous and useful shawl. To her
lodger, who alternately waved a palm-leaf
fan and drank lemonade, reading at in
tervals from a two-days-old newspaper,
and carrying on the desultory and amus
ing soliloquy that they were pleased to
consider conversation, she presented the
most attractive of pictures. " So firm,
so positive, so wholesome," he murmured
to himself, calling her attention to the
exquisite effect of the slanting rays that
struck the lawn in a dappled pattern of
flickering leaf-shadows, and remarking
the violet tinge thrown by the setting
sun on the old spire below in the mid
dle of the village. She did not answer
immediately, and when she did it was in
tones that he had learned from various
slight experiments to regard as finaL
[66]
A PHILANTHROPIST
" Mr. Welles," she said, bending upon
him that direct and placid regard that
rendered evasion difficult and paltering
impossible, " things have come to a
point " ; and she narrated the scene of
the morning.
" It is indeed a problem/ observed
her lodger gravely, " but what is one to
do? It is just such questions as this
that illustrate the futility "
" There is no question about it, Mr.
Welles," she interrupted gravely. " Tom
was right and I was wrong. There is no
use in my talking to him or anybody
while I while you while things are
as they are. You must make up your
mind, Mr. Welles."
"But, great heavens, dear Miss Gould,
what do you mean? What am I to
make up my mind about? Am I to
provide myself with an occupation, per
haps, for the sake of Tom Waters s prin
ciples ? Or am I "
"Yes. That is just it. You know
[67]
A PHILANTHROPIST
what I have always felt, Mr. Welles,
about it. But I never seemed to be
able to make you see. Now, as I say,
things have come to a point. You must
do something."
" But this is absurd, Miss Gould ! I
am not a child, and surely nobody can
dream of holding you in any way re
sponsible "
"/ hold myself responsible/ she re
plied simply, "and I have never approved
of it -never ! "
He shrugged his shoulders desperately.
She was imperturbable ; she was impossi
ble; she was beyond argument or persua
sion or ridicule.
" Suppose I say that I think the situa
tion is absurd, and that I refuse to be
placed at Mr. Waters s disposal?" he
suggested with a furtive glance. She
drew the ivory hook through the green
meshes a little faster.
" I should be obliged to refuse to re-
[68]
A PHILANTHROPIST
new your lease in the fall," she answered.
He started from his wicker chair.
" You cannot mean it, Miss Gould !
You would not be so so unkind, so
unjust ! "
"I should feel obliged to, Mr. Welles,
and I should not feel unjust."
He sank back into the yielding chair
with a sigh. After all, her fascination
had always lain in her great decision.
Was it not illogical to expect her to fail to
display it at such a crisis? There was a
long silence. The sun sank lower and
lower, the birds twittered happily around
them. Miss Gould s long white hook
slipped in and out of the wool, and her
lodger s eyes followed it absently. After
a while he rose, settled his white jacket
elaborately, and half turned as if to go
back to the house.
" I need not tell you how I regret this
unfortunate decision of yours," he said
politely, with a slight touch of the hauteur
[6 9 ]
A PHILANTHROPIST
that sat so well on his graceful person.
" I can only say that I am sorry you
yourself should regret it so little, and
that I hope it will not disturb our pleas
ant acquaintance during the weeks that
remain to me/
She bowed slightly with a dignified
gesture that often served her as a reply,
and he took a step toward her.
" Would we not better come in ? " he
suggested. " The sun is gone, and your
dress is thin. Let me send Henry after
the chairs," and his eyes dropped to her
hands again. They were nearly hidden
by the green wool, but the long needle
quivered like a leaf in the wind ; she
could not pass it between the thread and
her white forefinger. He hesitated a
moment, glanced at her face, smiled in
scrutably, and deliberately reseated him
self.
" What in the world could I do, you
see ? " he inquired meditatively, as if that
had been the subject under discussion for
[70]
A PHILANTHROPIST
some time. " I can t make cardboard
boxes, you know. It s perfectly useless,
my going into a factory. Wheels and
belts and things always give me the mad
dest longing to jump into them I
couldn t resist it ! And that would be
so unpleasant "
She dropped her wool and clasped her
hands under it.
" Oh, Mr. Welles," she cried eagerly,
" how absurd ! As if I meant that ! As
if I meant anything like it ! "
<c Had you thought of anything, then ? "
he asked interestedly.
She nodded gravely. " Why, yes,"
she said. " It wouldn t be right for me
to say you must do something, and then
offer no suggestions whatever, knowing
as I do how you feel about it. I thought
of such a good plan, and one that would
be the best possible answer to Tom "
<c Oh, good heavens ! " murmured her
lodger, but she went on quickly : " You
know I was going to open the soup-
[71]
A PHILANTHROPIST
kitchen in October. Well, I ve just
thought. Why not get the Rooms all
ready, and the reading-room moved over
there, and have lemonade and sandwiches
and sarsaparilla, and Kitty Waters to be
gin to serve right away, as she s begin
ning to run the streets again, and Annabel
Riley with her ? Then the Civic Club
can have its headquarters there, and peo
ple will begin to be used to it before cold
weather."
" And I am to serve sarsaparilla and
sandwiches with Kitty and Annabel ?
Really, dear Miss Gould, if you knew
how horribly ill sarsaparilla is certain to
make me I have loathed it from child
hood
" Oh, no, no, no ! " she interrupted,
with her sweet, tolerant smile. She smiled
at him as if he had been a child.
" You know I never meant that you
should work all day, Mr. Welles. It
isn t at all necessary. I have always felt
that an hour or two a day of intelligent,
A PHILANTHROPIST
cultivated work was fully equal to a
much longer space of manual labor that
is more mechanical, more tiresome."
" Better fifty years of poker than a
cycle of croquet ! " her lodger murmured.
" Yes, I have always felt that myself."
" And somebody must be there from
ten to twelve, say, in the mornings, in
what we call the office ; just to keep
an eye on things, and answer questions
about the kitchen, and watch the reading-
room, and recommend the periodicals,
and take the children s Civic League re
ports, and oversee the Rooms generally.
Now I d be there Wednesdays to meet
the mothers, and Mrs. Underwood Sat
urdays for the Band of Hope and the
kitchen-garden. It would be just Mon
days, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays
from ten to twelve, say ! "
" From ten to twelve, say," he re
peated absently, with his eyes on her
handsome, eager face. He had never
seen her so animated, so girlishly insist-
[73]
A PHILANTHROPIST
ent. She urged with the vivid earnest
ness of twenty years.
" My dear lady/ he brought out
finally, cc you are like Greek architecture
or Eastlake furniture or or c God Save
the Queen perfectly absolute ! And
I am so hideously relative But, after
all, why should a sense of humor be an
essential ? One is really more complete
I suppose Mahomet had none When
shall I begin ? "
The interested villagers were informed
early and regularly of the progress of the
latest scheme of their benefactress.
Henry and Mr. Waters furnished most
satisfactory and detailed bulletins to gath
erings of leisurely and congenial spirits,
who listened with incredulous amazement
to the accounts of Mr. Welles s pro
ceedings.
" Him an that hired man o his, they
have took more stuff over to them Rooms
than you c d shake a stick at ! I never
see nothing like it never ! Waxed that
[74]
A PHILANTHROPIST
floor, they have, and put more mats onto
it fur and colored. An the stuff
oh, Lord ! China all that blue china
he got fr m ol Mis Simms, an them ol
stoneware platters that Mis Rivers was
goin to fire away, an he give her two
dollars for the lot all that s scattered
round on tables and shelves. An that
ol black secr tary he got fr m Lord
knows where, an brakes growin in col
ored pots standin right up there, an
statyers o men an women no heads
onto em, some ain t got ; it s all one
to him he d buy any ol thing so s
twas broke, you might say. An them
ol straight chairs no upholsterin on
em, an some o them wicker kind that
bends any way, with pillers in em. An
cups and sassers, with a tea-pot n -kittle ;
an he makes tea himself an drinks it
I swear it s so. An a guitar, an , Lord,
the pictures ! You can t see no wall for
em!
" It s a mighty lucky thing, havin
[75]
A PHILANTHROPIST
this room, Thompson/ says he to that
hired man, c the things was spillin over.
We ll make it a bower o beauty,
Thompson, says he. c Yes, sir/ says
the man. That s all he ever says, you
might say. I never see nothin like it,
never, the way that hired man talks to
him; you d think he was the Queen o
Sheba.
" An he goes squintin about here an
there, changin this an that, an singm
away an laughin you d think he d
have a fit. Seems s if he loved to putter
about n fool with things in a room, like
women. I heard him say so myself. I
was helpin Miss Gould with the other
rooms she ain t seen his; she don t
know no more n the dead what he s got
in there an I was by the door when
he said it.
" Thompson/ says he, c if I don t
keep my present situation/ says he, c I
c n go out as a decorator an furnisher.
Don t you think I d succeed, Thomp-
[76]
A PHILANTHROPIST
son? says he. c Yes, sir, says Thomp
son.
" You see, we ve got to do something
Thompson, says he. c We ve got ter
justify our existence, Thompson, an he
commenced to laugh. c Yes, sir, says
Thompson. Beats all I ever see, the
way that man answers back ! "
An almost unprecedented headache,
brought on by her unremitting labor in
effecting the change in the Rooms, kept
Miss Gould in the house for two days
after the new headquarters had been sat
isfactorily arranged ; and as Mr. Welles
had refused to open his office for inspec
tion till it was completely furnished, she
did not enter that characteristic apart
ment till the third day of its official ex
istence.
As she went through the narrow hall
way connecting the four rooms on which
the social regeneration of her village de
pended, she caught the sweet low thrum
of a guitar and a too familiarly seductive
[77]
A PHILANTHROPIST
voice burst forth into a chant, whose lit
eral significance she was unable to grasp,
owing to lack of familiarity with the lan
guage in which it was couched, but whose
general tenor no one could mistake, so
tender and arch was the rendering.
With a vague thrill of apprehension she
threw open the door.
Sunk in cushions, a tea-cup on the
arm of his chair, a guitar resting on his
white flannel sleeve, reclined the director
of the Rooms. Over his head hung a
large and exquisite copy of the Botticelli
Venus. Miss Gould s horrified gaze fled
from this work of art to rest on a repre
sentation in bronze of the same repre
hensible goddess, clothed, to be sure, a
little more in accordance with the views
of a retired New England community,
yet leaving much to be desired in this
direction. Kitty Waters attentively filled
his empty cup, beaming the while, and
the once errant Annabel, sitting on a low
stool at his feet, with a red bow in her
[78]
A PHILANTHROPIST
pretty hair, and her great brown eyes
fixed adoringly on his face as he directed
the fascinating incomprehensible little
song straight at her charming self, was
obviously in no present danger of run
ning the streets.
" Good morning, Miss Gould ! " he
said cheerfully, rising and handing the
guitar to the abashed Annabel. "And
you are really quite recovered ? Cest
bien ! Business is dull, and we are amus
ing each other, you see. How do you
like the rooms ? I flatter myself "
" If you flattered none but yourself,
Mr. Welles, much harm would be avoid
ed," she interrupted with uncompromising
directness. " Kitty and Annabel, I can
not see how you can possibly tell how
many people may or may not be wanting
lunch ! "
" Billy Rider tells us when any one
comes," the director assured her. " They
don t come till twelve, anyway, and then
they want to see the room, mostly
[79]
A PHILANTHROPIST
which we show them, don t we, Anna
bel ? "
Annabel blushed, cast down her eyes,
lifted them, showed her dimples, and re
plied in the words, if not in the accents,
of Thompson : " Yes, sir ! "
" It s really going to be an education
in itself, don t you think so ? " he con
tinued. " It s amazing how the people
like it it s really quite gratifying. Per
haps it may be my mission to abolish
the chromo and the tidy from off the face
of New England ! We have had crowds
here just to look at the pictures."
" I don t doubt it ! " replied Miss
Gould briefly.
" And I got the most attractive sugar-
bowl from the little boy who brought
in the reports about picking up papers
and such things from the streets. He
said he ought to have five cents, so I
gave him a dime I hadn t five and
I bought the bowl. Annabel, my child,
bring me "
[80]
A PHILANTHROPIST
But Annabel and her fellow-waitress
had disappeared. Miss Gould sat in si
lence. At intervals her perplexed gaze
rested unconsciously on the Botticelli
Venus, from which she instantly with a
slight frown lowered it and regarded the
floor. When she at last met his eyes
the expression of her own was so trou
bled, the droop of her firm mouth so
pathetic and unusual, that he left his
chair and dragged the little stool to her
feet, assuming an attitude so boyish and
graceful that in spite of herself she smiled
at him.
" What is the matter ? " he asked con
fidentially. " Is anything wrong ? Don t
you like the room ? I enjoy it tremen
dously, myself. I ve been here almost
all the time since it was done. I think
Tom Waters must be tremendously im
pressed "
c < That s the trouble ; he is," said Miss
Gould simply.
" Trouble ? trouble ? Is his impres-
[81]
A PHILANTHROPIST
sion unfavorable ? Heavens, how un
fortunate ! " exclaimed the director airily.
" Surely, my application Does the
room fail to meet his approval, or "
" Yes, it does," she interrupted.
" He says it s no place for a man to be
in ; and he says the pictures are are
well, he says they are improper ! " glan
cing at the Venus.
" Ah ! " responded the director with
a suspicious sweetness. " He does not
care for the nude, then ? "
She sighed deeply. "Oh, Mr. Welles !"
" It is indeed to be regretted that Mr.
Waters s ideals are so high and shall
we say so elusive ? " proceeded the
director smoothly. " It is so difficult
so well-nigh impossible to satisfy him.
One devotes one s energies I may say
one slaves night and day to win some
slight mark of approval; and just as one
is about to reap the well-earned reward
a smile, a word of appreciation all is
forfeited ! It is hard indeed ! Would
[82]
A PHILANTHROPIST
you suggest the rearrangement of the
Rooms under Mr. Waters s direction ?
Thompson is at his service "
" Oh, Mr. Welles ! " she sighed hope
lessly. " It isn t only that ! It s not
alone the room, though Mrs. Under
wood wonders that I should think she
would be able to conduct the Band of
Hope in here, and Mrs. Rider says that
after what her husband told her she
should no more think of sitting here for
a mothers meeting than anything in
the world. It s the whole thing. Why
did you treat them all to lemonade the
first day ? Surely you knew that our
one aim is to prevent miscellaneous
charity. And Tom says you smoked in
here he smelt it."
" I smelt him, too," remarked the di
rector calmly. cc That was one reason
why I smoked."
" And and having Kitty and Anna
bel here all the time ! The Girls Club
are so j Well, the Girls Club like
[83]
A PHILANTHROPIST
the old rooms better, they say, and it s
so difficult to get them to work together
at best. And now we shall have to work
so hard
"And the men think it s just a joke,
the lemonade and everything, and the
room gave them such a wrong impres
sion, and they don t seem to want it,
anyway. Tom Waters says he can t
abide sarsaparilla "
"Great heavens!" the director broke
in, " is it possible? A point on which Mr.
Waters s opinion coincides with mine ?
I have not lived in vain ! But this is
too much; I have not deserved "
"Oh, don t!" she begged. "There
is more. When I corrected Annabel
for what I had heard about her her
impertinent behavior, she said that Mrs.
Underwood had never approved of the
whole thing, and that if I had consulted
her she would never have given her con
sent to your being here, and that I was
dictatorial I!"
A PHILANTHROPIST
Her lodger coughed and ejaculated,
" You, indeed ! "
" And when I said that their ingrati
tude actually made me wonder why I
worked so hard for them, she said oh,
dear ! It is all dreadful ! I don t know
what to do ! "
"I do ! " returned her lodger promptly.
"Go away and leave em! They aren t
fit to trouble you any more. Besides,
they re really not so bad, after all, you
know. There has to be just about so
much laziness and and that sort of
thing, don t you see. Look at me, for
instance ! Think of how much misdi
rected energy I balance ! And it gives
other people something to do. . . . Go
away and leave it all for a while ! " he
repeated smilingly.
" Go away ! But where ? Why should
I ? What do you mean ? " she stammered,
confused at something in his eyes, which
never left her face.
"To England you said you d like
[85]
A PHILANTHROPIST
to see it. With me for I certainly
couldn t stay here alone. Why do you
suppose I stay, dear lady? I used to
wonder myself. No, sit still, don t
get up ! I am about to make you an
offer of marriage ; indeed, I am seri
ous, Miss Gould !
" I don t see that it s ridiculous at
all. I see every practical reason in favor
of it. In the first place, if they are gos
siping oh, yes, Thompson told me,
and I wonder that they hadn t before:
these villages are dreadful places I
couldn t very well stay, you see; and then
where should I put all my things? In
the second place, I have so much stuff,
and there s no house fit for it but but
ours; and if we were married I could
have just twice as much room for it
and I m getting far too much for my
side. In the third place, I find that I
can t look forward with any pleasure to
travelling about alone, because, in the
fourth place, I ve grown so tremendously
[86]
A PHILANTHROPIST
fond of you, dear Miss Gould ! I think
you don t dislike me?"
She plucked the guitar strings ner
vously with her white, strong fingers.
The rich, vibrating tones of it filled the
room and confused her still more.
" People will say that I that we "
He caught her hand : it had never been
kissed before. " Would you rather I
went away and then there would be noth
ing left for them to say?" he asked softly.
She caught her breath.
"I m too "
" You are too charming not to have
some one who appreciates the fact as
thoroughly as I do," he interrupted
gallantly. " I think you do me so
much good, you know," he added, still
holding her hand. She looked at him
directly for the first time.
" Do I really? Is that true?" she de
manded, with a return of her old man
ner so complete and sudden as to startle
him. " If I thought that "
[87]
A PHILANTHROPIST
"You would?" he asked with a smile.
" I thought so ! Here is a village that
scorns your efforts and a respectful suitor
who implores them. Can you hesitate?"
His smile was irresistible, and she re
turned it half reprovingly. " Will you
never be serious ? " she said. " I won
der that I can " She stopped.
"That you can " he repeated, watch
ing her blush, but she would not finish.
" You must not think that I can give
up my work my real work so easily,"
she said, rising and looking down on him
with a return of her simple impressive
seriousness. " I shall have to consider.
I have been very much disturbed by their
conduct. I will see you after supper,"
and with a gesture that told him to re
main, she left the room, her head high as
she caught Annabel s voice from outside.
She turned in the door, however, and the
stern curves of her mouth melted with a
smile so sweet, a promise so gracious and
so tender, that when her eyes, frank and
[88]
A PHILANTHROPIST
direct as a boy s, left his, he looked long
at the closed door, wondering at the
quickening of his pulses.
A moment later he heard her voice,
imperious and clear, and the mumble of
Mr. Waters s unavailing if never-ending
excuses. He laughed softly to himself,
and touched the strings of the guitar that
she had struck. " I shall save the wor
thy Thomas much," he murmured to
himself, "and of course I do it to reform
her I cannot pull down the village and
die with the Philistines ! "
She went up the long main street, Mr.
Waters at her side and Annabel Riley
behind her. Her lodger watched her out
of sight, and prepared to lock up the
Rooms.
"So firm, so positive, so wholesome!"
he said, as he started after her.
[89]
A REVERSION TO TYPE
A REVERSION TO TYPE
SHE had never felt so tired of it all,
it seemed to her. The sun streamed
hot across the backs of the shining seats
into her eyes, but she was too tired to
get the window-pole. She watched the
incoming class listlessly, wondering whe
ther it would be worth while to ask one
of them to close the shutter. They chat
tered and giggled and bustled in, rattling
the chairs about, and begging one an
other s pardon vociferously, with that in
sistent politeness which marks a sharply
defined stage in the social evolution of the
young girl. They irritated her exces
sively these little airs and graces. She
[93]
A REVERSION TO TYPE
opened her book with a snap, and began
to call the roll sharply.
Midway up the room sat a tall, dark
girl, not handsome, but noticeably well
dressed. She looked politely at her ques
tioner when spoken to, but seemed as far
in spirit as the distant trees toward which
she directed her attention when not par
ticularly addressed. She seemed to have
a certain personality, a self-possession, a
source of interest other than collegiate ;
and this held her apart from the others in
the mind of the woman who sat before
the desk.
What was that girl thinking of, she
wondered, as she called another name and
glanced at the book to gather material
for a question. What a perfect taste had
combined that dark, brocaded vest with
the dull, rough cloth of the suit and
she dressed her hair so well ! She had a
beautiful band of pearls on one finger :
was it an engagement-ring ? No, that
would be a solitaire.
[94]
A REVERSION TO TYPE
And all this time she called names from
the interminable list, and mechanically
corrected the mistakes of their owners.
Her eyes went back to the girl in the
middle row, who turned her head and
yawned a little. They took their educa
tion very easily, these maidens.
How she had saved and denied herself,
and even consented to the indebtedness
she so hated, to gain that coveted Ger
man winter ! And how delightful it had
been !
Almost she saw again the dear home
of that blessed year : the kindly house
mother; the chubby Made hen, who
knitted her a silk purse, and cried when
she left; the father with his beloved
cello and his deep, honest voice.
How cunning the little Bertha had
been ! How pleasant it was to hear her
gay little voice when one came down the
shady street ! " Da ist sie, ja ! " she
would call to her mother, and then Her
mann would come up to her with his
[95]
A REVERSION TO TYPE
hands outstretched. Had she had a
hard day ? Was the lecture good ?
How brown his beard was, and how deep
and faithful his brown eyes were ! And
he used to sing why were there no bass
voices in the States ? " Kennst du das
Land" he used to sing, and his mother
cried softly to herself for pleasure. And
once she herself had cried a little.
"No," she said to the girl who was
reciting, " no, it takes the dative. I can
not seem to impress sufficiently on your
minds the necessity for learning that list
thoroughly. You may translate now."
And they translated. H ow they drawled
it over, the beautiful, rich German.
Hermann had begged so, but she had
felt differently then. She had loved her
work in anticipation. To marry and settle
down she was not ready. It would be
so good to be independent. And now
But it was too late. That was years ago.
Hermann must have found some yellow-
braided, blue-eyed Dorothea by this
[96]
A REVERSION TO TYPE
some Mddchen who cared not for calcu
lus and Hebrew, but only to be what her
mother had been, wife and house-mother.
But this was treason. Our grand
mothers had thought that.
She looked at the girl in the middle
row. What beautiful hair she had !
What an idiot she was to give up four
years of her life to this round of work
and play and pretence of living ! Oh, to
go back to Germany to see Bertha
and her mother again, and hear the father s
cello ! Hermann had loved her so ! He
had said, so quietly and yet so surely :
" But thou wilt come back, my heart s
own. And always I wait here for thee.
Make me not wait long ! " He had
seemed too quiet then too slow and too
easily content. She had wanted quicker,
busier, more individual life. And now
her heart said, " O fool ! "
Was it too late ? Suppose she should
go, after all ? Suppose she should go,
and all should be as it had been, only a
[97]
A REVERSION TO TYPE
little older, a little more quiet and peace
ful ? The very fancy rilled her heart with
sudden calm. A love so deep and sure,
so broad and sweet could it not dignify
any woman s life ? And she had been
thought worthy and had refused this love!
O fool !
Suppose she went and found her
heart beat too quickly, and her face
flushed. She called on the bright girl in
the front row.
"And what havejy0# learned?" she said.
The girl coughed importantly. " It is
a poem of Goethe s," she announced in
her high, satisfied voice. " Kennst du das
Land "
" That will do," said the German as
sistant. " I fear we shall not have time
for it to-day. The hour is up. You may
go on with the translation for to-mor
row." And as the class rose with a grow
ing clamor she realized that though she
had been thinking steadily in German,
she had been talking in English. So that
[98]
A REVERSION TO TYPE
was why they had comprehended so well
and answered so readily ! And yet she
was too glad to be annoyed at the slip.
There were other things : her life was
not a German class !
As the girls crowded out, one stopped
by the desk. She laid her hand with the
pearl band on the third finger on the
teacher s arm. " You look tired," she
said. " I hope you re not ill ? "
" 111 ? " said the woman at the desk.
" I never felt better. I ve been neglect
ing my classes, I fear, in the study of
your green gown. It is so very pretty."
The girl smiled and colored a little.
" I m glad you like it," she said. " I
like it, too." Then, with a sudden feel
ing of friendship, an odd sense of inti
macy, a quick impulse of common femi
ninity, she added :
" I ve had some good times in this
dress. Wearing it up here makes me re
member them very strangely. It s queer,
what a difference it makes " She
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stopped and looked questioningly at the
older woman.
But the German assistant smiled at her.
" Yes," she said, " it is. And when you
have been teaching seven years the dif
ference becomes very apparent/ She
gathered up her books, still smiling in a
reminiscent way. And as she went out
of the door, she looked back at the glar
ing, sunny room as if already it were far
behind her, as if already she felt the
house-mother s kiss, and heard the cello,
and saw Klara s tiny daughter standing
by the door, throwing kisses, calling,
" Da ist sie,ja ! "
Lost in the dream, her eyes fixed ab
sently, she stumbled against her fellow-
assistant, who was making for the room
she had just left.
" I beg your pardon I wasn t look
ing. Oh, it s you!" she murmured
vaguely. Her fellow-assistant had a
headache, and forty-five written papers
to correct. She had just heard, too, a
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cutting criticism of her work made by
the self-appointed faculty critic ; the
criticism was cleverly worded, and had
just enough truth to fly quickly and hurt
her with the head of her department. So
she was not in the best of tempers.
" Yes, it s I," she said crossly. " If
you had knocked these papers an inch
farther, I should have invited you to cor
rect them. If you go about in that ab
stracted way much longer, my dear, Miss
Selbourne will inform the world (on the
very best authority) that you re in love. "
" I ? What nonsense ! "
It was a ridiculous thing to say, and she
flushed angrily at herself. It was only a
joke, of course.
The other woman laughed shortly.
" Dear me ! I really believe you are ! "
she exclaimed. " The girls were saying
at breakfast that Professor Tredick was
ruining himself in violets yesterday so
it was for you ! " and she went into the
lecture-room.
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A chattering crowd of girls closed in
behind her. One voice rose above the
rest :
" Well, I don t know what you call it,
then. He skated with her all the winter,
and at the Dickinson party they sat on
one sofa for an hour and talked steadily ! "
" Oh, nonsense ! She skates beauti
fully, that s all."
" She sits on a sofa beautifully, too."
A burst of laughter, and the door closed.
The German assistant smiled satirically.
It was all of a piece. At least, the
younger women were perfectly frank
about it : they did not feel themselves
forced to employ sarcasm in their refer
ences ; it was not necessary for them to
appear to have definitely chosen this life
in preference to any other. Four years
was little to lend to such an experiment.
But the older women, who sat on those
prim little platforms year after year a
sudden curiosity possessed her to know
how many of them were really satisfied.
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Could it be that they had preferred
actually preferred But she had, herself,
three years ago. She shook her head
decidedly. " Not for nine years, not for
nine ! " she murmured, as she caught
through the heavy door a familiar voice
raised to emphasize some French phrase.
And yet, somebody must teach them.
They could not be born with foreign
idioms and historical dates and mathe
matical formulae in their little heads.
She herself deplored the modern tendency
that sent a changing drift of young teach
ers through the colleges, to learn at the
expense of the students a soon relinquished
profession. But how ridiculous the posi
tion of the women who prided themselves
on the steadiness and continuity of their
service ! Surely they must find it an empty
success at times. They must regret.
She was passing through the chapel.
Two scrubbing-women were straightening
the chairs, their backs turned to her.
" From all I hear," said one, with a
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chuckle and a sly glance, "we ll be afther
gettin our invitations soon. *
" An to what ? " demanded the other
quickly.
" Sure, they say it s a weddin ."
cc Ah, now, hush yer noise, Mary
Nolan ; tis no such thing. I ve had
enough o husbands. I know when I m
doin well, an that s as I am ! "
" Tis strange that the men sh d think
different, now, but they do ! "
They laughed heartily and long. The
German assistant looked at the broad
backs meditatively. Just now they
seemed to her more consistent than any
other women in the great building.
She walked quickly across the greening
campus. The close-set brick buildings
seemed to press up against her ; every
window stood for some crowded, narrow
room, filled with books and tea-cups and
clothes and photographs hundreds of
them, and all alike. In her own room
she tried to reason herself out of this
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intolerable depression, to realize the ad
vantages of a quiet life in what was surely
the same pleasant, cultured atmosphere
to which she had so eagerly looked for
ward three years ago. Her room was
large, well furnished, perfectly heated ;
and if the condition of her closet would
have appeared nothing short of appall
ing to a householder, that condition was
owing to the hopeless exigencies of the
occasion. With the exception of that
whited sepulchre, all was neat, artistic,
eminently habitable. She surveyed it
critically : the " Mona Lisa," the large
"Melrose Abbey," the Burne-Jones dra
peries, and the " Blessed Damozel " that
spread a placid if monotonous culture
through the rooms of educated single
women. A proper appreciation of pol
ished wood, the sanitary and aesthetic
values of the open fire, a certain scheme
in couch-pillows, all linked it to the dozen
other rooms that occupied the same rela
tive ground-floor corners in a dozen other
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houses. Some of them had more books,
some ran to handsome photographs, some
afforded fads in old furniture; but it was
only a question of more or less. It looked
utterly impersonal to-day ; its very atmos
phere was artificial, typical, a pretended
self-sufficiency.
How many years more should she live
in it three, nine, thirteen ? The tide
of girls would ebb and flow with every
June and September; eighteen to twenty-
two would ring their changes through the
terms, and she could take her choice of
the two methods of regarding them : she
could insist on a perennial interest in the
separate personalities, and endure weari
ness for the sake of an uncertain influ
ence ; or she could mass them frankly as
the student body, and confine the con
nection to marking their class-room efforts
and serving their meat in the dining-room.
The latter was at once more honest and
more easy ; all but the most ambitious
or the most conscientious came to it
sooner or later.
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The youngest among the assistants,
themselves fresh from college, mingled
naturally enough with the students; they
danced and skated and enjoyed their
girlish authority. The older women,
seasoned to the life, settled there indefi
nitely, identified themselves more or less
with the town, amused themselves with
their little aristocracy of precedence, and
wove and interwove the complicated,
slender strands of college gossip. But a
woman of barely thirty, too old for
friendships with young girls, too young
to find her placid recreation in the stereo
typed round of social functions, that
seemed so perfectly imitative of the nor
mal and yet so curiously unsuccessful at
bottom what was there for her?
Her eyes were fixed on the hill-slope
view that made her room so desirable.
It occurred to her that its changelessness
was not necessarily so attractive a charac
teristic as the local poets practised them
selves in assuring her.
A light knock at the door recalled to
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her the utter lack of privacy that put her
at the mercy of laundress, sophomore,
and expressman. She regretted that she
had not put up the little sign whose
" Please do not disturb " was her only
means of defence.
" Come ! " she called shortly, and the
tall girl in the green dress stood in the
open door. A strange sense of long ac
quaintance, a vague feeling of familiarity,
surprised the older woman. Her expres
sion changed.
" Come in," she said cordially.
"I am I disturbing you?" asked the
girl doubtfully. She had a pile of books
on her arm ; her trim jacket and hat, and
something in the way she held her arm
ful, seemed curiously at variance with her
tam-o -shantered, golf-caped friends.
" I couldn t find out whether you had
an office hour, and I didn t know whether
I ought to have sent in my name it
seemed so formal, when it is only a mo
ment I need to see you "
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"Sit down," said the German assistant
pleasantly. "What can I do for you?"
" I have been talking with Fraulein
Miiller about my German, and she says
if you are willing to give me an outline
for advanced work and an examination
later on, I can go into a higher division
in a little while. Languages are always
easy for me, and I could go on much
quicker."
" Oh, certainly. I have thought more
than once that you were wasting your
time. The class is too large and too
slow. I will make you out an outline and
give it to you after class to-morrow,"
said the German assistant promptly.
" Meanwhile, won t you stay and make
me a little call ? I will light the fire and
make some tea, if that is an inducement."
"The invitation is inducement enough,
I assure you," smiled the girl, " but I
must not stay to-day, I think. If you
will let me come again, when I have no
work to bother you with, I should love to."
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There was something easily decisive in
her manner, something very different
from the other students, who refused
such invitations awkwardly, eager to be
pressed, and when finally assured of a
sincere welcome, prolonged their calls and
talked about themselves into the un
counted hours. Evidently she would
not stay this time ; evidently she would
like to come again.
As the door closed behind her the
German assistant dropped her cordial
smile and sank back listlessly in her
chair.
" After all, she s only a girl ! " she
murmured. For almost an hour she sat
looking fixedly at the unlit logs, hardly
conscious of the wasted time. Much
might have gone into that hour. There
was tea for her at one of the college
houses the hostess had a "day," and
went so far as to aspire to the exclusive
serving of a certain kind of tinned fancy
biscuit every Friday if she wanted to
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drop in. This hostess invited favored
students to meet the faculty and towns
people on these occasions, and the two
latter classes were expected to effect a
social fusion with the former which
linked it, to some minds, a little too ob
viously with professional duties.
She might call on the head of her de
partment, who was suffering from some
slight indisposition, and receive minute
advice as to the conduct of her classes,
mingled with general criticism of various
colleagues and their methods. She might
make a number of calls; but if there is
one situation in which the futility of these
social mockeries becomes most thoroughly
obvious, it is the situation presented by
an attempt to imitate the conventional
society life in a woman s college. And
yet she had gone over the whole ques
tion so often what a desert of awk
wardness and learned provincialism such
a college would be without the attempt !
How often she had cordially agreed to
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the statement that it was precisely be
cause of its insistence upon this connec
tion with the forms and relations of
normal life that her college was so suc
cessfully free from the tomboyishness or
the priggishness or the gaucherie of some
of the others ! And yet its very success
came from begging the question, after all.
She shook her head impatiently. A
strong odor of boiling chocolate crept
through the transom. Somebody began
to practise a monotonous accompaniment
on the guitar. Over her head a series of
startling bumps and jarring falls suggested
a troupe of baby elephants practising for
their first appearance in public. The
German assistant set her teeth.
" Before I die," she announced to her
image in the glass, " I propose to in
quire flatly of Miss Burgess if she does
pile her furniture in a heap and slide
down it on her toboggan ! There is no
other logical explanation of that horrible
disturbance."
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The face in the glass caught her atten
tion. It looked sallow, with lines under
the eyes. The hair rolled back a little
too severely for the prevailing mode,
and she recalled her late visitor s effec
tively adjusted side-combs, her soft, dark
waves.
" They have time for it, evidently,"
she mused, " and after all it is certainly
more important than modal auxiliaries ! "
And for half an hour she twisted and
looped and coiled, between the chiffonnier
and a hand-glass, fairly flushing with
pleasure at the result.
" Now," she said, looking cheerfully at
a pile of written papers, cc I 11 take a
walk, I think a real walk." And till
dinner-time she tramped some of the old
roads of her college days more girlish
than those days had found her, lighter-
footed, she thought, than before.
The flush was still in her cheeks as
she served her hungry tableful, and she
could not fail to catch the meaning of
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their frank stares. Pausing in the parlor
door to answer a question, she overheard
a bit of conversation :
cc Doesn t she look well with her hair
low ? Quite stunning, I think."
" Yes, indeed. If only she wouldn t
dress so old ! It makes her look older
than she is. That red waist she wears in
the evening is awfully becoming."
" Yes, I hate her in dark things."
The regret that she had not found
time to put on the red waist was so in
stant and keen that she laughed at her
self when alone in her room. She moved
vaguely about, aimlessly changing the
position of the furniture. How absurd !
To do one s hair differently, and take a
long walk, and feel as if an old life were
somehow far behind one !
Later she found herself before her
desk, hunting for her foreign letter-pa
per, and once started, her pen flew.
There were long meditative lapses, fol
lowed by nervous haste, as if to make up
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the lost time ; and just before the ten-
o clock bell she slipped out to mail a fat
brown-stamped envelope. The night-
watchman chuckled as he watched the
head shrouded in the golf-cape hood bend
a moment over the little white square.
" Maybe it s one o the maids, maybe
it s one o the teachers, maybe it s one o
the girls," he confided to his lantern ;
" they re all alike, come to that ! An a
good thing, too ! "
In the morning the German assistant
dismissed her last class early and took
train for Springfield. On the way to the
station a deferential clerk from the book
shop waylaid her.
" One moment, please. Those books
you spoke of. Mr. HartwelFs library is
up at auction and we re sending a man
to buy to-day. If you could get the
whole set for twenty-five dollars "
She smiled and shook her head. " I ve
changed my mind, thank you I can t
afford it. Yes, I suppose it is a bargain,
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but books are such a trouble to carry
about, you know. No, I don t think of
anything else."
What freedom, what a strange baseless
exhilaration ! Suppose suppose it was
all a mistake, and she should wake back
to the old stubborn, perfunctory reality !
Perhaps it was better, saner that quiet
taken-for-granted existence. Perhaps she
regretted but even with the half-fear at
her heart she laughed at that. If wake
she must, she loved the dream. How
she trusted that man ! tc Always I will
wait " and he would. But seven
years ! She threw the thought behind her.
The next days passed in a swift, con
fused flight. She knew they were all
discussing her, wondering at her changed
face, her fresh, becoming clothes ; they
decided that she had had money left her.
" Some of my girls saw you shopping
in Springfield last Saturday they say
you got some lovely waists," said her
fellow-assistant tentatively. " Was this
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one ? It s very sweet. You ought to
wear red a great deal, you look so well in
it. Did you know Professor Riggs spoke
of your hat with wild enthusiasm to Mrs.
Austin Sunday ? He said it was won
derful what a difference a stylish hat
made. Not that he meant, of course
Well, it s lovely to be able to get what
you want. Goodness knows, I wish I
could."
The other laughed. " Oh, it s per
fectly easy if you really want to," she
said, " it all depends on what you want,
you know."
For the first week she moved in a kind
of exaltation. It was partly that her
glass showed her a different woman : soft-
eyed, with cheeks tinted from the long,
restless walks through the spring that
was coming on with every warm, green
ing day. The excitement of the letter
hung over her. She pictured her an
nouncement, Fraulein Miiller s amazed
questions.
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" c But but I do not understand !
You are not well ?
" Perfectly, thank you/
" c But I am perfectly satisfied : I do
not wish to change. You are not sick,
then ?
" c Only of teaching, Fraulein.
C ( But the instructorship I was go
ing to recommend do not be alarmed ;
you shall have it surely !
" c You are very kind, but I have
taught long enough.
" c Then you do not find another po
sition ? Are you to be
Always here her heart sank. Was
she ? What real basis had all this sweet,
disturbing dream ? To write so to a
man after seven years ! It was not de
cent. She grew satiric. How embarrass
ing for him to read such a letter in the
bosom of an affectionate, flaxen-haired
family ! At least, she would never know
how he really felt, thank Heaven. And
what was left for her then? To her
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own mind she had burned her bridges
already. She was as far from this place
in fancy as if the miles stretched verita
bly between them. And yet she knew
no other life. She knew no other men.
He was the only one. In a flash of
shame it came over her that a woman
with more experience would never have
written such a letter. Everybody knew
that men forget, change, easily replace
first loves. Nobody but such a clois
tered, academic spinster as she would have
trusted a seven years promise. This
was another result of such lives as they
led such helpless, provincial women.
Her resentment grew against the place.
It had made her a fool.
It was Sunday afternoon, and she had
omitted, in deference to the day, the
short skirt and walking-hat of her week
day stroll. Sunk in accusing shame, her
cheeks flaming under her wide, dark hat,
her quick step more sweeping than she
knew, her eyes on the ground, she just
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escaped collision with a suddenly loom
ing masculine figure. A hasty apology,
a startled glance of appeal, a quick breath
that parted her lips, and she was past the
stranger. But not before she had caught
in his eyes a look that quickened her heart,
that soothed her angry humility. The
sudden sincere admiration, the involun
tary tribute to her charm, was new to her,
but the instinct of countless generations
made it as plain and as much her pre
rogative as if she had been the most suc
cessful debutante. She was not, then, an
object of pity, to be treasured for the
sake of the old days ; other men, too
the impulse outstripped thought, but she
caught up with it.
" How dreadful ! " she murmured,
with a consciousness of undreamed depths
in herself. " Of course he is the only
one the only one !" and across the
water she begged his forgiveness.
But through all her agony of doubt in
the days that followed, one shame was
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miraculously removed, one hope sang
faintly beneath : she, too, had her power !
A glance in the street had called her from
one army of her sisters to the other, and
the difference was inestimable.
Her classes stared at her with naive
admiration. The girls in the house
begged for her as a chaperon to Am-
herst entertainments, and sulked when a
report that the young hosts found her too
attractive to enable strangers to distinguish
readily between her and her charges ren
dered another selection advisable. The
fact that her interest in them was fitful,
sometimes making her merry and inti
mate, sometimes relegating them to a
connection purely professional, only left
her more interesting to them ; and boxes
of flowers, respectful solicitations to
spreads, and tempting invitations to long
drives through the lengthening afternoons
began to elect her to an obvious popu
larity. Once it would have meant much
to her ; she marvelled now at the little
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shade of jealousy with which her colleagues
assured her of it. How long must she
wait ? When would life be real again ?
She seemed to herself to move in a
dream that heightened and strained
quicker as it neared an inevitable shock
of waking to what ? Even at the best,
to what? Even supposing that she
put it boldly, as if it had been another
woman she should marry the man who
had asked her seven years ago, what was
there in the very obvious future thus as
sured her that could match the hopes her
heart held out ? How could it be at once
the golden harbor, the peaceful end of
hurried, empty years, and the delicious,
shifting unrest that made a tumult of her
days and nights ? Yet something told
her that it was ; something repeated in
sistently, " Always I will wait." . . .
He would keep faith, that grave, big
man !
But every day, as she moved with
tightened lips to the table where the mail
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lay spread, coloring at a foreign stamp,
paling with the disappointment, her hope
grew fainter. He dared not write and
tell her. It was over. Violet shadows
darkened her eyes ; a feverish flush made
her, as it grew and faded at the slightest
warning, more girlish than ever.
But the young life about her seemed
only to mock her own late weakened im
pulse. It was not the same. She was
playing heavy stakes : they hardly real
ized the game. All but one, they irri
tated her. This one, since her first short
call, had come and come again. No ex
planations, no confidences, had passed
between them ; their sympathy, deep-
rooted, expressed itself perfectly in the
ordinary conventional tone of two re
served if congenial natures. The girl did
not discuss herself, the woman dared not.
They talked of books, music, travel ;
never, as if by tacit agreement, of any of
the countless possible personalities in a
place so given to personal discussion.
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She could not have told how she knew
that the girl had come to college to please
a mother whose great regret was to have
missed such training, nor did she remem
ber when her incurious friend had learned
her tense determination of flight; she
could have sworn that she had never
spoken of it. Sometimes, so perfectly
did they appear to understand each other
beneath an indifferent conversation, it
seemed to her that the words must be the
merest symbols, and that the girl who
always caught her lightest shade of mean
ing knew to exactness her alternate hope
and fear, the rudderless tossing toward
and from her taunting harbor-light.
They sat by an open window, breathing
in the moist air from the fresh, upturned
earth. The gardeners were working over
the sprouting beds ; the sun came in warm
and sweet.
" Three weeks ago it was almost cold
at this time," said the girl. "In the
springtime I give up going home, and
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love the place. But two years more
two years ! "
cc Do you really mind it so much ?"
" I think what I mind the most is that
I don t like it more," said the girl slowly.
" Mamma wanted it so. She really loved
study. I don t, but if I did I should
love it more than this. This would seem
so childish. And if I just wanted a good
time, why, then this would seem such a
lot of trouble. All the good things here
seem seem remedies ! "
The older woman laughed nervously.
Three weeks three weeks and no word !
"You will be making epigrams, my
dear, if you don t take care," she said
lightly. " But you re going to finish just
the same ? The girls like you, your work
is good ; you ought to stay."
The girl flashed a look of surprise at
her. It was her only hint of sympathy.
cc You advise me to ? " she asked
quietly.
" I think it would be a pity to disap-
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point your mother," with a light hand
on her shoulder. "You are so young
four years is very little. Of course you
could do the work in half the time, but
you admit that you are not an ardent
student. If nobody came here but the
girls that really needed to, we shouldn t
have the reputation that we have. The
girls to whom this place means the last
word in learning and the last grace of
social life are estimable young women,
but not so pleasant to meet as you."
Three weeks but he had waited
seven years !
" I am very childish," said the girl.
" Of course I will stay. And some of it
I like very much. It s only that mam
ma doesn t understand. She overesti
mates it so. Somehow, the more com
plete it is, the more like everything else,
the more you have to find fault with on
all sides. I d rather have come when
mamma was a girl."
" I see. I have thought that, too."
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Ah, fool, give up your senseless hope !
You had your chance you lost it. Fate
cannot stop and wait while you grow wise.
" When that shadow covers the hill, I
will give it up forever. Then I will
write to Henry s wife and ask her to let
me come and help take care of the chil
dren. She will like it, and I can get
tutoring if I want it. I will make the
children love me, and there will be a
place where I shall be wanted and can
help," she thought.
The shadow slipped lower. The fresh
turf steeped in the last rays, the birds
sang, the warming earth seemed to have
touched the very core of spring. Her
hopes had answered the eager year, but
her miracle was too wonderful to be.
A light knock at the door, and a maid
came toward her, tray in hand. She lifted
the card carelessly her heart dropped
a moment and beat in hard, slow throbs.
Her eyes filled with tears ; her cheeks
were hot and brilliant.
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" I will be there in a moment." How
deep her voice sounded !
The girl slipped by her.
" I was going anyway," she said softly.
" Good-by ! Don t touch your hair
it s just right."
She did not wait for an answer, but
went out. As she passed by the little
reception-room a tall, eager man made
toward her with outstretched hands. Her
voice trembled as she laughed.
"No, no I m not the one," she
murmured, " but she she s coming ! "
[ I2 8]
A HOPE DEFERRED
A HOPE DEFERRED
MISS SABINA dropped a lump of
sugar into each of the little cups
and poured the coffee with a pretty care
fulness, handing one across the table and
rising with a grace that was almost girlish.
" Shall we drink it on the porch? " she
asked, in her gentle, deprecating voice
with the minor tone in it, that one asso
ciated with her as closely as her gray
dress, her quaint old-fashioned rings, and
the faint odor of dried rose-leaves not
attar or essence of rose, but dried rose-
leaves that went with her when she
walked.
For ten years she had asked this ques-
A HOPE DEFERRED
tion, pleasantly, deferentially ; and for ten
years M. Laroche had taken his cup, pre
ceded her to the door that opened directly
on the piazza, bowed low as he held it
for her to pass, and exclaimed with an
ever-fresh enthusiasm, " Ze porrch, by
all means ! "
It was a pleasant porch with a climbing
vine and a box of scarlet geraniums, and
directly in front of it a little unfenced
green with a small fountain the park
of the street, which was one of those clean
and faded byways of a rapidly growing
city that surprise the discoverer with a
sense of what the old town used to be
two generations ago. The rumble of the
city died away before one entered Maple
Avenue ; the women sat and gossiped
on the stoops ; the children played hap
pily in the park ; the late afternoon seemed
almost rural as the sun slanted through
the maples that shaded either side of the
narrow, dusty road.
Miss Sabina finished her coffee and
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wiped her fingers daintily. In the fading
glow her pale hair turned almost golden,
and her soft cheeks took a deeper tint
one realized what a charmingly pretty
girl she must have been. She looked
long at the green before them and broke
the friendly silence :
" How well the grass is looking, mon
sieur, for this time of year ! "
M. Laroche beamed expressively on
the grass. " But how charming, Mile.
Sabine, and how green ! It is also neat
so neat ! "
Miss Sabina sighed.
" I suppose that in England it is much,
much finer," she said softly. " I sup
pose we haven t the least idea of the
parks there one must see them."
M. Laroche shrugged his shoulders.
" Ah, ze parrks ! C est possible it
may be. But zey are damp, verry damp
n est-ce fas ? "
Miss Sabina smiled gently to herself,
with eyes that saw beyond the little green.
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" And the abbeys, monsieur ! West
minster and Oxford and Melrose ! Only
think of standing of my standing by
Melrose Abbey ! "
M. Laroche raised his brows eloquently
and appeared lost in contemplation of
the picture.
" Ah, yes ! Indeed ! " he sighed. " Zat
is a great abbey Mel-h-rose ! "
" And London, monsieur, and the
Tower ! And Fleet Street, and Picca
dilly, and the Strand ! How strange it
is to feel that you know them so well,
that you love them so well, and yet that
you ve never seen them. When we used
to play, my cousins and I, in Grand
father Endicott s house, and choose what
pictures we would have, I always took
c Melrose Abbey from the South and a
big engraving of Windsor Castle. The
children used to laugh at me, but I al
ways chose them. Cousin Frank used
to tease me and say that I d never get
there, and that girls couldn t travel around
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like boys. Grandmother Endicott, too,
she was so cold and distant toward me ;
you see, she hated poor mother so.
When Cousin Frank s will was read she
was very, very angry. I don t know
whether I told you that she said quite
publicly that it was absurd for a woman
of my age to be so crazy for travelling.
I thought that rather unkind, for she s
been so much herself. But then, she s
so old, perhaps she s not quite respon
sible. She s eighty-four, you know."
" Ah," said M. Laroche, with admira
tion, cc she is verry old, verry old indeed,
your grandmozzer ! "
He was as charmingly attentive, as gal
lantly interested, as if he had not heard it
all before a hundred times over. Every
movement of his expressive, whimsical
face meant courteous regard ; every atti
tude of his figure, a little bent now, in
clothes a little shabby, but so exquisitely
mended and brushed and polished that
the necessity for such artistic care seemed
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almost fortunate, expressed close and def
erential sympathy with the eager, vivid
soul beside him.
And the interest might well have been
unfeigned, for under those smooth gray
folds beat a vigorous, determined heart
that forty years of denial and monotony
could not still nor tame. The soft, calm
eyes of this New England spinster had
never looked beyond her native town ;
but in fancy she had voyaged the seas for
years, and in her dreams she wandered
through strange and wonderful streets of
foreign lands and heard the speech of all
the peoples of the world. No school
boy was ever more thirsty for the ends of
the earth than she ; this little stay-at-
home knew all the routes by sea and
land, and delighted in the customs of the
fortunate dwellers in the places of her
lifelong desire.
To-night her hand shook as she laid
the coffee-cup aside, and the flush in her
cheeks did not die with the sunset. A
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twinge of remorse defied her tremulous
joy ; a nervous fear of her unworthiness
came over her, and it was with an un
certain voice that she approached her
friend.
" It seems as if I were almost too old,
monsieur. Perhaps some younger per
son ought to have it, after all. I ve gone
on so long without it
" I asked Mr. Alden about it last Sun
day, after morning service. I said it
seemed dreadful to be so perfectly happy,
and Cousin Frank just dead ! But how
can I help it ? Frank knew just how I d
feel. It s just as he said : c When I go
to heaven, Sabina shall go to Europe, if
she s alive, and I don t know which of
us ill be the happier/ And then to
think of Miss Ellsworth and her friends
going, and wanting me to go with them
it seemed too good to be true ! I
asked Mr. Alden if he thought Grand
mother Endicott ought to have said the
will was blasphemous, and he said no,
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that it was a nice will and a kind one.
And I nearly cried right there. I could
just get out, Oh, Mr. Alden, you don t
know what this means to me you don t
know ! and then I had to run right away,
or I d have broken down."
M. Laroche nodded sympathetically.
" Zat is a good man, M. Aldenne, tres
aimable most kind. I sink every one
likes heem. It is but yesterday zat he
has asked me, c And where do you go
when Mees Sabina is away, monsieur ?
You will not find anozzer soch landlady,
hein ? I sink not. He is a kind man."
" Miss Ellsworth wanted me to take
some German lessons, and there was a
f Life of Goethe she wanted me to read.
But I couldn t do that. The time s so
short now. And I m too old to go to
school again. So I just had to tell her
then and there.
" ( Miss Ellsworth, I said, c it isn t quite
the same with me as tis with you.
You ve been before and you know all the
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places from experience, not just as I do
from books, so I m glad to go with you.
But I must tell you, Miss Ellsworth,
that I m not going to learn, the way you
are. I m just going for pleasure and
happiness and comfort, and nothing else.
You know how it is with me. All my
life I ve had to stay right here, and I
could only live decently and as father
would have wanted me to live we re
Endicotts, you know, if we are the poor
branch by scrimping and saving and
being very, very careful, and making
things last. Almost the last thing poor
father said to me was to keep things up.
cc c <c There s just enough, Sabina, if
you re careful, to do it," he said. " I
want you should always have the house
neat, and a good, plain, nice little dinner
with the silver, and a cup of coffee after,
and a bottle of wine kept, in case mother
should ever come in. And the engrav
ings and the pianoforte and those mahog
any things, and the mother-o -pearl cabi-
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net never let em go, Sabina. When
they come in to our funerals I don t
want anybody to be ashamed of the Endi-
cotts it s a gentleman s house."
" c So I ve kept everything up, I said,
c though many s the time I d have given
the world to let Hannah go, and do for
myself, and sell the things, and just get
to Europe, and tramp through it, if I had
to, like those two teachers from your
school. But of course twould have
been ridiculous a woman of my age !
And I didn t dare take the money for
the funeral and if sickness should come,
and go with that, for it would break
father s heart he had it all planned out.
And of course a woman doesn t need
to go tisn t as if I were a man
M. Laroche pursed his lips and shook
his head thoughtfully.
" But if zat is ze sing you want, what
deeference is it zat you are not a man ? "
he asked luminously.
Miss Sabina threw him a grateful
glance.
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C c So you see, Miss Ellsworth/ I said,
c here s my chance. Now, I don t care
if I don t understand them in Paris or
Berlin. I can see them, I can hear them,
I can walk on the sidewalks and breathe
the air, can t I ? I can see the shops
and the houses and the palaces and the
canals, and how the sky looks there. I
can go from one country to another, and
be on the ocean, and perhaps I can see
the Alps. I don t need to know French
and German to appreciate them, do I ?
I want to just go and drink it in and
realize that it s really I that I m there.
There s only ten weeks or so, and then
I ll come home, but I ll live on it all the
rest of my life ! Oh, monsieur, what
will I care that I haven t any money
then ? "
Her eyes were glowing, her breath
came fast ; she was home again, in fancy,
with her precious load of memories and
experiences, and down on her knees be
fore the treasures that were to adorn her
henceforth quiet life.
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M. Laroche looked at her with admira
tion.
" Mam selle, vous etes vrande dame^
o
vous" he said, wondering at the pink
flush and the thrown-back head.
She sank back, ashamed of such a dis
play of feeling.
" I run on like a chatterbox of a girl,"
she said shyly. " You ll think I m a self
ish, talkative old thing, monsieur."
He bowed gallantly.
" Zat would never be, Mile. Sabine,"
he said. " And your affairs, are zey not
mine ? But yes ! Indeed ! "
They sat quietly for a time, in the
dusk, watching the evening star grow
before them, enjoying the cool stillness
and the scent of the freshly watered
green. The young people strolling by
now and then smiled at them for a con
tented pair of middle-aged friends, and
thought their pleasant quiet the placid
repose of those who have tacitly done
with life and its strong tides of feeling.
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They could not know that the woman
with the softly parted hair was all a-trem-
ble for romance, thirsty for adventure,
bohemian-souled and utterly fearless ;
they could not see the heart of the little
foreigner with the shabby clothes and gray
imperial, how it was eaten up with home
sickness and regret with all his grati
tude to his gentle hostess for France,
with her queen city, her familiar sights and
smells, her zest and color, and more than
all, the fishing-coast where his mother had
rocked him to sleep in sight of the sails.
They sighed together, and blushed,
and glanced quickly aside, and Miss
Sabina rose hastily and slipped through
the long French window.
"Shall I sing?" she asked, not waiting
for an answer to a question of such long
usage. While she felt through the dusk
to the old pianoforte, M. Laroche lit his
cigarette and waited with gentle expecta
tion. The lilacs from the next yard
drifted in and met the faint odor from
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the old china rose-jar that stood on the
polished mahogany table inside. The
first few notes of the piano carried with
them to him who knew the room so well
a never-fading picture of the peaceful,
old-time parlor : the willow plates in the
mother-o -pearl cabinet, the "Sistine Ma
donna " and Correggio s " Holy Night/
the dim oil-paintings that great-grand
mother Endicott had made so long ago,
the bronze Chinese idol that squatted
near the rose-jar, the dusky, elusive pier-
glass with its dull gilding of another gen
eration and its mysterious, haunting
reflections they were all confused with
the tune that Miss Sabina s sweet, reedy
voice had so often quavered through ; a
tune that she would not have known by
its title of " Fair Harvard " :
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
That I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow and to fleet
in my arms,
Like fairy gifts fading away,
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Thou wouldst still be adored as this moment
thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my
heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.
Miss Sabina knew other songs
"When other lips and other hearts,"
and " Joys that we ve tasted," and
"Come with thy lute to the fountain";
but into this one she threw most mar
vellously all the passion of her yet girl
ish, tender heart ; and the yellow keys
yielded to her tremulous touch a throb
bing, jarring melody that came to the
listener like an old perfume from some
dusty, just found rose-jar of a long-
dead beauty.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofaned.by a tear,
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be
known,
To which time will but make thee more
dear.
CHS]
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M. Laroche smiled.
" c And zy chicks onprofenned by a
tearr/ " he repeated softly. " Ah, yes !
Indeed!"
No ; the heart that has truly lov d never
forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he
sets,
The same look which she turn d when he
rose.
The last faint quaver died away, there
was a light rustle of skirts, and Miss Sa-
bina stood at the window.
" Good night, monsieur, * she said
softly.
M. Laroche tossed away the end of
his cigarette.
" Vous chant ez tres bien, mademoiselle"
he said, with his inimitable bow. " Good
night."
And with this, his invariable phrase,
he went to his room off the piazza.
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Miss Sabina had been waiting a long
time when he came to breakfast the next
morning, heavy-eyed from a night which
he admitted to have been sleepless, and
too tired to present his apologies with
the whimsical grace that gave his sim
plest words and acts such a kindly flavor.
His hostess watched his untouched plate
with concern, and suddenly cut short her
small, friendly confidences of ways and
means for the summer, struck by his
languid manner and weary eyes.
"Why, monsieur, you re eating noth
ing ! Is it the headache again ? You
surely won t go out to-day and try to
teach it s too much ! "
He tried to rally, and smiled bravely
at her anxious eyes, made his little nega
tive gesture that was half gratitude to the
questioner, and would have turned the
talk ; but Miss Sabina was alarmed in
earnest. The thought that he might be
alone and sick in the summer cut sharply
for a second, and her quick fancy saw
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him in the agony of his terrible head
aches, housed with strangers, lonely and
too proud to ask for help. Her eyes
filled with tears, and she leaned impul
sively across the table.
" Oh, monsieur, you re ill you re
really ill ! " she cried. " Go to the doc
tor promise me you ll go ! You ve
not been the same for a week, now;
you ve been so tired and worn. I ve
noticed it ever since last week. It was
when I first got the notice from Cousin
Frank s lawyer that the money was in the
bank that you had that terrible headache;
don t you know how we sat and talked
till so late, and I was so excited ? And
I ve been talking so much and planning
so hard that I haven t thought oh, I m
very selfish, monsieur! It s terrible to
think of you being sick just when I m
so happy. You ll go to the doctor?
Promise me you will ! "
He shook his head.
" But zere is no need for a doctorre,
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Mile. Sabine, indeed no ! It is only to
day I am well to-morrow. Not to
sleep, it makes one weary for the day
ri est-ce pas? It is not a good country
for sleep, I have found. In France I
have always slept, ah, most easily ! But
here, no. In France "
He paused a moment, and the room
was perfectly still. He looked at her,
but he did not see her, and Miss Sabina
had a strange, swift memory of her little
brother who died at school, and the look
in his eyes when he cried to be taken
home.
It was over in a moment, and M. La-
roche shrugged his shoulders lightly.
" One imagines I come to America to
sleep, hein ? " he asked her, with such a
humorous, friendly smile that she half
forgot her anxiety. But before he left
for the old school, where dwindling classes
lessened his scanty salary every year, she
had made him promise to see the doctor
before night.
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" And a cup of tea with your lunch
don t forget, monsieur ! " she called after
him as he walked off she hated to real
ize how slowly, nowadays. They were
good friends, these two, and they knew
it well : if she came back and he was not
there her heart contracted and seemed
to wait while she caught her breatli and
shook the thought away.
" We re not so old as that," she whis
pered under her breath. " We re not
really old, either of us ! "
All day she thought about him, and to
her just quickened sight much that the
excitement of the past had made trivial
loomed suddenly large before her. She
realized how quiet he had grown of late,
how seldom he essayed the jokes, the small
kindly nonsense, the half-serious homage
to her charm of personality that bright
ened her life so much that had been,
indeed, almost her only social pleasure.
It occurred to her that he had been less
quick of comprehension than ever before,
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less ready to follow her mood with that
wonderful delicacy of perception that had
enabled her shy, secluded, half troubled
at the restlessness of her own eager heart
to talk to him as she had never been
able to talk to her only sister. She re
membered how every innocent ruse for
concealing the scantiness of a meal had
succeeded of late, and how unconsciously
he had, at any excuse of hers, eaten what
he would once have indignantly insisted
that she should share. But more than
all this, he had talked as he had never
talked before of his childhood and his
childhood s home. Miss Sabina had
learned her Paris well from him long
ago. For years in the winter evenings,
when they could not enjoy the piazza
and the green, they had sat by the Frank
lin grate in the sitting-room, and she had
followed him breathlessly through " Les
Miserables " his rapid and broken
translation heightening incalculably the
sense of strangeness and intensity or
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he had led her about Paris and its out
skirts till she had grown to an actual
intimacy with that city of his dreams ; for
hitherto it had been Paris that he had
spoken of as his home, where he had
lived since he was a boy of ten with his
older brother Jules, who had written a
<c French Grammar for Beginners " and
was enrolled by M. Laroche among the
great lights of his native literature.
But of late when he spoke of France
it was to no city that he carried his eager
listener, but to a little fishing-village,
with the nets drying on the sand, and the
setting sun on the sails, and the clatter of
his white-capped mother s sabots as she
led him down to the beach to kiss his
sunburnt father. The rush and clamor
of the city streets died away before the
sleepy Breton cradle-song, and the lights
of the boulevard faded as he watched the
stars shine down upon the sea in that
land so far from him.
Miss Sabina thought how her father
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toward the end had told her over and
over of the games at school and the holi
days at the old Endicott home, and had
even described the old play-room to her,
as if his mother had never ceased to love
him and mend his broken toys. Did
men always remember, then, at the end ?
Did it mean but she threw it off again
and told herself, "We re not so old as
that ! We re not really old! "
At dinner that night she would have
talked of nothing but his health and her
fears for his lonely summer, but he
would have none of that.
" I do quite well, you shall see, chere
mademoiselle ; I greet you in ze autom at
ze ze docke. You are surprise , you
do not know me I am so restored!
Est-ce possible! ce pauv* Laroche! Comme
il se porte bien how he is well ! "
His expressive pantomime, his laugh,
his old kindly smile as he met her eyes,
frankly, yet with that confidential regard
that seemed to say more than his words,
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almost deceived her ; but even as she
laughed, his lids drooped, his smile faded,
and he fingered the cloth restlessly under
her steady gaze.
" I don t know, monsieur, I don t
know," she said, in her soft, troubled
minor voice. " You weren t so well this
last fall, you know ; the heat wore on
you dreadfully. I wish you could go
away somewhere and rest this summer,
and not take those vacation classes I
wish you would ! "
He shook his head. " R-h-est ?
R-h-est ? " he said softly to himself,
and with the throaty little r that was
so marked when he was absent-minded.
"In zis country? Jamais, jamais, made
moiselle. It is queeck, queeck ! imme-
diatement at once ! Teach me zis
moment it is no matter zat it takes
you a lifetime to learn teach me zis
moment I mus know it zis verry day!
I mus run now to somesing else, but I
come ag-gain, and you teach me immedi-
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ately ag-gain, for I have forgotten it all.
But zere is no time to lose no, indeed!"
She was amazed at the bitterness of his
tone ; she could hardly understand, he
poured out the words so quickly, but
she could see that this was more than a
passing irritation, that his years of teach
ing were beginning to tell on him. Be
fore she could reply he had risen and
opened the door, and she found herself
passing through to the porch without
the formula of invitation that preceded
the coffee. When he joined her with
the neglected cups the storm had passed,
and as he talked quietly of the prepara
tion for the voyage that had formed the
subject of their evening conversation for
weeks, she could hardly realize the depths
of weariness and loathing that the sudden
glimpse of exhausted patience had shown
her.
That night Miss Sabina did not sing.
She played through two or three of the
stiff, sweet little preludes, but the lilacs
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were so strong, the old melodies waked
such confused, excited sadness in her,
that the songs would not come. The
sight of that keen, drooping profile dark
against the orange glow reproached her
somehow with its loneliness how many
weeks he would sit alone! and she rose
hastily and went out again.
"You do not sing? You have not ze
mood, hein ? Eh bien^ not to sing, it is
well sometimes." . . . And they sat in
silence long after the stars came out.
That night Miss Sabina slept lightly.
Strange, confused dreams, half-conscious
delusions, troubled her with voices that
she knew were unreal, that yet murmured
and muttered and droned, till, in her
effort to dismiss them and sink to deeper
sleep, she woke with a start. Surely some
one was talking ! She hesitated, and from
somewhere below her came the sound of
a voice that rose and fell almost monot
onously not loud, but clear and con-
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tinuous. Without a moment s hesitation
she got out of bed, put on a dressing-
gown and slippers, and opening her door
quietly, paused a moment at the head of
the stairs before going down. Without
doubt it was a voice, and only one. The
fear that a more timid woman would have
felt in the first uncertainty of waking came
to her now with the conviction that this
was no thief, no stranger, but her ten
years friend, speaking with a passionate
earnestness that terrified her ; appealing
to whom ? with a sadness, a despair,
that wrung her heart.
She slipped like a shadow down the
stair, and crouching on the lowest step,
she listened breathlessly for a moment.
Ah, yes ! It was to her he was talking !
Her own name, in his strange, sweet,
French handling of it, came to her
through the half-open door. She looked
through the warped and widened crack at
the side, where the light streamed through,
unconscious of the time, the place, even
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of her silent, peering attitude, knowing
only that a deep, ominous excitement
thrilled her to the very centre of her soul.
He had sunk exhausted on the narrow
white bed, a thin, pathetic figure in a
faded, mended silk dressing-gown, with
a tired white face and black eyes that
glowed like coals. His hands were
clinched between his knees, his head
hung upon his breast. His voice was
weak and strained now, no longer the
deep tone that had waked her, and his
quaint broken English, as if he saw her
there before him, was sadder than any
eloquence.
" c But you will go to ze doctorre
promise me you will go. Ah, mon Dieu,
Mile. Sabine, what good is zat ? I want
no doctorre me ; I want my home !
To you, what is it ? But only a strange
land, a new people, a voyage, and you
come back. Ah, me, I am twelve years
away ! Twelve years away !
<c c You work too hard, you need rest.
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I tell heem I must work ; I come here to
work would I rest here ?
" c You must go back to France, you
fret yourself too much ; you have ze weak
heart, monsieur, you are here too long
already/ Dame ! Is it zat I stay for my
pleasure ?
" c I have no medicine for you, mon
sieur; it is not ze doctorre nor ze ton-
ique nor ze r-h-est for you it is to go
home. Ze systemme it runs down,
down, zen ze heart it grows weak,
weak, and zen, monsieur, vous savez, it
stops/ . . .
cc c MaiSy monsieur, I cannot go, I have
not ze money ze school grows small,
I am so often sick/ Ah, mademoiselle,
figure to yourself! I, Sylvestre Laroche,
say zis to a stranger I speak so !
cc c It is to regret, monsieur. Zere is
no friend ?
" c Monsieur, I have no money but a
little ; how shall I pay ?
" Ah, Mile. Sabine, how can I laugh
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wiz you ? How shall I stay alone ? But
how can I go ? I know so few. I say,
1 Lend me money so zat I go home, and
zey say to me, c Mon Dieu, M. Laroche,
how do you pay zis money ? To
morrow ? Next year ? I do not know. I
cannot tell zem. . . .
cc c And if I go, monsieur, I am well ?
I need fear no more ze heart ? c Ah,
monsieur, who can tell ? Maybe yes,
maybe no. It is to guard well against
ze worry, ze alarrm, ze queeck starrt
vous savez ? Ten years, five years, one
year I cannot tell, monsieur/
"Cest terrible, nest-ce pas, Mile. Sa-
bine ? Vous partez demain. You are so
soon gone, and I stay here ! And I am
twelve years away from home and I
have ze weak heart. Vous me dites c au
revoir, mademoiselle mot, je vous dis
< adieu. "
The woman crouching on the stair bit
her lip and pressed her finger-nails into
her hands to keep back the sobs that
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shook her. It seemed to her that he
must hear the beating of her heart, that
every long, hard breath would surely
startle him. So helpless, so poor, so
horribly, hopelessly sad ! She had read
of terrible homesickness the Swiss for
his Alps, the peasant for his farm ; they
seemed romantic, elemental, vague. But
this little Frenchman, this dapper chat
terer of the light-heartedest language in
all the world, did he harbor this tragedy ?
For to her tender, unworn heart the
tragedy was remorselessly clear. This
bent figure in its faded dressing-gown ;
this face almost strange to her in its
worn, gray anguish ; these nerveless, half-
open hands she read them all too well.
" Oh, no, he mustn t, he mustn t ! "
she whispered, and grasped the banisters,
and tried to turn away her eyes : for his
own filled slowly before her.
She got up the stairs, her fingers in
her ears, stumbling over the long wrap
per, seeming to herself to wake the house
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with every misstep. She closed her eyes
not to see that strained, white face, and
saw it plainer in the dark. Her thoughts
were all a confused pain, an incoherent
revolt at the cruelty of it, the help
lessness ; for what could she do ? Even
she, who cared for him so ah, how she
cared ! - what could she
Her hand jumped to her heart and
clutched rigidly there ; her breath went,
and she gasped like the drowning man
under the last sucking breaker ; her
strength left in a great sickening ebb, and
she grasped the bedpost with all her
might.
" No, no ! Oh, no, no ! " she cried
weakly. " Oh, no ! " She felt her way
to the bed and dropped on it, utterly un
conscious that she had moved since that
wave of desolation broke on her. She
seemed to have been standing by the
bedpost, grasping it hard and thinking
there, for years.
She saw him as he had come to her
A HOPE DEFERRED
so long ago : handsome, polite, younger
then, and merrier perhaps, with his inim
itable bow and the neat printed card :
M. SYLVESTRE LAROCHE,
Paris.
Irregular Verbs a Specialty.
Conversation Classes Formed.
How she had admired him ! She had
felt sure that father would never have
objected to his lodging there, recom
mended by Mr. Alden, too ! How
amusing he had been, how constantly
cheerful ; how exquisitely sympathetic
when her sister died ! She could not
send him away then.
He had been so gentle, so thoughtful,
so interested in all her small affairs, so
forgetful of his own. How grateful he
was for the slightest attendance when his
terrible headaches weakened him for days,
and how charmingly he had thanked her
for what she had done ! Hardly a day
A HOPE DEFERRED
during that long winter sickness, when
she would have died if left alone to her
nervous melancholy, that he did not
bring home some flower or bit of fruit.
She guessed later what meagre lunches
had made their purchase possible. One
of his pupils would have taken him
South for the winter vacation, but he had
refused and stayed with her. And the
cold tried him so.
" I shall never forget this, monsieur,"
she had said, when she found it out ; she
had not thought to be able to repay that
quiet sacrifice.
How sweetly, how sympathetically he
had listened to her plans ; how he had
helped, suggested, advised, admired, and
congratulated ! The very pattern of her
travelling-dress, the marking of her trunk
and he sick for home, dying in a for
eign land !
11 Cest terrible, nest-ce pas, Mile. Sa-
bine?"
What was it, that strange pain that
A HOPE DEFERRED
never ceased, that hopeful, hopeless yearn
ing? She had never left her home or
country ; she knew only the happy
dream of one day seeing another, not her
own, fair, strange, and distant ; she was
homesick for new lands. Did he feel
what she felt did he feel perhaps more ?
Her heart cried out that this could not
be, but she hushed it, and saw him grow
ing slowly old, old, waiting for the lurk
ing death how soon would it come ? a
year, a month? dreaming of France
and youth, waking to the dull reality ;
sitting alone in a strange, cheap boarding-
house, while she went gayly from land to
land.
" Vous me dites c au revoir, mademoi
selle moiyje vous dis adieu
She knew little French, but she under
stood that, and as that harsh sob rang in
her ears again, as she saw that bent fig
ure, that hopeless face, she knew in one
quick, far-seeing flash of bereavement
that it was over, that she could bear her
A HOPE DEFERRED
own sorrow, but not his ; she could stay
she could not let him. Waves of
pain broke against her resolution, tug
ging remonstrance, momentary weakness,
passionate prayers to make this happiness
possible for both of them, but beneath it
all was the certainty : it was done.
She met him at breakfast with a ner
vous flush that hid the pallor of the
night, with a voice whose cheerfulness
amazed her, with an excitement she had
never thought to feel again. He was
gaunt and hollow-eyed, and yielded read
ily to her persuasions to stay at home,
rousing himself to assure her that he
would allow this small indulgence only
because she was going so soon.
"It is but four five days now, and
you are gone, Mile. Sabine, and zen I
shall not want ze vacation, hein ? So I
stay. I have but one class only, and I
sink I do not teach it well to-day," he
said, with elaborate cheerfulness. She
[166]
A HOPE DEFERRED
poured the coffee and drank a little of
her own.
" I m not so sure I shall be gone in
four or five days, monsieur," she re
turned easily.
He stared vaguely at her. " No ?
You wait for some one take ze place of
M. Ellsworse ? "
She drew a long breath and clasped
her hands beneath the table.
" Monsieur," she said, with an almost
humorous smile, " I suppose you ll think
I m a very silly woman, but I can t help
it I ve about decided I m not going at
all."
" M, ais, mademoiselle, quavez-vous done?
What is zis zat you say ? Mon Dieu ! "
She shook her head.
"You see, I ve lived here now more
than forty years, and when I came to
think of leaving Hannah and the house
and father s things and the house isn t
insured and when I remembered how
Miss Ellsworth is seasick "
A HOPE DEFERRED
" Mais, Mile. Sabine, ce nest pas pos
sible ; zis is in fon zat you talk "
" Indeed, it is not, monsieur; I m in
earnest. You see, I m at home" her
voice fell, and she paused a moment
" I m quite safe here. If I should get
sick in in England, who d take care of
me ? It is not as if I were young and
strong ; it is not as if Miss Ellsworth
was to be with me always. And I can t
speak French or German, and and all
these steamer accidents frighten me ter
ribly ! I just lie awake nights imag
ining "
"Mais, mais y Mile. Sabine "
His startled, tired face was too much
for her : he was too exhausted to adjust
himself to this sudden turn, and some
instinct warned her to go straight ahead
and say it all, before he had time to no
tice her dark-ringed eyes and nervous,
broken voice.
" Don t you see, monsieur, what I m
trying to say ? " she asked quickly.
[168]
A HOPE DEFERRED
" Don t you see that we ve both been
planning wrong? that it s I who ought
to stay, and you who ought to go? No,
no ; let me finish ! Here am I, a fussy
old maid, born and brought up here all
my life, silly enough to imagine I could
ever really like it away from home. Why,
monsieur, do you like it away from home?
And here are you, who want a vacation,
who d like to see your friends and your
family, who d thoroughly enjoy every
minute of it. It s you who can take Mr.
Ellsworth s berth, dear monsieur ! We re
such old friends, you and I "
" Mile. Sabine ! I take your money,
par exemple ! I go ah^jamais de la vie!
Cest impossible "
He dropped his head upon his arms,
and she leaned over him, stroking his
hair, holding his hands, her timidity
utterly gone, her heart carried away and
exalted above all girlishness in the mag
nitude of her love and sacrifice. For
this hour he was hers her child to com-
A HOPE DEFERRED
fort, her brother to help, her lover, for
whom any offering was too small. She
was no longer the ignorant, untravelled
little spinster : she had flung away all
her own hopes and fears to be the life
and happiness of one poor soul that had
none but her, and at that height the
world seems small indeed.
" Mais, mademoiselle, I take your
money and go home, I restore myself,
I return how do I pay ? I sink till
now zat you desire to go more zan to do
anysing I say nossing zen. Now zat
you fear to go, you want your home (ah,
Mile. Sabine, vous avez raison : to be
home, c est le parodist), now I tell you
zat, I, too, I die if I go not back to
France! I am too long away. . . . But
how do I pay ? I pay someway, vous
savez, I will not go else ! "
" But, monsieur, you will get it when
you get there ! Don t you remember
your brother s book the Grammar ?
You always said that if ever you got to
A HOPE DEFERRED
France you could make them give you
that share. It s yours, monsieur : you
ought to have it ! "
His face flushed ; he seized her hands
and clutched them till she could have
screamed with the pain. He babbled
incoherent thanks and blessings. He
saw himself returned with double her
loan. His delight was childish to think
that he should have forgotten that !
And when, struck by sudden misgiving,
he let go her hands :
cc Ah, mademoiselle, it is long ago, all
zat ! It is mine, yes ; but if I cannot
get it ? Ce nest pas sur, $a I cannot
tell if I shall have from all zat one single
sou "
" Monsieur," she said, with sincerity
and pride, " I have been poor all my life.
You would have done this for me, I am
sure you did something just like it
once. Will you not let me give as I
should like to for once in my life ? I
believe you will pay it back : if you
A HOPE DEFERRED
can t, are you too proud to please an old
friend ? "
He took her hand again and kissed it.
" Vous etes tout a fait grande dame^ made
moiselle" he said simply. " Vous me
sauvez la vie. I will go."
After that the days were hours to her,
the hours minutes. She tasted the full
sweet of her renunciation, she rode on
the top wave of the strange, excited joy
that urged her on to the minutest prep
arations for his comfort. He moved in
a waking dream, a confused tremble of
happiness ; he could not know her alter
nations of fierce regret and quiet resigna
tion, he did not see how the hand shook
that filled his plate, nor how the eyes
that smiled so kindly and serenely into
his were red with crying. Le bon Dieu
had laid in his lap the blessing he was
hungering and thirsting after, and he
took it with the happy blindness of a
starving child.
A HOPE DEFERRED
The days flew in preparations. He
was utterly helpless with delight, and
while she packed and mended and
brought out in a very luxury of giving
the little conveniences of travel that had
pleased her so in that far-away last week,
he sang his old French songs, and kissed
her hand, and was a boy again in the
home he was to see so soon.
Only when she laid a certain embroid
ered case in the trunk, filled with tiny
pockets whose uses she had once so de
lightedly explained to him, did her ex
pression vaguely trouble him.
"You are sad, Mile. Sabine ! You
would go? You change ze mind "
But she smiled at him and said that she
was selfish enough to want him to stay,
now that he was going so soon.
But he would soon be back; he would
be with her in ten weeks !
The last day was gone, the last even
ing ; the last breakfast lay untouched be
fore them : she could do no more for
A HOPE DEFERRED
him now. His carnage was at the door;
then would come the train, then the
noisy seaport city, then the wonderful
great boat he would be half the world
away. Their hearts were too full for
speech. This old Frenchman with his
jaunty air, his shining boots, his mended
gloves, this quiet, middle-aged woman
with the pale, lined face, were not ro
mantic to look upon; but one was strug
gling with a passionate gratitude that
choked him, and the other was sending
away from her perhaps forever the
love and youth and brightness of her
life.
The driver called; they loosed hands.
He walked silently down the steps, but
with an inarticulate cry she summoned
him back. She put her arms around
him, as about a child she would send
away to school, and laid her cheek softly
against his. He caught in her eyes what
sent his hand to his heart.
" Mile. Sabine ! What is it you have
[174]
A HOPE DEFERRED
done ? You would go mon Dieu, you
have lied to me ! "
With one last effort she smiled away
his sudden fear.
" Why, no ! " she said through her
tears. " Why, no, monsieur ! I only
miss my friend ! Good-by ! " And
then, to please him, " Bon voyage, mon
ft
ami I
When the carriage was out of sight she
went in and cried by the old pianoforte
but not all for sorrow.
"He may come ! He may come ! "
she sobbed over the yellow keys, and the
old sounding-board thrilled softly and
called back to her with a jangling minor
cadence.
Her sobbing quieted to a sigh ; be
neath her tears her cheeks burned with a
soft hot flush. " Maybe he will ! May
be he will ! " she whispered, and " I know
he will if he can ! " while her hands
clasped each other tightly, with ringers
intertwisted like a girl s. She sat there
A HOPE DEFERRED
in the morning sunlight that turned her
hair to yellow, lost in strange, vague
dreams ; a shy happiness curved her lips
even while the new haunting pain that
tugged at her heart brought a tiny
wrinkle between her slender eyebrows.
She went about her simple household
duties half unconsciously. The old ser
vant watched her curiously. She could
not understand why her mistress should
wipe her eyes, if later she could sing till
the dim parlor thrilled to the sweet old
tunes. Nor did Miss Sabina herself
quite certainly know. She was of a sim
ple, modest generation that analyzed lit
tle: the rose of her life she could shut
away forever, hidden in some precious
yellowed book, but she could not tear
apart the leaves, even to know it better.
To Miss Ellsworth, who came in
later, hurried and amazed, she was inex
plicable. She had travelled much, this
successful, ordinary woman, and she was
well educated, as women count such mat
ters to-day ; but this quiet spinster, sit-
A HOPE DEFERRED
ting out of the strong currents of life,
alone in her quaint, old-time parlor with
its rose-leaves and mahogany of another
day, had somehow left her behind with
all her experiences and acquisitions, and
bade her good-by with a manner that
obliterated forever from her friend s mind
the image of deprecating gentleness she
had so long patronized.
For she had travelled the great way of
all, had Miss Sabina, and the pride and
happiness of her waiting heart had come
to her in the steepest places of that won
derful road. The teacher of women
since the beginning had spared no pains
with this simple, eager soul, and she
grew at once young and wise under the
dear and unrelenting discipline.
" He will he will if he can ! " she
whispered, as she waited for him on the
porch, while the children played in the
distance with faint, cheerful cries, and the
roses grew strong toward dusk. And
even to herself her tears seemed not
wholly sad.
[177]
THE COURTING OF
LADY JANE
THE COURTING OF
LADY JANE
THE colonel entered his sister s
room abruptly, sat down on her
bed, and scattered a drawerful of fluffy
things laid out for packing.
" You don t seem to think about my
side of the matter," he said gloomily.
"What am I to do here all alone, for
Heaven s sake ? "
" That is so like a man," she mur
mured, one arm in a trunk. " Let me
see : party-boots, the children s arctics,
Dick s sweater did you think I could
live here forever, Cal ? "
" Then you shouldn t have come at
[181]
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
all. Just as I get thoroughly settled
down to flowers in the drawing-room,
and rabbits in a chafing-dish, and people
for dinner, you skip off. Why don t
you bring the children here ? What did
you marry into the navy for, anyway ?
Nagasaki ! I wouldn t live in a place
called Nagasaki for all that money could
buy!"
" You re cross," said Mrs. Dick plac
idly. "Please get off that bath-wrapper.
If you don t like to live alone Six
bath-towels, Dick s shoe-bag, my old
muff (I hope and pray I ll remember
that!) Helen s reefer Why don t you
marry ? "
" Marry ? Marry ! Are you out of
your mind, Dosia ? I marry ! "
The colonel twisted his grayish mus
tache into points ; a look of horror
spread over his countenance.
" Men have done it," she replied seri
ously, " and lived. Look at Dick."
" Look at him ? But how ? Who
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
ever sees him ? I ve ceased to believe
in him, personally. I can t look across
the Pacific. Consider my age, Dosia ;
consider my pepper-and-salt hair ; con
sider my bronchitis ; consider "
" Consider your stupidity ! As to
your hair, I should hate to eat a salad
dressed with that proportion of pepper.
As to your age, remember you re only
ten years ahead of me, and I expect to
remain thirty-eight for some time."
" But forty-eight is centenarian to a
girl of twenty-two, Dosia."
The colonel was plaiting and un-
plaiting the ball-fringe of the bed-slip ;
his eyes followed the motion of his fin
gers he did not see his sister s trium
phant smile as she dived again into the
trunk.
" That depends entirely on the girl.
Take Louise Morris, for instance ; she
regards you as partly entombed, proba
bly " the colonel winced involuntarily
" but, on the other hand, a girl like
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
Jane Leroy would have no such non
sense in her head, and she can t be much
more than twenty."
" She is twenty-two," cried the unsus
pecting colonel eagerly.
" Ah ? I should not have said so
much. Now such a girl as that, Cal,
handsome, dignified, college-bred, is just
the wife for an older man. One can t
seem to see her marrying some young
snip of her own age. She d be wasted
on him. I happen to know that she
refused Wilbur Vail entirely on that
ground. She admitted that he was a
charming fellow, but she told her mother
he was far too young for her. And he
was twenty-eight."
"Did she?" The colonel left the
fringe. " But but perhaps there were
other reasons ; perhaps she didn t "
" Oh, probably she didn t. But still,
she said he was too young. That s the
way with these serious girls. Now I
thought Dick was middle-aged when I
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
married him, and he was thirty. Jane
doesn t take after her mother; she was
only nineteen when she was born I
mean, of course, when Jane was born.
Will you hand me that crocheted shawl,
please ? "
" My dear girl, you re not going to
try to get that into that trunk, too ?
Something will break."
" Not at all, my dear Clarence. Thank
you. Will you send Norah up to me
as you go down ? "
It had not occurred to the colonel that
he was going down, but he decided that
he must have been, and departed, forget
ting Norah utterly before he had accom
plished half of the staircase.
He wandered out through the broad
hall, reaching down a hat absently, and
across the piazza. Then, half uncon
scious of direction, he crossed the neat
suburban road and strolled up the gravel
path of the cottage opposite. Mrs. Le-
roy was sitting in the bay-window, at-
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
taching indefinite yards of white lace to
indefinite yards of white ruffles. Jane,
in cool violet lawn, was reading aloud
to her. Both looked up at his light
knock at the side door.
" But I am afraid I interrupt/ he sug
gested politely, as he dropped into a low
chair with a manner that betokened the
assurance of a warm welcome.
"Not the least in the world, * Mrs.
Leroy smiled whimsically.
" Lady is reading Pater to me for the
good of my soul, and I am listening
politely for the good of her manners,"
she answered. " But it is a little wear
ing for us both, for she knows I don t
understand it, and I know she thinks me
a little dishonest for pretending to."
" Mother ! "
The girl s gray eyes opened wide above
her cool, creamy cheeks ; the deep dim
ples that made her mother s face so
girlish actually added a regularity and
seriousness to the daughter s soft chin.
Her chestnut hair was thick and straight,
[186]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
the little half-curls of the same rich tint
that fell over her mother s forehead
brushed wavelessly back on each side of
a deep widow s peak.
The two older ones laughed.
" Always uncompromising. Lady Jane ! "
the colonel cried.
" I assure you, colonel, when Lady be
gins to mark iniquities, few of us stand!"
Jane smiled gravely, as on two children.
" You know very well that is nonsense,"
she said.
Black Hannah appeared in the door,
beaming and curtsying to the colonel.
" You-all ready foh yoh tea, Miss
Lady ? " she inquired.
A sudden recollection threw Mrs.
Leroy into one of her irresistible fits
of gentle laughter.
" Oh, Lady," she murmured, " do
you remember that impossible creature
that lectured me about Hannah s asking
you for orders ? Did I tell you about
it, colonel ? "
Jane shook her head reprovingly.
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
" Now, mother dearest, you always
make him out worse "
" Worse, my darling ? Worse is a
word that couldn t be applied to that
man. Worse is comparative. Positive
he certainly was, superlative is mild, but
comparative never ! "
" Tell about it, do," begged the guest.
" Well, he came to see how Lady was
growing up he s a sort of species of
relative and he sat in your chair,
colonel, and talked the most amazing
Fourth Reader platitudes in a deep bass
voice. And when Hannah asked Lady
what her orders were for the grocer, he
gave me a terrible look and rumbled out:
c I am grieved to see, Cousin Alice, that
Jennie has burst her bounds !
"It sounded horribly indecorous I
expected to see her in fragments on the
floor and I fairly gasped."
" Gasped, mother ? You laughed in
his face ! "
" Did I, dearest ? It is possible,"
[188]
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
Mrs. Leroy admitted. "And when I
looked vague he explained, c I mean that
you seem to have relinquished the reins
very early. Cousin Alice ! *
" Relinquished? Relinquished?* said
I . c Why, dear me, Mr. Wadham, I never
held em ! "
" He only meant, mother dear, that "
" Bless you, my child, I know what he
only meant ! He explained it to me
very fully. He meant that when a
widow is left with a ten-year-old child,
she should apply to distant cousins to
manage her and her funds."
" Disgusting beast ! " the colonel ex
claimed with feeling, possessing himself
of one of Hannah s beaten biscuits, and
smiling as Lady Jane s white fingers
dropped just the right number of lumps
in his tea.
How charming she was, how dignified,
how tender to her merry little mother,
this grave, handsome girl ! He saw her,
in fancy, opposite him at his table, mov-
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
ing so stately about his big empty house,
filling it with pretty, useless woman s
things, lighting every corner with that
last touch of grace that the most faithful
housekeeper could never hope to add to
his lonely life. For Theodosia had
taught him that he was lonely. He
envied Dick this sister of his.
He wondered that marriage had never
occurred to him before : simply it had
not. Ever since that rainy day in April,
twenty years ago, when they had buried
the slender, soft-eyed little creature with
his twisted silver ring on her cold ringer,
he had shut that door of life ; and though
it had been many years since the little
ring had really bound him to a person
ality long faded from his mind, he had
never thought to open the door he had
forgotten it was there.
He was not a talkative man, and, like
many such, he dearly loved to be amused
and entertained by others who were in
any degree attractive to him. The pic-
[190]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
ture of these two dear women adding
their wit and charm and dainty way of
living to his days grew suddenly very
vivid to him ; he realized that it was an
unconscious counting on their continued
interest and hospitality that had made
the future so comfortable for so long.
With characteristic directness he began :
"Will your Ladyship allow me a
half-hour of business with the queen-
mother ? "
She rose easily and stepped out
through the long window to the little
side porch, then to the lawn. They
watched her as she paced slowly away
from them, a tall violet figure vivid
against all the green.
" She is a dear girl, isn t she ? " said
her mother softly.
A sudden flood of delighted pride
surged through the colonel s heart. If
only he might keep them happy and
contented and and his! He never
thought of them apart : no rose and bud
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
on one stem were more essentially to
gether than they.
" She is too dear for one to be satisfied
forever with even our charming neigh-
borliness," he answered gravely. " How
long have we lived ( across the street
from each other, as they say here, Mrs.
Leroy ? "
She did not raise her eyes from her
white ruffles.
" It is just a year this month," she
said.
cc We are such good friends," he con
tinued in his gentle, reserved voice,
" that I hesitate to break into such pleas
ant relations, even with the chance of
making us all happier, perhaps. But I
cannot resist the temptation. Could we
not make one family, we three ? "
A quick, warm color flooded her
cheeks and forehead. She caught her
breath ; her startled eyes met his with a
lightning-swift flash of something that
moved him strangely.
[192]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
" What do you mean, Colonel Dris-
coll ? " she asked, low and quickly.
" I mean, could you give me your
daughter if she at any time could
think it possible ? "
She drew a deep breath ; the color
seemed blown from her transparent skin
like a flame from a lamp. For a mo
ment her head seemed to droop ; then
she sat straight and moistened her lips,
her eyes fixed level ahead.
" Lady ? " she whispered, and he was
sure that she thought the word was
spoken in her ordinary tone. cc Lady ? "
" I know I realize perfectly that it
is a presumption in me at my age
when I think of what she deserves. Oh,
we won t speak of it again if you feel
that it would be wrong ! "
" No, no, it is not that/ she mur
mured. "I I have always known that
I must lose her; but she one is so
selfish she is all I have, you know !"
" But you would not lose her ! " he
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
cried eagerly. " You would only share
her with me, dear Mrs. Leroy ! Do you
think could she it is possible ? "
" Lady is an unusual girl/ she said
evenly, but with something gone out of
her warm, gay voice. " She has never
cared for young people. I know that
she admires you greatly. While I can
not deny that I should prefer less differ
ence than lies between your ages, it
would be folly in me to fail to recognize
the desirability of the connection in every
other way. Whatever her decision and
the matter rests entirely with her my
daughter and I are honored by your pro
posal, Colonel Driscoll."
She might have been reading a care
fully prepared address : her eyes never
wavered from the wall in front it was
as if she saw her words there.
" Then then will you ask her ? "
She stared at him now.
" You mean that you wish me to ask
her to marry you ? "
[>94]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
"Yes," he said simply. "She will
feel freer in that way. You will know as
I should not, directly, if there is any
chance. I can talk about it with you
more easily somehow."
She shrugged her shoulders with a
strange air of exhaustion ; it was the
yielding of one too tired to argue.
" Very well, * she breathed, " go now,
and I will ask her. Come this evening.
You will excuse "
She made a vague motion. The colo
nel pitied her tremendously in a blind
way. Was it all this to lose a daughter?
How she loved her !
" Perhaps to-morrow morning," he
suggested, but she shook her head vehe
mently.
" No, to-night, to-night ! " she cried.
" Lady will know directly. Come to
night ! "
He went out a little depressed. Al
ready a tiny cloud hung between them.
Suppose their pleasant waters had been
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
troubled for worse than nothing ? Sud
denly his case appeared hopeless to him.
What folly a man of his years, and
that fresh young creature with all her
life before her ! He wondered that he
could have dreamed of it ; he wished the
evening over and the foolish mistake
forgiven.
His sister was full of plans and dates,
and her talk covered his almost absolute
silence. After dinner she retired again
into packing, and he strocfe through the
dusk to the cottage ; his had not been a
training that seeks to delay the inevitable.
The two women sat, as usual at this
hour, on the porch. Their white gowns
shimmered against the dark honeysuckle-
vine. He halted at the steps and took
off the old fatigue-cap he sometimes wore,
standing straight and tall before them.
Mrs. Leroy leaned back in her chair ;
the faintest possible gesture indicated her
daughter, who had risen and stood beside
her.
[196]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
" Colonel Driscoll," she said in a low,
uneven voice, "my daughter wishes me
to say to you that she appreciates deeply
the honor you do her, and that if you
wish it she will be your wife. She she
is sure she will be happy."
The colonel felt his heart leap up and
hit heavily against his chest. Was it
possible ? A great gratitude and pride
glowed softly through him. He walked
nearly up the steps and stood just below
her, lifting her hand to his lips.
" My dear, dear child," he said slowly,
" you give me too much, but you must
not measure my thankfulness for the gift
by my deserts. Whatever a man can do
to make you and your mother happy
shall be done so long as I live."
She smiled gravely into his eyes and
bowed her head slightly ; like all her
little motions, it had the effect of a grace
ful ceremony. Then, slipping loose her
hand, she seated herself on a low stool
beside her mother s chair, leaning against
[197]
THE .COURTING OF LADY JANE
her knee. Her sweet silence charmed
him.
He took his accustomed seat, and they
sat quietly, while the breeze puffed little
gusts of honeysuckle across their faces.
Occasional neighbors greeted them, stroll
ing past ; the newly watered lawns all
along the street sent up a fresh turfy
odor ; now and then a bird chirped
drowsily. He felt deliciously intimate,
peacefully at home. A fine, subtle sense
of bien-etre penetrated his whole soul.
When he rose to go they had hardly
exchanged a dozen words. As he held
her hand closely, half doubting his right,
she raised her face to him simply, and he
kissed her white forehead. When he
bent over her mother s hand it was as
cold as stone.
Through the long pleasant weeks of
the summer they talked and laughed and
drove and sailed together, a happy trio.
Mrs. Leroy s listless quiet of the first
few days gave way to a brilliant, fitful
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
gayety that enchanted the more silent two,
and the few hours when she was not with
them seemed incomplete. On his men
tioning this to her one afternoon she shot
him a strange glance.
" But this is all wrong," she said
abruptly. " What will you do when I am
gone in the winter ? "
" What do you mean ? " he asked.
" Gone where, when, how ? "
" My dear colonel," she said lightly,
but with an obvious effort, " do you im
agine that I cannot leave you a honey
moon, in spite of my doting parenthood ?
I plan to spend the latter part of the
winter in New York with friends. Per
haps by spring "
" My dear Mrs. Leroy, how absurd !
How cruel of you ! What will Lady
do ? What shall I do ? She has never
been separated from you in her life.
Does she know of this ? "
" No ; I shall tell her soon. As for
what she will do she will have her hus-
[199]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
band. If that is not enough for her, she
should not marry the man who cannot "
She stopped suddenly and controlled
with great effort a rising emotion almost
too strong for her. Again a deep, inex
plicable sympathy welled up in him. He
longed to comfort her, to give her every
thing she wanted. He blamed himself
and Jane for all the trouble they were
causing her.
That afternoon she kept in her room,
and he and his fiancee drank their tea
together alone. He was worried by the
news of the morning, dissatisfied out of
all proportion, vexed that so sensible
and natural a proposition should leave
him so uneasy and disappointed. He
had meant the smooth, quiet life to
go on without a break, and now the
new relation must change everything.
He glanced at Jane, a little irritated
that she should not perceive his mood
and exorcise it. But she had not her
mother s marvellous susceptibility. She
[200]
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
drank her tea in serene silence. He
made a few haphazard remarks, hoping
to lose in conversation the cloud that
threatened his evening ; but she only as
sented tranquilly and watched the chang
ing colors of the early sunset.
" Have you made a vow to agree with
everything I say ? " he asked finally,
half laughing, half in earnest.
" Not at all," she replied placidly,
" but you surely do not want an argu
ment?"
" Oh, no," he answered her, vexed at
himself.
" What do you think of Mrs. s
novel ? " he suggested, as the pages,
fluttering in the rising breeze, caught his
attention.
" Mother is reading it, not I," she re
turned indifferently. " I don t care very
much for the new novels."
Involuntarily he turned as if to catch
her mother s criticism of the book : light,
perhaps, but witty, and with a little tang
[201]
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
of harmless satire that always took his
fancy. But she was not there. He
sighed impatiently ; was it possible he
was a little bored ?
A quick step sounded on the gravel
walk, a swish of skirts.
" It is Louise Morris/ she said, " I ll
meet her at the gate. *
After a short conference she returned.
cc Will you excuse me, please ? " she
said, quite eagerly for her. " Mother
will be down soon, anyway, I am sure.
Louise s brother is back ; he has been
away in the West for six years. Mother
will be delighted she was always so
fond of Jack. Louise is making a little
surprise for him. He must be quite
grown up now. I ll go and tell mother."
A moment later and she was gone.
Mrs. Leroy took her place in the win
dow, and imperceptibly under her gentle
influence the cloud faded from his hori
zon ; he forgot the doubt of an hour ago.
At her suggestion he dined there, and
[ 202 ]
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
found himself, as always when with his
hostess, at his best. He felt that there
was no hypocrisy in her interest in his
ideas, and the ease with which he ex
pressed them astonished him even while
he delighted in it. Why could he not
talk so with Jane ? It occurred to him
suddenly that it was because Jane her
self talked rarely. She was, like him, a
listener, for the most part. His mind,
unusually alert and sensitive to-night,
looked ahead to the happy winter even
ings he had grown to count on so, and
when, with an effort, he detached this
third figure from the group to be so
closely allied after Christmas-tide the
date fixed for the wedding he per
ceived that there was a great gap in the
picture, that the warmth and sparkle had
suddenly gone. All the tenderness in
the world could not disguise that flash of
foresight.
He grew quiet, lost in revery. She,
following his mood, spoke less and less ;
[203]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
and when Jane returned, late at night,
escorted by a tall, bronzed young ranch
man, she found them sitting in silence in
a half-light, staring into the late Septem
ber fire on the hearth.
In the month that followed an imper
ceptible change crept over the three.
The older woman was much alone vari
able as an April day, now merry and
caressing, now sombre and withdrawn.
The girl clung to her mother more
closely, sat for long minutes holding her
hand, threw strange glances at her be
trothed that would have startled him, so
different were they from her old, steady
regard, had not his now troubled sense
of some impalpable mist that wrapped
them all grown stronger every day. He
avoided sitting alone with her, wondering
sometimes at the ease with which such
tete-a-tetes were dispensed with. Then,
struck with apprehension at his seeming
neglect, he spent his ingenuity in delicate
attentions toward her, courtly thought-
[204]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
fulness of her tastes, beautiful gifts that
provoked from her, in turn, all the little
intimacies and tender friendliness of their
earlier intercourse.
At one of these tiny crises of mutual
restoration, she, sitting alone with him
in the drawing-room, suddenly raised her
eyes and looked steadily at him.
" You care for me, then, very much ? "
she said earnestly. " You you would
miss if things were different ? You
really count on on our marriage ?
Are you happy ? "
A great remorse rose in him. Poor
child poor, young, unknowing creature,
that, after all, was only twenty-two ! She
felt it, then, the strange mist that seemed
to muffle his words and actions, to hold
him back. And she had given him so
much !
He took her hands and drew her to
him.
" My dear, dear child," he said gently,
" forgive a selfish middle-aged bachelor
[205]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
if he cannot come up to the precious
ideals of the sweetest girlhood in the
world ! I am no more worthy of you,
Lady dear, than I have ever been, but I
have never felt more tender toward you,
more sensible of all you are giving me.
I cannot pretend to the wild love of the
poets you read so much ; that time, if it
ever was, is past for me. I am a plain,
unromantic person, who takes and leaves
a great deal for granted I thought you
knew that. But you must never doubt "
He paused a moment, and for the first
time she interrupted him nervously.
"I never will Clarence," she said
almost solemnly ; and it struck him for
the first time that she had never called
him by his name before. He leaned
over her, and as in one of her rare con
cessions she lifted her face up to him, he
bent lower than her forehead ; what com
pelled him to kiss her soft cheek rather
than her lips he did not know.
Unexpected business summoned him
[206]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
to New York for a fortnight the next
day, and the great city drew him irresist
ibly into its noisy maelstrom. The cur
rent of his thoughts changed absolutely.
Old friends and new took up his leisure.
His affairs, as they grew more pressing,
woke in him a keen delight in the strug
gle with his opponents ; as he shook
hands triumphantly with his lawyer after
a well-earned victory he felt years younger.
He decided that he had moped too long
in the country : " We must move into
town this season," he said to himself.
He fairly ran up the cottage steps in
the gathering dusk. He longed to see
them, full of plans for the winter. Han
nah met him at the door : the ladies had
gone to a dance at the Morrises ; there
had been an invitation for him, so he
would not intrude if he followed.
Hastily changing his clothes, he walked
up the street. Lights and music poured
out of the . open windows of the large
house ; the full moon made the grounds
[207]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
about it almost as bright as the rooms.
He stepped up on the piazza and looked
in at the swaying couples. Lady Jane,
beautiful in pale blue mull, drifted by in
her young host s arms. She was flushed
with dancing ; her hair had escaped from
its usual calm. He hardly recognized
her. As he looked out toward the old
garden, he caught a glimpse of a flowing
white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a
head whose fine poise he could not mis
take.
A young man passed him with a filmy
crepe shawl he knew well. The colonel
stepped along with him.
"You are taking this to Mrs. Leroy ? "
"Yes, colonel, she feels the air a little."
" Let me relieve you of it," and he
walked alone into the garden with the
softly scented cobweb over his arm.
She was standing in an old neglected
summer-house, her back to the door.
As he stopped behind her and laid the
soft wrap over her firm white shoulders,
[208]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
she turned her head with a startled pre
science of his personality, and met his
eyes full. He looked straight into those
soft gray depths, and as he looked,
searching for something there, he knew
not what, troubled strangely by her
nearness and the helpless surrender of
her fastened gaze, a great light burst
upon him.
" It is you ! it is you ! " he said
hoarsely, and crushing her in his arms, he
kissed her heavily on her yielding mouth.
For a moment she rested against him.
The music, piercingly sweet, drove away
thought. Then she drew herself back,
pushing him blindly from her.
" No, no, no ! " she gasped, " it is
Lady ! You are mad "
" Mad ? " he said quickly. " I was
never sane till now. When I think of
what I had to offer that dear child, when
I realize to what a farce of love I was
sacrificing her oh, Alice dearest, you
are a woman; you must have known!"
[209]
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
She raised her head ; an unquenchable
triumph smiled at him.
" I did know ! " she cried exultantly.
Suddenly her whole expression changed,
her head sank again.
" Oh, Lady, my child, my baby ! "
she moaned, all mother now, and broken
hearted.
" You must never tell her, never ! "
she panted. "You will forget; you I
will go away "
" It is you who are mad, Alice/ he
said sternly. " Listen to me. For all
these weeks it has been your voice I
have remembered, your face I have seen
in imagination in my house. It is you
I have missed from us three never
Lady. It is you I have tried to please
and hoped to satisfy not Lady. Ever
since you told me you would not spend
the winter with us I have been discon
tented. Why, Alice, I have never kissed
her in my life as I have kissed you."
She grew red to the tips of her little
[210]
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
ears, and threw him a quick glance that
tingled to his ringers ends.
"You would not have me oh, my
dear, it is not possible ! " he cried.
She burst into tears. " I don t know
I don t know ! " she sobbed. " It will
break her heart ! I don t understand
her any more ; once I could tell what
she would think, but not now."
" Hush ! some one is coming," he
warned her, and taking her arm he drew
her out through a great gap in the side
of the little house, so that they stood
hidden by it.
" Then I will tell him to his face what
I think of him ! " said a young man s
voice, angry, determined, but shaking
with disappointment. " To hold a
girl "
" He does not hold me I hold my
self ! " It was Lady s voice, low and trem
bling. " It is all my fault, Jack. I
bound myself before I knew what what
a different thing it really was. I do love
[211]
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
him I love him dearly, but not not
No, no; I don t mean what you think
or, if I do, I must not. Jack, I have
promised, don t you see ? And when I
thought that perhaps he didn t care so
much, and asked him oh, I told you
how beautifully he answered me. I will
never hurt him so, never ! "
" It is disgusting, it is horrible ; he is
twenty-five years older than you he
might be your father ! " stormed the voice.
"I I never cared for young people
before ! "
Could this be Lady, this shy, faltering
girl ? Moved by an overmastering im
pulse, the man behind the summer-house
turned his head and looked through the
broken wall.
Lady Jane was blushing and paling
in quick succession : the waves of red
flooded over her moved face and receded
like the tide at turn. Her eyes were
piteous ; her hair fell low over her fore
head ; she looked incredibly young.
[212]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
" Of course," said the young man bit
terly, "it is a good match a fine match.
You will have a beautiful home and
everything you want."
She put out her hands appealingly.
" Oh, Jack, how can you hurt me so ?
You know I would live with you in a
garret on the plains "
" Then do it."
" I shall never hurt a person so terri
bly to whom I have freely given my
word," she said, with a touch of her old-
time decision.
Colonel Driscoll felt his blood sweep
ing through his veins like wine. He
was far too excited for finesse, too eager
and he had been so willing to wait, once !
for the next sweet moment when this
almost tragedy should be resolved into
its elements. He strode out into the
open space in front of the little house.
" My dear young people," he said, as
they stared at him in absolute silence, " I
am, I am " He had intended to carry
THE COURTING OP LADY JANE
the matter off jocularly, but the sight of
the girl s tear-stained face and the emo
tion of the minutes before had softened
and awed him. His eyes seemed yet to
hold those gray ones ; he felt strangely
the pressure of that soft body against
his.
" Ah, my dear/ he said gently, cc could
you not believe me when I told you that
my one wish was to make you happy as
long as I lived ? Happiness is not built
on mistakes, and you must forgive us if
we do not always allow youth to mo
nopolize them.
"She has always been like a dear child
to me, Mr. Morris" he turned to the
other man " and you would never wish
me to change my regard for her, could
you know it !
" Go with him, Lady dear, and forgive
me if I have ever pained you believe
me, I am very happy to-night."
He raised her softly as she knelt be
fore him weeping, and kissed her hair.
O4]
THE COURTING OF LADY JANE
" But there is nothing to forgive," he
assured her.
They went away hand in hand, happy,
like two dazed children for whom the
sky has suddenly but not because they
are young too miraculously opened,
and the shrubbery swallowed them.
He turned and strode back into the
shadow. Mrs. Leroy sat crouching on
the fallen timber, her head still bent.
Stooping behind her, he drew her toward
him.
" They have forgotten us by now,"
he whispered, " can I make you forget
them ? "
["Si
JULIA THE APOSTATE
JULIA THE APOSTATE
T7OIJ don t think it s too young for
JL me, girls ? "
" Young for you par exemple ! I
should say not/ her niece replied,
perking the quivering aigrette still more
obliquely upon her aunt s head. Caro
lyn used par exemple as a good cook
uses onion a hint of it in everything.
There were those who said that she in
terpolated it in the Litany ; but Caro
lyn, who was born Caroline and a Bap
tist, was too much impressed by the
liturgy of what she called The Church to
insert even an uncanonized comma.
" Now don t touch it, Aunt Julia, for
it s deliciously chic, and if you had your
[219]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
way you d flatten it down right straight
in the middle you know you would/
Miss Trueman pursed her lips quizzi
cally.
"I ve always thought, Carrie lyn"
she added hastily, as her niece scowled,
" that they put things askew to make em
different for a change, as you might
say. Now, if they re never in the mid
dle, it s about as tiresome, isn t it ? "
Elise, whose napkin-ring bore malig
nant witness to her loving aunt, Eliza
Judd, laughed irrepressibly : she had
more sense of humor than her sister. It
was she who, though she had assisted in
polishing the old copper kettle subse
quently utilized as a holder for the tongs
and shovel, had refused to consider the
yet older wash-boiler in the light of a
possible coal-scuttle, greatly to the relief
of her aunt, who blushed persistently at
any mention of the hearth.
She patted the older woman encour
agingly.
[ 220]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
" That s right. Aunt Ju-ju, argue it
out ! " she advised.
Miss Trueman winced. She had never
accustomed herself to those senseless
monosyllables that parodied her name ;
nor could she understand the frame of
mind that found them preferable to the
comfortable "Aunt Jule " of the old
days.
" Ju-ju ! " Strips of unwholesome
flesh-colored paste, sugar-sprinkled, dear
to her childish heart but loathed by a
maturer palate, rose to her mind. There
had been another haunting recollection :
for months she had been unable to de
fine it perfectly, though it had always
brought a thrill of disgust with its vague
appeal. One day she caught it and told
them.
"It was that dreadful creature Mr.
Barnum exhibited," she declared, " that
we didn t allow the children to go to see
Jo-jo, the Dog-faced Boy ! You re
member ? "
[221]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
Their cold horror, briefly expressed,
had shown her that she had trespassed
too far on their indulgence, and she
spoke of it no more, but the memory
rankled.
" It s so strange you don t see how
cunning it is," Carolyn complained ;
" everybody does it now. The whole
Chatworth family have those names,
Aunt Ju, and it is the dearest thing to
hear the old doctor call Captain Arthur
c Ga-ga. You know that dignified sis
ter with the lovely silvery hair? Well,
they all call her c Looty. And nobody
thinks of Hunter Chatworth s real name
he s always c Toto.
" And he has three children ! "
Miss Trueman sighed ; the constitu
tion of the modern family amazed her
endlessly. Ga-ga, indeed !
" Do the children call him Toto,
too ? " she demanded, with an attempt at
sarcasm, a conversational form to which
she was by nature a stranger.
[ 222 ]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
" Oh, I don t know about that," Caro
lyn answered carelessly. " I suppose
not. Though plenty of children do, you
know. Mrs. Ranger s little girl always
calls her mother Lou."
" Mrs. Ranger you mean the woman
that smokes ? "
Miss Trueman s tone brought vividly
to the mind a person dangling from dis
gusted finger-tips a mouse or beetle.
" For heaven s sake, Aunt Jule "
in moments of intense exasperation they
reverted unconsciously to the old form
" don t speak of her as if she smoked
for a living ! "
" I should rather not speak of her at
all," said Miss Trueman severely.
They raised their eyebrows helplessly :
Carolyn s irritation was so unfeigned that
she omitted a justly famous shrug.
For two years they had devoted an
appreciable part of their busy hours to
modifying Aunt Julia s antique preju
dices, developing in her the latent ses-
JULIA THE APOSTATE
thetic sense that their Wednesday art
class taught them existed in every one,
cajoling her into a tolerance of certain
phases of modern literature considered
seriously and weekly by the Monday
Afternoon Club, and incidentally utiliz
ing her as a chaperon and housekeeper
in their modest up-town apartment.
The first six months of her sojourn
had been almost entirely occupied with
accustoming herself to the absence of an
attic and a cellar ; long days of depres
sion they learned, finally, to trace to this
incredible source. Later she dealt with
the problem of subsisting from eight till
one on two rolls and a cup of coffee ;
successfully, in the ultimate issue, as
surreptitious bits of fried ham and
buckwheat cakes, with suspicious odors,
winked at discreetly by her nieces, wit
nessed. It would have been unkind, as
Elise suggested, to criticise Aunt Ju-ju s
performances at the ungodly hour of
seven in the morning, when their own
[224]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
correctly Continental repast, flanked by
a chrysanthemum in a tall vase, not only
tallied so accurately with their digestive
and aesthetic necessities, but appeared,
moreover, with such gratifying regularity
one hour later.
Both Carolyn and her sister had in
herited from their mother, Miss True-
man s older sister, a real gift for teaching,
and this, rather than their respective
abilities in art and music, enabled them
to impart very successfully the elements
of these necessary branches to the young
ladies of a fashionable boarding-school
just outside the city.
It was politely regretted by their
friends that they were unable to give
themselves unreservedly to the exercise
of their art without the cramping neces
sity for teaching ; but it is probable that
both the girls estimated their not too
extraordinary talents very sensibly, though
far from displeased by a more flattering
judgment.
[225]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
Miss Trueman, who possessed the
characteristic veneration of the bred and
born New Englander for his native or
imported school-ma am, resented persist
ently their somewhat patronizing atti
tude toward the profession second only
to the ministry in her stanch respect.
A little of the simple grandeur of those
childhood days when " the teacher
boarded with them " clung with the
ineradicable force of habit to her mind,
and she could not understand their
restive attitude at " the fine positions as
teachers Hattie s girls have got."
"I m sure you make more money than
that Miss Seymour that gets her own
meals in her room she said so herself."
" Oh, well, there are other things to
be considered, Aunt Ju ; and, anyway,
she s a real bohemian, Polly Seymour.
There s a fascination in it."
<c There s no fascination in being hun
gry that I can see, and she admitted that,
L Elise," Miss Trueman insisted se-
[226]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
verely. " I don t understand how she
could have done it I would have died
first. And she seemed to think it was a
great joke to have her friends give her
a dinner I think it was terrible."
" Why, Aunt Jule, how ridiculous !
We were delighted to do it it was per
fectly dear of her to let us, too. And
think of the people we met there
Rawlins and Mr. Ware ! You don t
mind being poor if such men will come
just out of interest in you, I tell you. Do
you remember, Elise, how Mr. Rawlins
called her c little girl ? Mr. Ware lets*
her use his models whenever she likes,
too," Carolyn added respectfully.
" Oh, she s bound to arrive ! " Elise
agreed.
Aunt Ju-ju sniffed uncontrolledly.
" I should hope she d arrive at the
point where she could buy her own din
ners," she remarked. " To be beholden
for your bread "...
Here were two points of view as little
[227-]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
likely to coincide as the parallel lines of
science, and at some such stage as this
the discussions were wont to cease.
To-day the apartment was swept and
garnished for a social function long
planned by the nieces. Carnations leaned
from tall glass vases, intricate little cakes
jostled carefully piled sandwiches, and a
huge brass samovar, borrowed for the
occasion, gave dignity to the small parlor.
Miss Trueman had learned by now the
unwritten law that prevented the various
objects in the once proudly segregated
" drawing-room set " from association
with each other, and made no attempt
to correct their intentional isolation.
The samovar she refused utterly to med
dle with, assuring them that she would
as soon think of running a locomotive.
As the guests began to arrive Miss
Trueman found herself regarding them
even more critically than usual; an argu
mentative spirit rose in her, and her calm
contradiction of Mrs. Ranger, who dis-
[228]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
cussed with great subtlety the notable
advantages even from the artistic point
of view of the approaching spring when
experienced in the city, in comparison
with that be-rhymed season s vaunted
country beauties, startled more than one
person.
"Just because they re more delicate,
just because you must look harder to
discover them, just because you must
get as much from a pot of hyacinths on
the Avenue as from a whole field of prim
roses in the backwoods, you know," she
concluded, and the little circle nodded
sagely and congratulated themselves on
an unpublished paragraph.
" I don t agree with you, Mrs. Ranger,"
said Aunt Ju-ju flatly, to the absolute
amazement of her nieces and the tolerant
amusement of the assembly. "I guess
you haven t lived in the country much,
or you wouldn t talk so. And primroses
don t grow in fields here, anyway. If
you could see my hyacinths and crocuses
[229]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
in round beds at home, you wouldn t
mention those poor little stalks in the
pots."
Mrs. Ranger laughed, and directed her
searching, level glance at the older wo
man, who combined in her comely, un
disguised middle age something at once
more matronly and more childish than
the analytic authoress could ever find in
her own mirror.
" Aha ! " she cried, " then you are no
friend of dear old Horace, after all, Miss
Trueman ! He and I, you see "
The relation of these two urbanites
was revealed no further, for a bustle in
the little hall drew attention to a new
comer unknown not only to the guests
but evidently to the hostesses, who rose,
smiling uncertainly, as a portly, broad-
shouldered man with iron-gray hair made
his way through the group about the
samovar.
" I ll have to introduce myself, I see,"
he began, not precisely with what an exi-
[230]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
gent society calls ease of manner, but
with a certain practical self-possession
quite as effective.
" I didn t expect the girls to remember
me, but I thought perhaps you might,
Julia."
Miss Trueman peered out from the
shaded five-o clock gloom so dear to
Carolyn s soul.
"I don t seem it s not why, Cousin
Lorando Bean, it s not you ? "
"That s it," he said heartily, "that s
just exactly it. And he s mighty glad
to see some of his relations again, I can
tell you. And these are Carrie and
Lizzie, I suppose. Well, well, fifteen
years is a long time, even to an old fellow
like me, and you girls were just beginning
to be young ladies when I left Connecticut.
How are you all ? "
If this simple greeting came like a
breath of her native air to Miss True
man, it cannot be said to have had a
similar effect on her nieces. Courtesy
JULIA THE APOSTATE
prevented a full expression of their feel
ings, but they affected no undue delight
at the presence of their new-found rela
tive whom they had very sincerely for
gotten, along with many other details of
a somewhat inartistic youth and turned
to their other guests with a frank relief
when they had established him, with a
cup of tea, a sandwich, and Aunt Julia,
in the near-by dining-room.
" A third or fourth cousin, I believe,
who has lived a long time in the West,"
they explained. The company, some
of whom doubtless possessed third or
fourth cousins from the West, nodded
comprehensively, and the interrupted
function flowed smoothly on again.
Cousin Lorando Bean balanced his
cup on his broad palm and gazed about
appreciatively at the casts and water-colors
on the dull green walls.
" Very snug little quarters, these," he
volunteered, " but, do you know, Cousin
Jule, I suppose it s all right for ladies,
JULIA THE APOSTATE
but I don t seem to breathe extra well in
these little rooms, somehow ! I ve been
in two or three of them like this, more
or less, since I came to New York
people I used to know that I ve been
hunting up and, by George, I began
to feel as if I was getting red in the face,
if you see what I mean."
"Yes, indeed, Cousin Lorando, I do,"
returned Miss Trueman eagerly, " I see
exactly. And not having any cellar
you ve no idea ! Nor any attic, either.
And often and often we have the gas
lighted all through breakfast. Of course
there are a great many conveniences," she
added loyally, " and there s no doubt it
saves steps. But I almost think I d
rather take em."
He nodded.
" What s become of the old place,
Cousin Jule ? I judge you ve been out
of it some time ? "
" Two years, Cousin Lorando. The
girls had been boarding up to then, and
[233]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
when Aunt Martha died they got up this
plan for me to come down and live with
them, for they couldn t afford it quite,
alone, and then I could chaperon them."
Aunt Julia delivered herself of this
phrase with a certain complacency. Mr.
Bean looked up sharply.
" That means that nobody gets a show
to abduct em while you re around, I
take it ? " he inquired.
" We-ell, not exactly," she demurred.
" But that s the idea ? I thought so.
Yes. How old is Lizzie now ? Thirty? "
C Oh, no, Cousin Lorando ; L Elise
isn t twenty-nine yet. Carolyn is about
thirty."
" I don t seem to recall any one chap
eroning you and Hattie when you were
thirty," he suggested thoughtfully.
She laughed involuntarily.
" Oh, Hattie was married, Cousin
Lorando, and the children were ten years
old ! And, anyway, it was different
then."
C 2 34]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
" The girls were just as pretty, I
guess," he insisted. " And there were
plenty of buggies, if anybody had de
signs."
There was a pause, and the buzz of
voices from the other room rose loudly.
" They Ve neither of them got their
mother s looks," he observed ; and then,
with apparent irrelevance : " When will
they be considered safe to go about
alone ? "
" I don t know exactly what you
mean," she began a little coldly, but his
laugh reassured her.
" Oh, yes, you do," he contradicted,
" and don t you be getting cross at your
Cousin Lorando Bean ! You know I
always loved to tease you ; it made your
eyes snap and it does now."
" How can you ? " She looked re
proachfully at him.
" And I tell you this, Cousin Jule :
neither of those girls will ever get up a
color like that ! "
JULIA THE APOSTATE
She shook her head, but she was not
displeased. He took out a fat choco
late-colored cigar and fingered it wist
fully.
" I suppose I mustn t smoke ? " he
queried.
Her quick answer surprised herself.
" I should hope you could, if that
woman can ! "
" Which one ? "
" That Mrs. Ranger, the one near the
samovar that big brass thing. Liz
Elise didn t introduce her to you. They
don t introduce people the way they do
at home, Cousin Lorando I hope you
didn t mind. They think it s awkward."
" Oh, Lord, no, I don t mind. I can
spare her, anyway. She s checked up
too high for me. But she can look you
through pretty thoroughly, can t she ? "
" She writes books," Miss Trueman
returned, the finality of her tone indicat
ing that she had explained any possible
idiosyncrasy of the lady in question.
[236]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
" Oh, I see. And the little red-haired
one, does she write books, too ? "
" No ; she s an artist. She smokes
too, though. Not cigars, like yours,
but cigarettes. She s supposed to be a
very good painter, but she doesn t make
what Carrie lyn makes. The girls have
very good positions in Miss Abrams
school."
" Um, what do they get, now ? "
Miss Trueman mentioned the modest
sum with pride.
" And then with my money and what
we get from the rent of the place the
girls and I each have a third, you know
we do very nicely."
" So you rented the place ? "
" Yes, Cousin Lorando, though I
hated to. But I wouldn t sell it, though
they wanted me to. I just couldn t."
" I know."
He lighted his cigar and puffed at it
in meditative silence for a moment, while
the babble from the parlor floated in
[237]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
with the odor of the Ceylon tea and
cigarettes.
"That s what I came about. Cousin
Jule the old place. You may think it s
queer, for I never lived there but two
years once, when father and your Uncle
Joe farmed it on shares ; but those two
years just made it home to me. Of
course Uncle Joe wasn t any real relation
of mine, and you-all weren t my real
cousins, but it was the only family I ever
had, so to say, and I loved every one of
you. Then we moved back into town ;
but you know I came in every week or
so, and Aunt Martha used to have my
room in the attic ready for me, just the
same."
" Yes, I know ; Aunt Martha never
forgot you, Cousin Lorando."
"Well, it s fifteen years since I saw
the old place, and a lot s happened since
then, I tell you. First place, I m a rich
man, Cousin Jule.
" Oh, I don t mean one of these multi-
JULIA THE APOSTATE
millionaires you have about here, for I
haven t even seven figures opposite my
name ; but short of that I did very well
for myself out West there, and I earned
it all fair, too though I was pretty
lucky, and that counts.
" Anyhow, never mind about that.
Only I ve got enough to have anything
I want, and to give my friends some
thing, too. So as soon as I got back
East I went straight down to the farm.
But it was all shut up and a kind of
green hedge where the fence used to be,
and I judged it was sold, and I felt
pretty sore about it, so I came right
away."
" They only come there in June," Miss
Trueman explained, " and they go back
before Thanksgiving."
"Yes. Well, I didn t know that."
He waited again for a few seconds, and
Miss Trueman sat in respectful silence
till he should continue.
"You see, I d been East once before,
[>39]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
eight years ago, but I didn t see the farm
then," he said finally.
" I got married while I was West."
His audience of one started slightly.
" She s dead now/ he added abruptly.
cc Oh, Cousin Lorando "
" You needn t bother about the sym
pathy, my dear, for there s none needed.
I hadn t been with her for a good while.
I saw her in a concert-hall out there, and
she had curly hair and a kind of taking
way with her, and so I married her. I d
just made a big hit, and she wanted to
come to New York, and we came. We
went to a big hotel, and it was dress-
suits for me and diamonds for her, and
we drove in a carriage in the park in the
afternoon. She liked it, but I soon got
enough. I don t care much for that sort
of thing. She wanted to go to the thea
tre and see the girls that she d been one
of, you see, from the other side of the
curtain. And she saw a man there she
used to know, and well, it turned out
she liked him better, that s all."
[240]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
" Oh, Cousin Lorando, how terrible
for her ! "
" Urn, yes. She didn t think it was
specially terrible, J guess, though. She
just packed up and went."
"Went?"
" Yes with him, you see. Diamonds
and all. I got a divorce, of course.
And she wasn t such a bad lot, after all,
for he hadn t any money to speak of,
compared to me. It was the man she
wanted. Well, she got him."
" How awful ! " Miss Trueman mur
mured.
" Oh, yes, I felt pretty sick for a while.
But we hadn t been any too happy be
fore she saw him, you see. It was a big
mistake. She wasn t exactly the kind of
woman you d be apt to know, you see.
So perhaps I got off easier than I de
served. But I never would have mar
ried while she was alive. Not but what
I had a right to, you understand, but I
guess I m old-fashioned more ways than
one. I read about her death a year or
JULIA THE APOSTATE
so ago. I don t believe she had any too
good a time herself. She had an awful
temper. But she certainly did have
pretty hair/ he concluded thoughtfully.
Miss Trueman gasped.
" So I didn t want to see New York
again ; I just hated the place. And this
time I only came because I found out
you and the girls were here, and you
were about all there was left. People
die so. And I wanted to find out about
the old place. I wanted to buy it, if I
could, when I thought it was sold."
" But, Cousin Lorando, I couldn t sell
it!"
cc Oh, no, I s pose not. Still, I might
buy out the girls thirds and rent yours,
couldn t I ? I d pay you as much and
more than anybody else would, I guess.
And you could keep your interest. And
keep half of the house, for that matter,
to use when you wanted it s big
enough."
"Why, yes, I don t see why I couldn t
[242]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
do that," she said thoughtfully. " That
would be nice."
"You see, I m willing to make any
arrangement, Cousin Jule. It s about
all there is that I m fond of now, that
old place. I haven t any folks of my
own, and not a chick nor child, and I
love every stick and stone of that farm.
I love the country, and I love Connecti
cut country best of all, I don t care if it
is rocky. You can t make farming pay
in New England any more. But I don t
need to make it pay ; I m willing to pay
for the pleasure of it. And I want to do
something for the town, too. I want
em to be glad I came to settle there.
Who s got the keys ? "
" I have, right here," she answered.
" The furniture is all ours, you see ; they
haven t brought much, only they ve
changed things all around. I haven t
renewed the lease yet for this year."
"Well, now, look here, Jule," Mr.
Bean cried eagerly, dropping the end of
JULIA THE APOSTATE
his cigar into a bonbon-dish on the little
side-table, " why don t you run right up
there with me to-night, and we ll look it
all over and sort of plan it out ? We
can go up on the six-thirty, and get there
by half-past ten, and stop at the hotel,
and be there all ready to look it over
to-morrow. Now, how s that ? "
"Why, but, Cousin Lorando I
there isn t time I hadn t planned "
" Lord, neither had I, but what s the
difference ? If you want a thing done,
go and do it yourself. Wouldn t you
like to go? It s lovely up there; the
spring s coming on fast, you know. I
got lots of pussy-willow, and some little
fellows told me there were May-flowers
somewhere. You ll see more grass in a
minute there than you can hunt up here
in a week. Come on, Cousin Jule ! "
" I believe I will ! " said Miss True-
man, with conviction.
" Just pack up a bag for your aunt,
Carrie, while I get a cab," said Mr.
[244]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
Bean from the doorway. " We re going
up to the old place I m thinking of
buying it. I expect we ll be back to
morrow."
" Your cousin appears to be a person
of decision," Mrs. Ranger suggested to
the still dazed Elise, as the cab rolled
away.
" I don t understand Aunt Ju-ju at
all," Carolyn interpolated crossly. She
had not been in the habit of packing her
aunt s bag. " She usually makes such a
fuss about starting to go anywhere days
ahead, in fact. And now at fifteen min
utes notice! And her best gown!"
cc It makes a difference, having a man
to run it," said the novelist sagely.
When two days had passed and their
aunt had not yet appeared, her nieces
were not unnecessarily alarmed, for her
attachment to her old home was great,
and it required no unusual degree of
imagination to picture her delighted
lingering over the old things, her pur-
[245]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
posely prolonged transaction of business
details. But four days of unexplained
absence had its effect upon their own
little menage; and when a week s visit
had been accomplished and their be
seeching letters had elicited only vague
postal cards explaining nothing, but sug
gesting their presence at the farm, they
became convinced of the necessity for
action on their part, and went, more or
less in the presumable spirit of the
mountain in search of the fractious
Prophet.
Tired and cross after four hours* travel
on an incredibly hot ist of April, they
walked sternly up the board walk that
led to the old-style porch, to be greeted
by their cousin, who sat in snowy shirt
sleeves, tilted back in his chair against
the house, smoking his fat, dark cigar.
"Welcome home, girls glad to see
you ! " he called cheerily. " Here they
are, Jule ! Now don t be afraid, but
come right out and see them ! "
JULIA THE APOSTATE
cc Why, bless your heart, Lorando,
I m not afraid," a familiar voice an
swered; and Aunt Julia appeared before
them, cool in blue checked gingham,
with an enveloping white apron and
familiarly floury hands.
" I m just beating up some biscuit for
tea," she explained, " but I guess you
can shake hands with me, girls " ; and as
she extended both arms hospitably they
saw upon her floured left hand an un
mistakable shining gold band.
" Aunt Jule ! " they gasped together.
"Are you is it "
" That s it exactly," said Cousin Lo
rando Bean. " She is. And I hope
you ll congratulate her, girls, though no
body knows better than I what a good
housekeeper you ve lost ! I ll tell you
the facts of the matter, and you can
judge for yourself. If ever two people
were made for each other, those two are
your Aunt Jule and me. We love the
country, and we love this farm, and what s
JULIA THE APOSTATE
very important, we love the same way
of living."
"That s quite true, Carrie lyn," Aunt
Julia interposed, the tears in her eyes,
but a new decision in her voice.
" I like my tea at night, and so does
your Cousin Lorando. And I should
have wanted gravy on my potato if I
lived to be a hundred. And, Carrie, I
could not live without a cellar!
" And if you knew how nervous I got
when that old dumb-waiter in the kitchen
used to whistle for the things to be put
on it ! I used to hate it so sometimes
I d wake up in the night and think I
heard it ! Once I lost my temper at it,
and I answered it back: C I haven t any
thing to go down, and I wouldn t give it
to you if I had! "
".Why, Aunt Jule ! " they cried.
"And I tell you, Carrie, when you
have cleaned house regularly, spring and
fall, for forty years, ever since you were
born, it makes an awful break to give it
[248]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
up ! And I do love a good crayon
portrait."
They looked at each other in silence.
" And when you have a set of furni
ture, it makes me nervous not to have it
set together," Aunt Julia went on de
terminedly.
" And I will not have a woman smoking
in my house !
" And oh, Carrie, if you knew how I
suffered with that dirty darky girl ! "
" But but, Aunt Jule, why didn t
you"
" You see, Carrie and Lizzie, it was
this way," said Mr. Bean soothingly.
" Your aunt and I got talking old
times, and we found that we both felt
about the same. And after we d looked
the old house over together a day or two,
she couldn t seem to leave it, somehow,
and she couldn t live in it alone, and I
always wanted it.
" So I said, c If you ll just step over to
the parson s, across the street, with me,
[249]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
we ll fix this all right in about ten
minutes. You ve known me ever since
I was a boy, and I ve known you, and it s
nobody s business but ours if we want to
finish up together. I may have said a
few other things, too, but that s neither
here nor there. And when she said
what would the girls do, I told her that
what with the full price of their interest
in the farm, and her third that she could
add to it for a sort of wedding-present,
you see I didn t see but what you could
well afford to take a trip to Europe and
stay about as long as you liked she said
you wanted to do that more than any
thing; though why I don t know
Connecticut ought to be good enough
for anybody ! "
They sank upon the porch steps,
sincerely overcome.
" I knew you d like it whe.n you came
to know it all," said Aunt Julia placidly.
" He s the kindest man "
And to their excited eyes the very
[250]
JULIA THE APOSTATE
tidies on the geometrically arranged
chairs, the bright rag rugs on the floor,
the biscuits and preserves consecrated to
their New England tea, yes, even the
insistent shirt-sleeves of Cousin Lorando
Bean, were lighted by a halo of content.
MRS. DUD S SISTER
MRS. DUD S SISTER
THEY were having tea on the ter
race. As Varian strolled up to the
group he wished that Hunter could
see the picture they made Hunter, who
had not been in America for thirty years,
and who had been so honestly surprised
when Varian had spoken of Mrs. Dud s
pretty maids she always had pretty ones,
even to the cook s third assistant.
"Maids? Maids? It used to be
c help, " he had protested. " You don t
mean to say they have waitresses in
Binghamville now ? "
Varian had despaired of giving him
any idea.
" Come over and see Mrs. Dud," he
[>55]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
had urged, " and do her portrait. We ve
moved on since you left us, you know.
She s a wonder she really is. When
you remember how she used to carry her
father s dinner to the store Saturday
afternoons "
cc And now I suppose she sports real
Mechlin on her cap," assented Hunter,
anxious to show how perfectly he caught
the situation.
Varian had roared helplessly. " Cap ?
Cap ! " he had moaned finally. " Oh, my
sainted granny ! Cap ! My poor fellow,
your view of Binghamville must be like
the old maps of Africa in the green geog
raphy, that said c desert and interior
and c savage tribes from time to time.
I should like awfully to see Mrs. Dud in
a cap.
Hunter had looked puzzled.
" But, dear me ! she might very well
wear one, I should think," he had mur
mured defensively. " I don t wish to be
invidious, but surely Lizzie must be
[256]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
let s see ; eighty, ninety why, she must
be between forty-five and fifty now."
Varian had waved his hand dramati
cally. " Nobody considers Mrs. Dud and
time in the same breath. If you could
see her in her golf rig ! Or on a horse !
She even sheds a lustre on the rest of
us. I forget my rheumatism ! "
But Hunter, retreating behind his de
termination to avoid a second seasick
ness itmight have been sincere ; nobody
ever knew had stayed in Florence, and
Varian had been obliged to come without
him to the house-party.
On a straw cushion, a cup in her strong
white hand, a bunch of adoring young
girls at her feet, sat Mrs. Dud. Rosy and
firm-cheeked, crisp in stiff white duck,
deliciously contrasted with her fluffy Pa
risian parasol, she scorned the softening
ruffles of her presumable contempora
ries ; her delicately squared chin, for the
most part held high, showed a straight
white collar under a throat only a little
[257]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
fuller than the girlish ones all around
her.
Old Dudley himself strolled about the
group, gossiping here and there with
some pretty woman, sending the grave
servants from one to another with some
particularly desirable sandwich, " rub
bing it in," as he said to the men who
had failed to touch his score on the links,
tantalizingly uncertain as to which one
of the young women he would invite to
lead the cotillon with him at the club
dance that week : none of the young men
could take his place at that, as they them
selves enviously admitted.
What a well-matched couple it was !
What a lot they got out of life ! Varian
walked quietly by the group, to enjoy
better the pretty, modish picture they
made. Their quick chatter, their bursts
of laughter, the sweet faint odor of the
tea, the gay dresses and light flannels,
with the quiet, sombrely attired servants
to add tone, all gave him, fresh from
MRS. DUD S SISTER
Hunter s quick sense of the effective, an
appreciation that gained force from his
separateness ; he walked farther away to
get a different point of view.
He was out of any path now, and sud
denly, hardly beyond reach of their
voices, he found himself in a part of
the grounds he had never approached be
fore. A thick high hedge shut in a kind
of court at the side and back of the great
house, and a solid wooden door, carefully
matched to its green, left open by acci
dent, showed a picture so out of line with
the succession of vivid scenes that daz
zled the visitor at Wilton Bluffs that
he stopped involuntarily. The rectangle
was carpeted with the characteristic
emerald turf of the place, divided by in
tersecting red brick paths into four regu
lar squares. In the farther corner of each
of these a trim green clothes-tree was
planted, all abloom with snowy fringed
napkins that shone dazzling white against
the hedge. One of the squares was a
l>59]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
neat little kitchen-garden ; parsley was
there in plenty, and other vaguely famil
iar green things, curly-leaved and spear-
pointed. A warm gust of wind brought
mint to his nostrils. A second plot held
a small crab-apple tree covered with pink
and orange globes. A great tortoise-shell
cat with two kittens ornamented the
third, and in the middle of the fourth, be
side a small wooden table, a woman sat
with her back toward the intruder. On
the table were one or two tin boxes and
a yellow earthen dish ; in her left hand,
raised to the shoulder-level, was a tall
thin bottle, from which an amber fluid
dripped in an almost imperceptibly thin
stream; her right arm stirred vigorously.
She was a middle-aged woman with
lightly grayed hair a kind of premoni
tory powdering. Over her full skirt of
lavender-striped cotton stuff fell a broad,
competent white apron. Except for the
thudding of the spoon against the bowl,
and a faint, homely echo of clashing
MRS. DUD S SISTER
china and tin, mingled with occasionally
raised voices and laughter from some
farther kitchen region, all was utterly,
placidly still.
Varian stood chained to the open gate.
Something in the calm sun-bathed pict
ure tugged strongly at his heart. He
thought suddenly of his mother and his
Aunt Delia he had been very fond of
Aunt Delia. And what cookies she used
to make ! Molasses cookies, brown,
moist, and crumbly, they had sweetened
his boyhood.
What was it, that delighted sense of
congruity that filled him, every passing
second, with keener familiarity, so
strangely tinged with sorrow and regret ?
Ah, he had it ! He bit his lip as it came
clear to him. His little namesake neph
ew, dead at eight years old, and dear
as only a dearly loved child can be, had
delighted greatly in the Kate Greenaway
pictures that came in " painting-books,"
with colored prints on alternate pages
MRS. DUD S SISTER
and corresponding outlines on the others.
Dozens of those books the boy had clev
erly filled in with his little japanned
paint-box and mussy, quill-handled
brushes ; and the scene before him, the
rich tints of the hedge, the symmetrical
little tree brilliant with hundreds of tiny
globes, the big white apron, the lazy yel
low cats, and everywhere the prim rec
tangular lines so amusingly conventional
to accentuate the likeness, almost choked
him with the suddenness of the recog
nition. They must have colored that
very picture a dozen times, Tommy
and he.
Half unconsciously he rested his arms
on the top of the gate and drifted into
revery. He forgot that he was at Wilton
Bluffs, one of the greatest of the country
palaces, and lived for a while in a min
gled vision of his boyhood on the old
farm and in the land of the Greenaway
painting-books.
Suddenly a door opened into the green.
[262]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
A housemaid advanced to the table, bear
ing in both red hands a long tray covered
with a napkin. On the napkin lay, heaped
in rich confusion, a great pile of spicy,
smoking brown cookies.
" They re just out o the oven," she
began, but Varian could contain himself
no longer. He could not be deceived:
he would have known those cookies in
the Desert of Sahara. He crossed the
little plot in three long steps, and faced
the astonished maid.
" I beg your pardon," he said firmly,
" but it is very necessary that I should
have one of those cookies ! I hope you
can spare one ? "
She giggled convulsively.
cc I I guess you can, sir," she mur
mured, laying down the tray and re
treating toward the house door.
Varian faced the older woman, and,
with hat still in hand, instinctively bowed
lower ; for this was no housekeeper
he was sure of that. Even as she met his
[263]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
eyes a great flood of pink rushed to her
smooth forehead, and she dropped her
lids as she bowed slightly. He reflected
irrelevantly that he had never seen Mrs.
Dudley blush in his life.
" You are very welcome to all you
wish, I am sure," she said graciously.
"I I didn t know any one liked them
but me. I always have them made for
me I taught her the rule. I always
call them" she laughed nervously, and
it dawned on him that this woman was
really shy and " talking against time,"
as they said "I always call them c Aunt
Delia s cookies. They "
"Aunt Delia s cookies!" he inter
rupted. " What Aunt Delia ? "
"Aunt Delia Parmentre," she re
turned, a little surprised, evidently, at
this stranger, who, with a straw sailor-hat
in one hand and a warm molasses cooky
in the other, stared so intently at her.
"She wasn t really my aunt, of course "
" But she was mine ! " he burst out,
[264]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
" and these are her cookies, and no mis
take. Who are you ? "
Again she flushed, but more lightly.
" I am Miss Redding," she said with
a gentle dignity, " Mrs. Wilton s sister."
He stared at her vaguely.
"Mrs. Wilton oh! you re her sis
ter? I didn t know " He stopped
abruptly. As his confusion grew, her
own faded away.
"You didn t know she had one?" she
asked, almost mischievously.
" I didn t know you were here," he
recovered himself. "You ve never been
with Mrs. Dud before, have you ? "
" No, not here when there was com
pany," she said.
He hardly noticed the words ; his
mind was groping among past histories.
"Her sister her sister," he mut
tered. " Why, then," with an illumi
nating smile, " I used to go to school with
you ! I m Tom Varian ! "
She smiled and held out her hand.
[265]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
"I m very glad to see you," she said
cordially. " Won t you " She looked
about for a chair, but he dropped on the
grass at her feet.
"You ve changed since we met last,"
he remarked, biting into his cooky. She
looked at his bronzed face and thick sil
vered hair and nodded thoughtfully.
" I was six years old then," she said ;
" and you were one of the ( big boys
you were fourteen."
" That s a long while," he suggested
laughingly.
" It is thirty-six years," she replied
simply.
He winced. His associates were not
accustomed to be so scrupulously accu
rate. It seemed indecently long ago.
And yet there was a certain charm, now
one faced it, a quaint halo of interest.
" You used to hand me water in a tin
dipper," he said.
She nodded. " Yes, that was for a
reward, when I was good," she said
[266]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
seriously. " I could hand the water to
the big boys. I was very proud of it.
You drank a great deal."
He chuckled. " I was born thirsty,"
he acknowledged. "By George, how
it comes back ! I can see it now, that
school-house! Funny little red thing
remember how it looked ? Big shelf
around the sides for a desk, and another
under that for the books ? Bench all
round the room to sit on, and we just
whopped our legs over and faced round
to recite? And carved Lord! I don t
believe there was an inch of the wood,
all told, that was clear ! I nearly cut
my thumb off there, one day."
" One of the big girls fainted away,"
she added, " and they laid her on the
floor and told me to bring a dipper of
water ; but my hand shook so I spilled it
all over my apron, and she came to be
fore we got more. I was very timid."
He began on another cooky.
" Did you have two pigtails ? And
MRS. DUD S SISTER
striped stockings?" he inquired, his eyes
fixed reminiscently on the hedge.
She nodded softly.
" And played some game with stones?
I can t just remember "
" It was houses," she reminded him.
" We little girls used to make little
houses just marked out with stones
in squares on the ground ; and if you
boys felt like it, you d bring us big flat
stones to eat our dinner on."
"Ah, yes ! " It all came back to him.
"And then you d race off to get flag-root
or something, and "
"And gobble our dinner as we ran. It
was fun, all the same," she added.
" But what a mite you were, to be in
school ! " he said wonderingly. " What
under heaven did you study?"
" I don t remember at all," she con
fessed. " But I suppose I spelled. Do
you remember the spelling-matches ?
And how you big ones wanted to ( leave
off head ?"
MRS. DUD S SISTER
He chuckled. " I should say I did !
And sometimes the greatest idiot would
c leave off head because there wasn t any
more time. It was maddening ! "
He munched in silence for a while, and
she did not dream of interrupting.
"In the winter, though George! but
it was cold ! We used to positively swim
through the drifts. I tell you, there
aren t any such snows now ! How did
you get there ? "
" I only went in the summer," she
said ; " and I used to come in all stained
with the berries I ate along the way. It
was dreadful " she grew stern, as if ad
dressing the little girl in striped stock
ings and pigtails "the way I ate berries !
I used to eat the bushes clean on the way
to school ! "
She had got over her first shyness, and
had gained time to realize her big apron,
which she hastily untied. He caught the
motion and protested.
" No, no ! Keep it on ! I haven t
MRS. DUD S SISTER
seen a woman a lady in an apron for
years ! Please keep it on ! And do go
on with the the mess in the dish ! "
"The mess" she bent her brows re
provingly "it s mayonnaise sauce. But
I don t think"
He jumped up to put the bowl in her
lap. A sudden twinge in his knee wrung
an involuntary groan from him. He
walked a little stiffly toward her.
" You have rheumatism ! And you
sat all the time on that damp grass ! "
she cried reproachfully. " I thought at
first it was the craziest thing to do, but
I didn t dare say so."
He ignored the charge but smiled at
the confession.
"And now you re not afraid?"
She blushed again. It was very be
coming.
"It seems it seems foolish to act like
strangers when it s been so long we re
member so well " She sighed a little.
He studied her face so like her sister s
[270]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
and so utterly different. The same gray
eyes, but calm and drooped ; the same
clear white skin, but a fuller, yes, a more
matronly face, a riper, sweeter, more rest
ful curve. The soft dark shadows that
accentuated Mrs. Dudley s eyes were
lacking ; a group of tiny wrinkles at the
corners gave her instead a pleasant, hu
morous regard that her sister s literal
directness missed utterly.
Nervous under his scrutiny, she rose
hastily, and before he could prevent her
she had brought him a roomy arm-chair
from the house.
"At our age there s no use in running
risks," she said simply, " you ought
not to sit on the grass ; leave that for
the young folks."
Again he winced, but dropped with
relief into the chair.
" Oh, one must keep up with the pro
cession, you know ! " he said lightly.
She made no reply ; and as she lifted
the bottle and began to beat the yellow
MRS. DUD S SISTER
mass again, it occurred to him that the
remark was exceptionally silly.
" Does it have to go in slowly like
that the whole bottleful?" he inquired
lazily.
She nodded. " Or it curdles," she
explained. " The cook sprained his
wrist yesterday. He never allows any
body to make the mayonnaise he can t
trust them and I was glad to do it for
him. He says mine is as good as his.
Did you ever see him ? "
" Well, no/ Varian returned. " But
he doesn t need to be seen to be appre
ciated."
A strange suspicion crept over him.
" Do you often Do you do much
How is it that you " He could not
say it properly. Was it possible that
Mrs. Dud It was unworthy of her!
She caught his meaning, and her cool
gray eyes met his with their uncompro
mising directness. He seemed convicted
of unnecessary shuffling.
[272]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
" Oh, Lizzie asked me not to do any
thing," she said quietly. " She wanted
me to enjoy myself with her friends. But
I m not used to so much society, and I
don t want to be any hinderance. I m
not so young as I used to be. I d have
liked the gayety well enough when I was
a girl, but I guess it tires me a little now.
There seems to be so much going on all
the time. Lizzie says she s resting, but
it wouldn t rest me. Do you find it so?"
He recalled his yesterday s programme :
driving a pulling team all the morning ;
carrying Mrs. Dud s heavy bag over the
links all the afternoon she preferred
her friends to caddies ; prompting for
the dramatics rehearsal, with a poor light,
all the evening, while the actors gossiped
and squabbled and flirted contentedly.
" It is not always restful," he ad
mitted.
" It makes my head ache," she re
marked placidly. " I like to see the
girls enjoy themselves. I m glad they re
[273]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
happy some of those visiting Lizzie
are so pretty ! but I m glad I haven t
got to run about so much. I m very
fond of driving myself, if I have a good
quiet horse that won t shy and doesn t go
fast, and Lizzie has one for me a white
one that s gentle and I drive about in
the phaeton a great deal. The doctor
that came that night were you here ?
when Mrs. Page fainted and they couldn t
bring her to (it seems she was in the habit
of taking some medicine to make her
sleep, and it weakened her heart) asked
me if I wouldn t like to take out some
patients of his, and so I called for a very
nice lady a Mrs. Williams ; you prob
ably don t know her ? and after that a
young girl with spinal trouble, and and
several others. They seemed to enjoy
it, and I m sure I did. Once I took a
young girl that s staying here she had
a bad headache. She was a sweet girl,
and I liked her. She said the drive
helped her a great deal. It s astonish-
MRS. DUD S SISTER
ing " her eyes met his wonderingly
" how much trouble you can have, with
all the money you want ! I I was
sorry for her," she added, half to her
self.
Before he thought he leaned forward,
took her hand with the silver tablespoon
in it, and kissed it gently. He admired
her as he would admire some charming
soft pastel hung in a cool white room.
" How sweet and good you are !" he
said warmly ; and then, to cover her deep
embarrassment and his own sudden emo
tion, he continued quickly, "Are you
very busy in the morning, always ? "
" There are different things," she mur
mured, still looking at her spoon. cc I
have letters to write I keep up with a
good many old friends in Binghamville
and Albany, where I lived with my mar
ried niece ten years, till they moved
West. I loved her children ; I half
brought them up. One died ; I can t
seem to get over it " Her eyes filled,
MRS. DUD S SISTER
and she made no effort to cover two tears
that slipped over.
Varian took her hand again. " I know
about that I know ! " he said softly.
" Then there are my flowers ; I do so
enjoy the beds and the greenhouses here,"
she went on more cheerfully. cc The
gardeners are very kind to me I think
they like to have me come in. Mr.
McFadden gives me a good many slips
and cuttings. I love flowers dearly.
Then I read a good deal, and there is
always some little thing to do for the
young girls here. They the ones I
know come in for a moment while I
mend something, or pin their things in
the back, and it s surprising how much
there is to do ! They fly about so they
can t stop to take care of their things.
They talk to me while I set them straight,
and it s very interesting. I tell Lizzie I
go out a great deal, just hearing about
their adventures, when she drops in to
see me. She never forgets me ; she brings
[276]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
somebody to my sitting-room every day
or so that she thinks I d enjoy meeting
and I always do. She never makes a
mistake."
" Oh, she s wonderful/ Varian agreed
easily. " There s nobody like Mrs. Dud,
of course."
She stopped her work a moment and
looked curiously at him.
" What do you mean by that ? " she
asked. "You all say it in just that
way ; but I don t think I quite see what
you mean. Why is she wonderful ?
Because she looks so young ? "
" That, in the first place," Varian re
turned, with a smile, " but not only
that."
" Of course that is very strange," she
mused. "Now Lizzie is three years
older than I. You would never think it,
would you ? "
"No," he agreed, still smiling; "but
then, Mrs. Dud looks younger than every
body. It is her specialty. I think what
[277]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
we mean," he continued, " is her amazing
capacity ; she does so much, so ridicu
lously much, and so much better than
other people. We try to keep up with
things your sister is a little bit ahead.
She seems to have always been doing the
very latest thing, you see. And all her
responsibilities, her various affairs it
makes one s head swim ! The women
have set themselves a tremendous field
to cover nowadays, and when one suc
ceeds so admirably " He paused.
She shook her head thoughtfully.
" But everything is done for her ! " she
protested. " Why, I have never yet seen
all the servants in this house ! And you
know there is a housekeeper? Lizzie
sees her a little while in the morning,
that s all. And she never sews a stitch
there s a seamstress here all the time, you
know, and that has nothing to do with
the clothes that come home in boxes.
And little Dudley has his tutor, and his
old nurse that looks after his clothes.
[478]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
What is it that she does to make it so
wonderful ? "
He only smiled at her perplexity, and
she added confidentially :
" Lizzie wanted me to go to her dress
maker, but I didn t like the idea of a
man, to begin with, and then I knew Miss
Simms would feel so hurt. She lives in
Albany, and she s made my dresses for so
long that I thought, though she may not
be so stylish, I d better keep up with her ;
wouldn t you ? "
A perfectly unreasonable tenderness
surged through his heart. How sweet she
was !
"If she made that dress, I certainly
should ! " he declared.
She smoothed the crisp lavender folds
deprecatingly.
" Oh, this is only a cotton dress," she
said. " But she made my gray silk, too,
and Lizzie herself said it fitted beautifully.
She took up the bottle again : it was
nearly empty.
[ 2 79]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
" Now my mother," she began, " she
was wonderful, if you like. Do you
know what my mother used to do ? We
lived on the farm, you know, like yours,
and most of the work of that farm mother
did. She did the cooking for all the
hired hands, too ; she made the butter,
and took care of the hens ; she made the
candles and the soap ; she made the car
pets and all our clothes my brothers ,
too ; and she put up preserves and jellies
and cordials, and did the most beautiful
embroidery ; I have some of mother s
embroidered collars, and I can t do any
thing like them."
"It was tremendous," he said. " My
Aunt Delia did that, too."
"We were old-fashioned, even for
then," she said. " Everybody didn t do
so much, of course, as we did. Lizzie
says we were just on the edge of the new
age. It certainly is different. And of
course I wouldn t go back to it for any
thing. After we came back from board-
MRS. DUD S SISTER
ing-school it was all changed. We
moved, then, nearer the town. But, do
you know, my mother went to singing-
school, and Lizzie was looking that up
in a book, the other day, to see what they
did she wanted it for a party! "
He laughed. " That is delicious ! "
he said.
" See what I found to-day ! " she added,
drawing a small object from her pocket.
" I hunted it up to show Miss Porter to
night. She was so interested when I told
her about it."
She showed him, with a tender amuse
ment, a little slender white silk mitten.
Around the wrist was embroidered in
dark blue a legend in Old English script.
He puzzled it out : A Whig or no Hus
band!
" That was mother s," she said, cc the
girls wore them then. She was quite a
belle, mother was ! And when people
ask me how Lizzie does so much, I say
that she inherits it. But at her age
MRS. DUD S SISTER
mother was broken down and old. She
had to be. There were nine of us, and
here there s only little Dudley, and it was
so long before he came."
They sat quietly. The setting sun
flamed through the crab-apples and
burnished the fur of the tortoise-shell
cat. The mint smelled strong. The
sweet, mellow summer evening was re
flected in her handsome face, with its
delicate lines, that only added a restful
charm to forehead and cheek. He had
no need to talk ; it was very, very pleas
ant sitting there.
A maid came out to get the mayon
naise, and the spell was broken. He took
out his watch.
" Just time to dress," he sighed. " Will
you be here again ? We must talk old
times once more."
She smiled and seemed to assent, but
her eyes were not on him ; she was still
in a revery. He walked softly away.
She seemed hardly to notice him, and
[282]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
his last backward glance found the quiet
of the picture unbroken ; again it was a
page from the Greenaway book.
He reached the terrace ; laughter and
applause from the piazza caught his ear.
Fresh from the atmosphere he had left,
he stared in amazement at the scene be
fore him.
Swift figures were scudding from one
to another of the four great elms that
marked out a natural rectangle on the
smooth side lawn.
" Puss ! puss ! Here, puss ! " a high
voice called, and a tall slender girl in a
swish of lace and pink draperies rushed
across one side of the square. A portly
trousered figure essayed to gain the tree
she had left, but a romping girl in white
caught him easily, while Mrs. Dud, the
tail of her gown thrown over her arm,
skimmed triumphantly across to her
partner s tree.
" One more, one more, colonel. You
can t give up, now you re caught ! One
[283]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
more before we go in ! " called the pink
girl.
"Here s Mr. Varian. Come and help
us out the colonel s beaten!" added
Mrs. Dud.
" Here, puss ! here, puss ! " With
excited little shrieks and laughs they
dashed by, the colonel making ineffec
tual grabs at their elusive skirts. Varian
shook his head good-naturedly.
" Too late, too late ! " he called back,
and taking pity on the puffing, purple
colonel, he bore him off.
"Thank God! I m just about winded!
I d have dropped in my tracks," com
plained the rescued man, breathing hard
as they rounded the shrubbery. In the
corner two figures, half seen in the dark,
leaned toward each other an impercep
tible moment. The colonel laughed
contentedly.
" When I see that sort of thing, I
think we ve made a mistake eh,
Varian ? " he said, half serious. " It s
[284]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
a poor job, getting old alone. Live at
the club, visit here and there, make
yourself agreeable to get asked again,
nobody to care if you re sick, always
play the other fellow s game little
monotonous after a while, eh ? "
Varian nodded. " Right enough," he
said,
" Different ending to their route ! "
suggested the colonel, jerking his elbow
back toward the two in the shrubbery.
" That s it ! " The answer was laconic,
but the pictures that swept through his
brain took on a precision and color that
half frightened him.
He had no idea how frequently he
dropped in at the little court behind the
hedge after that. Sometimes he sat and
mused alone there; more than once he
took a surreptitious afternoon nap. He
developed a dormant fancy for garden
ing, and walked with his new-old friend
contentedly among the deserted garden
paths. He studied her hair especially,
MRS. DUD S SISTER
wondering why it was that the little
tender flecks of white attracted him so.
At dinner he secretly tried to rouse in
himself the same desire to stroke the
gleaming silver fleece, high-dressed,
puffed, and ornamented with jet, of the
woman opposite him, whose hair, some
what prematurely turned snowy, had won
her a great vogue among her friends.
But he never succeeded. She was abso
lutely too effective. She turned the
simplest gathering to a fancy-dress ball,
he decided.
He had supposed that it was the
quaint privacy of their acquaintance that
charmed him particularly the feeling of
an almost double existence ; but when
Mrs. Dud, who, he afterwards reflected,
was of course omniscient, restrained her
self no longer, and thanked him with a
pretty sincerity for his delicate and ap
preciated courtesy, intimating charmingly
that she realized the personal motive, a
veil suddenly dropped. He gasped,
[286]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
shook himself, colored a little, and met
her eye.
"I m afraid I m not so kind as you
think," he said, a little awkwardly.
" I ve been an old fool, I see. Do you
think -is that the way she looks at it?"
"Mary?" said Mrs. Dud, wonder-
ingly. "Yes, I suppose so. Why?"
The naive egotism of the answer only
threw a softer light on the picture that
had grown to fill his thoughts. He
smiled inscrutably.
" Because in that case it is due to her
to undeceive her," he said. " I am glad
I have entertained her. I should like
to have the opportunity to do so in
definitely. Do you think there s a
chance for me?"
"What on earth do you mean?" asked
his hostess, in unassumed stupefaction.
" I mean, do you think she would
marry me ? " Varian brought out
plumply. " Is there was there ever
anybody else?"
[287]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
For one instant Mrs. Dud lost her
poise ; in her eyes he almost saw more
than she meant ; the sheer, flat blow of
it levelled her for a breath to the plane
of other and ordinary women. But even
as he thought it, it was gone. She put
out her hand; she smiled; she shook her
finger at him.
" I think, my friend, she would be a
fool not to marry you," she answered
him, clear-eyed; "and there was never,"
her tone was too sweet, he thought, to
carry but one meaning pleasure for him,
"there was never anybody else!"
Varian walked straight to the garden.
She was training a fiery wall of nas
turtiums with firm white fingers. It
occurred to him that he was ready to
give up the tally-ho, and the Berkshires,
and the scramble of pretty girls for the
place beside him, to sit quietly and watch
her among her flowers.
"I m getting old old!" he said to
himself, but he said it with a smile.
MRS. DUD S SISTER
For he knew that no boy s heart ever
beat more swiftly, no boy s tongue ever
sought more excitedly to find the right
words. But when he faced her a little
doubt chilled him: she was so calm and
complete, in her sunny, busy, balanced
life, that he feared to disturb that sweet
placidity. With an undercurrent of fear,
a sudden realization that he had no more
the blessed egotism of youth to drive
him on, he walked beside her, outwardly
content, at heart a little solitary. At
some light question he turned and faced
her.
"You could not have all the green
houses, but there could be plenty of
flowers," he said pleadingly.
"Flowers? Where?" she asked.
" Wherever we lived," he answered.
" And oh, Mary, I think we could be
happy together ! Don t say no ! " as
she shrank a little. " Don t, Mary, for
heaven s sake ! I care too much I
care terribly. I am too old a man to
[289]
MRS. DUD S SISTER
care so much and lose. . . . There,
there, my dear girl, never mind. I
can bear it, of course. Only I didn t
know I d planned it all out so, and
But never mind. I was going to have a
bay-window full of "
He turned away from her for a mo
ment. But her hand was on his arm.
cc We can plan it out together/ she
said.
He knew how she would blush ; he
had even dared to think how directly her
clear gray eyes would meet his her sky-
ness was never hesitation but he had
not dreamed how soft her hair could be.
[290]
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MIDDLE AGED LOVE STORIES
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WHOM THE GODS DESTROYED
A WIND FLOWER
WHEN PIPPA PASSED
THE BACKSLIDING OF HARRIET BLAKE
A BAYARD OF BROADWAY
A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE BOOKS
THE MAID OF THE MILL
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" It is bright, entertaining and wholesome.
Her girls are not all captivating creatures when
first introduced, but their redeeming qualities
are brought out with skill. There are nine of
the stories, and each one has a distinctive
charm . Sa ?i Francisco Argonaut. $1.25.
SMITH COLLEGE STORIES
"A highly interesting and picturesque young
person the Smith College girl as the author
presents her seems to be. She seems to be
just simply girl, and she could certainly be
nothing nicer." New York Sun. $1.50.
CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS, NEW YORK
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW
AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS
WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO 5O CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.
^CT -U-M-
FE6 21 1934
SEP 14 1939
(TITD ? 10x11
rtD to 1943
LD 2.1-100w-7, 33
YB 32165
592771
XS,
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
