The rise of Silas Lapham

ftp William Dean Jjotoeite.

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THE LADY OF THE AROOSTOOK.
THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY.
THE MINISTER'S CHARGE.
INDIAN SUMMER.
THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.
A FEARFUL RESPONSIBILITY.
A MODERN INSTANCE.
A WOMAN'S REASON.
DR. BREEN'S PRACTICE.

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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

THE EISE OF SILAS T.APHAM

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM

BY

WILLIAM D. HOWELLS

'AUTHOR OF '*A MODERN INSTANCE," "A WOMAN'S REASON," ETC.

BOSTON AND NEW YORK X v' i

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1884 AND I9l2i BY WILLIAM D. HOWELLS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PS
ac

R5

THE KISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

I.

WHEN Bartley Hubbard went to interview Silas
Lapham for the " Solid Men of Boston " series, which
he undertook to finish up in The Events, after he
replaced their original projector on that newspaper,
Lapham received him in his private office by previous
appointment.

" Walk right in !" he called out to the journalist,
whom he caught sight of through the door of the
counting-room.

He did not rise from the desk at which he was
writing, but he gave Bartley his left hand for welcome,
and he rolled his large head in the direction of a
vacant chair. " Sit down ! I '11 be with you in just
half a minute."

" Take your time," said Bartley, with the ease he
instantly felt. " I 'm in no hurry." He took a note
book from his pocket, laid it on his knee, and began
to sharpen a pencil.

" There ! " Lapham pounded- with his great hairy
fist on the envelope he had been addressing.

A

2 THE RISE OF

" William ! " he called out, and he handed the letter
to a boy who came to get it. " I want that to go
right away. Well, sir," he continued, wheeling
round in his leather-cushioned swivel-chair, and
facing Bartley, seated so near that their knees almost
touched, " so you want my life, death, and Christian
sufferings, do you, young man ? "

"That's what I'm after," said Bartley. "Your
money or your life."

" I guess you wouldn't want my life without the
money," said Lapham, as if he were willing to pro
long these moments of preparation.

"Take 'em both," Bartley suggested. "Don't
want your money without your life, if you come to
that. But you 're just one million times more inter
esting to the public than if you hadn't a dollar ; and
you know that as well as I do, Mr. Lapham. There 's
no use beating about the bush."

" No," said Lapham, somewhat absently. He put
out his huge foot and pushed the ground-glass door
shut between his little den and the book-keepers, in
their larger den outside.

"In personal appearance," wrote Bartley in the
sketch for which he now studied his subject, while
he waited patiently for him to » continue, "Silas
Lapham is a fine type of the successful American.
He has a square, bold chin, only partially concealed
by the short reddish-grey beard, growing to the
edges of his firmly closing lips. His nose is short
and straight ; his forehead good, but broad rather
than high ; his eyes blue, and with a light in them

SILAS LAPHAM. 3

that is kindly or sharp according to his mood. He
is of medium height, and fills an average arm-chair
with a solid bulk, which on the day of our interview
was unpretentiously clad in a business suit of blue
serge. His head droops somewhat from a short
neck, which does not trouble itself to rise far from
a pair of massive shoulders."

" I don't know as I know just where you want me
to begin," said Lapham.

" Might begin with your birth ; that 's where most
of us begin," replied Bartley.

A gleam of humorous appreciation shot into
Lapham's blue eyes.

" I didn't know whether you wanted me to go
quite so far back as that," he said. " But there 's no
disgrace in having been born, and I was born in the
State of Vermont, pretty well up under the Canada
line — so well up, in fact, that I came very near
being an adoptive citizen ; for I was bound to be an
American of some sort, from the word Go J That
was about — well, let me see !— pretty near sixty
years ago : this is '75, and that was '20. Well, say
I 'm fifty-five years old ; and I 've lived 'em, too ; not
an hour of waste time about me, anywheres ! I was
born on a farm, and "

" Worked in the fields summers and went to school
winters : regulation thing ? " Bartley cut in.

" Regulation thing," said Lapham, accepting this
irreverent version of his history somewhat dryly.

" Parents poor, of course," suggested the journalist.
" Any barefoot business 1 Early deprivations of any

4 THE RISE OF

kind, that would encourage the youthful reader to
go and do likewise 1 Orphan myself, you know,'1
said Bartley, with a smile of cynical good-comradery.

Lapham looked at him silently, and then said with
quiet self-respect, " I guess if you see these things as
a joke, my life won't inter^ you."

"Oh yes, it will," returned Bartley, unabashed.
11 You '11 see ; it '11 come out all right." And in fact
it did so, in the interview which Bartley printed.

" Mr. Lapham," he wrote, " passed rapidly over the
story of his early life, its poverty and its hardships,
sweetened, however, by the recollections of a devoted
mother, and a father who, if somewhat her inferior
in education, was no less ambitious for the advance
ment of his children. They were quiet, unpretentious
people, religious, after the fashion of that time, and
of sterling morality, and they taught their children
the simple virtues of the Old Testament and Poor
Richard's Almanac."

Bartley could not deny himself this gibe ; but he
trusted to Lapham's unliterary habit of mind for his
security in making it, and most other people would
consider it sincere reporter's rhetoric.

" You know, " he explained to Lapham, " that we
have to look at all these facts as material, and we
get the habit of classifying them. Sometimes a
leading question will draw out a whole line of facts
that a man himself would never think of." He
went on to put several queries, and it was from
Lapham's answers that he generalised the history of
his childhood. "Mr. Lapham, although he did not

SILAS LAPHAM. 5

dwell on his boyish trials and struggles, spoke of
them with deep feeling and an abiding sense of their
reality." This was what he added in the interview,
and by the time he had got Lapham past the period
where risen Americans are all pathetically alike in
their narrow circumstances, their sufferings, and
their aspirations, he had beguiled him into forget-
fulness of the check he had received, and had him
talking again in perfect enjoyment of his autobio
graphy.

"Yes, sir," said Lapham, in a strain which Bartley
was careful not to interrupt again, " a man never
sees all that his mother has been to him till it 's too
late to let her know that he sees it. Why, • my

mother " he stopped. " It gives me a lump in

the throat," he said apologetically, with an attempt
at a laugh. Then he went on : " She was a little,
frail thing, not bigger than a good-sized intermediate
school-girl ; but she did the whole work of a family
of boys, and boarded the hired men besides. She
cooked, swept, washed, ironed, made and mended
from daylight till dark — and from dark till daylight,
I was going to say ; for I don't know how she got
any time for sleep. But I suppose she did. She
got time to go to church, and to teach us to read
the Bible, and to misunderstand it in the old way.
She was good. But it ain't her on her knees in church
that comes back to me so much like the sight of an
angel as her on her knees before me at night, washing
my poor, dirty little feet, that I 'd run bare in all
day, and making me decent for bed. There were six

6 THE RISE OF

of us boys ; it seems to me we were all of a size ;
and she was just so careful with all of us. I can
feel her hands on my feet yet !" Bartley looked at
Lapham's No. 10 boots, and softly whistled through
his teeth. "We were patched all over; but we
wa'n't ragged. / don't know how she got through
it. She didn't seem to think it was anything ; and
I guess it was no more than my father expected of
her. He worked like a horse in doors and out — up
at daylight, feeding the stock, and groaning round
all day with his rheumatism, but not stopping."

Bartley hid a yawn over his note-book, and pro
bably, if he could have spoken his mind, he would
have suggested to Lapham that he was not there
for the purpose of interviewing his ancestry. But
Bartley had learned to practise a patience with his
victims which he did not always fee], and to feign
an interest in their digressions till he could bring
them up with a round turn.

" I tell you," said Lapham, jabbing the point of
his penknife into the writing-pad on the desk before
him, "when I hear women complaining nowadays
that their lives are stunted and empty, I want to
tell 'em about my mother's life. / could paint it out
for 'em."

Bartley saw his opportunity at the word paint,
and cut in. " And you say, Mr. Lapham, that you
discovered this mineral paint on the old farm your
self?"

Lapham acquiesced in the return to business. " 7
didn't discover it," he said scrupulously. " My

SILAS LAPHAM. T

father found it one day, in a hole made by a tree
blowing down. There it was, lying loose in the pit,
and sticking to the roots that had pulled up a big
cake of dirt with 'em. / don't know what give him
the idea that there was money in it, but he did
think so from the start. I guess, if they 'd had the
word in those days, they 'd considered him pretty
much of a crank about it. He was trying as long
as he lived to get that paint introduced ; but he
couldn't make it go. The country was so poor they
couldn't paint their houses with anything ; and father
hadn't any facilities. It got to be a kind of joke
with us ; and I guess that paint-mine did as much
as any one thing to make us boys clear out as soon
as we got old enough. All my brothers went West,
and took up land • but I hung on to New England,
and I hung on to the old farm, not because the
paint-mine was on it, but because the old house was
— and the graves. Well," said Lapham, as if unwill
ing to give himself too much credit, " there wouldn't
been any market for it, anyway. You can go
through that part of the State and buy more farms
than you can shake a stick at for less money than it
cost to build the barns on 'em. Of course, it 's turned
out a good thing. I keep the old house up in good
shape, and we spend a month or so there every
summer. M' wife kind of likes it, and the girls.
Pretty place ; sightly all round it. I 've got a force
of men at work there the whole time, and I 've got
a man and his wife in the house. Had a family
meeting there last year ; the whole connection from

8 THE RISE OP

out West. There !" Lapham rose from his seat and
took down a large warped, unframed photograph
from the top of his desk, passing his hand over it,
and then blowing vigorously upon it, to clear it of
the dust. " There we are, all of us."

" I don't need to look twice at you" said Bartley,
putting his finger on one of the heads.

" Well, that 's Bill," said Lapham, with a gratified
laugh. " He 's about as brainy as any of us, I guess.
He's one of their leading lawyers, out Dubuque
way; been judge of the Common Pleas once or
twice. That's his son — just graduated at Yale—
alongside of my youngest girl. Good-looking chap,
ain't he?"

"She's a good-looking chap," said Bartley, with
prompt irreverence. He hastened to add, at the
frown which gathered between Lapham's eyes,
" What a beautiful creature she is ! What a lovely,
refined, sensitive face ! • And she looks good, too."

" She is good," said the father, relenting.

"And, after all, that's about the best thing in a
woman," said the potential reprobate. " If my wife
wasn't good enough to keep both of us straight, I
don't know what would become of me."

"My other daughter," said Lapham, indicating
a girl with eyes that showed large, and a face of
singular gravity. "Mis' Lapham," he continued,
touching his wife's effigy with his little finger. " My
brother Willard and his family — farm at Kankakee.
Hazard Lapham and his wife — Baptist preacher in
Kansas. Jim and his three girls— milling business

SILAS LAPHAM. 9

at Minneapolis. Ben and his family-r-practising
medicine in Fort Wayne."

The figures were clustered in an irregular group
in front of an old farm-house, whose original ugliness
had been smartened up with a coat of Lapham's own
paint, and heightened with an incongruous piazza.
The photographer had not been able to conceal the
fact that they were all decent, honest-looking, sensible
people, with a very fair share of beauty among the
young girls ; some of these were extremely pretty, in
fact. He had put them into awkward and constrained
attitudes, of course ; and they all looked as if they
had the instrument of torture which photographers
call a head-rest under their occiputs. Here and there
an elderly lady's face was a mere blur ; and some of
the younger children had twitched themselves into
wavering shadows, and might have passed for spirit-
photographs of their own little ghosts. It was the
standard family-group photograph, in which most
Americans have figured at some time or other ; and
Lapham exhibited a just satisfaction in it. "I pre
sume," he mused aloud, as he put it back on top of
his desk, " that we sha'n't soon get together again,
all of us."

" And you say," suggested Bartley, " that you
stayed right along on the old place, when the rest
cleared out West T'

" No-o-o-o," said Lapham, with a long, loud drawl ;
" I cleared out West too, first off. Went to Texas.
Texas was all the cry in those days. But I got
enough of the Lone Star in about three months, and

10 THE RISE OF

I come back with the idea that Vermont was good
enough for me."

" Fatted calf business ? " queried Bartley, with his
pencil poised above his note-book.

"I presume they were glad to see me," said
Lapham, with dignity. "Mother," he added gently,
" died that winter, and I stayed on with father. I
buried him in the spring ; and then I came down to
a little place called Lumberville, and picked up what
jobs I could get. I worked round at the saw-mills,
and I was ostler a while at the hotel — I always did
like a good horse. Well, I wa'rit exactly a college
graduate, and I went to school odd times. I got to
driving the stage after while, and by and by I bought
the stage and run the business myself. Then I hired
the tavern-stand, and — well to make a long story
short, then I got married. Yes," said Lapham, with
pride, " I married the school-teacher. We did pretty
well with the hotel, and my wife she was always at
me to paint up. Well, I put it off, and put it off, as
a man will, till one day I give in, and says I, ' Well,
let 's paint up. Why, Pert/ — m'wife's name 's Persis,
— * I Ve got a whole paint-mine out on the farm.
Let 's go out and look at it.' So we drove out. I 'd
let the place for seventy-five dollars a year to a
shif less kind of a Kanuck that had come down that
way ; and I 'd hated to see the house with him in it ;
but we drove out one Saturday afternoon, and we
brought back about a bushel of the stuff in the buggy-
seat, and I tried it crude, and I tried it burnt ; and
I liked it. M'wife she liked it too. There wa'n't

SILAS LAPHAM 11

any painter by trade in the village, and I mixed it
myself. Well, sir, that tavern 'a got that coat of
paint on it yet, and it hain't ever had any other, and
I don't know 's it ever will. Well, you know, I felt
as if it was a kind of harumscarurn experiment, all
the while ; and I presume I shouldn't have tried it,
but I kind of liked to do it because father 'd always
set so much store by his paint-mine. And when I'd
got the first coat on," — Lapham called it cut, — "I
presume I must have set as much as half an hour,
looking at it and thinking how he would have enjoyed
it. I 've had my share of luck in this world, and I
ain't a-going to complain on my own account, but I Ve
noticed that most things get along too late for most
people. It made me feel bad, and it took all the
pride out my success with the paint, thinking of
father. Seemed to me I might 'a' taken more inte
rest in it when he was by to see ; but we Ve got to
live and learn. Well, I called my wife out, — I'd
tried it on the back of the house, you know, — and
she left her dishes, — I can remember she came out
with her sleeves rolled up and set down alongside of
me on the trestle, — and says I, * What do you think,
Persist And says she, 'Well, you hain't got a
paint-mine, Silas Lapham ; you Ve got a gold-mine.'
She always was just so enthusiastic about things.
Well, it was just after two or three boats had burnt
up out West, and a lot of lives lost, and there was
a great cry about non-inflammable paint, and I guess
that was what was in her mind. ' Well, I guess it
ain't any gold-mine, Persis,' says I ; ' but I guess it

12 THE KISE OF

Is a paint-mine. I 'm going to have it analysed, and
if it turns out what I think it is, I 'm going to work
it. And if father hadn't had such a long name, I
should call it the Nehemiah Lapham Mineral Paint.
But, any rate, every barrel of it, and every keg,
and every bottle, and every package, big or little,
has got to have the initials and figures N. L. f. 1835,
S. L. t. 1855, on it. Father found it in 1835, and
I tried it in 1855.'"

" ' S. T.— 1860— X.' business," said Bartley.

"Yes," said Lapham, "but I hadn't heard of
Plantation Bitters then, and I hadn't seen any of
the fellow's labels. I set to work and I got a man
down from Boston; and I carried him out to the
farm, and he analysed it — made a regular job of it.
Well, sir, we built a kiln, and we kept a lot of that
paint-ore red-hot for forty-eight hours; kept the
Kanuck and his family up, firing. The presence of
iron in the ore showed with the magnet from the
start; and when he came to test it, he found out
that it contained about seventy-five per cent, of the
peroxide of iron."

Lapham pronounced the scientific phrases with
a sort of reverent satisfaction, as if awed through
his pride by a little lingering uncertainty as to
what peroxide was. He accented it as if it were
•puTT-ox-eyed ; and Bartley had to get him to
spell it.

" Well, and what then ?" he asked, when he had
made a note of the percentage.

"What then?" echoed Lapham, "Well, then,

SILAS LAPHAM. 1?

the fellow set down and told me, ' You Ve got a
paint here,' says he, 'that's going to drive every
other mineral paint out of the market. Why,'
says he, 'it'll drive 'em right into the Back Bay !'
Of course, 1 didn't know what the Back Bay was
then ; but I begun to open my eyes ; thought I 'd
had 'em open before, but I guess I hadn't. Says
he, * That paint has got hydraulic cement in it, and
it can stand fire and water and acids;' he named
over a lot of things. Says he, ' It '11 mix easily with
linseed oil, whether you want to use it boiled or
raw; and it ain't a-going to crack nor fade any;
and it ain't a-gqing to scale. When you've got
your arrangements for burning it properly, you 're
going to have a paint that will stand like the
everlasting hills, in every climate under the sun/
Then he went into a lot of particulars, and I begun
to think he was drawing a long-bow, and meant to
make his bill accordingly. So I kept pretty cool;
but the fellow's bill didn't amount to anything
hardly— said I might pay him after I got going;
young chap, and pretty easy ; but every word he
said was gospel. Well, I ain't a-going to brag up
my paint; I don't suppose you came here to hear

me blow "

"Oh yes, I did," said Bartley. "That's what 1
want. Tell all there is to tell, and I can boil it
down afterward. A man can't make a greater mis
take with a reporter than to hold back anything
out of modesty. It may be the very thing we want
to know. What we want is the whole truth ; and

14 THE RISE OF

more ; we Ve got so much modesty of our own that
we can temper almost any statement."

Lapham looked as if he did not quite like this
tone, and he resumed a little more quietly. " Oh,
there isn't really very much more to say about the
paint itself. But you can use it for almost anything
where a paint is wanted, inside or out. It '11 prevent
decay, and it'll stop it, after it's begun, in tin or
iron. You can paint the inside of a cistern or a
bath-tub with it, and water won't hurt it ; and you
can paint a steam-boiler with it, and heat won't.
You can cover a brick wall with it, or a railroad
car, or the deck of a steamboat, and you can't do a
better thing for either."

"Never tried it on the human conscience, I
suppose," suggested Bartley.

" No, sir," replied Lapham gravely. " I guess
you want to keep that as free from paint as you can,
if you want much use of it. I never cared to try
any of it on mine." Lapham suddenly lifted his
bulk up out of his swivel-chair, and led the way out
into the wareroom beyond the office partitions,
where rows and ranks of casks, barrels, and kegs
stretched dimly back to the rear of the building, and
diffused an honest, clean, wholesome smell of oil and
paint. They were labelled and branded as contain
ing each so many pounds of Lapham's Mineral Paint,
and each bore the mystic devices, N. L. f. 1835 — S.
L t. 1855. "There!" said Lapham, kicking one of
the largest casks with the toe of his boot, " that 's
about our biggest package ; and here," he added,

SILAS LAPHAM. 15

laying his hand affectionately on the head of a very
small keg, as if it were the head of a child, which it
resembled in size, " this is the smallest. We used
to put the paint on the market dry, but now we
grind every ounce of it in oil — very best quality of
linseed oil — and warrant it. We find it gives more
satisfaction. Now, come back to the office, and I '11
show you our fancy brands."

It was very cool and pleasant in that dim ware-
room, with the rafters showing overhead in a cloudy
perspective, and darkening away into the perpetual
twilight at the rear of the building; and Bartley
had found an agreeable seat on the head of a half-
barrel of the paint, which he was reluctant to leave.
But he rose and followed the vigorous lead of
Lapham back to the office, where the sun of a long
summer afternoon was just beginning to glare in at
the window. On shelves opposite Lapham's desk
were tin cans of various sizes, arranged in tapering
cylinders, and showing, in a pattern diminishing
toward the top, the same label borne by the casks
and barrels in the wareroom. Lapham merely
waved his hand toward these; but when Bartley,
after a comprehensive glance at them, gave his
whole attention to a row of clean, smooth jars,
where different tints of the paint showed through
flawless glass, Lapham smiled, and waited in pleased
expectation.

" Hello !" said Bartley. " That 's pretty !"
" Yes," assented Lapham, " it is rather nice. It V
our latest thing, and we find it takes with customers

16 THE RISE OF

first-rate. Look here !" he said, taking down one of
the jars, and pointing to the first line of the label.

Hartley read, " THE PERSIS BRAND," and
then he looked at Lapham and smiled.

" After her, of course," said Lapham. " Got it
up and put the first of it on the market her last
birthday. She was pleased."

"I should think she might have been," said
Bartley, while he made a note of the appearance of
the jars.

" I don't know about your mentioning it in your
interview," said Lapham dubiously.

11 That's going into the interview, Mr. Lapham,
if nothing else does. Got a wife myself, and I know
just how you feel." It was in the dawn of Bartley's
prosperity on the Boston Events, before his troubles
with Marcia had seriously begun.

"Is that so?" said Lapham, recognising with a
smile another of the vast majority of married
Americans; a few underrate their wives, but the
rest think them supernal in intelligence and capa
bility. " Well," he added, " we must see about
that. Where 'd you say you lived ¥'

"We don't live; we board. Mrs. Nash, 13
Canary Place."

"Well, we've all got to commence that way," sug
gested Lapham consolingly.

"Yes; but we've about got to the end of our
string. I expect to be under a roof of my own oh
Clover Street before long. I suppose," said Bartley,
returning to business, "that you didn't let the grass

SILAS LAPHAM. ] 7

grow under your feet much after you found out what
was in your paint-mine ?"

" No, sir," answered Lapham, withdrawing his
eyes from a long stare at Bartley, in which he had
been seeing himself a young man again, in the first
days of his married life. "I went right back to
Lumberville and sold out everything, and put all I
could rake and scrape together into paint. And
Mis' Lapham was with me every time. No hang
back about her. I tell you she was a woman /"

Bartley laughed. "That's the sort most of us
marry."

" No, we don't," said Lapham. " Most of us
marry silly little girls grown up to look like women."

" Well, I guess that's about so," assented Bartley,
as if upon second thought.

" If it hadn't been for her," resumed Lapnam,
" the paint wouldn't have come to anything. I used
to tell her it wa'n't the seventy- five per cent, of purr-
ox-eyed of iron in the ore that made that paint go ;
it was the seventy-five per cent of purr-ox-eyed of
iron in her"

" Good !" cried Bartley. " I '11 tell Marcia that."

" In less 'n six months there wa'n't a board-fence,
nor a bridge-girder, nor a dead wall, nor a barn, nor
a face of rock in that whole region that didn't have
'Lapham's Mineral Paint — Specimen' on it in the
three colours we begun by making." Bartley had
taken his seat on the window-sill, and Lapham,
standing before him, now put up his huge foot close
to Bartley's thigh ; neither of them minded that.
B

18 THE RISE OP

"I've heard a good deal of talk about that
K5. T. — 1860 — X. man, and the stove-blacking man,
and the kidney-cure man, because they advertised
in that way ; and I 've read articles about it in
the papers; but I don't see where the joke comes
in, exactly. So long as the people that own the
barns and fences don't object, I don't see what the
public has got to do with it. And I never saw
anything so very sacred about a big rock, along
a river or in a pasture, that it wouldn't do to put
mineral paint on it in three colours. I wish some
of the people that talk about the landscape, and
write about it, had to bu'st one of them rocks out of
the landscape with powder, or dig a hole to bury
it in, as we used to have to do up on the farm ; I
guess they 'd sing a little different tune about the
profanation of scenery. There ain't any man enjoys
a sightly bit of nature — a smooth piece of interval
with half a dozen good-sized wine-glass elms in it —
more than / do. But I ain't a-going to stand up for
every big ugly rock I come across, as if we were all
a set of dumn Druids. I say the landscape was
made for man, and not man for the landscape."

" Yes," said Bartley carelessly ; " it was mad« for
the stove-polish man and the kidney-cure man."

" It was made for any man that knows how to use
it," Lapham returned, insensible to Bartley's irony.
" Let 'em go and live with nature in the winter^
np there along the Canada line, and I guess they'll get
?nouuh of her for one while. Well — where was I **

"Decorating the landscape," said Bartley.

SILAS LAPHAM; 19

"Yes, sir; I started right there at Lumberville,
And it give the place a start too. You won't find it
on the map now ; and you won't find it in the gazet
teer. I give a pretty good lump of money to build
a town-hall, about five years back, and the first
meeting they held in it they voted to change the
name, — Lumberville wa'n't a name, — and it 's Lapham
now."

" Isn't it somewhere up in that region that they
get the old Brandon red 1" asked Bartley.

" We 're about ninety miles from Brandon. The
Brandon's a good paint," said Lapham conscien
tiously. "Like to show you round up at our place
some odd time, if you get off."

"Thanks. I should like it first-rate. Works
there ?"

" Yes ; works there. Well, sir, just about the
time I got started, the war broke out ; and it
knocked my paint higher than a kite. The thing
dropped perfectly dead. I presume that if I 'd had
any sort of influence, I might have got it into Govern
ment hands, for gun-carriages and army wagons,
and may be on board Government vessels. But I
hadn't, and we had to face the music. I was about
broken-hearted, but m'wife she looked at it another
way. ' I guess it 's a providence,' says she. ' Silas,
I guess you 've got a country that 's worth fighting
for. Any rate, you better go out and give it a
chance.' Well, sir, I went. I knew she meant
business. It might kill her to have me go, but it
would kill her sure if I stayed. She was one1*f that

,e«U

20 THE RISE OF

kind. I went Her last words was, ' I '11 look
after the paint, Si.' We hadn't but just one little
girl then, — boy 'd died, — and Mis' Lapham's mother
was livin' witK us ; and I knew if times did any
ways come up again, m'wife 'd know just what to do.
So I went. I got through ; and you can call me
Colonel, if you want to. Feel there !" Lapham
took Hartley's thumb and forefinger and put them
on a bunch in his leg, just above the knee. " Any
thing hard?"

"Ball?"

Lapham nodded. " Gettysburg. That 's my ther
mometer. .If it wa'n't for that, I shouldn't know
enough to come in when it rains."

Bartley laughed at a joke which betrayed some
evidences of wear. " And when you came back,
you took hold of the paint and rushed it."

" I took hold of the paint and rushed it — all I
could," said Lapham, with less satisfaction than he
had hitherto shown in his autobiography. " But I
found that I had got back to another world. The
day of small things was past, and I don't suppose it
will ever come again in this country. My wife was
at me all the time to take a partner — somebody with
capital ; but I couldn't seem to bear the idea. That
paint was like my own blood to me. To have any
body else concerned in it was like — well, I don't
know what. I saw it was the thing to do ; but I
tried to fight it off, and I tried to joke it off. I
used to say, ' Why didn't you take a partner your
self, Persia, while I was away 1 ' And she 'd say,

SILAS LAPHAM. 21

'Well, if you hadn't come back, I should, Si.'
Always did like a joke about as well as any woman
/ ever saw. Well, I had to coins tc it. I took a
partner." Lapham dropped the bold blue eyes with
which he had been till now staring into Bartley's
face, and the reporter knew that here was a place
for asterisks in his interview, if interviews were
faithful. " He had money enough," continued
Lapham, with a suppressed sigh ; " but he didn't
know anything about paint. We hung on together
for a year or two. And then we quit."

" And he had the experience," suggested Hartley,
with companionable ease.

" I had some of the experience too," said Lapham,
with a scowl ; and Bartley divined, through the
freemasonry of all who have sore places in their
memories, that this was a point which he must not
touch again.

" And since that, I suppose, you 've played it-
alone."

" I 've played it alone."

" You must ship some of this paint of yours
to foreign countries, Colonel ?" suggested Bartley,
putting on a professional air.

" We ship it to all parts of the world. It goes
to South America, lots of it. It goes to Australia,
and it goes to India, and it goes to China, and it goes
to the Cape of Good Hope. It '11 stand any climate.
Of course, we don't export these fancy brands
much. They 're for home use. But we 're intro
ducing them elsewhere. Here." Lapham pulled

22 THE RISE OF

open a drawer, and showed Bartley a lot of labels in
different languages — Spanish, French, German, and
Italian. " We expect to do a good business in all
those countries. We 've got our agencies in Cadiz
now, and in Paris, and in Hamburg, and in Leghorn.
[t 's a thing that 's bound to make its way. Yes, sir.
Wherever a man has got a ship, or a bridge, or a
dock, or a house, or a car, or a fence, or a pig-pen
Anywhere in God's universe to paint, that 's the paint
for him, and he 's bound to find it out sooner or later.
You pass a ton of that paint dry through a blast
furnace, and you '11 get a quarter of a ton of pig-iron.
I believe in my paint. I believe it 's a blessing to
ihe world. When folks come in, and kind of smell
round, and ask me what I mix it with, I always say,
' Well, in the first place, I mix it with Faith, and
after that I grind it up with the best quality of
boiled linseed oil that money will buy.' "

Lapham took out his watch and looked at it, and
Bartley perceived that his audience was drawing to
a close. " 'F you ever want to run down and take
a look at our works, pass you over the road," — he
called it rud, — " and it sha'n't cost you a cent."

" Well, may be I shall, sometime,',' said Bartley.
" Good afternoon, Colonel."

" Good afternoon. Or — hold on ! My horse down
there yet, William ? " he called to the young man in
the counting-room who had taken his letter at the
beginning of the interview. "Oh! All right!" he
added, in response to something the young man said.
" Can't I set you down somewhere, Mr. Hubbard ?

SILAS LAPHAM. 23'

I Ve got my horse at the door, and I can drop you
on my way home. I 'm going to take Mis' Lapham
to look at a house I 'm driving piles for, down on the
l^ew Land."

" Don't care if I do," said Bartley.

Lapham put on a straw hat, gathered up some
papers lying on his desk, pulled down its rolling
cover, turned the key in it, and gave the papers
to an extremely handsome young woman at one
of the desks in the outer office. She was stylishly
dressed, as Bartley saw, and her smooth, yellow hair
was sculpturesquely waved over a low, white fore
head. " Here," said Lapham, with the same prompt
gruff kindness that he had used in addressing the
young man, " I want you should put these in shape,
and give me a type- writer copy to morrow."

" What an uncommonly pretty girl !" said Bartley,
as they descended the rough stairway and found
their way out to the street, past the dangling rope
of a block and tackle wandering up into the caver
nous darkness overhead.

" She does her work," said Lapham shortly.

Bartley mounted to the left side of the open buggy
standing at the curb-stone, and Lapham, gathering
up the hitching-weight, slid it under the buggy-seat
and mounted beside him.

"No chance to speed a horse here, of course,"
said Lapham, while the horse with a spirited gentle
ness picked her way, with a high, long action, over
the pavement of the street. The streets were all nar
row, and most of them crooked, in that quarter of

24 THE RISE OF

the town ; but at the end of one the spars of a vessel
pencilled themselves delicately against the cool blue
of the afternoon sky. The air was full of a smell
pleasantly compounded of oakum, of leather, and of
oil. It was not the busy season, and they met only
two or three trucks heavily straggling toward the
wharf with their long string teams ; but the cobble
stones of the pavement were worn with the dint of
ponderous wheels, and discoloured with iron-rust
from them ; here and there, in wandering streaks
over its surface, was the grey stain of the salt water
with which the street had been sprinkled.

After an interval of some minutes, which both men
spent in looking round the dash-board from opposite
sides to watch the stride of the horse, Bartley said,
with a light sigh, " I had a colt once down in Maine
that stepped just like that mare."

"Well!" said Lapham, sympathetically recognis
ing the bond that this fact created between them,
" Well, now, I tell you what you do. You let me
come for you 'most any afternoon, now, and take
you out over the Milldam, and speed this mare a
little. I 'd like to show you what this mare can do.
Yes, I would."

"All right," answered Bartley; "I'll let you
know my first day oif."

" Good," cried Lapham.

" Kentucky ?" queried Bartley.

"No, sir. I don't ride behind anything but
Vermont ; never did. Touch of Morgan, of course ;
but you can't have much Morgan in a horse if you

SILAS LAPHAM. 25

want speed. Hambletonian mostly. Where 'd you
say you wanted to get out ? "

" I guess you may put me down at the Events
Office, just round the corner here. I 've got to write
up this interview while it 's fresh."

" All right," said Lapham, impersonally assenting
to Bartley's use of him as material.

He had not much to complain of in Bartley's
treatment, unless it was the strain of extravagant
compliment which it involved. But the flattery
was mainly for the paint, whose virtues Lapham did
not believe could be overstated, and himself and
his history had been treated with as much respect
as Bartley was capable of showing any one. He
made a very picturesque thing of the discovery of
the paint-mine. " Deep in the heart of the virgin
forests of Vermont, far up toward the line of the
Canadian snows, on a desolate mountain-side, where
an autumnal storm had done its wild work, and the
great trees, strewn hither and thither, bore witness
to its violence, Nehemiah Lapham discovered, just
forty years ago, the mineral which the alchemy of
his son's enterprise and energy has transmuted into
solid ingots of the most precious of metals. The
colossal fortune of Colonel Silas Lapham lay at the
bottom of a hole which an uprooted tree had dug for
him, and which for many years remained a paint-
mine of no more appreciable value than a soap-mine. "

Here Bartley had not been able to forego another
grin; but he compensated for it by the high re
verence with which he spoke of Colonel Lapham's

26 THE RISE OF

record during the war of the rebellion, and of the
motives which impelled him to turn aside from an
enterprise in which his whole heart was engaged,
and take part in the struggle. " The Colonel bears
embedded in the muscle of his right leg a little me
mento of the period in the shape of a minie-ball,
which he jocularly referred to as his thermometer,
and which relieves him from the necessity of reading
* The Probabilities ' in his morning paper. This
saves him just so much time ; and for a man who,
as he said, has not a moment of waste time on him
anywhere, five minutes a day are something in the
course of a year. Simple, clear, bold, and straight
forward in mind and action, Colonel Silas Lapham,
with a prompt comprehensiveness and a never-failing
business sagacity, is, in the best sense of that much-
abused term, one of nature's noblemen, to the last
inch of his five eleven and a half. His life affords an
example of single-minded application and unwaver
ing perseverance which our young business men
would do well to emulate. There is nothing showy
or meretricious about the man. He believes in
mineral paint, and he puts his heart and soul into
it. He makes it a religion; though we would not
imply that it is his religion. Colonel Lapham is a
regular attendant at the Rev. Dr. Langworthy's
church. He subscribes liberally to the Associated
Charities, and no good object or worthy public
enterprise fails to receive his support. He is not
now actively in politics, and his paint is not par
tisan ; but it is an open secret that he is, and always

SILAS LAPHAM. 2?

has been, a staunch Eepublican. Without violating
the sanctities of private life, we cannot speak fully
of various details which came out in the free and
unembarrassed interview which Colonel Lapham
accorded our representative. But we may say that
the success of which he is justly proud he is also
proud to attribute in great measure to the sympathy
and energy of his wife — one of those women who,
in whatever walk of life, seem born to honour the
name of American Woman, and to redeem it from
the national reproach of Daisy Millerism. Of Colo
nel Lapham's family, we will simply add that it
consists of two young lady daughters.

"The subject of this very inadequate sketch is
building a house on the water side of Beacon Street,
after designs by one of our leading architectural
firms, which, when complete, will be one of the
finest ornaments of that exclusive avenue. It will,
we believe, be ready for the occupancy of the family
sometime in the spring."

When Bartley had finished his article, which he did
with a good deal of inward derision, he went home
to Marcia, still smiling over the thought of Lapham,
whose burly simplicity had peculiarly amused him.

" He regularly turned himself inside out to me,"
he said, as he sat describing his interview to
Marcia.

" Then I know you could make something nice
out of it," said his wife ; " and that will please Mr,
Witherby."
s " Oh yes, I Ve done pretty well ; but I couldn't

28 THE RI& S OF

let myself loose on him the way I wanted to. Cqn
found the limitations of decency, anyway ! I should
like to have told just what Colonel Lapham thought
'of landscape advertising in Colonel Lapham's own
words. I '11 tell you one thing, Marsh : he had a
girl there at one of the desks that you wouldn't let
me have within gunshot of my office. Pretty 3 It
ain't any name for it ! " Marcia's eyes began to blaze,
and Bartley broke out into a laugh, in which he
arrested himself at sight of a formidable parcel in
the corner of the room.

"Hello! What's that?"

" Why, I don't know what it is," replied Marcia
tremulously. " A man brought it just before you
came in, and I didn't like to open it."

" Think it was some kind of infernal machine ?"
asked Bartley, getting down on his knees to examine
the package. "Mrs. B. Hubbard, heigh 1" He cut
the heavy hemp string with his penknife. "We
must look into this thing. I should like to know
who's sending packages to Mrs. Hubbard in my
absence." He unfolded the : wrappings of paper,
growing softer and finer inward, and presently
pulled out a handsome square glass jar, through
which a crimson mass showed richly. " The Persis
Brand !" he yelled. " I knew it !"

"Oh, what is it, Bartley?" quavered Marcia.
Then, courageously drawing a little nearer : "Is it
some kind of jam 1 " she implored.

" Jam ? No !" roared Bartley. " It 'spaint / It 's
mineral paint — Lapham's paint 1"

SILAS LAPKAM. 29

"Paint?" echoed Marcia, as she stood over him
while he stripped their wrappings from the jars
which showed the dark blue, dark green, light
brown, dark brown, and black, with the dark
crimson, forming the gamut of colour^of the Lapham
paint. " Don't tell me it 's paint that / can use,
Hartley !"

" Well, I shouldn't advise you to use much of it
• — all at once," replied her husband. " But it 's
paint that you can use in moderation."

Marcia cast her arms round his neck and kissed
him. " 0 Bartley, I think I 'm the happiest girl in
the world ! I was just wondering what I should do.
There are places in that Clover Street house that
need touching up so dreadfully. I shall be very
careful. You needn't be afraid I shall overdo. But,
this just saves my life. Did you buy it, Bartley '?
You know we couldn't afford it, and you oughtn't
to have done it ! And what does the Persis Brand
mean 1"

" Buy it 1 " cried Bartley. " No ! The old fool 's
sent it to you as a present. You 'd better wait for
the facts before you pitch into me for extravagance,
Marcia. Persis is the name of his wife ; and he
named it after her because it 's his finest brand.
You '11 see it in my interview. Put it on the
market her last birthday for a surprise to her."

" What old fool ?" faltered Marcia.

" Why, Lapham— the mineral paint man."

" Oh, what a good man !" sighed Marcia from the
"bottom of her soul. " Bartley ! you won't make fun

30 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

of him as you do of some of those people 1 Will
you V

" Nothing that Tie 11 ever find out," said Bartley,
getting up and brushing off the carpet-lint from his
knees.

n.

AFTER dropping Bartley Hubbard at the Events
building, Lapham drove on down Washington Street
to Nankeen Square at the South End, where he had
lived 3ver since the mistaken movement of society
in that direction ceased. He had not built, but had
bought very cheap of a terrified gentleman of good
extraction who discovered too late that the South
End was not the thing, and who in the eagerness of
his flight to the Back Bay threw in his carpets and
shades for almost nothing. Mrs. Lapham was even
better satisfied with their bargain than the Colonel
himself, and they had lived in Nankeen Square for
twelve years. They had seen the saplings planted
in the pretty oval round which the houses were
built flourish up into sturdy young trees, and their
two little girls in the same period had grown into
young ladies ; the Colonel's tough frame had ex
panded into the bulk which Bartley's interview indi
cated ; and Mrs. Lapham, while keeping a more
youthful outline, showed the sharp print of the
crow's-foot at the corners of her motherly eyes, and
certain slight creases in her wholesome cheeks.
The fa&t that they lived in an unfashionable neigh-

31

32 THE RISE OF

bourh^od was something that they had never been
made to feel to their personal disadvantage, and they
had hardly known it till the summer before this
story opens, when Mrs. Lapham and her daughter
Irene had met some other Bostonians far from
Boston, who made it memorable. They were people
whom chance had brought for the time under a
singular obligation to the Lapham ladies, and they
were gratefully recognisant of it. They had ven
tured — a mother and two daughters — as far as a
rather wild little Canadian watering-place on the
St. Lawrence, below Quebec, and had arrived some
days before their son and brother was expected to
join them. Two of their trunks had gone astray,
and on the night of their arrival the mother was
taken violently ill. Mrs. Lapham came to their
help, with her skill as nurse, and with the abun
dance of her own and her daughter's wardrobe, and
a profuse, single-hearted kindness. When a doctor
could be got at, he said tha£ but for Mrs. Lapham's
timely care, the lady would hardly have lived. He
was a very effusive little Frenchman, and fancied he
was saying something very pleasant to everybody.

A certain intimacy inevitably followed, and when
the son came he was even more grateful than the
others. Mrs. Lapham could not quite understand
why he should be as attentive to her as to Irene ;
but she compared him with other young men about
the place, and thought him nicer than any of them.
She had not the means of a wider comparison ; fot
in Boston, with all her husband's prosperity, the/

SILAS LAPHAM. 33

had not had a social life. Their first years there
were given to careful getting on Lapham's part, and
careful saving on his wife's. Suddenly the money
began to come so abundantly that she need not
save ; and then they did not know what to do with
it. A certain amount could be spent on horses,
and Lapham spent it ; his wife spent on rich and
rather ugly clothes and a luxury of household
appointments. Lapham had not yet reached the
picture-buying stage of the rich man's development,
but they decorated their house with the costliest
and most abomijiable frescoes ; they went upon
journeys, and lavished upon cars and hotels ; they
gave with both hands to their church and to all the
charities it brought them acquainted with ; but they
did not know how to spend on society. Up to a
certain period Mrs. Lapham had the ladies of her
neighbourhood in to tea, as her mother had done in
the country in her younger days. Lapham's idea of
hospitality was still to bring a heavy-buying cus
tomer home to pot-luck ; neither of them imagined
dinners.

Their two girls had gone to the public schools,
where they had not got on as fast as some of the
other girls ; so that they were a year behind in
graduating from the grammar-school, where Lapham
thought that they had got education enough. His
wife was of a different mind ; she would have liked
them to go to some private school for their finishing.
But Irene did riot care for study ; she preferred
house-keeping, and both the sisters were afraid of
C

34 THE RISE OF

being snubbed by the other girls, who were of a differ
ent sort from the girls of the grammar-school ; these
were mostly from the parks and squares, like them
selves. It ended in their going part of a year. But
the elder had an odd taste of her own for reading,
and she took some private lessons, and read books
out of the circulating library ; the whole family were
amazed at the number she read, and rather proud
of it.

They were not girls who embroidered or aban
doned themselves to needle-work. Irene spent her
abundant leisure in shopping for herself and her
mother, of whom both daughters made a kind of idol,
buying her caps and laces out of their pin-money,
and getting her dresses far beyond her capacity to
wear. Irene dressed herself very stylishly, and spent
hours on her toilet every day. Her sister had a
simpler taste, and, if she had done altogether as she
liked, might even have slighted dress. They all
three took long naps every day, and sat hours
together minutely discussing what they saw out of
the window. In her self-guided search for self-
improvement, the elder sister went to many church
lectures on a vast variety of secular subjects, and
usually came home with a comic account of them,
and that made more matter of talk for the whole
family. She could make fun of nearly everything ;
Irene complained that she scared away the young
men whom they got acquainted with at the dancing-
school sociables. They were, perhaps, not the wisest
young men.

SILAS LAPHAM. 35

The girls had learned to dance at Papanti's ; but
they had not belonged to the private classes. They
did not even know of them, and a great gulf divided
them from those who did. Their father did not like
company, except such as came informally in their
way ; and their mother had remained too rustic to
know how to attract it in the sophisticated city
fashion. None of them had grasped the idea of
European travel ; but they had gone about to moun
tain and sea-side resorts, the mother and the two girls,
where they witnessed the spectacle which such resorts
present throughout New England, of multitudes of
girls, lovely, accomplished, exquisitely dressed, humbly
glad of the presence of any sort of young man ; but
the Laphams had no skill or courage to make them
selves noticed, far less courted by the solitary invalid,
or clergyman, or artist. They lurked helplessly about
in the hotel parlours, looking on and not knowing
how to put themselves forward. Perhaps they did
not care a great deal to do so. They had not a con
ceit of themselves, but a sort of content in their own
ways that one may notice in certain families. The
very strength of their mutual affection was a barrier
to worldly knowledge ; they dressed for one another ;
they equipped their house for their own satisfaction ;
they lived richly to themselves, not because they
were selfish, but because they did not know how to
do otherwise. The elder daughter did not care for
society, apparently. The younger, who was but
three years younger, was not yet quite old enough to
be ambitious of it. With all her wonderful beauty,

36 THE RISE OF

she had an innocence almost vegetable. When her
beauty, which in its immaturity was crude and harsh,
suddenly ripened, she bloomed and glowed with the
unconsciousness of a flower ; she not merely did not
feel herself admired, but hardly knew herself dis
covered. If she dressed well, perhaps too well, it
was because she had the instinct of dress ; but till
she met this young man who was so nice to her
at Baie St. Paul, she had scarcely lived a detached,
individual life, so wholly had she depended on her
mother and her sister for her opinions, almost her
sensations. She took account of everything he did
and said, pondering it, and trying to make out ex
actly what he meant, to the inflection of a syllable,
the slightest movement or gesture. In this way
she began for the first time to form ideas which
she had not derived from her family, and they were
none the less her own because they were often mis
taken.

Some of the things that he partly said, partly
looked, she reported to her mother, and they talked
them over, as they did everything relating to these
new acquaintances, and wrought them into the novel
point of view which they were acquiring. When
Mrs. Lapham returned home, she submitted all the
accumulated facts of the case, and all her own con
jectures, to her husband, and canvassed them anew.

At first he was disposed to regard the whole affair
as of small importance, and she had to insist a little
beyond her own convictions in order to counteract
Uis indifference.

SILAS LAPHAM. 37

" Well, I can tell you," she said, " that if you
think they were not the nicest people you ever saw,
you 're mightily mistaken. They had about the
best manners ; and they had been everywhere, and
knew everything. I declare it made me feel as if
we had always lived in the backwoods. I don't
know but the mother and the daughters would have
let you feel so a little, if they 'd showed out all they
thought ; but they never did ; and the son — well, I
can't express it, Silas ! But that young man had
about perfect ways."

" Seem struck up on Irene ]" asked the Colonel.

" How can / tell ? He seemed just about as much
struck up on me. Anyway, he paid me as much
attention as he did her. Perhaps it 's more the
way, now, to notice the mother than it used to
be."

Lapham ventured no conjecture, but asked, as he
had asked already, who the people were.

Mrs. Lapham repeated their name. Lapham
nodded his head. " Do you know them 1 What
business is he in 1 "

" I guess he ain't in anything," said Lapham.

" They were very nice," said Mrs. Lapham impar
tially.

" Well, they'd ought to be," returned the Colonel.
" Never done anything else."

" They didn't seem stuck up," urged his wife.

" They 'd no need to — with you. I could buy him
and sell him, twice over."

This answer satisfied Mrs. Lapham rather with

38 THE RISE OF

the fact than with her husband. " Well, I guess I
wouldn't brag, Silas," she said.

In the winter the ladies of this family, who re
turned to town very late, came to call on Mrs.
Lapham. They were again very polite. But the
mother let drop, in apology for their calling almost
at nightfall, that the coachman had not known the
waj7" exactly.

" Nearly all our friends are on the New Land or
on the Hill."

There was a barb in this that rankled after the
ladies had gone ; and on comparing notes with her
daughter, Mrs. Lapham found that a barb had been
left to rankle in her mind also.

" They said they had never been in this part of
the town before."

Upon a strict search of her memory, Irene could
not report that the fact had been stated with any
thing like insinuation, but it was that which gave
it a more penetrating effect.

" Oh, well, of course," said Lapham, to whom
these fa.cts were referred. " Those sort of people
haven't got much business up our way, and they
don't come. It 's a fair thing all round. We don't
trouble the Hill or the New Land much."

"We know where they are," suggested his wife
thoughtfully.

" Yes," assented the Colonel. " / know where
they are I Ve got a lot of land over on the Back
Bay."

" You have ?" eagerly demanded his wife.

SILAS LAPHAM. 39

"Want me to build on it1?" he asked in reply,
with a quizzical smile.

" I guess we can get along here for a while."

This was at night. In the morning Mrs. Lapham
said —

" I suppose we ought to do the best we can for
the children, in every way."

" I supposed we always had," replied her hus
band.

" Yes, we have, according to our light."

" Have you got some new light 1 "

" I don't know as it 's light. But if the girls are
going to keep on living in Boston and marry here,
I presume we ought to try to get them into society,
some way; or ought to do something."

" Well, who 's ever done more for their children
than we have 1 " demanded Lapham, with a pang at
the thought that he could possibly have been out
done. " Don't they have everything they want 1
Don't they dress just as you say ? Don't you go
everywhere with 'em 1 Is there ever anything
going on that 's worth while that they don't see it
or hear it ] / don't know what you mean. Why
don't you get them into society ? There 's money
enough !"

" There 's got to be something besides money, I
guess," said Mrs. Lapham, with a hopeless sigh. " I
presume we didn't go to work just the right way
about their schooling. We ought to have got them
into some school where they 'd have got acquainted
with city girls — girls who could help them alon>

40 THE RISE OF

Nearly everybody at Miss Smillie's was from some
where else."

" Well, it 's pretty late to think about that now,"
grumbled Lapham.

" And we 've always gone our own way, and not
looked out for the future. We ought to have gone
out more, and had people come to the house. No
body comes."

" Well, is that my fault ? I guess nobody ever
makes people welcomer."

" We ought to have invited company more."

"Why don't you do it now? If it's for the
girls, I don't care if you have the house full all the
while."

Mrs. Lapham was forced to a confession full of
humiliation. " I don't know who to ask."

" Well, you can't expect me to tell you."
* " No ; we 're both country people, and we 've kept
our country ways, and we don't, either of us, know
what to do. You 've had to work so hard, and your
luck was so long coming, and then it came with
such a rush, that we haven't had any chance to learn
what to do with it. It 's just the same with Irene's
looks ; I didn't expect she was ever going to have
any, she was such a plain child, and, all at once,
she 's blazed out this way. As long as it was Pen
that didn't seem to care for society, I didn't give
much mind to it. But I can see it's going to be
different with Irene. I don't believe but whai
we're in the wrong neighbourhood."

" Well," said the Colonel, " there ain't a prettier

SILAS LAPHAM. 4i

lot on the Back Bay than mine. It 's on the water
side of Beacon, and it 's twenty-eight feet wide and
a hundred and fifty deep. Let's build on it."

Mrs. Lapham was silent a while. " No," she said
finally ; "we 've always got along well enough here,
and I guess we better stay."

At breakfast she said casually : " Girls, how
would you like to have your father build on the
New Land?"

The girls said they did not know. It was more
convenient to the horse-cars where they were.

Mrs. Lapham stole a look of relief at her husband,
and nothing more was said of the matter.

The mother of the family who ha*d called upon
Mrs. Lapham brought her husband's cards, and
when Mrs. Lapham returned the visit she was in
some trouble about the proper form of acknowledg
ing the civility. The Colonel had no card but a
business card, which advertised the principal depot
and the several agencies of the mineral paint ; and
Mrs. Lapham doubted, till she wished to goodness
that she had never seen nor heard of those people,
whether to ignore her husband in the transaction
altogether, or to write his name on her own card.
She decided finally upon this measure, and she had
the relief of not finding the family at borne. As
far as she could judge, Irene seemed to suffer a little
disappointment from the fact.

For several months there was no comirunication
between the families. Then there came to Nankeen
Square a lithographed circular from the people or

42 THE RISE OF

the Hill, signed in ink by the mother, and afford
ing Mrs. Lapham an opportunity to subscribe for a
charity of undeniable merit and acceptability. She
submitted it to her husband, who promptly drew a
cheque for five hundred dollars.

She tore it in two. . "I will take a cheque for a
hundred, Silas," she said.

" Why ? " he asked, looking up guiltily at her.

" Because a hundred is enough ; and I don't want
to show off before them."

" Oh, I thought may be you did. Well, Pert,"
he added, having satisfied human nature by the
preliminary thrust, ** I guess you 're about right.
When do you want I should begin to build on
Beacon Street ? " He handed her the new cheque,
where she stood over him, and then leaned back in
his chair and looked up at her.

" I don't want you should begin at all. What do
you mean, Silas 1" She rested against the side of
his desk.

" Well, I don't know as I mean anything. But
shouldn't you like to build ? Everybody builds, at
least once in a lifetime."

" Where is your lot ? They say it 's unhealthy,
over there."

Up to a certain point in their prosperity Mrs.
Lapham had kept strict account of all her husband's
affairs ; but as they expanded, and ceased to be of
the retail nature with which women successfully
grapple, the intimate knowledge of them made her
nervous. There was a period in which she felt that

SILAS LAPHAM. 43

they were being ruined, but the crash had not come ;
and, since his great success, she had abandoned
herself to a blind confidence in her husband's judg
ment, which she had hitherto felt needed her
revision. He came and went, day by day, unques
tioned. He bought and sold and got gain. She
knew that he would tell her if ever things went
wrong, and he knew that she would ask him
whenever she was anxious.

" It ain't unhealthy where I 've bought," said
Lapham, rather enjoying her insinuation. "I
looked after that when I was trading ; and I guess
it 's about as healthy on the Back Bay as it is
here, anyway. I got that lot for you, Pert; I
thought you 'd want to build on the Back Bay some
day."

"Pshaw!" said Mrs. Lapham, deeply pleased
inwardly, but not going to show it, as she would
have said. " I guess you want to build there your
self." She insensibly got a little nearer to her
husband. They liked to talk to each other in that
blunt way ; it is the New England way of expressing
perfect confidence and tenderness.

" Well, I guess I do," said Lapham, not insisting
upon the unselfish view of the matter. "I always
did like the water side of Beacon'. There ain't a
sightlier place in the world for a house. And some
day there's bound to be a drive-way all along behind
them houses, between them and the water, and then
a lot there is going to be worth the gold that will
cover it — coin. I've had offers for that lot, Pert,

44 THE RISE OF

fiwice over what I give for it. Yes, I have. Don't
jou want to ride over there some afternoon with me
and see it1?"

" I 'm satisfied where we be, Si," said Mrs.
Lapham, recurring to the parlance of her youth in
her pathos at her husband's kindness. She sighed
anxiously, for she felt the trouble a woman knows
in view of any great change. They had often talked
of altering over the house in which they lived, but
they had never come to it ; and they had often
talked of building, but it had always been a house
in the country that they had thought of. "I wish
you had sold that lot."

" I hain't," said the Colonel briefly.

" I don't know as I feel much like changing our
way of living."

" Guess we could live there pretty much as we
live here. There's all kinds of people on Beacon
Street; you mustn't think they're all big-bugs. I
know one party that lives in a house he built to sell,
and his wife don't keep any girl. You can have just
as much style there as you want, or just as little.
I guess we live as well as most of 'em now, and set
as good a table. And if you come to style, I don't
know as anybody has got more of a right to put it
on than what we have."

" Well, I don't want to build on Beacon Street,
Si," said Mrs. Lapham gently.

" Just as you please, Persis. I ain't in any hurry
to leave. '

Mrs. Lapham stood flappiag the cheque which she

SILAS LAPHAM. 45

held in her right hand against the edge of her
left.

The Colonel still sat looking up at her face, and
wLfcching the effect of the poison of ambition whicli
he had artfully instilled into her mind.

She sighed again — a yielding sigh. " What are
you going to do this afternoon ? "

" I 'm going to take a turn on the Brighton road,"
«aid the Colonel.

" I don't believe but what I should like to go
dlong," said his wife.

" All right. You hain't ever rode behind that
mare yet, Pert, and I want you should see me let
her out once. They say the stiow 's all packed down
already, and the going is A 1."

At four o'clock in the afternoon, with a cold, red
winter sunset before them, the Colonel and his wife
were driving slowly down Beacon Street in the light,
high-seated cutter, where, as he said, they were a
pretty tight fit. He was holding the mare in till
the time came to speed her, and the mare was
springily jolting over the snow, looking intelligently
from side to side, and cocking this ear and that,
while from her nostrils, her head tossing easily, she
blew quick, irregular whiffs of steam.

"Gay, ain't she 1" proudly suggested the Colonel.

" She is gay," assented his wife.

They met swiftly dashing sleighs, and let them
pass on either hand, down the beautiful avenue
narrowing with an admirably even sky-line in the
perspective. They were not in a hurry. The maro

46 THE RISE OF

jounced easily along, and they talked of the differ
ent houses on either side of the way. They had a
crude taste in architecture, and they admired the
worst. There were women's faces at many of the
handsome windows, and once in a while a young
man on the pavement caught his hat suddenly from
his head, and bowed in response to some salutation
from within.

" I don't think our girls would look very bad
behind one of those big panes," said the Colonel.

" No," said his wife dreamily.

" Where 's the young man % Did he come with
them?"

" No ; he was to sjfcnd the winter with a friend
of his that has a ranch in Texas. I guess he 's got
to do something."

"Yes; gentlemaning as a profession has got to
play out in a generation or two."

Neither of them spoke of the lot, though Lapham
knew perfectly well what his wife had come with
him for, and she was aware that he knew it. The
time came when he brought the mare down to a
walk, and then slowed up almost to a stop, while
they both turned their heads to the right and looked
at the vacant lot, through which showed the frozen
stretch of the Back Bay, a section of the Long
Bridge, and the roofs and smoke-stacks of Charles-
town.

" Yes, it 's sightly," said Mrs. Lapham, lifting her
hand from the reins, on which she had unconsciously
laid it,

SILAS LAPHAM. 47

Lapham said nothing, but he let the mare out a
little.

The sleighs and cutters were thickening round
them. On the Milldam it became difficult to restrict
the mare to the long, slow trot into which he let her
break. The beautiful landscape widened to right
and left of them, with the sunset redder and redder,
over the low, irregular hills before them. They
crossed the Milldam into Longwood ; and here, from
the crest of the first upland, stretched two endless
lines, in which thousands of cutters went and came.
Some of the drivers were already speeding their
horses, and these shot to and fro on inner lines,
between the slowly moving vehicles on either side of
the road. Here and there a burly mounted police
man, bulging over the pommel of his M'Clellan
saddle, jolted by, silently gesturing and directing
the course, and keeping it all under the eye of the
law. It was what Bartley Hubbard called " a carni
val of fashion and gaiety on the Brighton road," in
his account of it. But most of the people in those
elegant sleighs and cutters had so little the air of
the great world that one knowing it at all must*
have wondered where they and their money came
from ; and the gaiety of the men, at least, was ex
pressed, like that of Colonel Lapham, in a grim
almost fierce, alertness ; the women wore an air of
courageous apprehension. At a certain point the
Colonel said, " I 'm going to let her out, Pert," and
he lifted and then dropped the reins lightly on the
mare's back.

«.

48 THE RISE OF

She understood the signal, and, as an admirer
said, " she laid down to her work." Nothing in the
immutable iron of Lapham's face betrayed his sense
of triumph as the mare left everything behind hei
on the road. Mrs. Lapham, if she felt fear, was too
busy holding her flying wraps about her, and shield
ing her face from the scud of ice flung from the mare's
heels, to betray it ; except for the rush of her feet,
the mare was as silent as the people behind her ; the
muscles of her back and thighs worked more and
more swiftly, like some mechanism responding to an
alien force, and she shot to the end of the course, graz
ing a hundred encountered and rival sledges in her
passage, but unmolested by the policemen, who pro
bably saw that the mare and the Colonel knew what
they were about, and, at any rate, were not the sort
of men to interfere with trotting like that. At the
end of the heat Lapham drew her in, and turned off
on a side street into Brookline.

" Tell you what, Pert," he said, as if they had been
quietly jogging along, with time for uninterrupted
thought since he last spoke, "I've about made up
my mind to build on that lot."

" All right, Silas," said Mrs. Lapham ; " I suppose
you know what you 're about. Don't build on it for
me, that's all."

When she stood in the hall at home, taking off her
things, she said to the girls, who were helping her,
" Some day your father will get killed with that
mare."

"Did he speed her?" asked Penelope, the elder.

SILAS LAPHAM. 49

She was named after her grandmother, who had in
her turn inherited from another ancestress the name
of the Homeric matron whose peculiar merits won
her a place even among the Puritan Faiths, Hopes,
Temperances, and Prudences. Penelope was the
girl whose odd serious face had struck Bartley
Hubbard in the photograph of the family group
Lapham showed him on the day of the interview.
Her large eyes, like her hair, were brown ; they had
the peculiar look of near-sighted eyes which is called
mooning ; her complexion was of a dark pallor.

Her mother did not reply to a question which
might be considered already answered. " He says\
he's going to build on that lot of his," she next
remarked, unwinding the long veil which she had
tied round her neck to hold her bonnet on. She put
her hat and cloak on the hall table, to be carried
upstairs later, and they all went in to tea : creamed
oysters, birds, hot biscuit, two kinds of cake, and
dishes of stewed and canned fruit and honey. The
women dined alone at one, and the Colonel at the
same hour down-town. But he liked a good hot
meal when he got home in the evening. The house
flared with gas ; and the Colonel, before he sat down,
went about shutting the registers, through which a
welding heat came voluming up from the furnace.

"I'll be the death of that darkey yet" he said,
1 if he don't stop making on such a fire. The only
way to get any comfort out of your furnace is to
take care of it yourself."

" Well," answered his wife from behind the tea-
D

50 THE RISE OF

pot, as he sat down at table with this threat, " there's
nothing to prevent you, Si. And you can shovel the
snow too, if you want to — till you get over to
Beacon Street, anyway."

" I guess I can keep my own sidewalk on Beacon
Street clean, if I take the notion."

" I should like to see you at it," retorted his wife.

" Well, you keep a sharp lookout, and may be
you will."

Their taunts were really expressions of affection
ate pride in each other. They liked to have it, give
and take, that way, as they would have said, right
along.

" A man can be a man on Beacon Street as well as
anywhere, I guess."

" Well, I '11 do the wash, as I used to in Lumber-
ville," said Mrs. Lapham. " I presume you'll let me
have set tubs, Si. You know I ain't so young any
more." She passed Irene a cup of Oolong tea, — none
of them had a sufficiently cultivated palate for Sou
chong, — and the girl handed it to her father.

" Papa," she asked, " you don't really mean that
you 're going to build over there ?"

" Don't 1 1 You wait and see," said the Colonel,
stirring his tea.

" I don't believe you do," pursued the girl.

" Is that so ^ I presume you 'd hate to have me.
Your mother does." He said doos, of course.

Penelope took the word. " I go in for it. I don't
see any use in not enjoying money, if you Ve got it
to enjoy. That's what it's for, I suppose; though

SILAS LAPHAM. 51

you mightn't always think so." Sne had a slow,
quaint way of talking, that seemed a pleasant per
sonal modification of some ancestral Yankee drawl,
and her voice was low and cozy, and so far from
being nasal that it was a little hoarse.

" I guess the ayes has it, Pen," said her father.
" How would it do to let Irene and your mother
stick in the old place here, and us go into the new
house ? " At times the Colonel's grammar failed
him.

The matter dropped, and the Laphams lived on
as before, with joking recurrences to the house on
the water side of Beacon. The Colonel seemed less
in earnest than any of them about it ; but that was
his way, his girls said ; you never could tell wher?
he really meant a thing.

IIL

TOWARD the end of the winter there came a news
paper, addressed to Miss Irene Lapham; it proved
to be a Texas newspaper, with a complimentary
account of the ranch of the Hon. Loring G-. Stanton,
which the representative of the journal had visited.

"It must be his friend," said Mrs. Lapham, to
whom her daughter brought the paper ; " the one
he 's staying with."

The girl did not say anything, but she carried the
paper to her room, where she scanned every line of
it for another name. She did not find it, but she
cut the notice out and stuck it into the side of her
mirror, where she could read it every morning when
she brushed her hair, and the last thing at night
when she looked at herself in the glass just before
turning off the gas. Her sister often read it aloud,
standing behind her and rendering it with elocu
tionary effects.

" The first time I ever heard of a love-letter in the
form of a puff to a cattle-ranch. But perhaps that 's
the style on the Hill."

Mrs. Lapham told her husband of the arrival of

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 53

the paper, treating the fact with an importance that
he refused to see in it.

" How do you know the fellow sent it, anyway V
he demanded.

" Oh, I know he did."

" I don't see why he couldn't write to 'Rene, if he
really meant anything."

" Well, I guess that wouldn't be their way," said
Mrs. Lapham ; she did not at all know what their
way would be.

When the spring opened Colonel Lapham showed
that he had been in earnest about building on the
New Land. His idea of a house was a brown-stone
front, four stories high, and a French roof with an
air-chamber above. Inside, there was to be a re
ception-room on the street and a dining-room back.
The parlours were to be on the second floor, and
finished in black walnut or party-coloured paint.
The chambers were to be on the three floors above,
front and rear, with side-rooms over the front door.
Black walnut was to be used everywhere except in
the attic, which was to be painted and grained to
look like black walnut. The whole was to be very
high-studded, and there were to be handsome cornices
and elaborate centre-pieces throughout, except, again,
in the attic.

These ideas he had formed from the inspection of
many new buildings which he had seen going up,
and which he had a passion for looking into. He
was confirmed in his ideas by a master builder who
had put up a great many houses on the Back Bay

04 THE RISE OF

as a speculation, and who told him that if he wanted
to have a house in the style, that was the way to
have it.

The beginnings of the process by which Lapham
escaped from the master builder and ended in the
hands of an architect are so obscure that it would
be almost impossible to trace them. But it all
happened, and Lapham promptly developed his
ideas of black walnut finish, high studding, and
cornices. The architect was able to conceal the
shudder which they must have sent through him.
He was skilful, as nearly all architects are, in play
ing upon that simple instrument Man. He began
to touch Colonel Lapham's stops.

"Oh, certainly, have the parlours high-studded.
But you Ve seen some of those pretty old-fashioned
country-houses, haven't you, where the entrance-story
is very low-studded T'

" Yes," Lapham assented.

"Well, don't you think something of that kind
would have a very nice effect 1 Have the entrance-
story low-studded, and your parlours on the next
floor as high as you please. Put your little recep
tion-room here beside the door, and get the whole
width of your house frontage for a square hall, and
an easy low-tread staircase running up three sides
of it. I'm sure Mrs. Lapham would find it much
pleasanter." The architect caught toward him a
scrap of paper lying on the table at which they were
sitting and sketchedxhis idea. " Then have your
dining-room behind the hall, looking on the water."

SILAS LAPHAM. 55

He glanced at Mrs. Lapham, who said, " Of course,"
and the architect went on —

" That gets you rid of one of those long, straight,
ugly staircases," — until that moment Lapham had
thought a long, straight staircase the chief ornament
of a house, — " and gives you an effect of amplitude
and space."

"That's so!" said Mrs. Lapham. Her husband
merely made a noise in his throat.

"Then, were you thinking of having your par
lours together, connected by folding doors ? " asked
the architect deferentially.

"Yes, of course," said Lapham. "They're always
so, ain't they ? "

" Well, nearly," said the architect. " I was
wondering how would it do to make one large
square room at the front, taking the whole breadth
of the house, and, with this hall-space between, have
a music-room back for the young ladies ? "

Lapham looked helplessly at his wife, whose
quicker apprehension had followed the architect's
pencil with instant sympathy. " First-rate ! " she
cried.

The Colonel gave way. " I guess that would do.
It '11 be kind of odd, won't it 1 "

" Well, I don't know," said the architect. " Not
so odd, I hope, as the other thing will be a few
years from now." He went on to plan the rest of
the house, and he showed himself such a master in
regard to all the practical details that Mrs. Lapham
began to feel a motherly affection for the young

56 THE RISE OF

jian, and her husband could not deny in his heart
that the fellow seemed to understand his business.
He stopped walking about the room, as he had
begun to do when the architect and Mrs. Lapham
entered into the particulars of closets, drainage,
kitchen arrangements, and all that, and came back
to the table. "I presume," he said, "you'll have
the drawing-room finished in black walnut 1 "

" Well, yes," replied the architect, " if you like.
But some less expensive wood can be made just as
effective with paint. Of course you can paint black
walnut too."

"Paint it?" gasped the Colonel.

" Yes," said the architect quietly. " White, or a
little off white."

Lapnarn dropped the plan he had picked up from
the table. His wife made a little move toward him
of consolation or support.

" Of course," resumed the architect, I know
there has been a great craze for black walnut. But
it 's an ugly wood ; and for a drawing-room there is
really nothing like white paint. We should want to
introduce a little gold here and there. Perhaps we
might run a painted frieze round under the cornice
— garlands of roses on a gold ground ; it would tell
wonderfully in a white room."

The Colonel returned less courageously to the
charge. " I presume you '11 want Eastlake mantel
shelves and tiles 1 " He meant this for a sarcastic
ihrust at a prevailing foible of the profession.

"Well, no," gently answered the architect "I

SILAS LAPHAM. 57

was thinking perhaps a white marble chimney-piece,
treated in the refined Empire style, would be the
thing for that room."

" White marble ! " exclaimed the Colonel. " I
thought that had gone out long ago."

" Really beautiful things can't go out. They may
disappear for a little while, but they must come
back. It 's only the ugly things that stay out after
they've had their day."

Lapham could only venture very modestly,
" Hard-wood floors 1 "

"In the music-room, of course," consented the
architect.

" And in the drawing-room 1 "

" Carpet. Some sort of moquette, I should say.
But I should prefer to consult Mrs. Lapham's taste
in that matter."

" And in the other rooms 1 "

" Oh, carpets, of course."

" And what about the stairs 1 "

" Carpet. And I should have the rail and banis
ters white — banisters turned or twisted."

The Colonel said under his breath, "Well, I'm
dumned ! " but he gave no utterance to his astonish
ment in the architect's presence. When he went at
last, — the session did not end till eleven o'clock, —
Lapham said, "Well, Pert, I guess that fellow's fifty
years behind, or ten years ahead. I wonder what
the Ongpeer style is ? "

" I don't know. I hated to ask. But he seemed
to understand what he was talking about. I de-

58 THE RISE OF

clare, he knows what a woman wants in a house
better than she does herself."

" And a man 's simply nowhere in comparison,"
said Lapham. But he respected a fellow who could
beat him at every point, and have a reason ready, as
this architect had ; and when he recovered from the
daze into which the complete upheaval of all his
preconceived notions had left him, he was in a fit
state to swear by the architect. It seemed to him
that he had discovered the fellow (as he always
called him) and owned him now, and the fellow did
nothing to disturb this impression. He entered into
that brief but intense intimacy with the Laphams
which the sympathetic architect holds with his
clients. He was privy to all their differences of
opinion and all their disputes about the house. He
knew just where to insist upon his own ideas, and
where to yield. He was really building several
other houses, but he gave the Laphams the impres
sion that he was doing none but theirs.

The work was not begun till the frost was
thoroughly out of the ground, which that year was
not before the end of April. Even then it did not
proceed very rapidly. Lapham said they might as
well take their time to it ; if they got the walls up
and the thing closed in before the snow flew, they
could be working at it all winter. It was found
necessary to dig for the kitchen ; at that point the
original salt-marsh lay near the surface, and before
they began to put in the piles for the foundation
they had to pump. The neighbourhood smelt like

SILAS LAPHAM. 59

the hold of a ship after a three years' voyage.
People who had cast their fortunes with the New
Land went by professing not to notice it; people
who still " hung on to the Hill " put their handker
chiefs to their noses, and told each other the old
terrible stories of the material used in filling up the
Back Bay.

Nothing gave Lapham so much satisfaction in the
whole construction of his house as the pile-driving.
When this began, early in the summer, he took Mrs.
Lapham every day in his buggy and drove round to
look at it ; stopping the mare in front of the lot, and
watching the operation with even keener interest
than the little loafing Irish boys who superintended
it in force. It pleased him to hear the portable
engine chuckle out a hundred thin whiffs of steam in
carrying the big iron weight to the top of the frame
work above the pile, then seem to hesitate, and cough
once or twice in pressing the weight against the
detaching apparatus. There was a moment in which
the weight had the effect of poising before it fell ;
then it dropped with a mighty whack on the iron-
bound head of the pile, and drove it a foot into the
earth.

"By gracious!" he would say, "there ain't any
thing like that in this world for business, Persis !"

Mrs. Lapham suffered him to enjoy the sight
twenty or thirty times before she said, " Well, now
drive on, Si."

By the time the foundation was in and the brick
walls had begun to go up, there were so few people

60 THE RISE OF

left in the neighbourhood that she might indulge
with impunity her husband's passion for having her
clamber over the floor-timbers and the skeleton stair
cases with him. Many of the householders had
boarded up their front doors before the buds had
begun to swell and the assessor to appear in early
/May; others had followed soon; and Mrs. Lapham
| was as safe from remark as if she had been in the
depth of the country. Ordinarily she and her girls
left town early in July, going to one of the hotels at
Nantasket, where it was convenient for the Colonel
to get to and from his business by the boat. But
this summer they were all lingering a few weeks
later, under the novel fascination of the new house,
as they called it, as if there were no other in the
world.

Lapham drove there with his wife after he had set
Bartley Hubbard down at the Events office, but on
this day something happened that interfered with
the solid pleasure they usually took in going over
the house. As the Colonel turned from casting
anchor at the mare's head with the hitching- weight,
after helping his wife to alight, he encountered a
man to whom he could not help speaking, though
the man seemed to share his hesitation if not his
reluctance at the necessity. He was a tallish, thin
man, with a dust-coloured face, and a dead, clerical
air, which somehow suggested at once feebleness and
tenacity.

Mrs. Lapham held out her hand to him.

"Why, Mr. Rogers!" she exclaimed; and then.

SILAS LAPHAM. 61

turning toward her husband, seemed to refer the two
men to each other. They shook hands, but Lapham
did not speak. " I didn't know you were in Boston,"
pursued Mrs. Lapham. " Is Mrs. Kogers with you?"

"No," said Mr. Rogers, with a voice which had
the flat, succinct sound of two pieces of wood clapped
together. "Mrs. Rogers is still in Chicago."

A little silence followed, and then Mrs. Lapham
said —

" I presume you are quite settled out there."

" No ; we have left Chicago. Mrs. Rogers has
merely remained to finish up a little packing."

" Oh, indeed ! Are you coming back to Boston ?"

"I cannot say as yet. We some ? think of so
doing."

Lapham turned away and looked up at the build
ing. His wife pulled a little at her glove, as if
embarrassed, or even pained. She tried to make a
diversion.

" We are building a house," she said, with a
meaningless laugh.

" Oh, indeed," said Mr. Rogers, looking up at it.

Then no one spoke again, and she said helplessly —

"If you come to Boston, I hope I shall see Mrs.
Rogers."

" She will be happy to have you call," said Mr.
Rogers.

He touched his hat-brim, and made a bow forward
rather than in Mrs. Lapham's direction.

She mounted the planking that led into the shelter
of the bare brick walls, and her husband slowly

62 THE RISE OF

followed. When she turned her face toward him
her cheeks were burning, and tears that looked hot
stood in her eyes.

" You left it all to me !" she cried. " Why couldn't
you speak a word 1 "

" I hadn't anything to say to him," replied Lapham
sullenly.

They stood a while, without looking at the work
which they had come to enjoy, and without speaking
to each other.

" I suppose we might as well go on," said Mrs.
Lapham at last, as they returned to the buggy. The
Colonel drove recklessly toward the Milldam. His
wife kept her veil down and her face turned from
him. After a time she put her handkerchief up
under her veil and wiped her eyes, and he set his
teeth and squared his jaw.

" I don't see how he always manages to appear
just at the moment when he seems to have gone
fairly out of our lives, and blight everything," she
whimpered.

" I supposed he was dead," said Lapham.

" Oh, don't say such a thing ! It sounds as if you
wished it."

" Why do you mind it 1 What do you let him
blight everything for ? "

" I can't help it, and I don't believe I ever shall.
I don't know as his being dead would help it any.
I can't ever see him without feeling just as I did at
first."

"I tell you," said Lapham, "it was a perfectly

SILAS LAPHAM. 63

square thing. And I wish, once for all, you would
quit bothering about it. My conscience is easy as
far as he 's concerned, and it always was."

" And I can't look at him without feeling as if
you 'd ruined him, Silas."

" Don't look at him, then," said her husband, with
" a scowl. " I want you should recollect in the first
~ place, Persis, that I never wanted a partner."

"If he hadn't put his money in when he did,
you'd V broken down."

" Well, he got his money out again, and more,
too," said the Colonel, with a sulky weariness.

" He didn't want to take it out."

" I gave him his choice : buy out or go out."

" You know he couldn't buy out then. It was no
choice at all."

" It was a business chance."

11 No ; you had better face the truth, Silas. It
was no chance at all. You crowded him out. A
man that had saved you ! No, you had got greedy,
Silas. You had made your paint your god, and you
couldn't bear to let anybody else share in its bless-
ings."

" I tell you he was a drag and a brake on me
from the word go. You say he saved me. Well, if
I hadn't got him out he 'd 'a' ruined me sooner or
later. So it's an even thing, as far forth as that
goes."

" No, it ain't an even thing, and you know it,
Silas. Oh, if I could only get you once to acknow
ledge that you did wrong about it, then I should

64 THE RISE OF

have some hope. I don't say you meant wrong
exactly, but you took an advantage. Yes, you took
an advantage ! You had him where he couldn't help
himself, and then you wouldn't show him any
mercy."

" I 'm sick of this," said Lapham. " If you '11
'tend to the house, I '11 manage my business without
your help." i

" You were very glad of my help once."
" Well, I 'm tired of it now. Don't meddle."
" I will meddle. When I see you hardening
yourself in a wrong thing, it's time for me to
meddle, as you call it, and I will. I can't ever get
you to own up the least bit about Rogers, and I feel
as if it was hurting you all the while."

" What do you want I should own up about a
thing for when I don't feel wrong 1 I tell you
Rogers hain't got anything to complain of, and that 's
what I told you from the start. It 's a thing that 's
done every day. I was loaded up with a partner
that didn't know anything, and couldn't do anything,
and I unloaded; that's all."

" You unloaded just at the time when you knew
that your paint was going to be worth about twice
what it ever had been ; and you wanted all the
advantage for yourself."

" I had a right to it. I made the success."
"Yes, you made it with Rogers's money; and
when you'd made it you took his share of it. I
guess you thought of that when you saw him, and
that's why you couldn't look him in the face."

SILAS LAPHAM. 65

At these words Lapham lost his temper.

" I guess you don't want to ride with me any
more to-day," he said, turning the mare abruptly
round.

" I 'm as ready to go back as what you are," re
plied his wife. " And don't you ask me to go to
that house with you any more. You can sell it, for
all me. I sha'n't live in it. There 's blood on it."

IV,

THE silken texture of the marriage tie bears a
daily strain of wrong and insult to which no other
human relation can be subjected without lesion ; and
sometimes the strength that knits society together
might appear to the eye of faltering faith the curse
of those immediately bound by it. Two people by
no means reckless of each other's rights and feelings,
but even tender of them for the most part, may tear
at each other's heart-strings in this sacred bond with
perfect impunity; though if they were any other
two they would not speak or look at each other
again after the outrages they exchange. It is cer
tainly a curious spectacle, and doubtless it ought to
convince an observer of the divinity of the institu^
tion. If the husband and wife are blunt, outspoken
people like the Laphams, they do not weigh their
words ; if they are more refined, they weigh them
very carefully, and know accurately just how far
they will carry, and in what most sensitive spot they
may be planted with most effect.

Lapham was proud of his wife, and when he
married her it had been a rise in life for him. FOT
a while he stood in awe of his good fortune, but thfc

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 67

could not last, and he simply remained supremely
satisfied with it. The girl who had taught school
with a clear head and a strong hand was not afraid
of work ; she encouraged and helped him from the
first, and bore her full share of the common burden.
She had health, and she did not worry his life out
with peevish complaints and vagaries ; she had sense
and principle, and in their simple lot she did what
was wise and right. Their marriage was hallowed
by an early sorrow : they lost their boy, and it was
years before they could look each other in the face
and speak of him. No one gave up more than they
when they gave up each other and Lapham went to
the war. When he came back and began to work,
her zeal and courage formed the spring of his enter
prise. In that affair of the partnership she had
tried to be his conscience, but perhaps she would
have defended him if he had accused himself ; it was
one of those things in this life which seem destined
to await justice, or at least judgment, in the next.
As he said, Lapham had dealt fairly by his partner
in money ; he had let Rogers take more money out
of the business than he put into it ; he had, as he
said, simply forced out of it a timid and inefficient
participant in advantages which he had created.
But Lapham had not created them all. He had
been dependent at one time on his partner's capital.
It was a moment of terrible trial. Happy is the
man for ever after who can choose the ideal, the
unselfish part in such an exigency ! Lapham could
not rise to it. He did what he could maintain to

68 THE RISE OF

be perfectly fair. The wrong, if any, seemed to be
condoned to him, except when from time to time
his wife brought it up. Then all the question stung
and burned anew, and had to be reasoned out and
put away once more. It seemed to have an inex
tinguishable vitality. It slept, but it did not die.

His course did not shake Mrs. Lapham's faith in
him. It astonished her at first, and it always grieved
her that he could not see that he was acting solely
in his own interest. But she found excuses for him,
which at times she made reproaches. She vaguely
perceived that his paint was something more than
business to him ; it was a sentiment, almost a
passion. He could not share its management and
its profit with another without a measure of self-
sacrifice far beyond that which he must make with
something less personal to him. It was the poetry
of that nature, otherwise so intensely prosaic ; and
she understood this, and for the most part forbore.
She knew him good and true and blameless in all
his life, except for this wrong, if it were a wrong ;
and it was only when her nerves tingled intolerably
with some chance renewal of the pain she had
suffered, that she shared her anguish with him in
true wifely fashion.

With those two there was never anything like
an explicit reconciliation. They simply ignored a
quarrel; and Mrs. Lapham had only to say a few
days after at breakfast, "I guess the girls would
like to go round with you this afternoon, and look
at the new house," in order to make her husband

SILAS LAPHAM. 69

grumble out as he looked down into his coffee-cup.
" I guess we better all go, hadn't we ?"

"Well, I '11 see," she said.

There was not really a great deal to look at when
Lapham arrived on the ground in his four-seated
beach-wagon. But the walls were up, and the
studding had already given skeleton shape to the
interior. The floors were roughly boarded over, and
the stairways were in place, with provisional treads
rudely laid. They had not begun to lath and
plaster yet, but the clean, fresh smell of the mortar
in the walls mingling with the pungent fragrance of
the pine shavings neutralised the Venetian odour
that drew in over the water. It was pleasantly
shady there, though for the matter of that the heat
of the morning had all been washed out of the
atmosphere by a tide of east wind setting in at noon,
and the thrilling, delicious cool of a Boston summer
afternoon bathed every nerve.

The foreman went about with Mrs. Lapham, show
ing her where the doors were to be ; but Lapham
soon tired of this, and having found a pine stick of
perfect grain, he abandoned himself to the pleasure
of whittling it in what was to be the reception-room,
where he sat looking out on the street from what
was to be the bay-window. Here he was presently
joined by his girls, who, after locating their own
room on the water side above the music-room, had
no more wish to enter into details than their father.

" Come and take a seat in the bay-window, ladies,"
be called out to them, as they looked in at him

70 THE RISE OF

through the ribs of the wall. He jocosely made
room for them on the trestle on which he sat.

They came gingerly and vaguely forward, as young
ladies do when they wish not to seem to be going
to do a thing they have made up their minds to do.
When they had taken their places on their trestle,
they could not help laughing with scorn, open and
acceptable to their father ; and Irene curled her chin
up, in a little way she had, and said, " How ridicu
lous I" to her sister.

" Well, I can tell you what," said the Colonel, in
fond enjoyment of ,their young ladyishness, " your
mother wa'n't ashamed to sit with me on a trestle
when I called her out to look at the first coat of my
paint that I ever tried on a house."

"Yes; we've heard that story,v said Penelope,
with easy security of her father's liking what she
said. " We were brought up on that story."

"Well, it's a good story," said her father.

At that moment a young man came suddenly in
range, who began to look up at the signs of building
as he approached. He dropped his eyes in coming
abreast of the bay-window, where Lapham sat with
his girls, and then his face lightened, and he took
off his hat and bowed to Irene. She rose mechani
cally from the trestle, and her face lightened too.
She was a very pretty figure of a girl, after pur
fashion of girls, round and slim and flexible, and
her face was admirably regular. But her great
beauty — and it was very great — was in her colouring.
This was of an effect for which there is no word but

SILAS LAPHAM. 71

delicious, as we use it of fruit or flowers. She had
red hair, like her father in his earlier days, and the
tints of her cheeks and temples were such as sug
gested May-flowers and apple-blossoms and peaches.
Instead of the grey that often dulls this complexion,
her eyes were of a blue at once intense and tender,
and they seemed to burn on what they looked at
with a soft, lambent flame. It was well understood
by her sister and mother that her eyes always ex
pressed a great deal more than Irene ever thought
or felt ; but this is not saying that she was not a
very sensible girl and very honest.

The young man faltered perceptibly, and Irene
came a little forward, and then there gushed from
them both a smiling exchange of greeting, of which
the sum was that he supposed she was out of town,
and that she had not known that he had got back.
A pause ensued, and flushing again in her uncer
tainty as to whether she ought or ought not to do
it, she said, "My father, Mr. Corey; and my sister."

The young man took off his hat again, showing
his shapely head, with a line of wholesome sunburn
ceasing where the recently and closely clipped hair
began. He was dressed in a fine summer check, with
a blue white-dotted neckerchief, and he had a white
hat, in which he looked very well when he put it back
on his head. His whole dress seemed very fresh and
new, and in fact he had cast aside his Texan habili
ments only the day before.

"How do you do, sir f said the Colonel, stepping
to the window, and reaching out of it the hand which

72 THE RISE OF

the young man advanced to take. " Won't you come
in 1 We 're at home here. House I 'm building."

" Oh, indeed 1 " returned the young man ; and he
came promptly up the steps, and through its ribs into
the reception-room.

"Have a trestle?" asked the Colonel, while the
girls exchanged little shocks of terror and amuse
ment at the eyes.

"Thank you," said the young man simply, and
sat down.

"Mrs. Lapham is upstairs interviewing the car
penter, but she '11 be down in a minute."

"I hope she's quite well," said Corey. "I sup
posed — I was afraid she might be out of town."

" Well, we are off to Nantasket next week. The
house kept us in town pretty late."

"It must be very exciting, building a house,"
said Corey to the elder sister.

" Yes, it is," she assented, loyally refusing in
Irene's interest the opportunity of saying anything
more.

Corey turned to the latter. "I suppose you Ve
all helped to plan it?"

" Oh no ; the architect and mamma did that."

"But they allowed the rest of us to agree, when
we were good," said Penelope.

Corey looked at her, and saw that she was shorter
than her sister, and had a dark complexion.

" It 's very exciting," said Irene.

" Come up," said the Colonel, rising, " and look
round if you 'd like to."

SILAS LAPHAM 73

"I should like to, very much," said the young
man.

He helped the young ladies over crevasses o*
carpentry and along narrow paths of planking, on
which they had made their way unassisted before.
The elder sister left the younger to profit solely
by these offices as much as possible. She walked
between them and her father, who went before,
lecturing on each apartment, and taking the credit
of the whole affair more and more as he talked
on.

" There !" he said, " we 're going to throw out a
bay-window here, so as get the water all the way
up and down. This is my girls' room," he added,
looking proudly at them both.

I^seemed terribly intimate. Irene blushed deeply
and turned her head away.

But the young man took it all, apparently, as
simply as their father. " What a lovely lookout !"
he said. The Back Bay spread its glassy sheet
before them, empty but for a few small boats and
a large schooner, with her sails close-furled and
dripping like snow from her spars, which a tug was
rapidly towing toward Cambridge. The carpentry
of that city, embanked and embowered in foliage,
shared the picturesqueness of Charlestown in the
distance.

" Yes," said Lapham, " I go in for using the best
rooms in your house yourself. If people come to
stay with you, they can put up with the second best.
Though we don't intend to have any second best,

74 THE RISE OF

There ain't going to be an unpleasant room in the
whole house, from top to bottom."

"Oh, I wish papa wouldn't brag so!" breathed
Irene to her sister, where they stood, a little apart,
looking away together.

The Colonel went on. " No, sir," he swelled out,
11 1 have gone in for making a regular job of it. I 've
got the best architect in Boston, and I 'm building a
house to suit myself. And if money can do it, I
guess I'm going to be suited."

" It seems very delightful," said Corey, "and very
original."

" Yes, sir. That fellow hadn't talked five minutes
before I saw that he knew what he was about every
time."

- "I wish mamma would come!" breathed Irene
again. " I shall certainly go through the floor if
papa says anything more."

"They are making a great many very pretty
houses nowadays," said the young man. " It 's very
different from the old-fashioned building."

" Well," said the Colonel, with a large toleration
of tone and a deep breath that expanded his ample
chest, " we spend more on our houses nowadays. I
started oiit to build a forty-thousand-dollar house.
Well, sir ! that fellow has got me in for more than
sixty thousand already, and I doubt if I get out of
it much under a hundred. You can't have a nice
house for nothing. It 's just like ordering a picture
of a painter. You pay him enough, and he can afford
*o paint you a first- class picture ; and if you don't,

SILAS LAPHAM. 75

he can't. That 's all there is of it. Why, they tell
me that A. T. Stewart gave one of those French
fellows sixty thousand dollars for a little seven-by-
nine picture the other day. Yes, sir, give an archi
tect money enough, and he '11 give you a nice house
every time."

" I 've heard that they 're sharp at getting money
to realise their ideas," assented the young man, with
a laugh.

"Well, I should say so !" exclaimed the Colonel.
* They come to you with an improvement that you
*an't resist. It has good looks and common-sense
And everything in its favour, and it 's like throwing
money away to refuse. And they always manage to
get you when your wife is around, and then you 're
helpless."

The Colonel himself set the example of laughing
at this joke, and the young man joined him less
obstreperously. The girls turned, and he said, "I
don't think I ever saw this view to better advantage.
It 's surprising how well the Memorial Hall and the
Cambridge spires work up, over there. And the
sunsets must be magnificent."

Lapham did not wait for them to reply.

" Yes, sir, it 's about the sightliest view I know of.
I always did like the water side of Beacon. Long
before I owned property here, or ever expected to,
m'wife and I used to ride down this way, and stop
the buggy to get this view over the water. When
people talk to me about the Hill, I can understand
'em. It 's snug, and it 's old-fashioned, and it 's where

76 THE RISE OF

they've always lived. But when they talk about
Commonwealth Avenue, I don't know what they
mean. It don't hold a candle to the water side of
Beacon. You Ve got just as much wind over there,
and you Ve got just as much dust, and all the view
you Ve got is the view across the street. No, sir !
when you come to the Back Bay at all, give me the
water side of Beacon."

" Oh, I think you 're quite right," said the young
man. " The view here is everything."

Irene looked " I wonder what papa is going to say
next !" at her sister, when their mother's voice was
heard overhead, approaching the opening in the floor
where the stairs were to be ; and she presently
appeared, with one substantial foot a long way
ahead. She was followed by the carpenter, with his
rule sticking out of his overalls pocket, and she was
still talking to him about some measurements they
had been taking, when they reached the bottom, so
that Irene had to say, " Mamma, Mr. Corey," before
Mrs. Lapham was aware of him.

He came forward with as much grace and speed as
the uncertain footing would allow, and Mrs. Lapham
gave him a stout squeeze of her comfortable hand.

" Why, Mr. Corey ! When did you get back ?"

" Yesterday. It hardly seems as if I had got back.
I didn't expect to find you in a new house."

" Well, you are our first caller. I presume you
won't expect I should make excuses for the state you
find it in. Has the Colonel been doing the
honours 1"

SILAS LAPHAM. 77

" Oh yes. And I Ve seen more of your house
than I ever shall again, I suppose."

" Well, I hope not," said Lapham. " There '11 be
several chances to see us in the old one yet, before
we leave."

He probably thought this a neat, off-hand way of
making the invitation, for he looked at his woman
kind as if he might expect their admiration.

" Oh yes, indeed ! " said his wife. " We shall be
very glad to see Mr. Corey, any time."

" Thank you ; I shall be glad to come. "

He and the Colonel went before, and helped the
ladies down the difficult descent. Irene seemed less
sure-footed than the others ; she clung to the young
man's hand an imperceptible moment longer than
need be, or else he detained her. He found oppor
tunity of saying, " It 's so pleasant seeing you
again," adding, " all of you."

" Thank you," said the girl. " They must all be
glad to have you at home again."

Corey laughed.

" Well, I suppose they would be, if they were at
home to have me. But the fact is, there 's nobody
in the house but my father and myself, and I'm
only on my way to Bar Harbour."

" Oh ! Are they there ? "

" Yes ; it seems to be the only place where my
mother can get just the combination of sea and
mountain air that she wants."

" We go to Nantasket — it 's convenient for papa ;
and I don't believe we shall go anywhere else this

f 8 THE RISE OF

summer, mamma 's so taken up with building. We
do nothing but talk house; and Pen says we eat
and sleep house. She says it would be a sort of
relief to go and live in tents for a while."

" She seems to have a good deal of humour," the
young man ventured, upon the slender evidence.

The others had gone to the back of the house a
moment, to look at some suggested change. Irene
and Corey were left standing in the doorway. A
lovely light .of happiness played over her face and
etherealised its delicious beauty. She had some ado
to keep herself from smiling outright, and the effort
deepened the dimples in her cheeks ; she trembled
a little, and the .pendants shook in the tips of her
pretty ears.

The others came back directly, and they all
descended the front steps together. The Colonel
was about to renew his invitation, but he caught his
wife's eye, and, without being able to interpret its
warning exactly, was able to arrest himself, and
went about gathering up the hitching-weight, while
the young man handed the ladies into the phaeton.
Then he lifted his hat, and the ladies all bowed, and
the Laphams drove off, Irene's blue ribbons flutter
ing backward from her hat, as if they were her
clinging thoughts.

" So that 's young Corey, is it 1 " said the Colonel,
letting the stately stepping, tall coupd horse make his
way homeward at will with the beach-wagon. " Well,
he ain't a bad-looking fellow, and he's got a good,
fair and square, honest eye. But I don't see how a

SILAS LAPHAM. 79

fellow like that, that 's had every advantage in this
world, can hang round home and let his father
support him. Seems to me, if I had his health and
his education, I should want to strike out and do
something for myself."

The girls on the back seat had hold of each other's
hands, and they exchanged electrical pressures at the
different points their father made.

" I presume/' said Mrs. Lapham, " that he was
down in Texas looking after something."

" He's come back without finding it, I guess."

" Well, if his father has the money to support
him, and don't complain of the burden, I don't see
why we should."

" Oh, I know it 's none of my business ; but I
don't like the principle. I like to see a man act like
a man. I don't like to see him taken care of like a
young lady. Now, I suppose that fellow belongs to
two or three clubs, and hangs around 'em all day,
lookin' out the window, — I 've seen 'em, — instead of
tryin' to hunt up something to do for an honest
livin'."

"If I was a young man," Penelope struck in, "I
would belong to twenty clubs, if I could find them,
and I would hang around them all, and look out the
window till I dropped."

" Oh, you would, would you 1 " demanded her
father, delighted with her defiance, and twisting his
fat head around over his shoulder to look at her.
" Well, you wouldn't do it on my money, if you
*vere a son of mine, young lady,"

80 THE RISE OF

" Oh, you wait and see," retorted the girl.

This made them all laugh. But the Colonel
recurred seriously to the subject that night, as he
was winding up his watch preparatory to putting it
under his pillow.

" I could make a man of that fellow, if I had him
in the business with me. There's stuff in him.
But I spoke up the way I did because I didn't
choose Irene should think I would stand any kind
of a loafer 'round — I don't care who he is, or how
well educated or brought up. And I guess, from
the way Pen spoke up, that 'Eene saw what I was
driving at."

The girl, apparently, was less anxious about her
father's ideas and principles than about the impres
sion which he had made upon the young man. She
had talked it over and over with her sister before
they went to bed, and she asked in despair, as she
stood looking at Penelope brushing out her hair
before the glass —

" Do you suppose he '11 think papa always talks
in that bragging way ? "

" He '11 be right if he does," answered her sister.
" It 's the way father always does talk. You never
noticed it so much, that's all. And I guess if he
can't make allowance for father's bragging, he '11 be
a little too good. / enjoyed hearing the Colonel go
on."

"I know you did," returned Irene in distress.
Then she sighed. " Didn't you think he looked
very nice T'

SILAS LAPHAM. 81

" Who 1 The Colonel 1 " Penelope had caught up
the habit of calling her father so from her mother,
and she used his title in all her jocose and perverse
moods.

" You know very well I don't mean papa/' pouted
Irene.

" Oh ! Mr. Corey ! Why didn't you say Mr. Corey
if you meant Mr. Corey 1 If I meant Mr. Corey, I
should say Mr. Corey. It isn't swearing ! Corey,
Corey, Co "

Her sister clapped her hand over her mouth.
"Will you hush, you wretched thing?" she whim
pered. " The whole house can hear you."

"Oh yes, they can hear me all over the square.
Well, I think he looked well enough for a plain
youth, who hadn't taken his hair out of curl-papers
for some time."

" It was clipped pretty close," Irene admitted ;
and they both laughed at the drab effect of Mr.
Corey's skull, as they remembered it. " Did you
like his nose ?" asked Irene timorously.

" Ah, now you 're coming to something," said
Penelope. "I don't know whether, if I had so
much of a nose, I should want it all Roman."

" I don't see how you can expect to have a nose
part one kind and part another," argued Irene.

" Oh, / do. Look at mine !" She turned aside
her face, so as to get a three-quarters view of her
nose in the glass, and crossing her hands, with the
brush in one of them, belore her, regarded it judici
ally. " Now, my nose started Grecian, but changed
F

82 THE RISE OF

its mind before it got over the bridge, and concluded
to be snub the rest of .the way."

" You 've got a very pretty nose, Pen," said Irene,
joining in the contemplation of its reflex in the glass.

" Don't say that in hopes of getting me to com
pliment his, Mrs." — she stopped, and then added
deliberately— " 0. !"

Irene also had her hair-brush in her hand, and now
she sprang at her sister and beat her very softly on
the shoulder with the flat of it. " You mean thing !"
she cried, between her shut teeth, blushing hotly.

" Well, D., then," said Penelope. " You Ve nothing
to say against D. 1 Though I think C. is just as
nice an initial."

"Oh!" cried the younger, for all expression of
unspeakable things.

"I think he has very good eyes," admitted
Penelope.

" Oh, he has ! And didn't you like the way his
sack-coat set ? So close to him, and yet free — kind
of peeling away at the lapels ?"

" Yes, I should say he was a young man of great
judgment. He knows how to choose his tailor."

Irene sat down on the edge of a chair. " It was so
nice of you, Pen, to come in, that way, about clubs."

" Oh, I didn't mean anything by it except opposi--
tion," said Penelope. " I couldn't have father swelling
on so, without saying something."

"How he did swell!" sighed Irene. "Wasn't it
a relief to have mamma come down, even if she did
seem to be all stocking at first ?"

SILAS LAPHAM. 83

The girls broke into a wild giggle, and hid their
faces in each other's necks. " I thought I should
die," said Irene.

" ' It's just like ordering a painting/" saidPenelope,
recalling her father's talk, with an effect of dreamy
absent-mindedness. " ' You give the painter money
enough, and he can afford to paint you a first-class
picture. Give an architect money enough, and he 11
give you a first-class house, every time.'"

" Oh, wasn't it awful !" moaned her sister. " No
one would ever have supposed that he had fought
the very idea of an architect for weeks, before he
gave in."

Penelope went on. "' I always did like the water
side of Beacon, — long before I owned property there.
When you come to the Back Bay at all, give me
the water side of Beacon.'"

" Ow-w-w-w !" shrieked Irene. " Do stop !"

The door of their mother's chamber opened below,
and the voice of the real Colonel called, " What are
you doing up there, girls ? Why don't you go to
bed f

This extorted nervous shrieks from both of them.
The Colonel heard a sound of scurrying feet, whisking
drapery, and slamming doors. Then he heard one
of the doors opened again, and Penelope said, " I
was only repeating something you said when you
talked to Mr. Corey."

" Very well, now," answered the Colonel. " You
postpone the rest of it till to-morrow at breakfast,
and see that you're up in time to let me hear it."

V.

AT the same moment young Corey let himself in
at his own door with his latch-key, and went to the
library, where he found his father turning the last
leaves of a story in the Revue des Deux Mondes.
He was a white-moustached old gentleman, who had
never been able to abandon his pince-nez for the
superior comfort of spectacles, even in the privacy
of his own library. He knocked the glasses off
as his son came in and looked up at him with lazy
fondness, rubbing the two red marks that they always
leave on the side of the nose.

" Tom," he said, " where did you get such good
clothes 1"

" I stopped over a day in New York," replied the
son, finding himself a chair. " I 'm glad you like
them,"

" Yes, I always do like your clothes, Tom, re
turned the father thoughtfully, swinging his glasses,
" But I don't see how you can afford 'em, / can't."

" Well, sir," said the son, who dropped the " sir "
into his speech with his father, now and then, in an
old-fashioned way that was rather charming, "you
see, I have an indulgent parent."

M

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 85

" Smoke 1" suggested the father, pushing toward
his son a box of cigarettes, from which he had taken
one.

" No, thank you," said the son. " I 've dropped
that."

"Ah, is that so]" The father began to feel
about on the table for matches, in the purblind
fashion of elderly men. His son rose, lighted one,
and handed it to him. " Well, — oh, thank you,
Tom ! — I believe some statisticians prove that if you
will give up smoking you can dress very well on the
jnoney your tobacco costs, even if you haven't got
an indulgent parent. But I 'm too old to try.
Though, I confess, I should rather like the clothes.
Whom did you find at the club ?"

" There were a lot of fellows there," said young
Corey, watching the accomplished fumigation of his
father in an absent way.

" It 's astonishing what a hardy breed the young
club-men are," observed his father. "All summer
through, in weather that sends the sturdiest female
flying to the sea-shore, you find the clubs filled with
young men, who don't seem to mind the heat in the
least."

" Boston isn't a bad place, at the worst, in sum
mer," said the son, declining to take up the matter
in its ironical shape.

" I dare say it isn't, compared with Texas," re
turned the father, smoking tranquilly on. " But I
don't suppose you find many of your friends in town
outside of the club."

8G THE RISE OF

" No ; you 're requested to ring at the rear dooi\
all the way down Beacon Street and up Common
wealth Avenue. It 's rather a blank reception for
the returning prodigal."

"Ah, the prodigal must take his chance if he
conies back out of season. But I 'm glad to have
you back, Tom, even as it is, and I hope you 're not
going to hurry away. You must give your energies
a rest."

" 1 7m sure you never had to reproach me with
abnormal activity," suggested the son, taking his
father's jokes in good part

" No, I don't know that I have," admitted the
elder. " You Ve always shown a fair degree of
moderation, after all. What do you think of taking
up next 1 I mean after you have embraced your
mother and sisters at Mount Desert. Real estate ?
It seems to me that it is about time for you to open
out as a real-estate broker. Or did you ever think
of matrimony 1 "

" Well, not just in that way, sir," said the young
man. "I shouldn't quite like to regard it as a
career, you know."

" No, no. I understand that. And I quite agree
with you. But you know I Ve always contended
that the affections could be made to combine plea
sure and profit. I wouldn't have a man marry for
money, — that would be rather bad, — but I don't
see why, when it comes to falling in love, a man
shouldn't fall in love with a rich girl as easily as a
poor one. Some of the rich girls are very nice, and

SILAS LAPHAM. 87

I should say that the chances of a quiet life with
them were rather greater. They've always had
everything, and they wouldn't be so ambitious and
uneasy. Don't you think so 1"

" It would depend," said the son, " upon whether
a girl's people had been rich long enough to have
given her position before she married. If they
hadn't, I don't see how she would be any better
than a poor girl in that respect."

" Yes, there 's sense in that. But the suddenly
rich are on a level with any of us nowadays. Money
buys position at once. I don't say that it isn't all
right. The world generally knows what it 's about,
and knows how to drive a bargain. I dare say it
intakes the new rich pay too much. But there 's no
doubt but money is to the fore now. It is the
romance, the poetry of our age. It 's the thing that
chiefly strikes the imagination. The Englishmen
who come here are more curious about the great
new millionaires than about any one else, and they
respect them more. It's all very well. I don't
complain of it."

" And you would like a rich daughter-in-law,
quite regardless, then 1 "

" Oh, not quite so bad as that, Tom," said his
father. " A little youth, a little beauty, a little good
sense and pretty behaviour — one mustn't object to
those things ; and they go just as often with money
as without it. And I suppose I should like her
people to be rather grammatical."

" It seems to me that you 're exacting, sir," said

38 THE RISE OF

the son. " How can you expect people who have
been strictly devoted to business to be grammatical 1
Isn't that rather too much 1"

" Perhaps it is. Perhaps you 're right. But I
understood your mother to say that 'those bene
factors of hers, whom you met last summer, were
very passably grammatical."

" The father isn't."

The elder, who had been smoking with his profile
toward his son, now turned his face full upon him.
" I didn't know you had seen him ? "

" I hadn't until to-day," said young Corey, with a
little heightening of his colour. " But I was walk
ing down street this afternoon, and happened to
look round at a new house some one was putting up,
and I saw the whole family in the window. It
appears that Mr. Lapham is building the house."

The elder Corey knocked the ash of his cigarette
into the holder at his elbow. " I am more and more
convinced, the longer I know you, Tom, that we are
descended from Giles Corey. The gift of holding
one's tongue seems to have skipped me, but you
have it in full force. I can't say just how you would
behave under peine forte et dure, but under ordinary
pressure you are certainly able to keep your own
counsel. Why didn't you mention this encounter at
dinner 1 You weren't asked to plead to an accusa
tion of witchcraft."

" No, not exactly," said the young man. " But
I didn't quite see my way to speaking of it. We
had a good many other things before us."

SILAS LAPHAM. 89

" Yes, that 's true. I suppose you wouldn't have
mentioned it now if I hadn't led up to it, would
you?"

" I don't know, sir. It was rather on my mind
to do so. Perhaps it was I who led up to it."

His father laughed. "Perhaps you did, Tom;
perhaps you did. Your mother would have known
you were leading up to something, but I '11 confess
that I didn't. What is it ?"

" Nothing very definite. But do you know that
in spite of his syntax I rather liked him 1 "

The father looked keenly at the son ; but unless
the boy's full confidence was offered, Corey was not
the man to ask it. " Well 1 " was all that he said.

" I suppose that in a new country one gets to
looking at people a little out of our tradition ; and
I dare say that if I hadn't passed a winter in Texas
I might have found Colonel Lapham rather -too
much."

" You mean that there are worse things in
Texas 1"

" Not that exactly. I mean that I saw it wouldn't
be quite fair to test him by our standards."

" This comes of the error which I have often de
precated," said the elder Corey. " In fact I am
always saying that the Bostonian ought never to
leave Boston. Then he knows — and then only —
that there can be no standard but ours. But^pe
are constantly going away, and coming back with
our convictions shaken to their foundations. One
man goes to England, and returns with the concept

90 THE RISE OF

tion of a grander social life ; another comes home
from Germany with the notion of a more searching
intellectual activity ; a fellow just back from Paris
has the absurdest ideas of art and literature; and
you revert to us from the cowboys of Texas, and
tell us to our faces that we ought to try Papa
Lapham by a jury of his peers. It ought to be
stopped — it ought, really. The Bostonian who
leaves Boston ought to be condemned to perpetual
exile."

The son suffered the father to reach his climax
with smiling patience. When he asked finally,
" What are the characteristics of Papa Lapham that
place him beyond our jurisdiction ? " the younger
Corey crossed his long legs, and leaned forward to
take one of his knees between his hands.

" Well, sir, he bragged, rather."

"•Oh, I don't know that bragging should exempt
him from the ordinary processes. I Ve heard other
people brag in Boston."

"Ah, not just in that personal way — not about
money."

" No, that was certainly different."

" I don't mean," said the young fellow, with the
scrupulosity which people could not help, observing
and liking in him, " that it was more than an indi
rect expression of satisfaction in the ability to spend."

•' No. I should be glad to express something of
the kind myself, if the facts would justify me."

The son smiled tolerantly again. " But if he was
enjoying his money in that way, I didn't see why

SILAS LAPHAM. 91

he shouldn't show his pleasure in it. It might have
been vulgar, but it wasn't sordid. And I don't
know that it was vulgar. Perhaps his successful
strokes of business were the romance of his life "

The father interrupted with a laugh. " The girl
must be uncommonly pretty. What did she seem
to think of her father's brag 1, "

" There were two of them," answered the son
evasively.

" Oh, two ! And is the sister pretty too "? "

" Not pretty, but rather interesting. She is like
her mother."

" Then the pretty one isn't the father's pet ? "

" I can't say, sir. I don't believe," added the
young fellow, " that I can make you see Colonel
Lapliam just as I did. He struck me as very
simple-hearted and rather wholesome. Of course he
could be tiresome ; we all can ; and I suppose his
range of ideas is limited. But he is a force, and not
a bad one. If he hasn't got over being surprised at
the effect of rubbing his lamp "

" Oh, one could make out a case. I suppose you
know what you are about, Tom. But remember
that we are Essex County people, and that in savour
we are just a little beyond the salt of the earth. I
will tell you plainly that I don't like the notion of a
man who has rivalled the hues of nature in her wild
est haunts with the tints of his mineral paint ; but
I don't say there are not worse men. He isn't to
my taste, though he might be ever so much to my
conscience."

92 THE RISE OF

"I suppose," said the son, "that there is nothing
really to be ashamed of in mineral paint. People
go into all sorts of things."

His father took his cigarette from his mouth and
once more looked his son full in the face. " Oh, is
that it ?"

" It has crossed my mind," admitted the son. " I
must do something. I Ve wasted time and money
enough. I Ve seen much younger men all through
the West and South-west taking care of themselves.
I don't think I was particularly fit for anything Out
there, but I am ashamed to come back and live
upon you, sir."

His father shook his head with an ironical sigh.
" Ah, we shall never have a real aristocracy while
this plebeian reluctance to live upon a parent or »
wife continues the animating spirit of our youth. It-
strikes at the root of the whole feudal system. I
really think you owe me an apology, Tom. I sup
posed you wished to marry the girl's money, and here
you are, basely seeking to go into business with her
father."

Young Corey laughed again like a son who per
ceives that his father is a little antiquated, but keeps
a filial faith in his wit. " I don't know that it 's quite
so bad as that ; but the thing had certainly crossed
my mind. I don't know how it's to be approached,
and I don't know that it 's at all possible. But I
confess that I ' took to ? Colonel Lapham from the
moment I saw him. He looked as if he ' meant
business/ and I mean business too."

SILAS LAPHAM. 93

The father smoked thoughtfully. " Of course
people do go into all sorts of things, as you say,
and I don't know that one thing is more ignoble
than another, if it 's decent and large enough. In
my time you would have gone into the China trade
or the India trade — though / didn't ; and a little
later cotton would have been your manifest destiny
— though it wasn't mine ; but now a man may do
almost anything. The real- estate business is pretty
full. Yes, if you have a deep inward vocation for
it, I don't see why mineral paint shouldn't do. I
fancy it 's easy enough approaching the matter. We
will invite Papa Lapham to dinner, and talk it over
with him."

" Oh, I don't think that would be exactly the way,
sir," said the son, smiling at his father's patrician
unworldliness.

" No 1 Why not ? "

" I 'm afraid it would be a bad start. I don't
think it would strike him as business-like."

" I don't see why he should be punctilious, if
we 're not."

"Ah, we might say that if he were making the
advances."

"Well, perhaps you are right, T6m. What is
your idea 1 "

"I haven't a very clear one. It seems to me I ought
to get some business friend of ours, whose judgment
he would respect, to speak a good word for me."

" Give you a character 1 "

" Yes. And of course I must go to Colonel

94 THE RISE OF

Lapham. My notion would be to inquire pretty
thoroughly about him, and then, if I liked the look
of things, to go right down to Republic Street and
let him see what he could do with me, if any
thing."

" That sounds tremendously practical to me, Tom,
though it may be just the wrong way. When are
you going down to- Mount Desert 1 "

"To-morrow, I think, sir," said the young man.
" I shall turn it over in my mind while I 'm off."

The father rose, showing something more than
his son's height, with a very slight stoop, which the
son's figure had not. " Well," he said, whimsically,
" I admire your spirit, and I don't deny that it is
justified by necessity. It 's a consolation to think
that while I Ve been spending and enjoying, I have
been preparing the noblest future for you — a future
of industry and self-reliance. You never could
draw, but this scheme of going into the mineral-
paint business shows that you have inherited some
thing of my feeling for colour."

The son laughed once more, and waiting till his
father was well on his way upstairs, turned out the
gas and then hurried after him and preceded him
into his chamber. He glanced over it to see that
everything was there, to his father's hand. Then
he said, " Good night, sir," and the elder responded,
" Good night, my son/' and the son went to his own
room.

Over the mantel in the elder Corey's room hung a
portrait which he had painted of his own father, and

SILAS LAPHAM. 95

now he stood a moment and looked at this as if
struck by something novel in it. The resemblance
between his son and the old India merchant* who
had followed the trade from Salem to Boston when
the larger city drew it away from the smaller, must
have been what struck him. Grandfather and
grandson had both the Roman nose which appears
to have flourished chiefly at the formative period of
the republic, and which occurs more rarely in the
descendants of the conscript fathers, though it still
characterises the profiles of a good many Boston
ladies. Bromfield Corey had not inherited it, and
he had made his straight nose his defence when the
old merchant accused him of a want of energy. He
said, " What could a man do whose unnatural father
had left his own nose away from him?" This
amused but did not satisfy the merchant. "You
must do something," he said ; " and it 's for you to
choose. If you don't like the India trade, go into
something else. Or, take up law or medicine. No
Corey yet ever proposed to do nothing." " Ah,
then, it 's quite time one of us made a beginning,"
urged the man who was then young, and who was
now old, looking into the somewhat fierce eyes of his
father's portrait. He had inherited as little of the
fierceness as of the nose, and there was nothing pre
datory in his son either, though the aquiline beak
had come down to him in such force. Bromfield
Corey liked his son Tom for the gentleness which
tempered his energy.

" Well let us compromise," he seemed to be say-

96 THE RISE OF

ing to his father's portrait. "I will travel.'1
" Travel ? How long ? " the keen eyes demanded.
" Oh, indefinitely. I won't be hard with you,
father." He could see the eyes soften, and the smile
of yielding come over his father's face ; the mer
chant could not resist a son who was so much like
his dead mother. There was some vague under
standing between them that Bromfield Corey was
to come back and go into business after a time, but
he never did so. He travelled about over Europe,
and travelled handsomely, frequenting good society
everywhere, and getting himself presented at several
courts, at a period when it was a distinction to do
so. He had always sketched, and with his father's
leave he fixed himself at Rome, where he remained
studying art and rounding the being inherited from
his Yankee progenitors, till there was very little left
of the ancestral angularities. After ten years he
came home and painted that portrait of his father.
It was very good, if a little amateurish, and he might
ftave made himself a name as a painter of portraits if
jie had not had so much money. But he had plenty
of money, though by this time he was married and
beginning to have a family. It was absurd for him
to paint portraits for pay, and ridiculous to paint
them for nothing ; so he did not paint them at all.
He continued a dilettante, never quite abandoning
his art, but working at it fitfully, and talking more
about it than working at it. He had his theory of
Titian's method ; and now and then a Bostonian
insisted upon buying a picture of him. After a

SILAS LAPHAM. 97

while he hung it more and more inconspicuously,
and said apologetically, " Oh yes ! that 's one of
Bromfield Corey's things. It has nice qualities, but
it's amateurish."

In process of time the money seemed less abun
dant. There were shrinkages of one kind and
another, and living had grown much more expensive
and luxurious. For many years he talked about
going back to Rome, but he never went, and his
children grew up in the usual way. Before he
knew it his son had him out to his class-day spread
at Harvard, and then he had his son on his hands.
The son made various unsuccessful provisions for
himself, and still continued upon his father's hands,
to their common dissatisfaction, though it was
chiefly the younger who repined. He had the
Roman nose and the energy without the oppor
tunity, and at one of the reversions his father said
to him, " You ought not to have that nose, Tom ;
then you would do very well. You would go and
travel, as I did."

LAPHAM and his wife continued talking after he
had quelled the disturbance in his daughters' room
overhead ; and their talk was not altogether of the
new house.

" I tell you," he said, " if I had that fellow in the
business with me I would make a man of him."

" Well, Silas Lapham," returned his wife, " I do
believe you 've got mineral paint on the brain. Do
you suppose a fellow like young Corey, brought up
G

98 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

the way he 's been, would touch mineral paint with
a ten-foot pole ? "

" Why not ? " haughtily asked the Colonel.

" Well, if you don't know already, there 's no use
trying to tell you."

VI.

THE Corey s had always had a house at Nahant,
but after letting it for a season or two they found
they could get on without it, and sold it at the son's
instance, who foresaw that if things went on as they
were going, the family would be straitened to the
point of changing their mode of life altogether.
They began to be of the people of whom it was said
that they stayed in town very late ; and when the
ladies did go away, it was for a brief summering in
this place and that. The father remained at home
altogether ; and the son joined them in the intervals
of his enterprises, which occurred only too often.

At Bar Harbour, where he now went to find them,
after his winter in Texas, he confessed to his mother
that there seemed no very good opening there for
him. He might do as well as Loring Stanton, but
he doubted if Stanton was doing very well. Then
he mentioned the new project which he had been
thinking over. She did not deny that there was
something in it, but she could not think of any
young man who had gone into such a business as
that, and it appeared to her that he might as well
go into a patent medicine or a stove-polish.

100 THE RISE OF

" There was one of his hideous advertisements,"
she said, " painted on a reef that we saw as we came
down."

Corey smiled. " Well, I suppose, if it was in a
good state of preservation, that is proof positive of
the efficacy of the paint on the hulls of vessels."

" It 's very distasteful to me, Tom," said his
mother; and if there was something else in her
mind, she did not speak more plainly of it than to
add : " It 's not only the kind of business, but the
kind of people you would be mixed up with."

" I thought you didn't find them so very bad,"
suggested Corey.

" I hadn't seen them in Nankeen Square then."

" You can see them on the water side of Beacon
Street when you go back."

Then he told of his encounter with the Lapham
family in their new house. At the end his mother
merely said, "It is getting very common down
there," and she did not try to oppose anything
further to his scheme.

The young man went to see Colonel Lapham
shortly after his return to Boston. He paid his
risit at Lapham's office, and if he had studied
simplicity in his summer dress he could not have
presented himself in a figure more to the mind of a
practical man. His hands and neck still kept the
brown of the Texan suns and winds, and he looked
as business-like as Lapham himself.

He spoke up promptly and briskly in the outer
office, and caused the pretty girl to look away from

SILAS LAPHAM. 101

her copying at him. "Is Mr. Lapham ml" he
asked ; and after that moment for reflection which
an array of book-keepers so addressed likes to give
the inquirer, a head was lifted from a ledger and
nodded toward the inner office.

Lapham had recognised the voice, and he was
standing, in considerable perplexity, to receive Corey,
when the young man opened his painted glass door.
It was a hot afternoon, and Lapham was in his shirt
sleeves. Scarcely a trace of the boastful hospitality
with which he had welcomed Corey to his house a
few days before lingered in his present address. He
looked at the young man's face, as if he expected
him to despatch whatever unimaginable affair he
had come upon.

" Won't you sit down ? How are you 1 You '11
excuse me," he added, in brief allusion to the shirt
sleeves. " I 'm about roasted."

Corey laughed. " I wish you 'd let me take off
my coat."

"Why, take it off!" cried the Colonel, with instant
pleasure. There is something in human nature
which causes the man in his shirt-sleeves to wish all
other men to appear in the same deshabille.

" I will, if you ask me after I Ve talked with you
two minutes," said the young fellow, companion-
ably pulling up the chair offered him toward the
desk where Lapham had again seated himself.
" But perhaps you haven't got two minutes to give
me?"

" Oh yes, I have," said the Colonel <( I was

102 THE RISE OF

just going to knock off. I can give you twenty, and
then I shall have fifteen minutes to catch the boat."

"All right," said Corey. "I want you to take
me into the mineral paint business."

The Colonel sat dumb. He twisted his thick
neck, and looked round at the door to see if it was
shut. He would not have liked to have any ol
those fellows outside hear him, but there is no
saying what sum of money he would not have given
if his wife had been there to hear what Corey had
just said.

" I suppose," continued the young man, " I could
have got several people whose names you know to
back my industry and sobriety, and say a word for
my business capacity. But I thought I wouldn't
trouble anybody for certificates till I found whether
there was a chance, or the ghost of one, of your
wanting me. So I came straight to you."

Lapham gathered himself together as well as he
could. He had not yet forgiven Corey for Mrs. Lap-
ham's insinuation that he would feel himself too
good for the mineral paint business ; and though he
was dispersed by that astounding shot at iirst, he was
not going to let any one even hypothetically despise
his paint with impunity. " How do you think I am
going to take you on 1 " They took on hands at the
works ; and Lapham put it as if Corey were a hand
coming to him for employment. Whether he satis
fied himself by this or not, he reddened a little after
he had said it.

Corey answered, ignorant of the offence : " I

SILAS LAPHAM. 103

haven't a very clear idea, I 'm afraid ; but I Ve
been looking a little into the matter from the -out
side "

" I hope you hain't been paying any attention to
that fellow's stuff in the Events?" Lapham inter
rupted. Since Bartley's interview had appeared,
Lapham had regarded it with very mixed feelings.
At first it gave him a glow of secret pleasure,
blended with doubt as to how his wife would like
the use Bartley had made of her in it. But she had
not seemed to notice it much, and Lapham had ex
perienced the gratitude of the man who escapes.
Then his girls had begun to make fun of it; and
though he did not mind Penelope's jokes much,
he did not like to see that Irene's gentility was
wounded. Business friends met him with the kind
of knowing smile about it that implied their sense
of the fraudulent character of its praise — the smile
of men who had been there and who knew how it
was themselves. Lapham had his misgivings as to
how his clerks and underlings looked at it ; he
treated them with stately severity for a while after
it came out, and he ended by feeling rather sore
about it. He took it for granted that everybody
had read it.

" I don't know what you mean," replied Corey,
** I don't see the Events regularly."

" Oh, it was nothing. They sent a fellow down
here to interview me, and he got everything about
as twisted as he could."

" I believe they always do," said Corey. " I

104 THE RISE OF

hadn't seen it. Perhaps it came out before I got
home."

" Perhaps it did."

" My notion of making myself useful to you was
based on a hint I got from one of your own circu
lars."

Lapham was proud of those circulars ; he thought
they read very well. " What was that 1 "

" I could put a little capital into the business,"
said Corey, with the tentative accent of a man who
chances a thing. " I Ve got a little money, but I
didn't imagine you cared for anything of that
kind."

" No, sir, I don't," returned the Colonel bluntly.
" I Ve had one partner, and one 's enough/'

"Yes," assented the young man, who doubtless
had his own ideas as to eventualities — or perhaps
rather had the vague hopes of youth. " I didn't
come to propose a partnership. But I see that you
are introducing your paint into the foreign markets,
and there I really thought I might be of use to you,
and to myself too."

" How 1 " asked the Colonel scantly.

"Well, I know two or three languages pretty
well. I know French, and I know German, and
I 've got a pretty fair sprinkling of Spanish."

" You mean that you can talk them ? " asked the
Colonel, with the mingled awe and slight that such
a man feels for such accomplishments. ,

"Yes; and I can write an intelligible letter in
either of them."

SILAS LAPHAM. 105

Lapham rubbed his nose. " It 's easy enough to
get all the letters we want translated."

" Well," pursued Corey, not showing his dis
couragement if he felt any, " I know the countries
where you want to introduce this paint of yours.
I 've been there. I 've been in Germany and France,
and I Ve been in South America and Mexico ; I 've
been in Italy, of course. I believe I could go to any
of those countries and place it to advantage."

Lapham had listened with a trace of persuasion in
his face, but now he shook his head.

" It 's placing itself as fast as there 's any call for
it. It wouldn't pay us to send anybody out to look
after it. Your salary and expenses would eat up
about all we should make on it."

" Yes," returned the young man intrepidly, " if
you had to pay me any salary and expenses."

" You don't propose to work for nothing 1"

" I propose to work for a commission." The
Colonel was beginning to shake his head again, but
Corey hurried on. " I haven't come to you without
making some inquiries about the paint, and I know
how it stands with those who know best. I believe
in it."

Lapham lifted his head and looked at the young
man, deeply moved.

"It's the best paint in God's universe," he said,
with the solemnity of prayer.

" It's the best in the market," said Corey ; and he
repeated, " I believe in it."

" You believe in it," began the Colonel, and then

106 THE RISE OF

he stopped. If there had really been any purchasing
power in money, a year's income would have bought
Mrs. Lapham's instant presence. He warmed and
softened to the young man in every way, not only
because he must do so to any one who believed in
his paint, but because he had done this innocent
person the wrong of listening to a defamation of his
instinct and good sense, and had been willing to see
him suffer for a purely supposititious offence.

Corey rose.

" You mustn't let me outstay my twenty minutes,"
he said, taking out his watch. " I don't expect you
to give a decided answer on the spot. All that I ask
is that you 11 consider my proposition."

' 'Don't hurry," said Lapham. " Sit still ! I want
to tell you about this paint," he added, in a voice
husky with the feeling that his hearer could not
divine. " I want to tell you all about it."

" I could walk with you to the boat," suggested
the young man.

" Never mind the boat ! I can take the next
one. Look here !" The Colonel pulled open a
drawer, as Corey sat down again, and took out a
photograph of the locality of the mine. " Here 's
where we get it. This photograph don't half do the
place justice," he said, as if the imperfect art had
slighted the features of a beloved face. " It 's one of
the sightliest places in the country, and here 's the
very spot " — he covered it with his huge forefinger
— " where my father found that paint, more thau
forty — years — ago. Yes, sir !"

SILAS LAPHAM. 107

He went on, and told the story in unsparing
detail, while his chance for the boat passed unheeded,
and the clerks in the outer office hung up their linen
office coats and put on their seersucker or flannel
street coats. The young lady went too, and nobody
was left but the porter, who made from time to time
a noisy demonstration of fastening a distant blind,
or putting something in place. At last the Colonel
roused himself from the autobiographical delight of
the history of his paint. "Well, sir, that's the
story."

"It's an interesting story," said Corey, with a
long breath, as they rose together, and Lapham put
on his coat.

" That 's what it is," said the Colonel. " Well !"
he added, " I don't see but what we've got to have
another talk about this thing. It 's a surprise to me,
and I don't see exactly how you 're going to make it

pay."

" I 'm willing to take the chances," answered Corey.
" As I said, I believe in it. I should try South
America first. I should try Chili."

" Look here ! " said Lapham, with his watch in his
hand. " I like to get things over. We Ve just got
time for the six o'clock boat. Why don't you come
down with me to Nantasket ? I can give you a bed
as well as not. And then we can finish up."

The impatience of youth in Corey responded to
the impatience of temperament in his elder.

" Why, I don't see why I shouldn't," he allowed
iiimself to say. " I confess I should like to have it

108 THE RISE OF

finished up myself, if it could be finished up in the
right way."

"Well, we'll see. Dennis!" Lapham called to
the remote porter, and the man came. " Want to
send any word home ? " he asked Corey.

" No ; my father and I go and come as we like,
without keeping account of each other. If I don't
come Jiome, he knows that I 'm not there. That 's
all." .

" Well, that 's convenient. You '11 find you can't
do that when you 're married. Never mind, Dennis,"
said the Colonel.

He had time to buy two newspapers on the wharf
before he jumped on board the steam-boat with
Corey. " Just made it," he said ; " and that 's what I
like to do. I can't stand it to be aboard much more
than a minute before she shoves out." He gave one
of the newspapers to Corey as he spoke, and set him
the example of catching up a camp-stool on their
way to that point on the boat which his experience
had taught him was the best. He opened his paper
at once and began to run over its news, while the
young man watched the spectacular recession of
the city, and was vaguely conscious of the people
about him, and of the gay life of the water round
the boat. The air freshened ; the craft thinned
ia number ; they met larger sail, lagging slowly
inward in the afternoon light ; the islands of the
bay waxed and waned as the steamer approached
and left them behind.

"I hate to see them stirring up those Southern

SILAS LAPHAM. 109

fellows again," said the Colonel, speaking into the
paper on his lap. "Seems to me it's time to let
those old issues go."

" Yes," said the young man. " What are they
doing now 1 "

" Oh, stirring up the Confederate brigadiers in
Congress. I don't like it. Seems to me, if our
party hain't got any other stock-in-trade, we better
shut up shop altogether." Lapham went on, as he
scanned his newspaper, to give his ideas of public
questions, in a fragmentary way, while Corey listened
patiently, and waited for him to come back to busi
ness. He folded up his paper at last, and stuffed it
into his coat pocket. " There 's one thing I always
make it a rule to do," he said, " and that is to give
my mind a complete rest from business while I 'm
going down on the boat. I like to get the fresh air
all through me, soul and body. I believe a man can
give his mind a rest, just the same as he can give
his legs a rest, or his back. All he 's got to do is to
use his will-power. Why, I suppose, if I hadn't
adopted some such rule, with the strain I 've had on
me for the last ten years, I should 'a' been a dead
man long ago. That's the reason I like a horse.
You Ve got to give your mind to the horse ; you can't
help it, unless you want to break your neck ; but a
boat 's different, and there you got to use your will
power. You got to take your mind right up and
put it where you want it. I make it a rule to read

the paper on the boat Hold on ! " he interrupted

himself to prevent Corey from paying his fare to

110 THE RISE OF

the man who had come round for it. " I 've got
tickets. And when I get through the paper, I try
to get somebody to talk to, or I watch the people.
It 's an astonishing thing to me where they all come
from. I 've been riding up and down on these boats
for six or seven years, and I don't know but very
few of the faces I see on board. Seems to be a
perfectly fresh lot every time. Well, of course !
Town 's full of strangers in the summer season, any
way, and folks keep coming down from the country.
They think it's a great thing to get down to the
beach, and they 've all heard of the electric light on
the water, and they want to see it. But you take
faces now ! The astonishing thing to me is not
what a face tells, but what it don't tell When you
think of what a man is, or a woman is, and what
most of 'em have been through before they get to be
thirty, it seems as if their experience would burn right
through. But it don't I like to watch the couples,
and try to make out which are engaged, or going to
be, and which are married, or better be. But half
the time I can't make any sort of guess. Of course,
where they're young and kittenish, you can tell;
but where they 're anyways on, you can't. Heigh 1 "

" Yes, I think you 're right," said Corey, not per
fectly reconciled to philosophy in the place of busi
ness, but accepting it as he must.

" Well," said the Colonel, " I don't suppose it was
meant we should know what was in each other's
minds. It would take a man out of his own hands.
As long as he's in his own hands, there's some

SILAS LAPHAM. Ill

hopes of his doing something with himself ; but if
a fellow has been found out — even if he hasn't been
found out to be so very bad — it 's pretty much all
up with him. No, sir. I don't want to know
people through and through."

The greater part of the crowd on board — and, of
course, the boat was crowded — looked as if they
might not only be easily but safely known. There
was little style and no distinction among them ;
they were people who were going down to the beach
for the fun or the relief of it, and were able to afford
it. In face they were commonplace, with nothing
but the American poetry of vivid purpose to light
them up, where they did not wholly lack fire. But
they were nearly all shrewd and friendly-looking,
with an apparent readiness for the humorous inti
macy native to us all. The women were dandified
in dress, according to their means and taste, and
the men differed from each other in degrees of
indifference to it To a straw-hatted population,
such as ours is in summer, no sort of personal
dignity is possible. We have not even the power
over observers which comes from the fantasticality
of an Englishman when he discards the conventional
dress. In our straw hats and our serge or flannel
sacks we are no more imposing than a crowd of
)oys.

" Some day," said Lapham, rising as the boat
drew near the wharf of the final landing, " there 's
going to be an awful accident on these boats. J list
look at that jam.'

112- THE RISE OF

He meant the people thickly packed on the pier,
and under strong restraint of locks and gates, to
prevent them from rushing on board the boat and
possessing her for the return trip before she had
landed her Nantasket passengers.

" Overload 'em every time," he continued, with
a sort of dry, impersonal concern at the impending
calamity, as if it could not possibly include him.
" They take about twice as many as they ought to
carry, and about ten times as many as they could
save if anything happened. Yes, sir, it 's bound to'
come. Hello ! There 's my girl ! " He took out
his folded newspaper and waved it toward a group
of phaetons and barouches drawn up on the pier
a little apart from the pack of people, and a lady
in one of them answered with a nourish of her
parasol.

When he had made his way with his guest through
the crowd, she began to speak to her father before
she noticed Corey. "Well, Colonel, you've im
proved your last chance. We've been coming to
every boat since four o'clock, — or Jerry has, — and
I told mother that I would come myself once, and
see if / couldn't fetch you; and if I failed, you
could walk next time. You 're getting perfectly
spoiled."

The Colonel enjoyed letting her scold him to the
end before he said, with a twinkle of pride in his
guest and satisfaction in her probably being able
to hold her own against any discomfiture, " I 've
brought Mr. Corey down for the night with me,

SILAS LAPHAM. 113

and I was showing him things all the way, and it
took time."

The young fellow was at the side of the open
beach-wagon, making a quick bow, and Penelope
Lapham was cozily drawling, "Oh, how do you do,
Mr. Corey1?" before the Colonel had finished his
explanation.

"Get right in there, alongside of Miss Lapham,
Mr. Corey," he said, pulling himself up into the
place beside the driver. " No, no," he had added
quickly, at some signs of polite protest in the young
man, " I don't give up the best place to anybody.
Jerry, suppose you let me have hold of the leathers
a minute."

This was his way of taking the reins from the
driver; and in half the time he specified, he had
skilfully turned the vehicle on the pier, among the
crooked lines and groups of foot-passengers, and
was spinning up the road toward the stretch of
verandaed hotels and restaurants in the sand along
the shore. " Pretty gay down here," he said, indi
cating all this with a turn of his whip, as he left it
behind him. " But I Ve got about sick of hotels ;
and this summer I made up my mind that I 'd take
a cottage. Well, Pen, how are the folks'?" He
looked half-way round for her answer, and with
the eye thus brought to bear upon her he was
able to give her a wink of supreme content. The
Colonel, with no sort of ulterior design, and nothing
but his triumph over Mrs. Lapham definitely in his
mind, was feeling, as he would have said, about right.

H

114 THE RISE OF

The girl smiled a daughter's amusement at her
father's boyishness. " I don't think there 's much
change since morning. Did Irene have a headacha
when you left?"

" No," said the Colonel.

"Well, then, there's that to report"

" Pshaw ! " said the Colonel with vexation in his
tone.

" I 'm sorry Miss Irene isn't well," said Corey
politely.

" I think she must have got it from walking too
long on the beach. The air is so cool here that you
forget how hot the sun is."

" Yes, that 's true," assented Corey.

"A good night's rest will make it all right," sug
gested the Colonel, without looking round. "But
you girls have got to look out."

"If "you're fond of walking," said Corey, "I
suppose you find the beach a temptation."

"Oh, it isn't so much that," returned the girl.
"You keep walking on and on because it's so
smooth and straight before you. We 've been
here so often that we know it all by heart — just
how it looks at high tide, and how it looks at low
tide, and how it looks after a storm. We're as
well acquainted with the crabs and stranded jelly-
fish as we are with the children digging in the sand
and the people sitting under umbrellas. I think
they're always the same, all of them."

The Colonel left the talk to the young people.
When he spoke next it was to say, " Well, here

SILAS LAPHAM. 115

we are ! " and he turned from the highway and
drove up in front of a brown cottage with a ver
milion roof, and a group of geraniums clutching
the rock that cropped up in the loop formed by
the road. It was treeless and bare all round, and
the ocean, unnecessarily vast, weltered away a little
more than a stone's-cast from the cottage. A hos
pitable smell of supper filled the air, and Mrs.
Lapham was on the veranda, with that demand
in her eyes for her belated husband's excuses, which
she was obliged to check on her tongue at sight of
Corey.

VII.

THE exultant Colonel swung himself lightly down
from his seat. " I 've brought Mr. Corey with me,"
he nonchalantly explained.

Mrs. Lapham made their guest welcome, and the
Colonel showed him to his room, briefly assuring him
self that there was nothing wanting there. Then
he went to wash his own hands, carelessly ignoring
the eagerness with which his wife pursued him to
their chamber.

" What gave Irene a headache 1 " he asked,
making himself a fine lather for his hairy paws.

"Never you mind Irene," promptly retorted his
wife. "How came he to come? Did you press
him 1 If you did, I '11 never forgive you, Silas ! "

The Colonel laughed, and his wife shook him by
the shoulder to make him laugh lower. " 'Sh ! "
she whispered. "Do you want him to hear every
thing 1 Did you urge him 1 "

The Colonel laughed the more. He was going to
get all the good out of this. " No, I didn't urge him.
Seemed to want to come,"

" I don't believe it. Where did you meet him ? "

"At the office."

116

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 117

« What office?"

" Mine."

" Nonsense ! What was he doing there V'

" Oh, nothing much."

" What did he come for ?"

" Come for 1 Oh ! he said he wanted to go into
the mineral paint business."

Mrs. Lapham dropped into a chair, and watched
his bulk shaken with smothered laughter. " Silas
Lapham," she gasped, " if you try to get off any
more of those things on me "

The Colonel applied himself to the towel. " Had
a notion he could work it in South America. / don't
know what he 's up to."

"Never mind!" cried his wife. "I'll get even
with you yet."

" So I told him he had better come down and
talk it over," continued the Colonel, in well-affected
simplicity. " I knew he wouldn't touch it with a
ten-foot pole."

" Go on !" threatened Mrs. Lapham.

" Right thing to do, wa'n'tiU"

A tap was heard at the door, and Mrs. Lapham
answered it. A maid announced supper. " Very
well," she said, " come to tea now. But I '11 make
you pay for this, Silas."

Penelope had gone to her sister's room as soon as
she entered the house.

" Is your head any better, 'Rene ?" she asked.

" Yes, a little," came a voice from the pillows.
But I shall not come to tea. I don't want any-

tc

118 THE RISE OF

thing. If I keep still, I shall be all right by morn
ing."

" Well, I 'm sorry," said the elder sister. " He 's
come down with father."

"He hasn't! Who?" cried Irene, starting up in
simultaneous denial and demand.

" Oh, well, if you say he hasn't, what 's the use of
my telling you who r<"

"Oh, how can you treat me so!" moaned the
eufferer. " What do you mean, Pen 1"

" I guess I 'd better not tell you," said Penelope,
watching her like a cat playing with a mouse. " If
you 're not coming to tea, it would just excite you
for nothing."

The mouse moaned and writhed upon the bed.

" Oh, I wouldn't treat you so ! "

The cat seated herself across the room, and asked
quietly —

" Well, what could you do if it was Mr. Corey ?
you couldn't come to tea, you say. But he '11 excuse
you. /'ve told him you had a headache. Why, of
course you can't come ! It would be too barefaced.
But you needn't be troubled, Irene ; I '11 do my best
to make the time pass pleasantly for him." Here
the cat gave a low titter, and the mouse girded itself
up with a momentary courage and self-respect.

" I should think you would be ashamed to come
here and tease me so."

"I don't see why you shouldn't believe me,"
argued Penelope. " Why shouldn't he come down
with father, if father asked him 1 and he 'd be sure

SILAS LAPHAM. 119

to if he thought of it. I don't see any p'ints about
that frog that 3s any better than any other frog."

The sense of her sister's helplessness was too much
for the tease ; she broke down in a fit of smothered
laughter, which convinced her victim that it was
nothing but an ill-timed joke.

" Well, Pen, I wouldn't use you so," she whim
pered.

Penelope threw herself on the bed beside her.

" Oh, poor Irene ! He is here. It 's a solemn
fact." And she caressed and soothed her sister,
while she choked with laughter. " You must get
up and come out. I don't know what brought him
here, but here he is."

" It 's too late now," said Irene desolately. Then
she added, with a wilder despair : " What a fool 1
was to take that walk !"

" Well," coaxed her sister, " come out and get some
tea. The tea will do you good."

"No, no; I can't come. But send me a cup
here."

" Yes, and then perhaps you can see him later in
the evening."

" I shall not see him at all."

An hour after Penelope came back to her sister's
room and found her before her glass. " You might
as well have kept still, and been well by morning,
'Rene," she said. " As soon as we were done father
said, ' Well, Mr. Corey and I have got to talk over
a little matter of business, and we'll excuse you,
ladies.' He looked at mother in a way that I guess

120 THE RISE OF

was pretty hard to bear. 'Rene, you ought to have
heard the Colonel swelling at supper. It would
have made you feel that all he said the other day
was nothing."

Mrs. Lapham suddenly opened the door.

" Now, see here, Pen," she said, as she closed it
behind her, " I 've had just as much as I can stand
from your father, and if you don't tell me this instant
what it all means '

She left the consequences to imagination, and
Penelope replied with her mock soberness —

"Well, the Colonel does seem to be on his high
horse, ma'am. But you mustn't ask~me what his
business with Mr. Corey is, for I don't know. All
that I know is that I met them at the landing, and
that they conversed all the way down — on literary
topics."

"Nonsense ! What do you think it is ?"

" Well, if you want my candid opinion, I think
this talk about business is nothing but a blind. It
seems a pity Irene shouldn't have been up to receive
him," she added.

Irene cast a mute look of imploring at her mother,
who was too much preoccupied to afford her the
protection it asked.

" Your father said he wanted to go into the busi
ness with him."

Irene's look changed to a stare of astonishment
and mystification, but Penelope preserved her im
perturbability.

" Well, it's a lucrative business, I believe"

SILAS LAPHAM. 121

"Well, I don't believe a word of it !" cried Mrs.
Lapham. " And so I told your father."

" Did it seem to convince him 1 " inquired Pene
lope.

Her mother did not reply. " I know one thing/
she said. " He 's got to tell me every word, or
there '11 be no sleep for him this night."

" Well, ma'am," said Penelope, breaking down in
one of her queer laughs, " I shouldn't be a bit sur
prised if you were right."

" Go on and dress, Irene," ordered her mother,
" and then you and Pen come out into the parlour.
They can have just two hours for business, and
then we must all be there to receive him. You
haven't got headache enough to hurt you."

" Oh, it 's all gone now," said the girl.

At the end of the limit she had given the Colonel,
Mrs. Lapham looked into the dining-room, which
she found blue with his smoke.

" I think you gentlemen will find the parlour
pleasanter now, and we can give it up to you."

" Oh no, you needn't," said her husband.
" We 've got about through/' Corey was already
standing, and Lapham rose too. " I guess we can
join the ladies now. We can leave that little point
till to-morrow."

Both of the young ladies were in the parlour
when Corey entered with their father, and both
were frankly indifferent to the few books and the
many newspapers scattered about on the table
where the large lamp was placed. But after Corey

122 THE RIPE OF

had greeted Irene he glanced at the novel under his
eye, and said, in the dearth that sometimes befalls
people at such times: "I see you're reading
Middlemarch. Do you like George Eliot ? "

" Who ] " asked the girl

Penelope interposed. "I don't believe Irene's
read it yet. I 've just got it out of the library ; I
heard so much talk about it. I wish she would let
you find out a little about the people for yourself,"
she added. But here her father struck in —

" I can't get the time for books. It 's as much as
I can do to keep up with the newspapers; and
when night comes, I 'm tired, and I 'd rather go out
to the theatre, or a lecture, if they 've got a good
stereopticon to give you views of the places. But
I guess we all like a play better than 'most anything
else. I want something that '11 make me laugh. I
don't believe in tragedy. I think there 's enough ot
that in real life without putting it on the stage.
Seen ' Joshua Whitcomb ' 1 "

The whole family joined in the discussion, and it

appeared that they all had their opinions of the

plays and actors. Mrs. Lapham brought the talk

. back_to_lite£ature. " I guess Penelope does most of

Dur reading."

" Now, mother, you 're not going to put it all on
me ! " said the girl, in comic protest.

Her mother laughed, and then added, with a
sigh : "I used to like to get hold of a good book
when I was a girl; but we weren't allowed to read
many novels in those days. My mother called

SILAS LAPHAM. 123

them all lies. And I guess she wasn't so very far
wrong about some of them."

"They're certainly fictions," said Corey, smiling.

" Well, we do buy a good many books, first and
last," said the Colonel, who probably had in mind
the costly volumes which they presented to one
another on birthdays and holidays. " But I get
about all the reading I want in the newspapers.
And when the girls want a novel, I tell 'em to get
it out of the library. That 's what the library 's for.
Phew ! " he panted, blowing away the whole unpro
fitable subject. " How close you women-folks like
to keep a room ! You go down to the sea-side or
up to the mountains for a change of air, and then
you cork yourselves into a room so tight you don't
have any air at all. Here ! You girls get on your
bonnets, and go and show Mr. Corey the view of the
hotels from the rocks."

Corey said that he should be delighted. The
girls exchanged looks with each other, and then
with their mother. Irene curved her pretty chin in
comment upon her father's incorrigibility, and
Penelope made a droll mouth, but the Colonel
remained serenely content with his finesse. " I got
'em out of the way," he said, as soon as they were
gone, and before his wife had time to fall upon him,
" because I 've got through my talk with him, and
now I want to talk with you. It 's just as I said,
Persis ; he wants to go into the business with me."

"It's lucky for you," said his wife, meaning that
now he would not be made to suffer for attempting

124 THE RISE OF

to hoax her. But she was too intensely interested
to pursue that matter further. " What in the world
do you suppose he means by it ? "

" Well, I should judge by his talk that he had
been trying a good many different things since he
left college, and he hain't found just the thing he
likes — or the thing that likes him. It ain't so easy.
And now he 's got an idea that he can take bold of
the paint and push it in other countries — push it in
Mexico and push it in South America. He's a
splendid Spanish scholar," — this was Lapham's
version of Corey's modest claim to a smattering of
the language, — "and he's been among the natives
enough to know their ways. And he believes in
the paint," added the Colonel.

" I guess he believes in something else besides the
paint," said Mrs. Lapham.

" What do you mean 1 "

"Well, Silas Lapham, if you can't see now that
he's after Irene, I don't know what ever can open
your eyes. That 's all."

The Colonel pretended to give the idea silent con
sideration, as if it had not occurred to him before.
" Well, then, all I've got to say is, that he's going
a good way round. I don't say you 're wrong, but
if it 's Irene, I don't see why he should want to go
off to South America to get her. And that 's what
he proposes to do. I guess there 's some paint about
it too, Persis. He says he believes in it," — the
Colonel devoutly lowered his voice, — "and he's
willing to take the agency on his own account down

SILAS LAPHAM. 125

there, and run it for a commission on what he can
sell."

" Of course ! He isn't going to take hold of it
any way so as to feel beholden to you. He 's got
too much pride for that."

" He ain't going to take hold of it at all, if he
don't mean paint in the first place and Irene after
ward. I don't object to him, as I know, either way,
but the two things won't mix ; and I don't propose
he shall pull the wool over my eyes — or anybody
else. . But, as far as heard from, up to date, he
means paint first, last, and all the time. At any
rate, I 'm going to take him on that basis. He 's got
some pretty good ideas about it, and he's been
stirred up by this talk, just now, about getting our
manufactures into the foreign markets. There 's an
overstock in everything, and we 've got to get rid of
it, or we Ve got to shut down till the home demand
begins again. We 've had two or three such flurries
before now, and they didn't amount to much. They ,
say we can't extend our commerce under the high
tariff system we 've got now, because there ain't any
sort of reciprocity on our side, — we want to have I
the other fellows show all the reciprocity, — and the
English have got the advantage of us every time. I
don't know whether it 's so or not ; but I don't see
why it should apply to my paint. Anyway, he
wants to try it, and I Ve about made up my mind to
let him. Of course I ain't going to let him take all
the risk. I believe in the paint too, and I shall pay
his expenses anyway." >

126 THE RISE OF

" So you want another partner after all ? " Mr&
Lapham could not forbear saying.

" Yes, if that 's your idea of a partner. It isn't
mine," returned her husband dryly.

"Well, if you've made up your mind, Si, I sup
pose you 're ready for advice," said Mrs. Lapham.

The Colonel enjoyed this. " Yes, I am. What
have you got to say against it 1 "

" I don't know as I 've got anything. I 'm satis
fied if you are."

"Well?"

" When is he going to start for South America 1 "

"I shall take him into the office a while. He'll
get off some time in the winter. But he's got to
know the business first."

" Oh, indeed ! Are you going to take him to
board in the family 1 "

" What are you after, Persis 1 "

" Oh, nothing ! I presume he will feel free to
visit in the family, even if he don't board with us."

" I presume he will."

" And if he don't use his privileges, do you think
he '11 be a fit person to manage your paint in South
America ? "

The Colonel reddened consciously. " I 'm not
taking him on that basis."

" Oh yes, you are ! You may pretend you ain't
to yourself, but you mustn't pretend so to me. Be-
cause I know you."

The Colonel laughed. " Pshaw ! " he said.
• Mrs. Lapham continued : " I don't see any harm

SILAS LAPHAM. 127

In hoping that he '11 take a fancy to her. But if you
really think it won't do to mix the two things, I
advise you not to take Mr. Corey into the business.
It will do all very well if he does take a fancy to
her; but if he don't, you know how you'll feel
about it. And I know you well enough, Silas, to
know that you can't do him justice if that happens.
And I don't think it's right you should take this
step unless you 're pretty sure. I can see that you Ve
set your heart on this thing —

" I haven't set my heart on it at all," protested
Lapham.

" And if you can't bring it about, you 're going to
feel unhappy over it," pursued his wife, regardless
of his protest.

"Oh, very well," he said. "If you know more
about what 's in my mind than I do, there 's no use
arguing, as I can see."

He got up, to carry off his consciousness, and
sauntered out of the door on to his piazza. He
could see the young people down on the rocks, and
his heart swelled in his breast. He had always said
that he did not care what a man's family was, but
the presence of young Corey as an applicant to him
for employment, as his guest, as the possible suitor
of his daughter, was one of the sweetest flavours
that he had yet tasted in his success. He knew who
the Corey s were very well, and, in his simple, brutal
way, he had long hated their name as a symbol of
splendour which, unless he should live to see at
least three generations of his descendants gilded

128 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

with mineral paint, he could not hope to realise in
his own. He was acquainted in a business way with
the tradition of old Phillips Corey, and he had heard
a great many things about the Corey who had spent
his youth abroad and his father's money everywhere,
and done nothing but say smart things. Lapham
could not see the smartness of some of them which
had been repeated to him. Once he had encoun
tered the fellow, and it seemed to Lapham that the
tall, slim, white-moustached man, with the slight
stoop, was everything that was offensively aristo
cratic. He had bristled up aggressively at the
name when his wife told how she had made the
acquaintance of the fellow's family the summer
before, and he had treated the notion of young
Corey's caring for Irene with the contempt which
such a ridiculous superstition deserved. He had
made up his mind about young Corey beforehand ;
yet when he met him he felt an instant liking for
him, which he frankly acknowledged, and he had
begun to assume the burden of his wife's supersti
tion, of which she seemed now reacTy to accuse him
of being the inventor.

Nothing had moved his thick imagination like
this day's events since the girl who taught him
spelling and grammar in the school at Lumberville
had said she would have him for her husband

The dark figures, stationary on the rocks, began
to move, and he could see that they were coming
toward the house. He went indoors, so as not to
appear to have bee.n watching them.

VIII.

A WEEK after she had parted with her son at Bar
Harbour, Mrs. Corey suddenly walked in upon her
husband in their house in Boston. He was at break
fast, and he gave her the patronising welcome with
which the husband who has been staying in town all
summer receives his wife when she drops down upon
him from the mountains or the sea-side. For a little
moment she feels herself strange in the house, and
suffers herself to be treated like a guest, before envy
of his comfort vexes her back into possession and
authority. Mrs. Corey was a lady, and she did not
let her envy take the form of open reproach.

" Well, Anna, you find me here in the luxury you
left me to. How did you leave the girls 1 "

" The girls were well," said Mrs. Corey, looking
absently at her husband's brown velvet coat, in
which he was so handsome. No man had ever
grown grey more beautifully. His hair, while not
remaining dark enough to form a theatrical contrast
with his moustache, was yet some shades darker,
and, in becoming a little thinner, it had become a
little more gracefully wavy. His skin had the
I

130 . THE RISE OF

pearly tint which that of elderly men sometimes
assumes, and the lines which time had traced upon
it were too delicate for the name of wrinkles. He
had never had any personal vanity, and there was
no consciousness in his good looks now.

" I am glad of that. The boy I have with me,"
he returned ; " that is, when he is with me."

" Why, where is he 1 " demanded the mother.

" Probably carousing with the boon Lapham some
where. He left me yesterday afternoon to go and
offer his allegiance to the Mineral Paint King, and I
haven't seen him since."

"Bromfield!" cried Mrs. Corey. "Why didn't
you stop him ? "

" Well, my dear, I 'm not sure that it isn't a very
good thing."

" A good thing 1 It 's horrid ! "

"No, I don't think so. It's decent. Tom had
found out — without consulting the landscape, which
I believe proclaims it everywhere — <.—"

" Hideous ! "

"That it's really a good thing; and he thinks
that he has some ideas in regard to its dissemina
tion in the parts beyond seas."

"Why shouldn't he go into something else?"
lamented the mother.

"I believe he has gone into nearly everything else
and come out of it. So there is a chance of his
coming out of this. But as I had nothing to
suggest in place of it, I thought it best not to
interfere. In fact, what good would my telling

SILAS LAPHAM. 131

him that mineral paint was nasty have done 1 I
dare say you told him it was nasty."

"Yes! I did."

" And you see with what effect, though he values
your opinion three times as much as he values mine.
Perhaps you came up to tell him again that it was
nasty 1 "

" I feel very unhappy about it. He is throwing
himself away. Yes, I should like to prevent it if I
could ! "

The father shook his head.

"If Lapham hasn't prevented it, I fancy it's too
late. But there may be some hopes of Lapham.
As for Tom's throwing himself away, I don't know.
There 's no question but he is one of the best fellows
under the sun. He's tremendously energetic, and
he has plenty of the kind of sense which wTe call
horse; but he isn't brilliant. No, Tom is not
brilliant. I don't think he would get on in a
profession, and he 's instinctively kept out of every
thing of the kind. But he has go£ to do something.
What shall he do1? He says mineral paint, and
really I don't see why he shouldn't. If money is
fairly and honestly earned, why should we pretend
to care what it comes out of, when we don't really
care 1 That superstition is exploded everywhere."

" Oh, it isn't the paint alone," said Mrs. Corey ;
and then she perceptibly arrested herself, and made
a diversion in continuing : " I wish he had married
some one."

" With money ?" suggested her husband. " From

132 THE RISE OF

time to time I have attempted Tom's corruption from
that side, but I suspect Tom has a conscience against
it, and I rather like him for it. I married for love
myself," said Corey, looking across the table at his
wife.

She returned his look tolerantly, though she felt
it right to say, " What nonsense !"

" Besides," continued her husband, " if you come
to money, there is the paint princess. She will have
plenty."

"Ah, that's the worst of it," sighed the mother.
"I suppose I could get on with the paint "

" But not with the princess ? I thought you said
she was a very pretty, well-behaved girl 1"

" She is very pretty, and she is well-behaved ; but
there is nothing of her. She is insipid ; she is very
insipid."

" But Tom seemed to like her flavour, such as it
was?"

" How can I tell ? We were under a terrible obli
gation to them, and I naturally wished him to be
polite to them. In fact, I asked him to be so."

" And he was too polite '

" I can't say that he was. But there is no doubt
that the child is extremely pretty."

" Tom says there are two of them. Perhaps they
will neutralise each other."

" Yes, there is another daughter," assented Mrs.
Corey. " I don't see how you can joke about such
things, Bromfield," she added.

" Well, I don't either, my dear, to tell you the

SILAS LAPHAM. 133

truth. My hardihood surprises me. Here is a son of
mine whom I see reduced to making his living by a
shrinkage in values. It's very odd," interjected
Corey, " that some values should have this peculiarity
of shrinking. You never hear of values in a picture
shrinking ; but rents, stocks, real estate — all those
values shrink abominably. Perhaps it might be
argued that one should put all his values into pic
tures ; I 've got a good many of mine there."

" Tom needn't earn his living," said Mrs. Corey,
refusing her husband's jest. " There 's still enough
for all of us."

" That is what I have sometimes urged upon Tom.
I have proved to him that with economy, ai.d strict
attention to business, he need do nothing as long as
he lives. Of course he would be somewhat restricted,
and it would cramp the rest of us ; but it is a world
of sacrifices and compromises. He couldn't agree
with me, and he was not in the least moved by the
example of persons of quality in Europe, which I
alleged in support of the life of idleness. It appears
that he wishes to do something — to do something
for himself. I am afraid that Tom is selfish."

Mrs. Corey smiled wanly. Thirty years before,
she had married the rich young painter in Rome,
who said so much better things than he painted —
charming things, just the things to please the fancy
of a girl who was disposed to take life a little
too seriously and practically. She saw him in a
different light when she got him home to Boston ;
but he had kept on saying the charming things, and

134 THE RISE OF . ,

he had not done much else. In fact, he had fulfilled
the promise of his youth. It was a good trait in
him that he was not actively but only passively
extravagant. He was not adventurous with his
money • his tastes were as simple as an Italian's ; he
had no expensive habits. In the process of time he
had grown to lead a more and more secluded life.
It was hard to get him out anywhere, even to dinner.
His patience with their narrowing circumstances had
a pathos which she felt the more the more she came
into charge of their joint life. At times it seemed
too bad that the children and their education and
pleasures should cost so much. She knew, besides,
that if it had not been for them she would have
gone back to Rome with him, and lived princely there
for less than it took to live respectably in Boston.

" Tom hasn't consulted me," continued his father,
" but he has consulted other people. And he has
arrived at the conclusion that mineral paint is a good
thing to go into. He has found out all about it, and
about its founder or inventor. It 's quite impressive
to hear him talk. And if he must do something for
himself, I don't see why his egotism shouldn't as
well take that form as another. Combined with the
paint princess, it isn't so agreeable ; but that 's only
a remote possibility, for which your principal ground
is your motherly solicitude. But even if it were
probable and imminent, what could you do 1 The
chief consolation that we American parents have in
these matters is that we can do nothing. If we were
Europeans, even English, we should take some cog-

SILAS LAPHAM. 135

nisance of our children's love affairs, and in some
measure teach their young affections how to shoot.
But it is our custom to ignore them until they have
shot, and then they ignore us. We are altogether too
delicate to arrange the marriages of our children ; and
when they ha^a arranged them we don't like to say
anything, for fear we should only make bad worse.
The right way is for us to school ourselves to indif
ference. That is what the young people have to do
elsewhere, and that is the only logical result of our
position here. It is absurd for us to have any feel
ing about what we don't interfere with."

"Oh, people do interfere with their children's
marriages very often," said Mrs. Corey.

" Yes, but only in a half-hearted way, so as not to
make it disagreeable for themselves if the marriages
go on in spite of them, as they 're pretty apt to do.
Now, my idea is that I ought to cut Tom off with a
shilling. That would be very simple, and it would
be economical But you would never consent, and
Tom wouldn't mind it."

"I think our whole conduct in regard to such
things is wrong," said Mrs. Corey.

" Oh, very likely. But our whole civilisation is
based upon it. And who is going to make a begin
ning 1 To which father in our acquaintance shall I
go and propose an alliance for Tom with his daughter 1
I should feel like an ass. And will you go to some
mother, and ask her sons in marriage for our daugh
ters 1 You would feel like a goose. No ; the only
motto for us is, Hands off altogether. "

136 THE RISE OF

"I shall certainly speak to Tom when the time
comes," said Mrs. Corey.

" And I shall ask leave to be absent from your
discomfiture, my dear," answered her husband.

The son returned that afternoon, and confessed
his surprise at finding his mother in Boston. He
was so frank that she had not quite the courage to
confess in turn why she had come, but trumped up
an excuse.

" Well, mother," he said promptly, " I have made
an engagement with Mr. Lapham."

" Have you, Tom f she asked faintly.

" Yes. For the present I am going to have charge
of his foreign correspondence, and if I see my way
to the advantage I expect to find in it, I am going
out to manage that side of his business in South
America and Mexico. He's behaved very hand-
somely about it. He says that if it appears for our
common interest, he shall pay me a salary as well
as a commission. I Ve talked with Uncle Jim, and
he thinks it's a good opening."

" Your Uncle Jim does ? " queried Mrs. Corey in
amaze.

" Yes ; I consulted him the whole way through,
and I 've acted on his advice. "

This seemed an incomprehensible treachery on
her brother's part.

" Yes ; I thought you would like to have me.
And besides, I couldn't possibly have gone to any
one so well fitted to advise me."

His mother said nothing. In fact, the mineral

SILAS LAPHAM. 137

paint business, however painful its interest, was,
for the moment, superseded by a more poignant
anxiety. She began to feel her way cautiously
toward this.

" Have you been talking about your business
with Mr. Lapham all night 1"

" Well, pretty much," said her son, with a guilt
less laugh. " I went to see him yesterday afternoon,
after I had gone over the whole ground with Uncle
Jim, and Mr. Lapham asked me to go down with
him and finish up."

" Down 1 " repeated Mrs. Corey.

" Yes, to Nantasket. He has a cottage down
there."

" At Nantasket ? " Mrs. Corey knitted her brows
a little. " What in the world can a cottage at
Nantasket be like 1"

" Oh, very much like a ' cottage ' anywhere. It
has the usual allowance of red roof and veranda.
There are the regulation rocks by the sea ; and the
big hotels on the beach about a mile off, flaring away
with electric lights and roman-candles at night. We
didn't have them at Nahant."

" No," said his mother. " Is Mrs. Lapham well *
And her daughter 1 "

" Yes, I think so," said the young man. " The
young ladies walked me down to the rocks in the
usual way after dinner, and then I came back and
talked paint with Mr. Lapham till midnight. We
didn't settle anything till this morning coming up
on the boat."

138 THE RISE OF

" What sort of people do they seem to be at
home]"

"What sort? Well, I don't know that I
noticed." Mrs. Corey permitted herself the first
part of a sigh of relief; and her son laughed, but
apparently not at her. " They 're just reading
Middlemarch. They say there's so much talk
about it. Oh, I suppose they 're very good people.
They seemed to be on very good terms with each
other." ,

"I suppose it's the plain sister who's reading
Middlemarch."

"Plain? Is she plain1?" asked the young man,
as if searching his consciousness. " Yes, it 's the
older one who does the reading, apparently. But I
don't believe that even she overdoes it. They like
to talk better. They reminded me of Southern
people in that." The young man smiled, as if
amused by some of his impressions of the Lapham
family. " The living, as the country people call it,
is tremendously good. The Colonel — he 's a colonel
• — talked of the coffee as his wife's coffee, as if she
had personally made it in the kitchen, though I
believe it was merely inspired by her. And there
was everything in the house that money could buy.
But money has its limitations."

This was a fact which Mrs. Corey was beginning
to realise more and more unpleasantly in her own
life ; but it seemed to bring her a certain comfort
in its application to the Laphams. " Yes, there is a
point where taste has to begin," she said.

SILAS LAPHAM. 139

" They seemed to want to apologise to me for not
having more books," said Corey. " I don't know
why they should. The Colonel said they bought a
good many books, first and last ; but apparently
they don't take them to the sea- side."

" I dare say they never buy a new book. I 've met
some of these moneyed people lately, and they
lavish on every conceivable luxury, and then borrow
books, and get them in the cheap paper editions."

"I fancy that's the way with the Lapham
family," said the young man, smilingly. "But
they are very good people. The other daughter is
humorous."

" Humorous 1" Mrs. Corey knitted her brows in
some perplexity. " Do you mean like Mrs. Say re f
she asked, naming the lady whose name must
come into every Boston mind when humour is
mentioned.

" Oh no ; nothing like that. She never says
anything that you can remember; nothing in flashes
or ripples; nothing the least literary. But it's a
sort of droll way of looking at things; or a droll
medium through which things present themselves.
I don't know. She tells what she's seen, and
mimics a little."

" Oh," said Mrs. Corey coldly. After a moment
she asked : " And is Miss Irene as pretty as ever 1 "

" She 's a wonderful complexion," said the son
unsatisfactorily. " I shall want to be by when
father and Colonel Lapham meet," he added, with a
smile.

140 THE RISE OF

" Ah, yes, your father !" said the mother, in that
way in which a wife at once compassionates and
censures her husband to their children.

" Do you think it 's really going to be a trial to
him ] " asked the young man quickly.

" No, no, I can't say it is. But I confess I wish
it was some other business, Tom."

" Well, mother, I don't see why. The principal
thing looked at now is the amount of money ; and
while I would rather starve than touch a dollar that
was dirty with any sort of dishonesty "

" Of course you would, my son !" interposed his
mother proudly.

"I shouldn't at all mind its having a little
mineral paint on it. I '11 use my influence with
Colonel Lapham — if I ever have any — to have his
paint scraped off the landscape."

" I suppose you won't begin till the autumn."

" Oh yes, I shall," said the son, laughing at his
mother's simple ignorance of business. " I shall
begin to-morrow morning."

" To-morrow morning !"

" Yes. I Ve had my desk appointed already, and
I shall be down there at nine in the morning to take
possession."

"Tom " cried his mother, "why do you think
Mr. Lapham has taken you into business so readily 1
I've always heard that it was so hard for young
men to get in."

" And do you think I found it easy with him ?
We kad about twelve hours' solid talk."

SILAS LAPHAM. 141

" And you don't suppose it was any sort of— per
sonal consideration ?"

" Why, I don't know exactly what you mean,
mother. I suppose he likes me."

Mrs, Corey could not say just what she meant.
She answered, ineffectually enough —

" Yes. You wouldn't like it to be a favour,
would you ?"

" I think he 's a man who may be trusted to look
after his own interest. But I don't mind his begin
ning by liking me. It '11 be my own fault if I don't
make myself essential to him."

" Yes," said Mrs. Corey.

" Well, demanded her husband, at their first
meeting after her interview with their son, "what
did you say to Tom ?"

" Very little, if anything. I found him with his
mind made up, and it would only have distressed
him if I had tried to change it."

" That is precisely what I said, my dear."

" Besides, he had talked the matter over fully
with James, and seems to have been advised by
him. I can't understand James."

" Oh ! it 's in regard to the paint, and not the
princess, that he's made up his mind. Well, I
think you were wise to let him alone, Anna. We
represent a faded tradition. We don't really care
what business a man is in, so it is large enough, and
he doesn't advertise offensively; but we think it fine
to affect reluctance."

H2 THE RISE OF

"Do you really feel so, Bromfield V ' asked his
wife seriously.

" Certainly I do. There was a long time in my
misguided youth when I supposed myself some sort
of porcelain ; but it 's a relief to be of the common
clay, after all, and to know it. If I get broken, I
can be easily replaced."

" If Tom must go into such a business," said Mrs.
Corey, " I 'm glad James approves of it."

" I 'm afraid it wouldn't matter to Tom if he
didn't ; and I don't know that I should care," said
Corey, betraying the fact that he had perhaps had a
good deal of his brother-in-law's judgment in the
course of his life. " You had better consult him in
regard to Tom's marrying the princess."

" There is no necessity at present for that," said
Mrs. Corey, with dignity. After a moment, she
asked, " Should you feel quite so easy if it were a
question of that, Bromfield ? "

" It would be a little more personal."

" You feel about it as I do. Of course, we have
both lived too long, and seen too much of the world,
to suppose we can control such things. The child
is good, I haven't the least doubt, and all those
things can be managed so that they wouldn't dis
grace us. But she has had a certain sort of bringing
up. I should prefer Tom to marry a girl with
another sort, and this business venture of his
increases the chances that he won't. That 's all."

" ' 'Tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church door, but 'twill serve.' "

SILAS LAPHAM. 143

" I shouldn't like it."

" Well, it hasn't happened yet."

"Ah, you never can realise anything beforehand."

" Perhaps that has saved me some suffering. But
you have at least the consolation of two anxieties at
once. I always find that a great advantage. You
can play one off against the other."

Mrs. Corey drew a long breath as if she did
not experience the suggested consolation ; and she
arranged to quit, the following afternoon, the scene
of her defeat, which she had not had the courage
to make a battlefield. Her son went down to see
her off on the boat, after spending his first day at
his desk in Lapham's office. He was in a gay
humour, and she departed in a reflected gleam of
his good spirits. He told her all about it, as he sat
talking with her at the stern of the boat, lingering
till the last moment, and then stepping ashore, with
as little waste of time as Lapham himself, on the
gang-plank which the deck-hands had laid hold
of. He touched his hat to her from the wharf to
reassure her of his escape from being carried away
with her, and the next moment his smiling face hid
itself in the crowd.

He walked on smiling up the long wharf, encum
bered with trucks and hacks and piles of freight,^
and, taking his way through the deserted business
streets beyond this bustle, made a point of passing
the door of Lapham's warehouse, on the jambs of
which his name and paint were lettered in black on
a square ground of white. The door was still open,

144 THE RISE OF

and Corey loitered a moment before it, tempted to
go upstairs and fetch away some foreign letters
which he had left on his desk, and which he thought
he might finish up at home. He was in love with
his work, and he felt the enthusiasm for it which
nothing but the work we can do well inspires in us.
He believed that he had found his place in the
world, after a good deal of looking, and he had the
relief, the repose, of fitting into it. Every little
incident of the momentous, uneventful day was a
pleasure in his mind, from his sitting down at his
desk, to which Lapham's boy brought him the
foreign letters, till his rising from it an hour ago.
Lapham had been in view within his own office, but
he had given -Corey no formal reception, and had, in
fact, not spoken to him till toward the end of the
forenoon, when he suddenly came out of his den
with some more letters in his hand, and after a brief
" How d' ye do ? " had spoken a few words about
them, and left them with him. He was in his shirt
sleeves again, and his sanguine person seemed to
radiate the heat with which he suffered. He did
not go out to lunch, but had it brought to him in
his office, where Corey saw him eating it before he
left his own desk to go out and perch on a swinging
seat before the long counter of a down-town restaur
ant. He observed that all the others lunched at
twelve, and he resolved to anticipate his usual hour.
When he returned, the pretty girl who had been
clicking away at a type-writer all the morning was
neatly putting out of sight the evidences of pie from

SILAS LAPHAM. 145

khe table where her machine stood, and was prepar
ing to go on with her copying. In his office Lapham
lay asleep in his arm-chair, with a newspaper over
his face.

Now, while Corey lingered at the entrance to the
stairway, these two came down the stairs together,
and he heard Lapham saying, "Well, then, you
better get a divorce."

He looked red and excited, and the girl's face,
which she veiled at sight of Corey, showed traces
of tears. She slipped round him into the street.

But Lapham stopped, and said, with the show
of no feeling but surprise : " Hello, Corey ! Did
you want to go up ? "

"Yes; there were some letters I hadn't quite got
through with."

" You '11 find Dennis up there. But I guess you
better let them go till to-morrow. I always make it
a rule to stop work when I 'm done."

" Perhaps you 're right," said Corey, yielding.

" Come along down as far as the boat with me.
There's a little matter I want to talk over with
you."

It was a business matter, and related to Corey's
proposed connection with the house.

The next day the head book-keeper, who lunched
at the long counter of the same restaurant with
Corey, began to talk with him about Lapham.
Walker had not apparently got his place by seni
ority ; though with his forehead, bald far up toward
the crown, and his round smooth face, one might
K

H6 THE RISE OF

have taken him for a plump elder, if he had not
looked equally like a robust infant. The thick
drabbish-yellow moustache was what arrested de
cision in either direction, and the prompt vigour of
all his movements was that of a young man of thirty,
which was really Walker's age. He knew, of course,
who Corey was, and he had waited for a man who
might look down on him socially to make the over
tures toward something more than business acquaint
ance; but, these made, he was readily responsive,
and drew freely on his philosophy of Lapham and
his affairs.

" I think about the only difference between people
in this world is that some know what they want,
and some don't. Well, now," said Walker, beating
the bottom of his salt-box to make the salt come
out, " the old man knows what he wants every time.
And generally he gets it. Yes, sir, he generally
gets it. He knows what he's about, but I'll be
blessed if the rest of us do half the time. Any
way, we don't till he 's ready to let us. You take
my position in most business houses. It's confi
dential. The head book-keeper knows right along
pretty much everything the house has got in hand.
I '11 give you my word / don't. He may open up
to you a little more in your department, but, as far
as the rest of us go, he don't open up any more than
an oyster on a hot brick. They say he had a partner
once ; I guess he 's dead. / wouldn't like to be the
old man's partner. Well, you see, this paint of his
is like his heart's blood. Better not try to joke him

SILAS LAPHAM. 147

about it. I 've seen people come in occasionally and
try it. They didn't get much fun out of it."

While he talked, Walker was plucking up morsels
from his plate, tearing off pieces of French bread
from the long loaf, and feeding them into his mouth
in an impersonal way, as if he were firing up an
engine.

" I suppose he thinks," suggested Corey, " that if
he doesn't tell, nobody else will."

Walker took a draught of beer from his glass, and
wiped the foam from his moustache.

" Oh, but he carries it too far ! It 's a weakness
with him. He's just so about everything. Look
at the way he keeps it up about that type-writer
girl of his. You 'd think she was some princess
travelling incognito. There isn't one of us knows
who she is, or where she came from, or who she
belongs to. He brought her and her machine into
the office one morning, and set 'em down at a table,
and that's all there is about it, as far as we're
concerned. It 's pretty hard on the girl, for I guess
she 'd like to talk ; and to any one that didn't know

the old man " Walker broke off and drained

his glass of what was left in it.

Corey thought of the words he had overheard
from Lapham to the girl. But he said, " She seems
to be kept pretty busy."

"Oh yes," said Walker; "there ain't much
loafing round the place, in any of the departments,
from the old man's down. That 's just what I say.
He 's got to work just twice as hard, if he wants to

148 THE RISE OF

keep everything in his own mind. But he ain't
afraid of work. That 's one good thing about him.
And Miss Dewey has to keep step with the rest of
us. But she don't look like one that would take
to it naturally. Such a pretty girl as that gener
ally thinks she does enough when she looks her
prettiest."

"She's a pretty girl," said Corey, non-commit-
tally. "But I suppose a great many pretty girls
have to earn their living."

"Don't any of 'em like to do it," returned the
book-keeper. " They think it 's a hardship, and I
don't blame 'em. They have got a right to get
married, and they ought to have the chance. And
Miss Dewey 's smart, too. She 's as bright as a
biscuit. I guess she's had trouble. I shouldn't
be much more than half surprised if Miss Dewey
wasn't Miss Dewey, or hadn't always been. Yes,
sir," continued the book-keeper, who prolonged the
talk as they walked back to Lapham's warehouse
together, "I don't know exactly what it is, — it
isn't any one thing in particular, — but I should say
that girl had been married. I wouldn't speak so
freely to any of the rest, Mr. Corey, — I want you
to understand that, — and it isn't any of my busi
ness, anyway ; but that 's my opinion."

Corey made no reply, as he walked beside the
book-keeper, who continued —

" It 's curious what a difference marriage makes in
people. Now, I know that I don't look any more
like a bachelor of my age than I do like the ma»

SILAS LAPHAM. 149

in the moon, and yet I couldn't say where the
difference came in, to save me. And it's just so
with a woman. The minute you catch sight of
her face, there's something in it that tells you
whether she 's married or not. What do you
suppose it is ? "

" I 'm sure I don't know," said Corey, willing to
laugh away the topic. "And from what I read
occasionally of some people who go about repeating
their happiness, I shouldn't say that the intangible
evidences were always unmistakable."

"Oh, of course," admitted Walker, easily sur
rendering his position. " All signs fail in dry
weather. Hello! What's that?" He caught Corey
by the arm, and they both stopped.

At a corner, half a block ahead of them, the
summer noon solitude of the place was broken by a
bit of drama. A man and woman issued from the
intersecting street, and at the moment of coming into
sight the man, who looked like a sailor, caught the
woman by the arm, as if to detain her. A brief
struggle ensued, the woman trying to free herself,
and the man half coaxing, half scolding. The spec
tators could now see that he was drunk ; but before
they could decide whether it was a case for their
interference or not, the woman suddenly set both
hands against the man's breast and gave him a quick
push. He lost his footing and tumbled into a heap
in the gutter. The woman faltered an instant, as if
to see whether h$ was seriously hurt, and then turned
and ran,

150 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

When Corey and the book-keeper re-entered th«
office, Miss Dewey had finished her lunch, and was
putting a sheet of paper into her type- writer. She
looked up at them with her eyes of turquoise blue,
under her low white forehead, with the hair neatly
rippled over it, and then began to beat the keys of
liar machine.

IX.

LAPHAM had the pride which comes of self -making,
and he would not openly lower his crest to the young
fellow he had taken into his business. He was going
to be obviously master in his own place to every one ;
and during the hours of business he did nothing to
distinguish Corey from the half-dozen other clerks
and book-keepers in the outer office, but he was not
silent about the fact that Bromfield Corey's son had
taken a fancy to come to him. " Did you notice that
fellow at the desk facing my type-writer girl ? Well,
sir, that 's the son of Bromfield Corey — old Phillips
Corey's grandson. And I '11 say this for him, that
there isn't a man in the office that looks after his
work better. There isn't anything he 's too good for.
He 's right here at nine every morning, before the
clock gets in the word. I guess it 's his grandfather
coming out in him. He 's got charge of the foreign
correspondence. We 're pushing the paint every
where." He flattered himself that he did not lug
the matter in. He had been warned against that
by his wife, but he had the right to do Corey-
justice, and his brag took the form of illustration.
" Talk about training for business — I tell you it 's al?

161

152 THE RISE OF

in the man himself ! I used to believe in what old
Horace Greeley said about college graduates being
the poorest kind of horned cattle ; but I 've changed
my mind a little. You take that fellow Corey. He 's
been through Harvard, and he 's had about every
advantage that a fellow could have. Been every
where, and talks half a dozen languages like English.
I suppose he's got money enough to live without
lifting a hand, any more than his father does ; son
of Bromfield Corey, you know. But the thing was
in him. He 's a natural-born business man ; and
I Ve had many a fellow with me that had come up
out of the street, and worked hard all his life, with
out ever losing his original opposition to the thing.
But Corey likes it. I believe the fellow would like
to stick at that desk of his night and day. I don't
know where he got it. I guess it must be his grand
father, old Phillips Corey ; it often skips a genera
tion, you know. But what I say is, a thing has
got to be born in a man ; and if it ain't born in him,
all the privations in the world won't put it there,
and if it is, all the college training won't take it
out."

Sometimes Lapham advanced these ideas at his
own table, to a guest whom he had brought to
Nantasket for the night. Then he suffered exposure
and ridicule at the hands of his wife, when oppor
tunity offered. She would not let him bring Corey
down to Nantasket at all.

"No, indeed!" she said.* "I am not going to
have them think we 're running after him. If he

SILAS LAPHAM. 153

wants to see Irene, he can find out ways of doing it
for himself."

" Who wants him to see Irene 1 " retorted the
Colonel angrily.

" I do," said Mrs. Lapham. " And I want him
to see her without any of your connivance, Silas.
I 'm not going to have it said that I put my girls at
anybody. Why don't you invite some of your
other clerks 1 "

" He ain't just like the other clerks. He 's going
to take charge of a part of the business. It 's quite
another thing."

" Oh, indeed ! " said Mrs. Lapham vexatiously.
" Then you are going to take a partner."

" I shall ask him down if I choose ! " returned the
Colonel, disdaining her insinuation.

His wife laughed with the fearlessness of a woman
who knows her husband.

" But you won't choose when you 've thought it
over, Si." Then she applied an emollient to his
chafed surface. " Don't you suppose I feel as you
do about it 1 I know just how proud you are, and
I'm not going to have you do anything that will
make you feel meeching afterward. You just let
things take their course. If he wants Irene, he's
going to find out some way of seeing her ; and if he
don't, all the plotting and planning in the world
isn't going to make him."

" Who ;s plotting 1 " again retorted the Colonel,
shuddering at the utterance of hopes and ambitions
which a man hides with shame, but a woman talks

134 THE RISE OF

over as freely and coolly as if they were items of a
milliner's bill.

" Oh, not you f" exulted his wife. " I understand
what you want. You want to get this fellow, who
is neither partner nor clerk, down here to talk
business with him. Well, now, you just talk
business with him at the office."

The only social attention which Lapham suc
ceeded in offering Corey was to take him in his
buggy, now and then, for a spin out over the Mill-
dam. He kept the mare in town, and on a pleasant
afternoon he liked to knock off early, as he phrased
it, and let the mare out a little. Corey understood
something about horses, though in a passionless
way, and he would have preferred to talk business
when obliged to talk horse. But he deferred to his
business superior with the sense of discipline which
is innate in the apparently insubordinate American
nature. If Corey could hardly have helped feeling
the social difference between Lapham and himself,
in his presence he silenced his traditions, and
showed him all the respect that he could have
exacted from any of his clerks. He talked horse
with him, and when the Colonel wished he talked
house. Besides himself and his paint Lapham had
not many other topics ; and if he had a choice
between the mare and the edifice on the water side
of Beacon Street, it was just now the latter. Some
times, in driving in or out, he stopped at the house,
and made Corey his guest there, if he might not at
Nantasket ; and one day it happened that the young

SILAS LAPHAM. 155

man met Irene there again. She had come up with
her mother alone, and they were in the house,
interviewing the carpenter as before, when the
Colonel jumped out of his buggy and cast anchor
at the pavement. More exactly, Mrs. Lapham was
interviewing the carpenter, and Irene was sitting in
the bow-window on a trestle, and looking out at the
driving. She saw him come up with her father,
and bowed and blushed. Her father went on up
stairs to find her mother, and Corey pulled up another
trestle which he found in the back part of the room.
The first floorings had been laid throughout the
house, and the partitions had been lathed so that
one could realise the shape of the interior.

" I suppose you will sit at this window a good
deal," said the young man.

"Yes, I think it will be very nice. There's so
much more going on than there is in the Square."

" It must be very interesting to you to see the
house grow."

" It is. Only it doesn't seem to grow so fast as
I expected."

"Why, I'm amazed at the progress your car
penter has made every time I come."

The girl looked down, and then lifting her eyes
she said, with a sort of timorous appeal—

"I've been reading that book since you were
down at Nantasket."

"Book?" repeated Corey, while she reddened
with disappointment. " Oh yes. Middlemarch.
Did you like it ?"

156 THE RISE OF

" I haven't got through with it yet. Pen has
finished it."

" What does she think of it V

" Oh, I think she likes it very well. I haven't
heard her talk about it much. Do you like it 1"

" Yes ; I liked it immensely. But it 's several
years since I read it."

" I didn't know it was so old. It 's just got into
the Seaside Library," she urged, with a little sense
of injury in her tone.

" Oh, it hasn't been out such a very great while,"
said Corey politely. " It came a little before Daniel
Deronda"

The girl was again silent. She followed the curl
of a shaving on the floor with the point of her

" Do you like that Eosamond Vincy 1" she asked,
without looking up.

Corey smiled in his kind way.

" I didn't suppose she was expected to have any
friends. I can't say I liked her. But I don't think
I disliked her so much as the author does. She 's
pretty hard on her good-looking" — he was going to
say girls, but as if that might have been rather per
sonal, he said — "people."

" Yes, that 's what Pen says. She says she doesn't
give her any chance to be good. She says she should
have been just as bad as Rosamond if she had been
in her place."

The young man laughed. "Your sister is very
satirical, isn't she ?"

SILAS LAPHAM. 157

" I don't know," said Irene, still intent upon the
convolutions of the shaving. " She keeps us
laughing. Papa thinks there 's nobody that can talk
like her." She gave the shaving a little toss from
her, and took the parasol up across her lap. The
unworldliness of the Lapham girls did not extend
to their dress ; Irene's costume was very stylish,
and she governed her head and shoulders stylishly.
" We are going to have the back room upstairs for
a music-room and library," she said abruptly.

"Yes?" returned Corey. "I should think that
would be charming."

" We expected to have book-cases, but the archi
tect wants to build the shelves in."

The fact seemed to be referred to Corey for his
comment.

"It seems to me that would be the best way.
They '11 look like part of the room then. You can
make them low, and hang your pictures above them."

" Yes, that's what he said." The girl looked out
of the window in adding, " I presume with nice
bindings it will look very well."

" Oh, nothing furnishes a room like books."

"No. There will have to be a good many of
them."

"That depends upon the size of your room and
the number of your shelves."

" Oh, of course ! I presume," said Irene, thought
fully, "we shall have to have Gibbon."

"If you want to read him,' said Corey, with a
lattgh of sympathy for an imaginable joke.

158 THE RISE OF

"We had a great deal about him at school. I
believe we had one of his books. Mine 's lost, but
Pen will remember."

The young man looked at her, and then said,
seriously, "You'll want Greene, of course, and
Motley, and Parkman."

" Yes. What kind of writers are they V

"They 're historians too."

" Oh yes; I remember now. That 's what Gibbon
was. Is it Gibbon or Gibbons ? "

The young man decided the point with apparently
superfluous delicacy. "Gibbon, I think."

" There used to be so many of them," said Irene
gaily. "I used to get them mixed up with each
other, and I couldn't tell them from the poets.
Should you want to have poetry 1 "

"Yes; I suppose some edition of the English
poets."

"We don't any of us like poetry. Do you like
it?"

"I'm afraid I don't very much," Corey owned.
" But, of course, there was a time when Tennyson
was a great deal more to me than he is now."

"We had something about him at school too.
I think I remember the name. I think we ought to
have all the American poets."

" Well, not all. Five or six of the best : you
want Longfellow and Bryant and Whittier and
Holmes and Emerson and Lowell."

The girl listened attentively, as if majdng mental
note of the names.

SILAS LAPHAM. 159

"And Shakespeare," she added. "Don't you like
Shakespeare's plays ?"

"Oh yes, very much."

"I used to be perfectly crazy about his plays.
Don't you think 'Hamlet' is splendid1? We had
3ver so much about Shakespeare. Weren't you per
fectly astonished when you found out how many
other plays of his there were ? I always thought
there was nothing but * Hamlet' and ' Eomeo and
Juliet' and 'Macbeth' and 'Richard in.' and 'King
Lear,' and that one that Robeson and Crane have
— oh yes ! ' Comedy of Errors.'"

"Those are the ones they usually play," said
Corey.

" I presume we shall have to have Scott's works/'
said Irene, returning to the question of books.

"Oh yes."

" One of the girls used to think he was great. She
was always talking about Scott." Irene made a
pretty little amiably contemptuous mouth. "He
isn't American, though 1 " she suggested.

" No," said Corey ; " he 's Scotch, I believe."

Irene passed her glove over her forehead. "I
always get him mixed up with Cooper. Well, papa
has got to get them. If we have a library, we have
got to have books in it. Pen says it's perfectly
ridiculous having one. But papa thinks whatever
the architect says is right. He fought him hard
enough at first. I don't see how any one can keep
the poets and the historians and novelists separate
in their mind. Of course papa will buy them if we

160 THE RISE OF

eay so. But I don't see how I 'm ever going to tell
him which ones." The joyous light faded out of her
face and left it pensive.

" Why, if you like," said the young man, taking
out his pencil, " I '11 put down the names we 've been
talking about."

He clapped himself on his breast pockets to detect
some lurking scrap of paper.

"Will you?" she cried delightedly. "Here! take
one of my cards," and she pulled out her card-case.
" The carpenter writes on a three-cornered block and
puts it into his pocket, and it 's so uncomfortable he
can't help remembering it. Pen says she 's going to
adopt the three-cornered-block plan with papa."

" Thank you," said Corey. " I believe I '11 use your
card." He crossed over to her, and after a moment
sat down on the trestle beside her. She looked over
the card as he wrote. "Those are the ones we
mentioned, but perhaps I 'd better add a few others."

"Oh, thank you," she said, when he had written
the card full on both sides. " He has got to get them
in the nicest binding, too. I shall tell him about
their helping to furnish the room, and then he can't
object." She remained with the card, looking at it
rather wistfully.

Perhaps Corey divined her trouble of mind. "If
he will take that to any bookseller, and tell him
what bindings he wants, he will fill the order for
him."

"Oh, thank you very much," she said, and put the
card back into her card-case with great apparent

SILAS LAPHAM. 161

relief. Then she turned her lovely face toward the
young man, beaming with the triumph a woman feels
in any bit of successful manoeuvring, and began to
talk with recovered gaiety of other things, as if,
having got rid of a matter annoying out of all pro
portion to its importance, she was now going to
indemnify herself.

Corey did not return to his own trestle. She
found another shaving within reach of her parasol,
and began poking that with it, and trying to follow
it through its folds. Corey watched her a while.

" You seem to have a great passion for playing
with shavings," he said. " Is it a new one 1"

"New what?"

"Passion."

" I don't know," she said, dropping her eyelids,
and keeping on with her effort. She looked shyly
aslant at him. " Perhaps you don't approve of play
ing with shavings 1"

" Oh yes, I do. I admire it very much. But it
seems rather difficult. I Ve a great ambition to put
my foot on the shaving's tail and hold it for you."

"Well," said the girl.

"Thank you," said the young man. He did so,
and now she ran her parasol point easily through it.
They looked at each other and laughed. "That
was wonderful. Would you like to try another 1"
he asked.

"No, I thank you," she replied. "I think one
will do."

They both laughed again, for whatever reason or
L

162 THE RISE OF

no reason, and then the young girl became sober.
To a girl everything a young man does is of signifi
cance ; and if he holds a shaving down with his foov
while she pokes through it with her parasol, she
must ask herself what he means by it.

" They seem to be having rather a long interview
with the carpenter to-day," said Irene, looking
vaguely toward the ceiling. She turned with polite
ceremony to Corey. " I 'm afraid you 're letting
them keep you. You mustn't."

" Oh no. You 're letting me stay," he returned.

She bridled and bit her lip for pleasure. " I pre
sume they will be down before a great while. Don't
you like the smell of the wood and the mortar 1 It '*
so fresh."

" Yes, it 's delicious." He bent forward and picked
up from the floor the shaving with which they had
been playing, and put it to his nose. "It's like a
flower. May I offer it to you V he asked, as if it
had been one.

" Oh, thank you, thank you !" She took it from
him and put it into her belt, and then they both
laughed once more.

Steps were heard descending. When the eldet
people reached the floor where they were sitting,
Corey rose and presently took his leave.

"What makes you so solemn, 'Kene ?" asked Mrs.
Lapham.

"Solemn ?" echoed the girl. " I 'm not a bit solemn
What can you mean f

Corey dined at home that evening, and as he ss

SILAS LAPHAM. 163

looking across the table at his father, he said, "I
wonder what the average literature of non-cultivated
people is."

" Ah," said the elder, "I suspect the average is
pretty low even with cultivated people. You don't
read a great many books yourself, Tom."

" No, I don't," the young man confessed. " 1
read more books when I was with Stanton, last
winter, than I had since I was a boy. But I read
them because I must — there was nothing else to do.
It wasn't because I was fond of reading. Still I
think I read with some sense of literature and the
difference between authors. I don't suppose that
people generally do that ; I have met people who
had read books without troubling themselves to find
out even the author's name, much less trying to
decide upon his quality. I suppose that 's the way
the vast majority of people read."

"Yes. If authors were not almost necessarily
recluses, and ignorant of the ignorance about them,
I don't see how they could endure it. Of course
they are fated to be overwhelmed by oblivion at
last, poor fellows ; but to see it weltering all round
them while they are in the very act of achieving
immortality must be tremendously discouraging. I
don't suppose that we who have the habit of read
ing, and at least a nodding acquaintance with litera
ture, can imagine the bestial darkness of the great
mass of people — even people whose houses are rich
and whose linen is purple and fine. But occasion
ally we get glimpses of it. I suppose you found the

164 THE RISE OF

latest publications lying all about in Lapham cottage
when you were down there ? "

Young Corey laughed. " It wasn't exactly cum'
bered with them."

"No?"

" To tell the truth, I don't suppose they ever buy
books. The young ladies get novels that they hear
talked of out of the circulating library."

" Had they knowledge enough to be ashamed of
their ignorance ? "

" Yes, in certain ways — to a certain degree."

" It 's a curious thing, this thing we call civilisa
tion," said the elder musingly. " We think it is an
I affair of epochs and of nations. It 's really an affair
j of individuals. One brother will be civilised and
' the other a barbarian. I 've occasionally met young
girls who were so brutally, insolently, wilfully
indifferent to the arts which make civilisation that
they ought to have been clothed in the skins of
wild beasts and gone about barefoot with clubs over
their shoulders. Yet they were of polite origin, and
their parents were at least respectful of the things
• that these young animals despised."

" I don't think that is exactly the case with the
Lapham family," said the son, smiling. " The father
and mother rather apologised about not getting time
to read, and the young ladies by no means scorned
it."

" They are quite advanced !"

" They are going to have a library in their Beacon
Street house."

SILAS LAPHAM. 165

" Oh, poor things ! How are they ever going to
get the books together ? "

"Well, sir," said the son, colouring a little, "1
have been indirectly applied to for help."

" You, Tom ! " His father dropped back in his
chair and laughed.

" I recommended the standard authors," said the
son.

" Oh, I never supposed your prudence would be at
fault, Tom ! "

" But seriously," said the young man, generously
smiling in sympathy with his father's enjoyment,
" they 're not unintelligent people. They are very
quick, and they are shrewd and sensible."

" I have no doubt that some of the Sioux are so.
But that is not saying that they are civilised. All
civilisation comes through literature now, especially
in our country. A Greek got his civilisation by
talking and looking, and in some measure a Parisian
may still do it. But we, who live remote from
history and monuments, we must read or we must
barbarise. Once we were softened, if not polished,
by religion ; but I suspect that the pulpit counts for
much less now in civilising."

" They 're enormous devourers of newspapers, and
theatre-goers ; and they go a great deal to lectures.
The Colonel prefers them with the stereopticon."

" They might get a something in that way," said
the elder thoughtfully. " Yes, I suppose one must
take those things into account — especially the news
papers and the lectures. I doubt if the theatre is a

166 THE RISE OF

factor in civilisation among us, I dare say it doesn't
deprave a great deal, but from what I Ve seen of it 1
should say that it was intellectually degrading
Perhaps they might get some sort of lift from it ;
I don't know. Tom ! " he added, after a moment's
reflection. " I really think I ought to see this patron
of yours. Don't you think it would be rather decent
in me to make his acquaintance 1 "

" Well, if you have the fancy, sir," said the young
man. " But there 's no sort of obligation. Colonel
Lapham would be the last man in the world to want
to give our relation any sort of social character. The
meeting will come about in the natural course of
things."

"Ah, I didn't intend to propose anything im
mediate," said the father. " One can't do anything
in the summer, and I should prefer your mother's
superintendence. Still, I can't rid myself of the
idea of a dinner. It appears to me that there ought
to be a dinner."

" Oh, pray don't feel that there 's any necessity."

"Well," said the elder, with easy resignation,
" there 's at least no hurry."

" There is one thing I don't like," said Lapham,
in the course of one of those talks which came up
between his wife and himself concerning Corey, " or
at least I don't understand it ; and that 's the way
his father behaves. I don't want to force myself on
any man ; but it seems to me pretty queer the way
he holds off. I should think he would take enough

SILAS LAPHAM. 167

interest in his son to want to know something about
his business. What is he afraid oil" demanded
Lapham angrily. " Does he think I 'm going to
jump at a chance to get in with him, if he gives me
one ? He 's mightily mistaken if he does. / don't
want to know him."

" Silas," said his wife, making a wife's free version
of her husband's words, and replying to their spirit
rather than their letter, " I hope you never said a
word to Mr. Corey to let him know the way you
feel."

" I never mentioned his father to him ! " roared
the Colonel. " That 's the way I feel about it ! "

" Because it would spoil everything. I wouldn't
have them think we cared the least thing in the
world for their acquaintance. We shouldn't be a
bit better off. We don't know the same people they
do, and we don't care for the same kind of things."

Lapham was breathless with resentment of his
wife's implication. "Don't I tell you," he gasped,
" that I don't want to know them 1 Who began it 1
They 're friends of yours if they 're anybody's."

" They 're distant acquaintances of mine," returned
Mrs. Lapham quietly ; " and this young Corey is a
clerk of yours. And I want we should hold ourselves
so that when they get ready to make the advances we
can meet them half-way or not, just as we choose."

"That's what grinds me," cried her husband.
" Why should we wait for them to make the
advances 1 Why shouldn't we make 'em 1 Are they
any better than we are 1 My note of hand would

168 THE RISE OF

be worth ten times what Bromfield Corey's is on the
street to-day. And I made my money. I haveir't
loafed my life away."

" Oh, it isn't what you Ve got, and it isn't what
you Ve done exactly. It 's what you are."

" Well, then, what 's the difference ? "

" None that really amounts to anything, or that
need give you any trouble, if you don't think of it.
But he 's been all his life in society, and he knows
just what to say and what to do, and he can talk
about the things that society people like to talk
about, and you — can't."

Lapham gave a furious snort. "And does that
make him any better ? "

"No. But it puts him where he can make the
advances without demeaning himself, and it puts
you where you can't. Now, look here, Silas Lapham !
You understand this thing as well as I do. You
know that I appreciate you, and that I 'd sooner die
than have you humble yourself to a living soul.
But I 'm not going to have you coming to me, and
pretending that you can meet Bromfield Corey as an
equal on his own ground. You can't. He 's got a
better education than you, and if he hasn't got more
brains than you, he 's got different. And he and his
wife, and their fathers and grandfathers before 'em,
have always had a high position, and you can't help
it. If you want to know them, you Ve got to lefc
them make the advances. If you don't, all well and
good."

" I guess," said the chafed and vanquished Colonel,

SILAS LAPHAM. 169

after a moment for swallowing the pill, " that they 'd
have been in a pretty fix if you 'd waited to let them
make the advances last summer/'

" That was a different thing altogether. I didn't
know who they were, or may be I should have
waited. But all I say now is that if you've got
young Corey into business with you, in hopes of our
getting into society with his father, you better ship
him at once. For I ain't going to have it on that
basis."

" Who wants to have it on that basis 1 " retorted
her husband.

" Nobody, if you don't," said Mrs. Lapham tran
quilly.

Irene had come home with the shaving in her belt,
unnoticed by her father, and unquestioned by her
mother. But her sister saw it at once, and asked
her what she was doing with it.

" Oh, nothing," said Irene, with a joyful smile of
self-betrayal, taking the shaving carefully out, and
laying it among the laces and ribbons in her drawer.

" Hadn't you better put it in water, 'Kene ? It '11
be all wilted by morning," said Pen.

" You mean thing ! " cried the happy girl. " It
isn't a flower ! "

"Oh, I thought it was a whole bouquet. Who
gave it to you ? "

" I shan't tell you," said Irene saucily.

" Oh, well, never mind. Did you know Mr.
Corey had been down here this afternoon, walking
on the beach with me 1 "

170 THE RISE OF

" He wasn't — he wasn't at all ! He was at the
house with me. There ! I 've caught you fairly."

" Is that so V drawled Penelope. " Then I never
could guess who gave you that precious shaving."

" No, you couldn't ! " said Irene, flushing beauti
fully. "And you may guess, and you may guess,
and you may guess ! " With her lovely eyes she
coaxed her sister to keep on teasing her, and Pene
lope continued the comedy with the patience that
women have for such things.

" Well, I 'm not going to try, if it 's no use. But
I didn't know it had got to be the fashion to give
shavings instead of flowers. But there 's some sense
in it. They can be used for kindlings when they
get old, and you can't do anything with old flowers.
Perhaps he '11 get to sending 'em by the barrel."

Irene laughed for pleasure in this tormenting.
" O Pen, I want to tell you how it all happened."

" Oh, he did give it to you, then ? Well, I guess
I don't care to hear."

" You shall, and you 've got to ! " Irene ran and
caught her sister, who feigned to be going out of the
room, and pushed her into a chair. " There, now ! "
She pulled up another chair, and hemmed her in
with it. " He came over, and sat down on the
trestle alongside of me "

" What ? As close as you are to me now ? "

" You wretch ! I will give it to you ! No, at a
proper distance. And here was this shaving on the
floor, that I 'd been poking with my parasol "

" To hide your embarrassment."

SILAS LAPHAM. 171

" Pshaw ! I wasn't a bit embarrassed. I was just
as much at my ease ! And then he asked me to let him
hold the shaving down with his foot, while I went
on with my poking. And I said yes he might '

" What a bold girl ! You said he might hold a
shaving down for you 1 "

" And then — and then — -" continued Irene, lift-
ing her eyes absently, and losing herself in the beatific

recollection, " and then Oh yes ! Then I asked

him if he didn't like the smell of pine shavings.
And then he picked it up, and said it smelt like a
flower. And then he asked if he might offer it to
me — just for a joke, you know. And I took it, and
stuck it in my belt. And we had such a laugh !
We got into a regular gale. And 0 Pen, what do
you suppose he meant by it ? " She suddenly
caught herself to her sister's breast, and hid her
burning face on her shoulder.

" Well, there used to be a book about the
language of flowers. But I never knew much
about the language of shavings, and I can't say
exactly "

"Oh, don't — don't, Pen!" and here Irene gave
over laughing, and began to sob in her sister's arms.

"Why, 'Kene ! " cried the elder girl.

" You know he didn't mean anything. He doesn't
care a bit about me. He hates me ! He despises
me ! Oh? what shall I do 1"

A trouble passed over the face of the sister as she
silently comforted the child in her arms ; then the
drolling light came back into her eyes.

172 THE RISE OF

'Rene, you haven't got to do anything. That 's one
advantage girls have got — if it is an advantage.
I'm not always sure."

Irene's tears turned to laughing again. When
she lifted her head it was to look into the mirror
confronting them, where her beauty showed all the
more brilliant for the shower that had passed over
it. She seemed to gather courage from the sight.

"It must be awful to have to do," she said,
smiling into her own face. "I don't see how
they ever can."

" Some of 'em can't — especially when there 's such
a tearing beauty around."

" Oh, pshaw, Pen ! you know that isn't so.
You've got a real pretty mouth, Pen," she added
thoughtfully, surveying the feature in the glass, and
then pouting her own lips for the sake of that effect
on them.

"It's a useful mouth," Penelope admitted; "I
don't believe I could get along without it now, I Vo
had it so long."

" It 's got such a funny expression — just the mate
of the look in your eyes ; as if you were just going
to say something ridiculous. He said, the very first
time he saw you, that he knew you were humorous."

" Is it possible ? It must be so, if the Grand
Mogul said it. Why didn't you tell me so before,
and not let me keep on going round just like a
common person 1 "

Irene laughed as if she liked to have her sister
take his praises in that way rather than another.

SILAS LAPHAM. 173

" I Ve got such a stiff, prim kind of mouth," she said,
drawing it down, and then looking anxiously at it.

" I hope you didn't put on that expression when
he offered you the shaving. If you did, I don't he-
lie ve he '11 ever give you another splinter."

The severe mouth broke into a lovely laugh, and
then pressed itself in a kiss against Penelope's cheek.

" There ! Be done, you silly thing ! I 'm no£
going to have you accepting me before I Ve offered
myself, anyway" She freed herself from her sister's
embrace, and ran from her round the room.

Irene pursued her, in the need of hiding her face
against her shoulder again. " O Pen ! 0 Pen !" she
cried.

The next day, at the first moment of finding her
self alone with her eldest daughter, Mrs. Lapham
asked, as if knowing that Penelope must have
already made it subject of inquiry : " What was
Irene doing with that shaving in her belt yester,
day?"

" Oh, just some nonsense of hers with Mr. Corey.
He gave it to her at the new house." Penelope
did not choose to look up and meet her mother's
grave glance.

" What do you think he meant by it 1 "

Penelope repeated Irene's account of the affair,
and her mother listened without seeming to derive
much encouragement from it.

" He doesn't seem like one to flirt with her," she
said at last. Then, after a thoughtful pause:

174 THE RISE OF

" Irene is as good a girl as ever breathed, and she 's
a perfect beauty. But I should hate the day when
a daughter of mine was married for her beauty."

" You 're safe as far as I 'm concerned, mother."

Mrs. Lapham smiled ruefully. " She isn't really
equal to him, Pen. I misdoubted that from the
first, and it 's been borne in upon me more and more
ever since. She hasn't mind enough."

"I didn't know that a man fell in love with a
girl's intellect," said Penelope quietly.

" Oh no. He hasn't fallen in love with Irene at
all. If he had, it wouldn't matter about the intel
lect."

Penelope let the self-contradiction pass.

" Perhaps he has, after all."

" No," said Mrs. Lapham. " She pleases him
when he sees her. But he doesn't try to see her."

" He has no chance. You won't let father bring
him here."

"He would find excuses to come without being
brought, if he wished to come," said the mother.
" But she isn't in his mind enough to make him.
He goes away and doesn't think anything more
about her. She 's a child. She 's a good child, and
I shall always say it ; but she 's nothing but a child.
No, she 's got to forget him."

" Perhaps that won't be so easy."

" No, I presume not. And now your father has
got the notion in his head, and he will move heaven
and earth to bring it to pass. I can see that he 's
always thinking about it."

SILAS LAPHAM. 175

" The Colonel has a will of his own," observed the
girl, rocking to and fro where she sat looking at her
mother.

" I wish we had never met them ! " cried Mrs.
Lapham. " I wish we had never thought of build
ing ! I wish he had kept away from your father's
business ! "

" Well, it 's too late now, mother," said, the girl.
" Perhaps it isn't so bad as you think."

"Well, we must stand it, anyway," said Mrs.
Lapham, with the grim antique Yankee submission.

" Oh yes, we Ve got to stand it," said Penelope,
with the quaint modern American fatalism.

o

Sf

X.

IT was late June, almost July, when Corey took
up his life in Boston again, where the summer slips
away so easily. If you go out of town early, it
seems a very long summer when you come back in
October; but if you stay, it passes swiftly, and,
seen foreshortened in its flight, seems scarcely a
month's length. It has its days of heat, when it is
very hot, but for the most part it is cool, with baths
of the east wind that seem to saturate the soul with
delicious freshness. Then there are stretches of grey,
westerly weather, when the air is full of the senti
ment of early autumn, and the frying of the grass
hopper in the blossomed weed of the vacant lots on
the Back Bay is intershot with the carol of crickets ;
and the yellowing leaf on the long slope of Mt.
Vernon Street smites the sauntering observer with
tender melancholy. The caterpillar, gorged witn the
spoil of the lindens on Chestnut, and weaving his
own shroud about him in his lodgment on the brick
work, records the passing of summer by mid-July;
and if after that comes August, its breath is -chick
and short, and September is upon the sojourner

176

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 177

before he has fairly had time to philosophise the
character of the town out of season.

But it must have appeared that its most charac
teristic feature was the absence of everybody he
knew. This was one of the things that commended
Boston to Bromfield Corey during the summer ;
and if his son had any qualms about the life he had
entered upon with such vigour, it must have been a
relief to him that there was scarcely a soul left to
wonder or pity. By the time people got back to
town the fact of his connection with the mineral
paint man would be an old story, heard afar off
with different degrees of surprise, and considered
with different degrees of indifference. A man
has not reached the age of twenty-six in any
community where he was born and reared with
out having had his capacity pretty well ascertained ;
and in Boston the analysis is conducted with an
unsparing thoroughness which may fitly impress the
un-Bostonian mind, darkened by the popular super
stition that the Bostonians blindly admire one
another. A man's qualities are sifted as closely in
Boston as they doubtless were in Florence or
Athens; and, if final mercy was shown in those
cities because a man was, with all his limitations, an
Athenian or Florentine, some abatement might as
justly be made in Boston for like reason. Corey's
powers had been gauged in college, and he had not
given his world reason to think very differently of
him since he came out of college. He was rated as
an energetic fellow, a little indefinite in aim, with
M

178 THE RISE OF

the smallest amount of inspiration that can save a
man from being commonplace. If he was not
commonplace, it was through nothing remarkable in
his mind, which was simply clear and practical, but
through some combination of qualities of the heart
that made men trust him, and women call him
sweet — a word of theirs which conveys otherwise
indefinable excellences. Some of the more nervous
and excitable said that Tom Corey was as sweet
as he could live ; but this perhaps meant no more
than the word alone. No man ever had a son
less like him than Bromfield Corey. If Tom
Corey had ever said a witty thing, no one could
remember it; and yet the father had never said
a witty thing to a more sympathetic listener than
his own son. The clear mind which produced
nothing but practical results reflected everything
with charming lucidity ; and it must have been this
which endeared Tom Corey to every one who spoke
ten words with him. In a city where people have
good reason for liking to shine, a man who did not
care to shine must be little short of universally
acceptable without any other effort for popularity ;
and those who admired and enjoyed Bromfield Corey
loved his son. Yet, when it came to accounting for
Tom Corey, as it often did in a community where
every one's generation is known to the remotest de
grees of cousinship, they could not trace his sweet/
ness to his mother, for neither Anna Bellingham nor
any of her family, though they were so many blocks
of Wenham ice for purity and rectangularity, had

SILAS LAPHAM. 179

3ver had any such savour ; and, in fact, it was to his
father, whose habit of talk wronged it in himself,
that they had to turn for this quality of the son's.
They traced to the mother the traits of practicality
and common-sense in which he bordered upon the
commonplace, and which, when they had dwelt upon
them, made him seem hardly worth the close inquiry
they had given him.

While the summer wore away he came and went
methodically about his business, as if it had been
the business of his life, sharing his father's bachelor
liberty and solitude, and expecting with equal
patience the return of his mother and sisters in the
autumn. Once or twice he found time to run down
to Mt. Desert and see them ; and then he heard how
the Philadelphia and New York people were getting
in everywhere, and was given reason to regret the
house at Nahant which he had urged to be sold.
He came back and applied himself to his desk with
a devotion that was exemplary rather than neces
sary ; for Lapham made no difficulty about the brief
absences which he asked, and set no term to the
apprenticeship that Corey was serving in the office
before setting off upon that mission to South
America in the early winter, for which no date had
yet been fixed.

The summer was a dull season for the paint as
well as for everything else. Till things should brisk
up, as Lapham said, in the fall, he was letting the
new house take a great deal of his time. ^Esthetic
ideas had never bee*n intelligibly presented to him

180 THE RISE OF

before, and he found a delight in apprehending them
that was very grateful to his imaginative architect.
At the beginning, the architect had foreboded a
series of mortifying defeats and disastrous victories
in his encounters with his client ; but he had never
had a client who could be more reasonably led on
from one outlay to another. It appeared that
Lapham required but to understand or feel the
beautiful effect intended, and he was ready to pay
for it. His bull-headed pride was concerned in a
thing which the architect made him see, and then
he believed that he had seen it himself, perhaps con
ceived it. In some measure the architect seemed to
share his delusion, and freely said that Lapham was
very suggestive. Together they blocked out win
dows here, and bricked them up there ; they changed
doors and passages; pulled down cornices and re
placed them with others of different design ; experi
mented with costly devices of decoration, and went
to extravagant lengths in novelties of finish. Mrs.
Lapham, beginning with a woman's adventurousness
in the unknown region, took fright at the reckless
outlay at last, and refused to let her husband pass a
certain limit. He tried to make her believe that a far-
seeing economy dictated the expense ; and that if he
put the money into the house, he could get it out any
time by selling it. She would not be persuaded.

"I don't want you should sell it. And you've
put more money into it now than you '11 ever get out
again, unless you can find as big a goose to buy it,
and that isn't likely. No, sir ! You just stop at a

SILAS LAPHAM. 181

hundred thousand, and don't you let him get you a
cent beyond. Why, you 're perfectly bewitched with
that fellow ! You 've lost your head, Silas Lapham,
and if you don't look out you Jll lose your money too."

The Colonel laughed ; he liked her to talk that
way, and promised he would hold up a while.

" But there 's no call to feel anxious, Pert. It 's
only a question what to do with the money. I can
reinvest it ; but I never had so much of it to spend
before."

" Spend it, then," said his wife ; " don't throw it
away ! And how came you to have so much more
money than you know what to do with, Silas
Lapham 1 " she added.

"Oh, I've made a very good thing in stocks
lately."

" In stocks 1 When did you take up gambling
for a living 1 "

"Gambling? Stuff! What gambling ] Who said
it was gambling 1 "

" You have ; many a time."

" Oh yes, buying and selling on a margin. But
this was a bona fide transaction. I bought at forty-
three for an investment, and I sold at a hundred and
seven ; and the money passed both times."

" Well, you better let stocks alone," said his wife,
With the conservatism of her sex. "Next time
you '11 buy at a hundred and seven and sell at forty
three. Then where 11 you be 1 "

" Left," admitted the Colonel.

" You better stick to paint a while yet"

182 THE RISE OP

The Colonel enjoyed this too, and laughed again
with the ease of a man who knows what he is about.
A few days after that he came down to Nantasket
with the radiant air which he wore when he had
done a good thing in business and wanted his wife's
sympathy. He did not say anything of what had
happened till he was alone with her in their own
room ; but he was very gay the whole evening, and
made several jokes which Penelope said nothing but
very great prosperity could excuse : they all under
stood these moods of his.

" Well, what is it, Silas ? " asked his wife when
the time came. " Any more big-bugs wanting to go
into the mineral paint business with you 1 "

" Something better than that."

" I could think of a good many better things,"
said his wife, with a sigh of latent bitterness.
"What's this one?"

" I 've had a visitor."

" Who 1 "

" Can't you guess 1 "

" I don't want to try. Who was it ? "

" Rogers."

Mrs. Lapham sat down with her hands in her lap,
and stared at the smile on her husband's face, where
he sat facing her.

" I guess you wouldn't want to joke on that
subject, Si," she said, a little hoarsely, "and you
wouldn't grin about it unless you had some good
news. I don't know what the miracle is, but if
you could tell quick "

SILAS LAPHAM. 185

She stopped like one who can say no more.

" I will, Persis," said her husband, and with that
awed tone in which he rarely spoke of anything
but the virtues of his paint. " He came to borrow
money of me, and I lent him it. That 's the short
of it. The long—

" Go on," said his wife, with gentle patience.

"Well, Pert, I was never so much astonished in
my life as I was to see that man come into my
office. You might have knocked me down with—
I don't know what."

" I don't wonder. Goon!"

"And he was as much embarrassed as I was.
There we stood, gaping at each other, and I hadn't
hardly sense enough to ask him to take a chair. I
don't know just how we got at it. And I don't re
member just how it was that he said he came to come
to me. But he had got hold of a patent right that
he wanted to go into on a large scale, and there he
was wanting me to supply him the funds."

" Go on ! " said Mrs. Lapham, with her voice
further in her throat.

" I never felt the way you did about Rogers, but
I know how you always did feel, and I guess I sur
prised him with my answer. He had brought along
a lot of stock as security "

" You didn't take it, Silas ! " his wife flashed out.

" Yes, I did, though," said Lapham. '"* You wait.
We settled our business, and then we went into the
old thing, from the very start. And we talked it
all over. And when we got through we shook

184 THE RISE OF

hands. Well, I don't know when it's done me so
much good to shake hands with anybody."

" And you told him — you owned up to him that
you were in the wrong, Silas ? "

" No, I didn't," returned the Colonel promptly ;
" for I wasn't. And before we got through, I guess
he saw it the same as I did."

" Oh, no matter ! so you had the chance to show
how you felt."

" But I never felt that way," persisted the Colonel.
" I Ve lent him the money, and I Ve kept his stocks.
And he got 'what he wanted out of me."

" Give him back his stocks !"

" No, I shan't. Rogers came to borrow. He
didn't come to beg. You needn't be troubled about
his stocks. They 're going to come up in time ; but
just now they 're so low down that no bank would
take them as security, and I Ve got to hold them till
they do rise. I hope you 're satisfied now, Persis,"
said her husband ; and he looked at her with the
willingness to receive the reward of a good action
which we all feel when we have performed one. " I
lent him the money you kept me from spending on
the house."

"Truly, Si? Well, I'm satisfied," said Mrs.
Lapham, with a deep tremulous breath. "The
Lord has been good to you, Silas," she continued
iolemnly. "You may laugh if you choose, and I
lon't know as I believe in his interfering a great
deal; but I believe he's interfered this time; and
I tell you, Silas, it ain't always he gives people a

SILAS LAPHAM. 185

chance to make it up to others in this life. I'vo
been afraid you 'd die, Silas, before you got the
chance ; but he 's let you live to make it up tc
Rogers."

" I 'm glad to be let live," said Lapham stubbornly,
" but I hadn't anything to make up to Milton K.
Rogers. And if God has let me live for that "

" Oh, say what you please, Si ! Say what you
please, now you've done it! I shan't stop you.
You Ve taken the one spot — the one speck — off you
that was ever there, and I 'm satisfied."

"There wan't ever any speck there," Lapham
held out, lapsing more and more into his vernacular;
"and what I done I done for you, Persis."

"And I thank you for your own soul's sake, Silas."

" I guess my soul 's all right," said Lapham.

" And I want you should promise me one thing
more."

" Thought you said you were satisfied 1 "

" I am. But I want you should promise me this :
that you won't let anything tempt you — anything ! —
to ever trouble Rogers for that money you lent him.
No matter what happens — no matter if you lose it
all Do you promise ? "

"Why, I don't ever expect to press him for it.
That 's what I said to myself when I lent it. And
of course I 'm glad to have that old trouble healed
up. I don't think I ever did Rogers any wrong, and
I never did think so ; but if I did do it — if I did —
I 'm willing to call it square, if I never see a cent of
my money back again."

186 THE RISE OF

" Well, that 's all," said his wife.

They did not celebrate his reconciliation with his
old enemy — for such they had always felt him to
be since he ceased to be an ally — by any show of
joy or affection. It was not in their tradition, as
stoical for the woman as for the man, that they
should kiss or embrace each other at such a moment.
She was content to have told him that he had
done his duty, and he was content with her saying
that. But before she slept she found words to add
that she always feared the selfish part he had acted
toward Rogers had weakened him, and left him less
able to overcome any temptation that might beset
him ; and that was one reason why she could never
be easy about it. Now she should never fear for him
again.

This time he did not explicitly deny her forgiving
impeachment.

" Well, it 's all past and gone now, anyway ; and
I don't want you should think anything more about
it."

He was man enough to take advantage of the high
favour in which he stood when he went up to town,
and to abuse it by bringing Corey down to supper.
His wife could not help condoning the sin of dis
obedience in him at such a time. Penelope said
that between the admiration she felt for the Colonel's
boldness and her mother's forbearance, she was
hardly in a state to entertain company that evening ;
but she did what she could.

Irene liked being talked to better than talking,

SILAS LAPHAM. 187

and when her sister was by she was always, tacitly
or explicitly, referring to her for confirmation of
what she said. She was content to sit and look
pretty as she looked at the young man and listened
to her sister's drolling. She laughed and kept
glancing at Corey to make sure that he was under
standing her. When they went out on the veranda
to see the moon on the water, Penelope led the
way and Irene followed.

They did not look at the moonlight long. The
young man perched on the rail of the veranda, and
Irene took one of the red-painted rocking-chairs where
she could conveniently look at him and at her sister,
who sat leaning forward lazily and running on,
as the phrase is. That low, crooning note of hers
was delicious ; her face, glimpsed now and then in
the moonlight as she turned it or lifted it a little,
had a fascination which kept his eye. Her talk was
very unliterary, and its effect seemed hardly con
scious. She was far from epigram in her funning.
She told of this trifle and that ; she sketched the
characters and looks of people who had interested
her, and nothing seemed to have escaped her notice ;
she mimicked a little, but not much ; she suggested,
and then the affair represented itself as if without
her agency. She did not laugh; when Corey stopped
she made a soft cluck in her throat, as if she liked
his being amused, and went on again.

The Colonel, left alone with his wife for the first
time since he had come from town, made haste to
take the word. " Well, Pert, I Ve arranged the

188 THE RISE OF

whole thing with Rogers, and I hope you'll be
satisfied to know that he owes me twenty thousand
dollars, and that I Ve got security from him to the
amount of a fourth of that, if I was to force his
stocks to a sale."

" How came he to come down with you ? " asked
Mrs. Lapham.

"Who? Rogers?"

" Mr. Corey."

" Corey ? Oh ! " said Lapham, affecting not to
have thought she could mean Corey. " He pro
posed it."

" Likely ! " jeered his wife, but with perfect
amiability.

" It 's so," protested the Colonel. " We got talking
about a matter just before I left, and he walked down
to the boat with me ; and then he said if I didn't
mind he guessed he 'd come along down and go back
on the return boat. Of course I couldn't let him do
that."

" It 's well for you you couldn't"

" And I couldn't do less than bring him here to
tea,"

" Oh, certainly not."

"But he ain't going to stay the night — unless,1
faltered Lapham, " you want him to."

" Oh, of course, / want him to ! I guess he '11
stay, probably."

" Well, you know how crowded that last boat
always is, and he can't get any other now."

Mrs. Lapham laughed at the simple wile. " I hope

SILAS LAPHAM. 189

you '11 be just as well satisfied, Si, if it turns out he
doesn't want Irene after all."

" Pshaw, Persis ! What are you always bringing
that up for 1 " pleaded the Colonel. Then he fell
silent, and presently his rude, strong face was clouded
with an unconscious frown.

" There ! " cried his wife, startling him from hie
abstraction. " I see how you 'd feel ; and I hope
that you'll remember who you've got to blame."

" I'll risk it," said Lapham, with the confidence of
a man used to success.

From the veranda the sound of Penelope's lazy
tone came through the closed windows, with joyous
laughter from Irene and peals from Corey.

"Listen to that ! " said her father within, swelling
up with inexpressible satisfaction. " That girl can
talk for twenty, right straight along. She 's better
than a circus any day. I wonder what she 's up to
now."

" Oh, she 's probably getting off some of those yarns
of hers, or telling about some people. She can't step
out of the house without coming back with more
things to talk about than most folks would bring
back from Japan. There ain't a ridiculous person
she's ever seen but what she's got something from
them to make you laugh at ; and I don't believe we 've
ever had anybody in the house since the girl could
talk that she hain't got some saying from, or some
trick that '11 paint 'em out so 't you can see 'em and
hear 'em. Sometimes I want to stop her ; but when
she gets into one of her gales there ain't any standing

190 THE RISE OF

up against her. I guess it 's lucky for Irene that
she 's got Pen there to help entertain her company.
1 can't ever feel down where Pen is."

"That's so," said the Colonel. "And I guess
she's got about as much culture as any of them.
Don't you 1 "

" She reads a great deal," admitted her mother.
" She seems to be at it the whole while. I don't
want she should injure her health, and sometimes I
feel like snatchin' the books away from her. I don't
know as it 's good for a girl to read so much, anyway,
* especially novels. I don't want she should get
notions."

" Oh, I guess Pen '11 know how to take care of
herself," said Lapham.

" She 's got sense enough. But she ain't so
practical as Irene. She 's more up in the clouds —
more of what you may call a dreamer. Irene 's wide
awake every minute ; and I declare, any one to see
these two together when there 's anything to be done,
or any lead to be taken, would say Irene was the
oldest, nine times out of ten. It 's only when they
get to talking that you can see Pen 's got twice as
much brains."

" Well," said Lapham, tacitly granting this
point, and leaning back in his chair in supreme
Opntent. " Did you ever see much nicer girls any
where ] "

His wife laughed at his pride. - -"I presume
they 're as much swans as anybody's geese."

" No ; but honestly, now ! "

SILAS LAPHAM. 191

" Oh, they '11 do ; but don't you be silly, if you
can help it, Si."

The young people came in, and Corey said it was
time for his boat. Mrs. Lapham pressed him to
stay, but he persisted, and he would not let the
Colonel send him to the boat ; he said he would
rather walk. Outside, he pushed along toward the
boat, which presently he could see lying at her land
ing in the bay, across the sandy tract to the left of
the hotels. From time to time he almost stopped in
his rapid walk, as a man does whose mind is in a
pleasant tumult; and then he went forward at a
swifter pace.

" She 's charming ! " he said, and he thought he
had spoken aloud. He found himself floundering
about in the deep sand, wide of the path ; he got
back to it, and reached the boat just before she
started. The clerk came to take his fare, and Corey
looked radiantly up at him in his lantern-light, with
a smile that he must have been wearing a long
time ; his cheek was stiff with it. Once some
people who stood near him edged suddenly and fear
fully away, and then he suspected himself of having
laughed outright.

XL

COREY put off his set smile with the help of a
frown, of which he first became aware after reaching
home, when his father asked —

" Anything gone wrong with your department of
the fine arts to-day, Tom 1"

" Oh no — no, sir," said the son, instantly reliev
ing his brows from the strain upon them, and
beaming again. " But I was thinking whether you
were not perhaps right in your impression that it
might be well for you to make Colonel Lapham's
acquaintance before a great while."

"Has he been suggesting it in any way 1" asked
Bromfield Corey, laying aside his book and taking
his lean knee between his clasped hands.

" Oh, not at all !" the young man hastened to
reply. "I was merely thinking whether it might
not begin to seem intentional, your not doing it."

"Well, Tom, you know I have been leaving it
altogether to you "

" Oh, I understand, of course, and I didn't mean
to urge anything of the kind "

" You are so very much more of a Bostonian than

192

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 193

I am, you know, that I Ve been waiting your motion
in entire confidence that you would know just what
to do, and when to do it. If I had been left quite
' o my own lawless impulses, I think I should have
called upon your padrone at once. It seems to me
that my father would have found some way of show
ing that he expected as much as that from people
placed in the relation to him that we hold to Colonel
Lapham."

"Do you think so 1" asked the young man.

" Yes. But you know I don't pretend to be an
authority in such matters. As far as they go, I
am always in the hands of your mother and you
children."

" I 'm very sorry, sir. I had no idea I was over
ruling your judgment. I only wanted to spare you a
formality that didn't seem quite a necessity yet. I Jm
very sorry," he said again, and this time with more
comprehensive regret. " I shouldn't like to have
seemed remiss with a man who has been so con
siderate of me. They are all very good-natured."

" I dare say," said Bromfield Corey, with the
satisfaction which no elder can help feeling in dis
abling the judgment of a younger man, " that it
won't be too late if I go down to your office with
you to-morrow."

" No, no. I didn't imagine your doing it at once,
sir."

" Ah, but nothing can prevent me from doing a
thing when once I take the bit in my teeth," said
the father, with the pleasure which men of weak will

N

194 THE RISE OF

sometimes take in recognising their weakness.
" How does their new house get on f '

"I believe they expect to be in it before New
Year."

" Will they be a great addition to society 1 " asked
Bromfield Corey, with unimpeachable seriousness.

"I don't quite know what you mean," returned
the son, a little uneasily.

" Ah, I see that you do, Tom."

" No one can help feeling that they are all people
of good sense and — right ideas."

"Oh, that won't do. If society took in all the
people of right ideas and good sense, it would expand
beyond the calling capacity of its most active
members. Even your mother's social conscientious
ness could not compass it. Society is a very different
sort of thing from good sense and right ideas. It is
based upon them, of course, but the airy, graceful,
winning superstructure which we all know demands
different qualities. Have your friends got these
qualities, — which may be felt, but not defined ?"

The son laughed. " To tell you the truth, sir, I
don't think they have the most elemental ideas of
society, as we understand it. I don't believe Mrs.
Lapham ever gave a dinner."

"And with all that money !" sighed the father.

" I don't believe they have the habit of wine at
table. I suspect that when they don't drink tea and
coffee with their dinner, they drink ice- water."

" Horrible !" said Bromfield Corey.

"It appears to me that this defines them."

SILAS LAPHAM. 195

i

"Oh yes. There are people who give dinners,
and who are not cognoscible. But people who have
never yet given a dinner, how is society to assimilate
them Vy

"It digests a great many people," suggested the
young man.

" Yes ; but they have always brought some sort
of sauce piquante with them. Now, as I under
stand you, these friends of yours have no such
sauce."

" Oh, I don't know about that ! " cried the son.

" Oh, rude, native flavours, I dare say. But that
isn't what I mean. Well, then, they must spend.
There is no other way for them to win their way to
general regard. We must have the Colonel elected
to the Ten O'clock Club, and he must put himself
down in the list of those willing to entertain. Any
one can manage a large supper. Yes, I see a gleam
of hope for him in that direction."

In the morning Bromfield Corey asked his son
whether he should find Lapham at his place as early
as eleven.

" I think you might find him even earlier. I Ve
never been there before him. I doubt if the porter
is there much sooner."

"Well, suppose I go with you, then V

11 Why, if you like, sir," said the son, with some
deprecation.

" Oh, the question is, will lie like ?"

"I think he will, sir;" and the father could see
that his son was very much pleased.

196 THE RISE OF

Lapliam was rending an impatient course through
the morning's news when they appeared at the door
of his inner room. He looked up from the news
paper spread on the desk before him, and then he
stood up, making an indifferent feint of not knowing
that he knew Bromfield Corey by sight.

" Good morning, Colonel Lapham," said the son,
and Lapham waited for him to say further, " I wish
to introduce my father."

Then he answered, " Good morning," and added
rather sternly for the elder Corey, " How do you do,
sir? Will you take a chair ?" and he pushed him one.

They shook hands and sat down, and Lapham
said to his subordinate, " Have a seat ; " but young
Corey remained standing, watching them in their
observance of each other with an amusement which
was a little uneasy. Lapham made his visitor speak
first by waiting for him to do so.

" I 'm glad to make your acquaintance, Colonel
Lapham, and I ought to have come sooner to do so.
My father in your place would have expected it of
a man in my place at once, I believe. But I can't
feel myself altogether a stranger as it is. I "hope
Mrs. Lapham is well ? And your daughter 1 "

" Thank you/' said Lapham, " they 're quite well."

" They were very kind to my wife "

' Oh, that was nothing !" cried Lapham. " There 's
nothing Mrs. Lapham likes better than a chance of
that sort. Mrs. Corey and the young ladies well ?"

" Very well, when I heard from them. They 're
out of town."

SILAS LAPHAM. 197

" Yes, so I understood," said Lapham, with a nod
toward the son. "I believe Mr. Corey, here, told
Mrs. Lapham." He leaned back in his chair, stiffly
resolute to show that he was not incommoded by
the exchange of these civilities.

" Yes," said Bromfield Corey. " Tom has had
the pleasure which I hope for of seeing you all. I
hope you're able to make him useful to you here?"
Corey looked round Lapham's room vaguely, and
then out at the clerks in their railed enclosure,
where his eye finally rested on an extremely pretty
girl, who was operating a type-writer.

"Well, sir," replied Lapham, softening for the
first time with this approach to business, " I guess
it will be our own fault if we don't. By the way,
Corey," he added, to the younger man, as he
gathered up some letters from his desk, "here's
something in your line. Spanish or French, I
guess."

" 1 11 run them over," said Corey, taking them to
his desk.

His father made an offer to rise.

" Don't go," said Lapham, gesturing him down
again. " I just wanted to get him away a minute.
I don't care to say it to his face, — I don't like the
principle, — but since you ask me about it, I 'd just
as lief say that I Ve never had any young man take
hold here equal to your son. I don't know as you
care "

" You make me very happy," said Bromfield
Corey. " Very happy indeed. I Ve always ha*1

198 THE RISE OF

the idea that there was something in my son, if hfr
could only find the way to work it out. And he
seems to have gone into your business for the love
of it."

" He went to work in the right way, sir ! He
told me about it. He looked into it. And that
paint is a thing that will bear looking into."

"Oh yes. You might think he had invented
it, if you heard him celebrating it"

" Is that so ?" demanded Lapham, pleased through
and through. " Well, there ain't any other way.
You Ve got to believe in a thing before you can put
any heart in it. Why, I had a partner in this thing
once, along back just after the war, and he used to
be always wanting to tinker with something else.
' Why,' says I, * you 've got the best thing in God's
universe now. Why ain't you satisfied V I had to
get rid of him at last. I stuck to my paint, and
that fellow 's drifted round pretty much all over the
whole country, whittling his capital down all the
while, till here the other day I had to lend him
some money to start him new. No, sir, you 've got
to believe in a thing. And I believe in your son.
And I don't mind telling you that, so far as he's
gone, he's a success."

"That's very kind of you."

"No kindness about it. As I was saying the
other day to a friend of mine, I've had many a
fellow right out of the street that had to work hard
all his life, and didn't begin to take hold like this
son of yours."

SILAS LAPHAM. 199

Lapham expanded with profound self-satisfaction.
As he probably conceived it, he had succeeded in
praising, in a perfectly casual way, the supreme
excellence of his paint, and his own sagacity and
benevolence ; and here he was sitting face to face
with Bromfield Corey, praising his son to him, and
receiving his grateful acknowledgments as if he were
the father of some office-boy whom Lapham had
given a place half out of charity.

" Yes, sir, when your son proposed to take hold
here, I didn't have much faith in his ideas, that 's
the truth. But I had faith in him, and I saw that
he meant business from the start. I could see it
was born in him. Any one could."

" I 'm afraid he didn't inherit it directly from me,"
said Bromfield Corey ; " but it 's in the blood, on
both sides."

"Well, sir, we can't help those things," said
Lapham compassionately. " Some of us have got
it, and some of us haven't. The idea is to make the
most of what we have got."

" Oh yes ; that is the idea. Bj all means."

" And you can't ever tell what 's in you till you
try. Why, when I started this tning, I didn't more
than half understand my own strength. 1 wouldn't
have said, looking back, that I could have stood the
wear and tear of what I 've "been through. But i
developed as I went along. It 's just like exercising
your muscles in a gymnasium. You can lift twice
or three times as much after you Ve been in training
a month as you could before. And I can see that

200 THE RISE OF

it 's going to be just so with your spn. His going
through college won't hurt him, — he '11 soon slough
all that off, — and his bringing up won't ; don't be
anxious about it. I noticed in the army that some of
the fellows that had the most go-ahead were fellows
that hadn't ever had much more to do than girls
before the war broke out. Your son will get along."

" Thank you," said Bromfteld Corey, and smiled —
whether because his spirit was safe in the humility
he sometimes boasted, or because it was triply armed
in pride against anything the Colonel's kindness
could do.

" He '11 get along. He 's a good business man,
and he's a fine fellow. Must you go?" asked Lap-
ham, as Bromh'eld Corey now rose more resolutely.
" Well, glad to see you. It was natural you should
want to come and see what he was about, and I 'm
glad you did. I should have felt just so about it.
Here is some of our stuff," he said, pointing out the
various packages in his office, including the Persis
Brand.

"Ah, that's very nice, very nice indeed," said his
visitor. " That colour through the jar — very rich —
delicious. Is Persis Brand a name 1"

Lapham blushed.

"Well, Persis is. I don't know as you saw an
interview that fellow published in the Events
a while back 1 "

" What is the Events ? "

" Well, it 's that new paper Witherby 's started."

"No," said Bromfield Corey, "I haven't seen it.

SILAS LAPHAM. 201

I read The Daily," he explained ; by which he meant
The Daily Advertiser, the only daily there is in the
old-fashioned Bostonian sense.

" He put a lot of stuff in my mouth that I never
said," resumed Lapham; "but that's neither here
nor there, so long as you haven't seen it. Here 's
the department your son 's in," and he showed him
the foreign labels. Then he took him out into the
warehouse to see the large packages. At the head
of the stairs, where his guest stopped to nod to his
son and say " Good-bye, Tom," Lapham insisted
upon going down to the lower door with him,
" Well, call again," he said in hospitable dismissal.
" I shall always be glad to see you. There ain't a
great deal doing at this season." Bromfield Corey
thanked hypi, and let his hand remain perforce in
Lapham's lingering grasp. " If you ever like to ride
after a good horse " the Colonel began.

" Oh, no, no, no ; thank you ! The bettes the
horse, the more I should be scared. Tom has told
me of your driving i"

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the Colonel. "Well!
every one to his taste. Well, good morning, sir ! "
and he suffered him to go.

" Who is the old man blowing to this morning ?"
asked Walker, the v book-keeper, making an errand
to Corey's desk.

"My father."

" Oh ! That your father 1 I thought he must be
one of your Italian correspondents that you 'd been
showing round, or Spanish."

202 THE RISE OF

In fact, as Brornfield Corey found his way at his
leisurely pace up through the streets on which the
prosperity of his native city was founded, hardly
any figure could have looked more alien to its life.
He glanced up and down the fa9ades and through
the crooked vistas like a stranger, and the swarthy
fruiterer of whom he bought an apple, apparently
for the pleasure of holding it in his hand, was not
surprised that the purchase should be transacted in
his own tongue.

Lapham walked back through the outer office to his
own room without looking at Corey, and during the
day he spoke to him only of business matters. That
must have been his way of letting Corey see that
he was not overcome by the honour of his father's
visit. But he presented himself at Nantasket with
the event so perceptibly on his mind that his wife
asked : " Well, Silas, has Rogers been borrowing
any more money of you ? I don't want you should
let that thing go too far. You 've done enough."

"You needn't be afraid. I've seen the last of
Rogers for one while." He hesitated, to give the
fact an effect of no importance. " Corey's father
called this morning."

" Did he ?" said Mrs. Lapham, willing to humour
his feint of indifference. " Did he want to borrow
some money too ? "

" Not as I understood." Lapham was smoking at
great ease, and his wife had some crocheting on the
other side of the lamp from him.

The girls were on the piazza looking at the moon

SILAS LAPHAM. 203

Dn the water again. "There's no man in it to
night," Penelope said, and Irene laughed forlornly.

" What did he want, then 1" asked Mrs. Lapham.

" Oh, I don't know. Seemed to be just a friendly
call. Said he ought to have come before."

Mrs. Lapham was silent a while. Then she said :
" Well, I hope you 're satisfied now."

Lapham rejected the sympathy too openly offered.
" I don't know about being satisfied. I wan't in
any hurry to see him."

His wife permitted him this pretence also.
" What sort of a person is he, anyway ?"

" Well, riot much like his son. There 's no sort
of business about him. I don't know just how you 'd
describe him. He 's tall ; and he 's got white hair
and a moustache ; and his fingers are very long and
limber. I couldn't help noticing them as he sat there
with his hands on the top of his cane. Didn't seem
to be dressed very much, and acted just like anybody.
Didn't talk much. Guess I did most of the talking.
Said he was glad I seemed to be getting along so well
with his son. He asked after you and Irene ; and he
said he couldn't feel just like a stranger. Said you
had been very kind to his wife. Of course I turned it
off. Yes," said Lapham thoughtfully, with his hands
resting on his knees, and his cigar between the
fingers of his left hand, " I guess he meant to do
the right thing, every way. Don't know as I ever
'saw a much pleasanter man. Dunno but what he 's
about the pleasantest man I ever did see." He was
p«t letting his wife see in his averted face the struggk

204 THE RISE OF

that revealed itself there — the struggle of stalwart
achievement not to feel flattered at the notice of sterile
elegance, not to be sneakingly glad of its amiability,
but to stand up and look at it with eyes on the same
level. God, who made us so much like himself, but
out of the dust, alone knows when that struggle will
end. The time had been when Lapham could not
have imagined any worldly splendour which his
dollars could not buy if he chose to spend them for
it ; but his wife's half discoveries, taking form again
in his ignorance of the world, filled him with help
less misgiving. A cloudy vision of something un-
purchasable, where he had supposed there was
nothing, had cowed him in spite of the burly resist
ance of his pride.

" I don't see why he shouldn't be pleasant," said
Mrs. Lapham. " He 's never done anything else."

Lapham looked up consciously, with an uneasy
laugh. " Pshaw, Persis ! you never forget any
thing r

" Oh, I Ve got more than that to remember. I
suppose you asked him to ride after the mare V

"Well," said Lapham, reddening guiltily, "he
said he was afraid of a good horse."

" Then, of course, you hadn't asked him." Mrs.
Lapham crocheted in silence, and her husband leaned
back in his chair and smoked.

At last he said, " I 'm going to push that house
forward. They 're loafing on it. There 's no reason
why we shouldn't be in it by Thanksgiving. I don'*
believe in moving in the dead of winter."

SILAS LAPHAM. 205

11 We can wait till spring. We 're very comfort
able in the old place," answered his wife. Then she
broke out on him : " What are you in such a hurry
to get into that house for ? Do you want to invite
the Corey s to a house-warming V

Lapham looked at her without speaking.

" Don't you suppose I can see through you 1 I
declare, Silas Lapham, if I didn't know different, I
should say you were about the biggest fool ! Don't you
know anything 1 Don't you know that it wouldn't
do to ask those people to our house before they 've
asked us to theirs 1 They 'd laugh in our faces !"

" I don't believe they 'd laugh in our faces.
What 's the difference between our asking them and
their asking us T' demanded the Colonel sulkily.

"Oh, well ! If you don''t see !"

" Well, I don't see. But I don't want to ask them
to the house. I suppose, if I want to, I can invite
him down to a fish dinner at Taft's."

Mrs. Lapham fell back in her chair, and let her
work drop in her lap with that " Tckk !" in which
her sex knows how to express utter contempt and
despair.

" What 's the matter 3"

" Well, if you do such a thing, Silas, I '11 never
speak to you again ! It 's no use / It 's no use ! I
did think, after you 'd behaved so well about Rogers,
I might trust you a little. But I see I can't. I
presume as long as you live you '11 have to be nosed
about like a perfect — 7 don't know what !"

" What are you making such a fuss about ?" de-

206 THE RISE OF

manded Lapham, terribly crest-fallen, but trying to
pluck up a spirit. " I haven't done anything yet.
I can't ask your advice about anything any more
without having you fly out. Confound it ! I shall
do as I please after this."

But as if he could not endure that contemptuous
atmosphere, he got up, and his wife heard him in
the dining-room pouring himself out a glass of ice^
water, and then heard him mount the stairs to their
room, and slam its door after him.

" Do you know what your father 's wanting to do
now r(n Mrs. Lapham asked her eldest daughter,
who lounged into the parlour a moment with her
wrap stringing from her arm, while the younger
went straight to bed. "He wants to invite Mr.
Corey's father to a fish dinner at Taft's !"

Penelope was yawning with her hand on her
mouth ; she stopped, and, with a laugh of amused
expectance, sank into a chair, her shoulders shrugged
forward.

" Why ! what in the world has put the Colonel
up to that ]"

" Put him up to it ! There 's that fellow, who
ought have come to see him long ago, drops into his
office this morning, and talks five minutes with him,
and your father is flattered out of his five senses.
He 's crazy to get in with those people, and I shall
have a perfect battle to keep him within bounds."

" Well, Persis, ma'am, you can't say but what you
began it," said Penelope.

"Oh yes, I began it," confessed Mrs. Lapham,

SILAS LAPHAM. 207

" Pen," she broke out, " what do you suppose he
means by it 1 "

" Who ? Mr. Corey's father 1 What does the
Colonel think ? "

" Oh, the Colonel ! " cried Mrs. Lapham. She
added tremulously : " Perhaps he is right. He did
seem to take a fancy to her last summer, and now if

he's called in that way She left her daughter

to distribute the pronouns aright, and resumed: " Of
course, I should have said once that there wasn't any
question about it. I should have said so last year ;
and I don't know what it is keeps me from saying so
now. I suppose I know a little more about things
than I did ; and your father 's being so bent on it
sets me all in a twitter. He thinks his money can
do everything. Well, I don't say but what it can,
a good many. And 'Rene is as good a child as ever
there was ; and I don't see but what she 's pretty-
appearing enough to suit any one. She's pretty-
behaved, too ; and she is the most capable girl. I
presume young men don't care very much for such
things nowadays ; but there ain't a great many girls
can go right into the kitchen, and make such a
custard as she did yesterday. And look at the way
she does, through the whole house ! She can't seem
to go into a room without the things fly right into
their places. And if she had to do it to-morrow, she
could make all her own dresses a great deal better
than them we pay to do it. I don't say but what
he's about as nice a fellow as ever stepped. But
there ! I 'm ashamed of going on so."

208 THE RISE OF

"Well, mother," said the girl after a pause, in
which she looked as if a little weary of the subject,
" why do you worry about it ? If it 's to be it 11 be,
and if it isn't"

" Yes, that 's what I tell your father. But when
it comes to myself, I see how hard it is for him to
rest quiet. I'm afraid we shall all do something
we '11 repent of afterwards."

" Well, ma'am," said Penelope, " / don't intend
to do anything wrong ; but if I do, I promise not to
be sorry for it. I'll go that far. And I think I
wouldn't be sorry for it beforehand, if I were in your
place, mother. Let the Colonel go on ! He likes to
manoeuvre, and he isn't going to hurt any one. The
Corey family can take care of themselves, I guess."

She laughed in her throat, drawing down the
corners of her mouth, and enjoying the resolution
with which her mother tried to fling off the burden
of her anxieties. " Pen ! I believe you 're right.
You always do see things in such a light ! There !
I don't care if he brings him down every day."

" Well, ma'am," said Pen, " I don't believe 'Eene
would, either. She 's just so indifferent ! "

The Colonel slept badly that night, and in the
morning Mrs. Lapham came to breakfast without
him.

" Your father ain't well," she reported. " He 's
had one of his turns."

" / should have thought he had two or three of
them," said Penelope, "by the stamping round I
heard. Isn't he coming to breakfast 1 "

SILAS LAPHAM. 209

" Not just yet," said her mother. " He 's asleep,
tnd he '11 be all right if he gets his nap out. I don't
tvant you girls should make any great noise."

" Oh, we'll be quiet enough," returned Penelope.
" Well, I 'm glad the Colonel isn't sojering. At first
I thought he might be sojering." She broke into
a laugh, and, struggling indolently with it, looked at
her sister. " You don't think it '11 be necessary for
anybody to come down from the office and take
orders from him while he 's laid up, do you,
mother ? " she inquired,

" Pen ! " cried Irene.

" He '11 be well enough to go up on the ten o'clock
boat," said the mother sharply.

" I think papa works too hard all throurh the
summer. Why don't you make him take a rest,
mamma 1 " asked Irene.

" Oh, take a rest ! The man slaves harder every
year. It used to be so that he 'd take a little time
off now and then ; but I declare, he hardly ever
seems to breathe now away from his office. And
this year he says Ke doesn't intend to go down to
Lapham, except to see after the works for a few
days. / don't know what to do with the man any
more ! Seems as if the more money he got, the more
he wanted to get. It scares me to think what would
happen to him if he lost it. I know one thing," con
cluded Mrs. Lapham. " He shall not go back to the
office to-day."

" Then he won't go up on the ten o'clock boat,"
Pen reminded her.

210 THE RISE OF

"No, he won't. You can just drive over to the
hotel as soon as you 're through, girls, and telegraph
that he 's not well, and won't be at the office till to
morrow. I'm not going to have them send any
body down here to bother him."

"That's a blow," said Pen. "I didn't know but

they might send " she looked demurely at her

sister — "Dennis !"

"Mamma!" cried Irene.

"Well, I declare, there's no living with this
family any more," said Penelope.

"There, Pen, be done !" commanded her mother.
But perhaps she did not intend to forbid her teasing.
It gave a pleasant sort of reality to the affair that
was in her mind, and made what she wished appear
not only possible but probable.

Lapham got up and lounged about, fretting and
rebelling as each boat departed without him, through
the day ; before night he became very cross, in spite
of the efforts of the family to soothe him, and
grumbled that he had been kept from going up to
town. "I might as well have*gone as not," he re
peated, till his wife lost her patience.

" Well, you shall go to-morrow, Silas, if you have
to be carried to the boat."

" I declare," said Penelope, " the Colonel don't
pet worth a cent."

The six o'clock boat brought Corey. The girls
were sitting on the piazza, and Irene saw him
first.

" 0 Pen !" she whispered, with her heart in

SILAS LAPHAM. 211

her face; and Penelope had no time for mockery
before he was at the steps.

" I hope Colonel Lapham isn't ill," he said, and
they could hear their mother engaged in a moral con
test with their father indoors.

" Go and put on your coat ! I say you shall ! It
don't matter how he sees you at the office, shirt
sleeves or not. You 're in a gentleman's house now
— or you ought to be — and you shan't see company
in your dressing-gown."

Penelope hurried in to subdue her mother's anger.

"Oh, he's very much better, thank you!" said
Irene, speaking up loudly to drown the noise of the
controversy.

"I 'm glad of that," said Corey, and when she led
him indoors the vanquished Colonel met his visitor
in a double breasted frock-coat, which he was still
buttoning up. He could not persuade himself at
once that Corey had not come upon some urgent
business matter, and when he was clear that he had
come out of civility, surprise mingled with his grati
fication that he should be the object of solicitude to
the young man. In Lapham's circle of acquaintance
they complained when they were sick, but they made
no womanish inquiries after one another's health,
and certainly paid no visits of sympathy till matters
were serious. He would have enlarged upon the
particulars of his indisposition if he had been allowed
to do so ; and after tea, which Corey took with them,
he would have remained to entertain him if his wife
had not sent him to bed. She followed him to see

212 THE RISE OF

that he took some medicine she had prescribed for
him, but she went first to Penelope's room, where
she found the girl with a book in her hand, which
she was not reading.

"You better go down," said the mother. "I've
got to go to your father, and Irene is all alone
with Mr. Corey ; and I know she '11 be on pins and
needles without you 're there to help make it go off."

" She 'd better try to get along without me, mother,"
said Penelope soberly. "I can't always be with
them."

"Well," replied Mrs. Lapham, "then / must.
There'll be a perfect Quaker meeting down there."

" Oh, I guess 'Rene will find something to say if
you leave her to herself. Or if she don't, he must.
It '11 be all right for 5'ou to go down when you get
ready ; but I shan't go till toward the last. If he 's
coming here to see Irene — and I don't believe he 's
come on father's account — he wants to see her and
not me. If she can't interest him alone, perhaps
he 'd as well find it out now as any time. At any
rate, I guess you'd better make the experiment.
You '11 know whether it 's a success if he comes
again."

"Well," said the mother, "may be you're right.
I '11 go down directly. It does seem as if he did
mean something, after all."

Mrs. Lapham did not hasten to return to her
guest. In her own girlhood it was supposed that if a
young man seemed to be coming to see a girl, it was
only common-sense to suppose that he wished to

SILAS LAPHAM. 213

see her alone ; and her life in town had left Mrs.
Lapham's simple traditions in this respect unchanged.
She did with her daughter as her mother would
have done with her.

Where Penelope sat with her book, she heard the
continuous murmur of voices below, and after a long
interval she heard her mother descend. She did
not read the open book that lay in her lap, though
she kept her eyes fast on the print. Once she rose
and almost shut the door, so that she could scarcely
hear ; then she opened it wide again with a self-dis
dainful air, and resolutely went back to her book,
which again she did not read. But she remained in
her room till it was nearly time for Corey to return
to his boat.

When they were alone again, Irene made a feint of
scolding her for leaving her to entertain Mr. Corey.

" Why ! didn't you have a pleasant call ? " asked
Penelope.

Irene threw her arms round her. " Oh, it was a
splendid call ! I didn't suppose I could make it go
off so well. We talked nearly the whole time about
you ! "

" I don't think that was a very interesting sub
ject."

" He kept asking about you. He asked every
thing. You don't know how much he thinks of
you, Pen. 0 Pen ! what do you think made him
come 1 Do you think he really did come to see how
papa was ? " Irene buried her face in her sister's
neck.

214 THE RISE OF

Penelope stood with her arms at her side, sub
mitting. " Well," she said, " I don't think he did,
altogether."

Irene, all glowing, released her. "Don't you —
don't you really ? O Pen ! don't you think he is
nice ? Don't you think he 's handsome 1 Don't you
think I behaved horridly when we first met him this
evening, not thanking him for coming ? I know he
thinks I 've no manners. But it seemed as if it would
be thanking him for coming to see me. Ought I to
have asked him to come again, when he said good
night ? I didn't ; I couldn't. Do you believe he '11
think I don't want him to 1 You don't believe he
would keep coming if he didn't — want to "

" He hasn't kept coming a great deal, yet," sug
gested Penelope.

" No ; I know he hasn't. But if he — if he
should?"

" Then I should think he wanted to."

" Oh, would you — would you 1 Oh, how good you
always are, Pen ! And you always say what you
think. I wish there was some one coming to see
you too. That's all that I don't like about it.

Perhaps He was telling about his friend there

in Texas "

" Well," said Penelope, " his friend couldn't call
often from Texas. You needn't ask Mr. Corey to
trouble about me, 'Rene. I think I can manage td
worry along, if you're satisfied."

" Oh, I am, Pen. When do you suppose he '11
come again 1 " Irene pushed some of Penelope's

SILAS LAPHAM. 215

things aside on the dressing-case, to rest her elbow
and talk at ease. Penelope came up and put them,
back.

"Well, not to-night," she said; "and if that's
what you 're sitting up for "

Irene caught her round the neck again, and ran
out of the room.

The Colonel was packed off on the eight o'clock
boat the next morning; but his recovery did not
prevent Corey from repeating his visit in a week.
This time Irene came radiantly up to Penelope's
room, where she had again withdrawn herself.
" You must come down, Pen," she said. " He 's
asked if you 're not well, and mamma says you 've
got to come."

After that Penelope helped Irene through with
her calls, and talked them over with her far into
the night after Corey was gone. But when the im
patient curiosity of her mother pressed her for some
opinion of the affair, she said, " You know as much
as I do, mother."

" Don't he ever say anything to you about her—
praise her up, any ? "

" He 's never mentioned Irene to me."

" He hasn't to me, either," said Mrs. Lapham,
with a sigh of trouble. " Then what makes him
keep coming 1 "

" I can't tell you. One thing, he says there isn't
a house open in Boston where he's acquainted.
Wait till some of his friends get back, and then if
he keeps coming, it '11 be time to inquire."

216 THE RISE OF

" Well ! " said the mother ; but as the weeks
passed she was less and less able to attribute Corey's
visits to his loneliness in town, and turned to her
husband for comfort.

" Silas, I don't know as we ought to let young
Corey keep coming so. I don't quite like it, with
all his family away."

" He 's of age," said the Colonel. " He can go
where he pleases. It don't matter whether his
family 's here or not."

" Yes, but if they don't want he should come 1
Should you feel just right about letting him 1"

" How 're you going to stop him 1 I swear,
Persis, I don't know what 's got over you ! What
is it 1 You didn't use to be so. But to hear you
talk, you'd think those Coreys were too good for
this world, and we wan't fit for 'em to walk on."

"I'm not going to have 'em say we took an
advantage of their being away and tolled him on."

" I should like to hear 'em say it ! " cried Lapham.
" Or anybody ! "

" Well," said his wife, relinquishing this point of
anxiety, "I can't make out whether he cares any
thing for her or not. And Pen can't tell either ; or
else she won't."

" Oh, I guess he cares for her, fast enough," said
the Colonel.

"I can't make out that he's said or done the
first thing to show it."

"Well, I was better than a year getting my
courage up."

SILAS LAPHAM. 217

"Oh, that was different," said Mrs. Lapham, in
contemptuous dismissal of the comparison, and yet
with a certain fondness. " I guess, if he cared for
her, a fellow in his position wouldn't be long getting
up his courage to speak to Irene."

Lapham brought his fist down on the table
between them.

" Look here, Persis ! Once for all, now, don't
you ever let me hear you say anything like that
again! I'm worth nigh on to a million, and I've
made it every cent myself; and my girls are the
equals of anybody, I don't care who it is. He ain't
the fellow to take on any airs ; but if he ever tries
it with me, I '11 send him to the right about mighty
quick. I '11 have a talk with him, if "

" No, no ; don't do that ! " implored his wife. " I
didn't mean anything. I don't know as I meant any-
thing. He 's just as unassuming as he can be, and I
think Irene's a match for anybody. You just let
things go on. It '11 be all right. You never can tell
how it is with young people. . Perhaps she 's offish.
Now you ain't — you ain't going to say anything V '

Lapham suffered himself to be persuaded, the
more easily, no doubt, because after his explosion
he must have perceived that his pride itself stood
in the way of what his pride had threatened. He
contented himself with his wife's promise that she
would never again present that offensive view of
the case, and she did not remain without a certain
support in his sturdy self-assertion.

XII.

MRS. COREY returned .with her daughters in the
early days of October, having passed three or four
weeks at Intervale after leaving Bar Harbour. They
were somewhat browner than they were when they
left town in June, but they were not otherwise
changed. Lily, the elder of the girls, had brought
back a number of studies of kelp and toadstools,
with accessory rocks and rotten logs, which she
would never finish up and never show any one,
knowing the slightness of their merit. Nanny, the
younger, had read a great many novels with a
keen sense of their inaccuracy as representations of
life, and had seen a great deal of life with a sad
regret for its difference from fiction. They were
both nice girls, accomplished, well-dressed of course,
and well enough looking ; but they had met no one
at the seaside or the mountains whom their taste
would allow to influence their fate, and they had
come home to the occupations they had left, with
no hopes and no fears to distract them.

In the absence of these they were fitted to take
the more vivid interest in their brother's affairs,

218

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 219

which they could see weighed upon their mother's
mind after the first hours of greeting.

" Oh, it seems to have been going on, and your
father has never written a word about it," she said,
shaking her head.

" What good would it have done 1 " asked Nanny,
who was little and fair, with rings of light hair that
filled a bonnet-front very prettily ; she looked best
in a bonnet. "It would only have worried you.
He could not have stopped Tom; you couldn't,
when you came home to do it."

"I dare say papa didn't know much about it,"
suggested Lily. She was a tall, lean, dark girl, who
looked as if she were not quite warm enough, and
whom you always associated with wraps of different
aesthetic effect after you had once seen her.

It is a serious matter always to the women of his
family when a young man gives them cause to sus
pect that he is interested in some other woman. A
son-in-law or brother-in-law does not enter the family;
he need not be caressed or made anything of ; but
the son's or brother's wife has a claim upon his
mother and sisters which they cannot deny. Some
convention of their sex obliges them to show her
affection, to like or to seem to like her, to take her
to their intimacy, however odious she may be to
them. With the Coreys it was something more
than an affair of sentiment. They were by no
means poor, and they were not dependent money-
wise upon Tom Corey; but the mother had come,
without knowing it, to rely upon his sense, his

220 THE RISE OF

advice in everything, and the sisters, seeing him
hitherto so indifferent to girls, had insensibly grown
to regard him as altogether their own till he should
be released, not by his marriage, but by theirs, an
event which had not approached with the lapse of
time. Some kinds of girls — they believed that they
could readily have chosen a kind — might have taken
him without taking him from them ; but this gene
rosity could not be hoped for in sucb a girl as Miss
Lapham.

" Perhaps," urged their mother, " it would not be
so bad. She seemed an affectionate little thing
with her mother, without a great deal of character
though she was so capable about some things."

"Oh, she'll be an affectionate little thing with
Tom too, you may be sure," said Nanny. "And
that characterless capability becomes the most in
tense narrow-mindedness. She '11 think we were
against her from the beginning."

" She has no cause for that," Lily interposed,
"and we shall not give her any."

"Yes, we shall," retorted Nanny. "We can't
help it ; and if we can't, her own ignorance would
be cause enough."

" I can't feel that she 's altogether ignorant," said
Mrs. Corey justly.

" Of course she can read and write," admitted
Nanny.

" I can't imagine what he finds to talk about with
ner," said Lily.

"Oh, that's very simple," returned her sister.

SILAS LAPHAM. 221

" They talk about themselves, with occasional refer
ences to each other. I have heard people 'going
on ' on the hotel piazzas. She 's embroidering, or
knitting, or tatting, or something of that kind ; and
he says she seems quite devoted to needlework,
and she says, yes, she has a perfect passion for it,
and everybody laughs at her for it ; but she can't
help it, she always was so from a child, and supposes
she always shall be, — with remote and minute par
ticulars. And she ends by saying that perhaps he
does not like people to tat, or knit, or embroider,
or whatever. And he says, oh, yes, he does ; what
could make her think such a thing 1 but for his part
he likes boating rather better, or if you're in the
woods camping. Then she lets him take up one
corner of her work, and perhaps touch her fingers ;
and that encourages him to say that he supposes
nothing could induce her to drop her work long
enough to go down on the rocks, or out among the
huckleberry bushes ; and she puts her head on one
side, and says she doesn't know really. And then
they go, and he lies at her feet on the rocks, or
picks huckleberries and drops them in her lap, and
they go on talking about themselves, and comparing
notes to see how they differ from each other.

And "

" That will do, Nanny," said her mother.
Lily smiled autumnally. " Oh, disgusting ! "
" Disgusting 1 Not at all ! " protested her sister.
" It's very amusing when you see it, and when you
do it "

222 THE RISE OF

" It 's always a mystery what people see in each
other," observed Mrs. Corey severely.

" Yes," Nanny admitted, " but I don't know that
there is much comfort for us in the application."

" No, there isn't," said her mother.

" The most that we can do is to hope for the best
till we know the worst. Of course we shall make
the best of the worst when it comes."

" Yes, and perhaps it would not be so very bad.
I was saying to your father when I was here in
July that those things can always be managed.
You must face them as if they were nothing out of
the way, and try not to give any cause for bitterness
among ourselves."

" That 's true. But I don't believe in too much
resignation beforehand. It amounts to concession,"
said Nanny.

" Of course we should oppose it in all proper
ways," returned her mother.

Lily had ceased to discu&s the matter. In virtue
of her artistic temperament, she was expected not
to be very practical. It was her mother and her
'.ister who managed, submitting to the advice and
jonsent of Corey what they intended to do.

"Your father wrote me that he had called on
Colonel Lapham at his place of business," said Mrs.
Corey, seizing her first chance of approaching the
subject with her son.

" Yes," said Corey. " A dinner was father's idea,
but he came down to a call, at my suggestion."

" Oh," said Mrs. Corey, in a tone of relief, as if

SILAS LAPHAM. 223

the statement threw a new light on the fact that
Corey had suggested the visit. " He said so little
about it in his letter that I didn't know just how it
came about."

" I thought it was right they should meet," ex->
plained the son, "and so did father. I was glad
that I suggested it, afterward ; it was extremely
gratifying to Colonel Lapham."

" Oh, it was quite right in every way. I suppose
you have seen something of the family during the
summer."

" Yes, a good deal. I 've been down at Nantasket
rather often."

Mrs. Corey let her eyes droop. Then she asked :
" Are they well ? "

"Yes, except Lapham himself, now aftd then. I
went down once or twice to see him. He hasn't
given himself any vacation this summer; he has
such a passion for his business that I fancy he finds
it hard being away from it at any time, and he 's
made his new house an excuse for staying "

" Oh yes, his house ! Is it to be something fine V

" Yes ; it 's a beautiful house. Seymour is doing
it."

" Then, of course, it will be very handsome. I
suppose the young ladies are very much taken up
with it ; and Mrs. Lapham."

" Mrs. Lapham, yes. I don't think the young
ladies care so much about it."

" It must be for them. Aren't they ambitious ? "
asked Mrs. Corey, delicately feeling her way.

224 THE RISE OF

Her son thought a while. Then he answered with
a smile —

"No, I don't really think they are. They are
unambitious, I should say." Mrs. Corey permitted
herself a long breath. But her son added, "It's
the parents who are ambitious for them," and her
respiration became shorter again.

" Yes," she said.'

" They're very simple, nice girls," pursued Corey.
" I think you '11 like the elder, when you come to
know her."

When you come to know her. The words implied
an expectation that the two families were to "be
better acquainted.

"Then she is more intellectual than her sister ?"
Mrs. Corey ventured.

"Intellectual 1" repeated her son. "No; that
isn't the word, quite. Though she certainly has
more mind."

" The younger seemed very sensible."

" Oh, sensible, yes. And as practical as she 's
pretty. She can do all sorts of things, and likes to
be doing them. Don't you think she's an extra
ordinary beauty?"

" Yes — yes, she is," said Mrs. Corey, at some cost.

" She 's good, too," said Corey, " and perfectly
innocent and transparent. I think you will like
her the better the more you know her."

" I thought her very nice from the beginning,'*
said the mother heroically ; and then nature asserted
itself in her. "But I should be afraid that she

SILAS LAPHAM. 225

might perhaps be a little bit tiresome at last ; her
range of ideas seemed so extremely limited."

" Yes, that 's what I was afraid of. But, as a
matter of fact, she isn't. She interests you by her
very limitations. You can see the working of her
mind, like that of a child. She isn't at all conscious
even of her beauty."

" I don't believe young men can tell whether girls
are conscious or not," said Mrs. Corey. " But I am

not saying the Miss Laphams are not " Her son

sat musing, with an inattentive smile on his face.
« What is it f

" Oh ! nothing. I was thinking of Miss Lapham
and something she was saying. She's very droll,
you know."

" The elder sister 1 Yes, you told me that. Can
you see the workings of her mind too 1"

" No ; she 's everything that 's unexpected."
Corey fell into another reverie, and smiled again ;
but he did not offer to explain what amused him,
and his mother would not ask.

" I don't know what to make of his admiring the
girl so frankly," she said afterward to her husband.
" That couldn't come naturally till after he had
spoken to her, and I feel sure that he hasn't yet."

" You women haven't risen yet — it's an evidence of
the backwardness of your sex — to a conception of the
Bismarck idea in diplomacy. If a man praises one
woman, you still think he's in love with another.
Do you mean that because Tom didn't praise the
elder sister so much, he has spoken to her ?"
P

226 THE RISE OF

Mrs. Corey refused the consequence, saying that
it did not follow. " Besides, he did praise her."

" You ought to be glad that matters are in such
good shape, then. At any rate, you can do abso
lutely nothing."

"Oh 1 I know it," sighed Mrs. Corey. "I wish
Tom would be a little opener with me."

" He 's as open as it 's io the nature of an American-
born son to be with his parents. I dare say if
you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard
to the young lady, he would have told you — if he
knew."

"Why, don't you think he does know, Brom-
field?"

" I 'm not at all sure he does. You women think
that because a young man dangles after a girl, or
girls, he 's attached to them. It doesn't at all follow.
He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what
to do with his time, and because they seem to like
it. I dare say that Tom has dangled a good deal in
this instance because there was nobody else in town."

" Do you really think so ?"

" I throw out the suggestion. And it strikes me
that a young lady couldn't do better than stay in or
near Boston during the summer. Most of the young
men are here, kept by business through the week,
with evenings available only on the spot, or a few
miles off. What was the proportion of the sexes at
the seashore and the mountains ?"

" Oh, twenty girls at least for even an excuse of a
man, It 's shameful."

SILAS LAPHAM. 227

" You see, I am right in one part of my theory.
Why shouldn't I be right in the rest ?"

" I wish you were. And yet I can't say that I do.
Those things are very serious with girls. I shouldn't
like Tom to have been going to see those people if
he meant nothing by it."

"And you wouldn't like it if he did. You are
difficult, my dear." Her husband pulled an open
newspaper toward him from the table.

" I feel that it wouldn't be at all like him to do
so," said Mrs. Corey, going on to entangle herself in
her words, as women often do when their ideas
are perfectly clear. " Don't go to reading, please,
Bromfield ! I am really worried about this matter
I must know how much it means. I can't let it
go on so. I don't see how you can rest easy with
out knowing."

" I don't in the least know what 's going to
become of me when I die ; and yet I sleep well," re
plied Bromfield Corey, putting his newspaper aside.

" Ah ! but this is a very different thing."

" So much more serious ? Well, what can you do ]
We had this out when you were here in the summer,
and you agreed with me then that we could do
nothing. The situation hasn't changed at all.'

" Yes, it has ; it has continued the same," said
Mrs. Corey, again expressing the fact by a contradic
tion in terms. " I think I must ask Tom outright."

" You know you can't do that, my dear."

" Then why doesn't he tell us ? "

" Ah, that 's what Tie can't do, if he 's making love

228 THE RISE OF

to Miss Irene — that 's her name, I believe — on the
American plan. He will tell us after he has told
her. That was the way I did. Don't ignore our
own youth, Anna. It was a long while ago, I'll
admit."

" It was very different," said Mrs. Corey, a little
shaken.

" I don't see how. I dare say Mamma Lapham
knows whether Tom is in love with her daughter or
not ; and no doubt Papa Lapham knows it at second
hand. But we shall not know it until the girl her
self does. Depend upon that. Your mother knew,
and she told your father ; but my poor father knew
nothing about it till we were engaged ; and I had
been hanging about — dangling, as you call it "

" No, no ; you called it that."

" Was it I ? — for a year or more."

The wife could not refuse to be a little consoled
by the image of her young love which the words
conjured up, however little she liked its relation to
her son's interest in Irene Lapham. She smiled
pensively. " Then you think it hasn't come to an
understanding with them yet ? "

" An understanding ? Oh, probably."

" An explanation, then ? "

"The only logical inference from what we've
been saying is that it hasn't. But I don't ask you
to accept it on that account. May I read now, my
dear?"

" Yes, you may read now," said Mrs. Corey, with
one of those sighs which perhaps express a feminine

SILAS LAPHAM. 229

sense of the unsatisfactoriness of husbands in gene
ral, rather than a personal discontent with her own.

" Thank you, my dear ; then I think I '11 smoke
too," said Bromfield Corey, lighting a cigar.

She left him in peace, and she made no further
attempt upon her son's confidence. But she was
not inactive for that reason. She did not, of course,
admit to herself, and far less to others, the motive
with which she went to pay an early visit to the
Laphams, who had now come up from Nantasket to
Nankeen Square. She said to her daughters that
she had always been a little ashamed of using her
acquaintance with them to get money for her
charity, and then seeming to drop it. Besides, it
seemed to her that she ought somehow to recognise
the business relation that Tom had formed with the
father ; they must not think that his family disap
proved of what he had done.

" Yes, business is business," said Nanny, with a
laugh. " Do you wish us to go with you again 1 "

" No ; I will go alone this time," replied the
mother with dignity.

Her coupe now found its way to Nankeen Square
without difficulty, and she sent up a card, which
Mrs. Lapham received in the presence of her
daughter Penelope.

" I presume I Ve got to see her," she gasped.

" Well, don't look so guilty, mother," joked the
girl ; " you haven't been doing anything so very
wrong."

" It seems as if I had. I don't know what 's come

230 THE RISE OF

over me. I wasn't afraid of the woman before, but
now I don't seem to feel as if I could look her in
the face. He 's been coming here of his own accord,
and I fought against his coming long enough, good
ness knows. I didn't want him to come. And
as far forth as that goes, we're as respectable as
they are ; and your father 's got twice their money,
any day. We 've no need to go begging for their
favour. I guess they were glad enough to get him
in with your father."

" Yes, those are all good points, mother," said the
girl ; " and if you keep saying them over, and count
a hundred every time before you speak, I guess
you '11 worry through."

Mrs. Laphain had been fussing distractedly with
her hair and ribbons, in preparation for her encoun
ter with Mrs. Corey. She now drew in a long
quivering breath, stared at her daughter without
eeeing her, and hurried downstairs. It was true
that when she met Mrs. Corey before she had not
been awed by her ; but since then she had learned
at least her own ignorance of the world, and she
had talked over the things she had misconceived
and the things she had shrewdly guessed so much
that she could not meet her on the former footing
of equality. In spite of as brave a spirit and as
good a conscience as woman need have, Mrs. Lap-
ham cringed inwardly, and tremulously wondered
what her visitor had come for. She turned
from pale to red, and was hardly coherent in her
greetings; she did not know how they got to

SILAS LAPHAM. 231

trhere Mrs. Corey was saying exactly the right
things about her son's interest and satisfaction in
his new business, and keeping her eyes fixed on
Mrs. Lapham's, reading her uneasiness there, and
making her feel, in spite of her indignant innocence,
that she had taken a base advantage of her in her
absence to get her son away from her and marry
him to Irene. Then, presently, while this was pain
fully revolving itself in Mrs. Lapham's mind, she
was aware of Mrs. Corey 's asking if she was not to
have the pleasure of seeing Miss Irene.

" No ; she 's out, just now," said Mrs. Lapham.
" I don't know just when she '11 be in. She went to
get a book." And here she turned red again, know
ing that Irene had gone to get the book because it
was one that Corey had spoken of.

"Oh! I'm sorry," said Mrs. Corey. "I had
hoped to see her. And your other daughter, whom
I never met ? "

"Penelope?" asked Mrs. Lapham, eased a little.
" She is at home. I will go and call her." The
Laphams had not yet thought of spending their
superfluity on servants who could be rung for ; they
kept two girls and a man to look after the furnace,
as they had for the last ten years. If Mrs. Lapham
had rung in the parlour, her second girl would have
gone to the street door to see who was there. She
went upstairs for Penelope herself, and the girl,
after some rebellious derision, returned with her.

Mrs. Corey took account of her, as Penelope
withdrew to the other side of the room after their

232 THE RISE OF

introduction, and sat down, indolently submissive
on the surface to the tests to be applied, and follow
ing Mrs. Corey's lead of the conversation in her odd
drawl.

" You young ladies will be glad to be getting into
your new house," she said politely.

" I don't know," said Penelope. " We 're so used
io this one."

Mrs. Corey looked a little baffled, but she said
sympathetically, " Of course, you will be sorry to
leave your old home."

Mrs. Lapham could not help putting in on behalf
of her daughters : " I guess if it was left to the
girls to say, we shouldn't leave it at all."

" Oh, indeed ! " said Mrs. Corey ; " are they so
much attached ! But I can quite understand it.
My children would be heart-broken too if we were
to leave the old place." She turned to Penelope.
" But you must think of the lovely new house, and
the beautiful position."

" Yes, I suppose we shall get used to them too,"said
Penelope, in response to this didactic consolation.

" Oh, I could even imagine your getting very fond
of them," pursued Mrs. Corey patronisingly. " My
son has told me of the lovely outlook you 're to have
over the water. He thinks you have such a beauti
ful house. I believe he had the pleasure of meeting
you all there when he first came home."

" Yes, I think he was our first visitor."

" He is a great admirer of your house," said Mrs.
Corey, keeping her eyes very sharply, however

SILAS LAPHAM. 233

politely, on Penelope's face, as if to surprise there
the secret of any other great admiration of her son's
that might helplessly show itself.

" Yes," said the girl, " he 's been there several
times with father; and he wouldn't be allowed to
overlook any of its good points."

Her mother took a little more courage from her
daughter's tranquillity.

" The girls make such fun of their father's ex
citement about his building, and the way he talks it
into everybody."

" Oh, indeed ! " said Mrs. Corey, with civil mis
understanding and inquiry.

Penelope flushed, and her mother went on : "I
tell him he 's more of a child about it than any of
them."

" Young people are very philosophical nowadays,"
remarked Mrs. Corey.

" Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Lapham. " I tell them
they Ve always had everything, so that nothing 's a
surprise to them. It was different with us in our
young days."

" Yes," said Mrs. Corey, without assenting.

" I mean the Colonel and myself," explained Mrs.
Lapham.

" Oh yes — yes ! " said Mrs. Corey.

" I 'm sure," the former went on, rather helplessly,
"we had to work hard enough for everything we
got. And so we appreciated it."

" So many things were not done for young people
then," said Mrs. Corey, not recognising the early-

234 THE RISE OF

hardships stand-point of Mrs. Lapham. "But I
don't know that they are always the better for it
now," she added vaguely, but with the satisfaction
we all feel in uttering a just commonplace.

" It 's rather hard living up to blessings that you Ve
always had," said Penelope.

"'Yes," replied Mrs. Corey distractedly, and
coming back to her slowly from the virtuous dis
tance to which she had absented herself. She
looked at the girl searchingly again, as if to deter
mine whether this were a touch of the drolling her
son had spoken of. But she only added : " You will
enjoy the sunsets on the Back Bay so much."

" Well, not unless they 're new ones," said Pene
lope. " I don't believe I could promise to enjoy
any sunsets that I was used to, a great deal."

Mrs. Corey looked at her with misgiving, harden
ing into dislike. " No," she breathed vaguely.
" My son spoke of the fine effect of the lights about
the hotel from your cottage at Nantasket," she said
to Mrs. Lapham.

" Yes, they 're splendid ! " exclaimed that lady. " I
guess the girls went down every night with him to
see them from the rocks."

" Yes," said Mrs. Corey, a little dryly ; and she
permitted herself to add : " He spoke of those rocks.
I suppose both you young ladies spend a great deal
of your time on them when you're there. At
Nahant my children were constantly on them."

" Irene likes the rocks," said Penelope. " I don't
care much about them, — especially at night."

SILAS LAPHAM. 235

" Oh, indeed ! I suppose you find it quite as well
looking at the lights comfortably from the veranda."

" No ; you can't see them from the house."

" Oh," said Mrs. Corey. After a perceptible pause,
she turned to Mrs. Lapham. " I don't know what
my son would have done for a breath of sea air this
summer, if you had not allowed him to come to
Nantasket. He wasn't willing to leave his business
long enough to go anywhere else."

" Yes, he 's a born business man," responded Mrs.
Lapham enthusiastically. "If it 's born in you, it 's
bound to come out. That's what the*Colonel is
always saying about Mr. Corey. He says it 's born in
him to be a business man, and he can't help it." She
recurred to Corey gladly because she felt that she
had not said enough of him when his mother first
spoke of his connection with the business. " I don't
believe," she went on excitedly, " that Colonel Lap-
ham has ever had anybody with him that he thought
more of."

" You have all been very kind to my son," said
Mrs. Corey in acknowledgment, arid stiffly bowing
a little, " and we feel greatly indebted to you. Very
much so."

At these grateful expressions Mrs. Lapham
reddened once more, and murmured that it had been
very pleasant to them, she was sure. She glanced
i*t her daughter for support, but Penelope was look
ing at Mrs. Corey, who doubtless saw her from the
corner of her eyes, though she went on speaking to
her mother.

236 THE RISE OF

" I was sorry to hear from him that Mr. — Colonel ?
— Lapham had not been quite well this summer.
I hope he 's better now ? "

" Oh yes, indeed," replied Mrs. Lapham ; " he 's all
right now. He 's hardly ever been sick, and he don't
know how to take care of himself. That 's all. We
don't any of us ; we 're all so well."

" Health is a great blessing," sighed Mrs. Corey.

"Yes, so it is. How is your oldest daughter?"
inquired Mrs. Lapham. " Is she as delicate as
ever ?"

" She seems to be rather better since we returned."
And now Mrs. Corey, as if forced to the point, said
bunglingly that the young ladies had wished to come
with her, but had been detained. She based her
statement upon Nanny's sarcastic demand ; and,
perhaps seeing it topple a little, she rose hastily, to
get away from its fall. " But we shall hope for
some — some other occasion," she said vaguely, and
she put on a parting smile, and shook hands with
Mrs. Lapham and Penelope, and then, after some
lingering commonplaces, got herself out of the house.

Penelope and her mother were still looking at each
other, and trying to grapple with the effect or pur
port of the visit, when Irene burst in upon them
from the outside.

" 0 mamma ! wasn't that Mrs. Corey's carriage
just drove away ? "

Penelope answered with her laugh. " Yes 1
You Ve just missed the most delightful call, 'Rene.
So easy and pleasant every way. Not a bit stiff !

SILAS LAPHAM. 237

Mrs. Corey was so friendly ! She didn't make me
feel at all as if she M bought me, and thought she 'd
given too much ; and mother held up her head as if
she were all wool and a yard wide, and she would
just like to have anybody deny it."

In a few touches of mimicry she dashed off a
sketch of the scene : her mother's trepidation, and
Mrs. Corey's well-bred repose and polite scrutiny of
them both. She ended by showing how she herself
had sat huddled up in a dark corner, mute with
fear.

" If she came to make us say and do the wrong
thing, she must have gone away happy ; and it 's
a pity you weren't here to help, Irene. I don't
know that I aimed to make a bad impression, but I
guess I succeeded— even beyond my deserts." She
laughed ; then suddenly she flashed out in fierce
earnest. " If I missed doing anything that could
make me as hateful to her as she made herself to
me — She checked herself, and began to laugh.

Her laugh broke, and the tears started into her eyes ;
she ran out of the room, and up the stairs.

" What — what does it mean 1 " asked Irene in a
daze.

Mrs. Lapham was still in the chilly torpor to
which Mrs. Corey's call had reduced her. Pene
lope's vehemence did not rouse her. She only
shook her head absently, and said, " I don't know."

" Why should Pen care what impression she
made ? I didn't suppose it would make any differ
ence to her whether Mrs. Corey liked her or not."

238 THE RISE OF

" I didn't, either. But I could see that she was
just as nervous as she could be, every minute of the
time. I guess she didn't like Mrs. Corey any too
well from the start, and she couldn't seem to act
like herself."

" Tell me about it, mamma," said Irene, dropping
into a chair.

Mrs. Corey described the interview to her hus
band on her return home. " Well, and what are
your inferences ? " he asked.

" They were extremely embarrassed and excited
— that is, the mother. I don't wish to do her in
justice, but she certainly behaved consciously."

" You made her feel so, I dare say, Anna. I can
imagine how terrible you must have been in the
character of an accusing spirit, too lady-like to say
anything. What did you hint 1 "

" I hinted nothing," said Mrs. Corey, descending
to the weakness of defending herself. "But I saw
quite enough to convince me that the girl is in love
with Tom, and the mother knows it."

" That was very unsatisfactory, I supposed you
went to find out whether Tom was in love with the
girl. Was she as pretty as ever ?"

" I didn't see her ; she was not at home ; I saw
her sister."

" I don't know that I follow you quite, Anna.
But no matter. What was the sister like ?"

" A thoroughly disagreeable young woman."

"What did she do?"

SILAS LAPHAM. 239

" Nothing. She 's far too sly for that. But that
?ras the impression."

" Then you didn't find her so amusing as Tom
does ? "

" I found her pert. There 's no other word for it.
She says things to puzzle you and put you out."

" Ah, that was worse than pert, Anna ; that was
criminal. Well, let us thank heaven the younger
one is so pretty."

Mrs. Corey did not reply directly. "Bromfield,"
she said, after a moment of troubled silence, "I
have been thinking over your plan, and I don't see
why it isn't the right thing."

" What is my plan 1 " inquired Bromfield Corey.

" A dinner."

Her husband began to laugh. " Ah, you overdid
the accusing-spirit business, and this is reparation."
But Mrs. Corey hurried on, with combined dignity
and anxiety —

" We can't ignore Tom's intimacy with them — it
amounts to that ; it will probably continue even if
it 's merely a fancy, and we must seem to know it ;
whatever comes of it, we can't disown it. They are
very simple, unfashionable people, and unworldly;
but I can't say that they are offensive, unless—
unless," she added, in propitiation of her husband's
smile, " unless the father — how did you find the
father?" she implored.

"He will be very entertaining," said Corey, "if
you start him on his paint. What was the dis
agreeable daughter like 1 Shall you have her ] "

240 THE RISE OF

" She 's little and dark. We must have them all,"
Mrs. Corey sighed. " Then you don't think a dinner
would do?"

"Oh yes, I do. As you say, we can't disown
Tom's relation to them, whatever it is. We had
much better recognise it, and make the best of the
inevitable. I think a Lapham dinner would be de
lightful." He looked at her with delicate irony in
his voice and smile, and she fetched another sigh,
so deep and sore now that he laughed outright.
" Perhaps," he suggested, " it would be the best
way of curing Tom of his fancy, if he has one. He
has been seeing her with the dangerous advantages
which a mother knows how to give her daughter in
the family circle, and with no means of comparing
her with other girls. You must invite several other
very pretty girls."

" Do you really think so, Bromfield 2 " asked Mrs.
Corey, taking courage a little. "That might do,"
But her spirits visibly sank again. " I don't know
any other girl half so pretty."

" Well, then, better bred."

"She is very lady-like, very modest, and pleas-
ing."

" Well, more cultivated."

" Tom doesn't get on with such people."

" Oh, you wish him to marry her, I see."

« No, no "

" Then you 'd better give the dinner to bring
them together, to promote the affair."

** You know I don't want to do that, Bromfield.

SILAS LAPHAM. 241

But I feel that we must do something. If we don't,
it has a clandestine appearance. It isn't just to
them. A dinner won't leave us in any worse
position, and may leave us in a better. Yes," said
Mrs. Corey, after another thoughtful interval, " we
must have them — have them all. It could be very
simple."

" Ah, you can't give a dinner under a bushel, if I
take your meaning, my dear. If we do this at all,
we mustn't do it as if we were ashamed of it. We
must ask people to meet them."

" Yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. " There are not many
people in town yet," she added, with relief that caused
her husband another smile. " There really seems a
sort of fatality about it," she concluded religiously.

" Then you had better not struggle against it.
Go and reconcile Lily and Nanny to it as soon as
possible."

Mrs. Corey blanched a little. " But don't you
think it will be the best thing, Bromfield 1 "

" I do indeed, my dear. The only thing that
shakes my faith in the scheme is the fact that I first
suggested it. But if you have adopted it, it must
be all right, Anna. I can't say that I expected it."

" No," said his wife, " it wouldn't do."

XIII.

HAVING distinctly given up the project of asking
the Laphams to dinner, Mrs. Corey was able to carry
it out with the courage of sinners who have sacrificed
to virtue by frankly acknowledging its superiority to
their intended transgression. She did not question
but the Laphams would come ; and she only doubted
as to the people whom she should invite to meet
them. She opened the matter with some trepidation
to her daughters, but neither of them opposed her ;
they rather looked at the scheme from her own point
of view, and agreed with her that nothing had really
yet been done to wipe out the obligation to the Lap-
hams helplessly contracted the summer before, and
strengthened by that ill-advised application to Mrs.
Lapham for charity. Not only the principal of their
debt of gratitude remained, but the accruing interest
They said, What harm could giving the dinner pos
sibly do them 1 They might ask any or all of their
acquaintance without disadvantage to themselves ;
but it would be perfectly easy, to give the dinner
just the character they chose, and still flatter the
ignorance of the Laphams. The trouble would be

242

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 243

with Tom, if he were really interested in the girl ;
but he could not say anything if they made it a
family dinner; he could not feel anything. They
had each turned in her own mind, as it appeared
from a comparison of ideas, to one of the most com
prehensive of those cousinships which form the
admiration and terror of the adventurer in Boston
society. He finds himself hemmed in and left out
at every turn by ramifications that forbid him all
hope of safe personality in his comments on people ;
he is never less secure than when he hears some
given Bostonian denouncing or ridiculing another.
If he will be advised, he will guard himself from con
curring in these criticisms, however just they appear,
for the probability is that their object is a cousin of
not more than one remove from the censor. When
the alien hears a group of Boston ladies calling one
another, and speaking of all their gentlemen friends,
by the familiar abbreviations of their Christian
names, he must feel keenly the exile to which he
was born ; but he is then, at least, in comparatively
little danger ; while these latent and tacit cousin-
ships open pitfalls at every step around him, in a
society where Middlesexes have married Essexes
and produced Suffolks for two hundred and fifty
years.

These conditions, however, so perilous to the
foreigner, are a source of strength and security to
those native to them. An uncertain acquaintance
may be so effectually involved in the meshes of such
a cousinship, as never tb b"e heard of outsitte df it

244 THE RISE OF

and tremendous stories are told of people who
have spent a whole winter in Boston, in a whirl of
gaiety, and who, the original guests of the Suffolks,
discover upon reflection that they have met no
one but Essexes and Middlesexes.

Mrs. Corey's brother James came first into her
mind, and she thought with uncommon toleration of
the easy-going, uncritical, good-nature of his wife.
James Bellingham had been the adviser of her son
throughout, and migLt be said to have actively pro
moted his connection with Lapham. She thought
next of the widow of her cousin, Henry Bellingham,
who had let her daughter marry that Western steam
boat man, and was fond of her son-in-law ; she might
be expected at least to endure the paint-king and his
family. The daughters insisted so strongly upon
Mrs. Bellingham's son Charles, that Mrs. Corey put
him down — if he were in town ; he might be in Cen
tral America ; he got on with all sorts of people. It
seemed to her that she might stop at this : four
Laphams, five Coreys, and four Bellinghams were
enough.

"That makes thirteen," said Nanny. "You can
have Mr. and Mrs. Sewell."

" Yes, that is a good idea," assented Mrs. Corey.
" He is our minister, and it is very proper."

" I don't see why you don't have Robert Chase.
It is a pity he shouldn't see her — for the colour."

"I don't quite like the idea of that," said Mrs.
Corey ; " but we can have him too, if it won't make
too many." The painter had married into a poorer

SILAS LAPHAM. 245

"branch of the Coreys, and his wife was dead. " Is
there any one else V

" There is Miss Kingsbury."

" We have had her so much. She will begin to
think we are using her."

" She won't mind ; she 's so good-natured."

" Well, then," the mother summed up, " there are
four Laphams, five Coreys, four Bellinghams, one
Chase, and one Kingsbury — fifteen. Oh ! and two
Sewells. Seventeen. Ten ladies and seven gentle
men. It doesn't balance very well, and it's too
large."

" Perhaps some of the ladies won't come," sug
gested Lily.

" Oh, the ladies always come," said Nanny.

Their mother reflected. " Well, I will ask them.
The ladies will refuse in time to let us pick up some
gentlemen somewhere ; some more artists. Why !
we must have Mr. Seymour, the architect ; he 's a
bachelor, and he ;s building their house, Tom says."

Her voice fell a little when she mentioned her
son's name, and she told him of her plan, when
he came home in the evening, with evident mis
giving.

" What are you doing it for, mother ?" he asked,
looking at her with his honest eyes.

She dropped her own in a little confusion. " I
won't do it at all, my dear," she said, " if you don't

approve. But 1 thought You know we have

never made any proper acknowledgment of their
kindness to us at Baie St. Paul. Then in the

246 THE RISE OF

winter, I'm ashamed to say, I got money from her
for a charity I was interested in; and I hate the
idea of merely using people in that way. And now
your having been at their house this summer — we
can't seem to disapprove of that ; and your business
relations to him "

"Yes, I see," said Corey. "Do you think it
amounts to a dinner ?"

"Why, I don't know," returned his mother.
" We shall have hardly any one out of our family
connection."

" Well," Corey assented, " it might do. I suppose
what you wish is to give them a pleasure."

" Why, certainly. Don't you think they 'd like to
come ? "

" Oh, they 'd like to come ; but whether it would
be a pleasure after they were here is another thing.
I should have said that if you wanted to have them,
they would enjoy better being simply asked to meet
our own immediate family."

" That 's what I thought of in the first place, but
your father seemed to think it implied a social dis
trust of them ; and we couldn't afford to have that
appearance, even to ourselves."

" Perhaps he was right."

" And besides, it might seem a little significant."

Corey seemed inattentive to this consideration.
"Whom did you think of asking?" His mother
repeated the names. " Yes, that would do," he
said, with a vague dissatisfaction.

" I won't have it at all, if you don't wish, Tom."

SILAS LAPHAM. 2^7

"Oh yes, have it; perhaps you ought. Yes, I
dare say it 's right. What did you mean by a family
dinner seeming significant ] "

His mother hesitated. When it came to that, she
did not like to recognise in his presence the anxieties
that had troubled her. But "I don't know," she
said, since she must. "I shouldn't want to give
that young girl, or her mother, the idea that we
wished to make more of the acquaintance than —
than you did, Tom."

He looked at her aosent-mindedly, as if he did
not take her meaning. But he said, "Oh yes, of
course," and Mrs. Corey, in the uncertainty in which
she seemed destined to remain concerning this affair,
went off and wrote her invitation to Mrs. Laphani.
Later in the evening, when they again found them
selves alone, her son said, " I don't think I under
stood you, mother, in regard to the Laphams. I
think I do now. I certainly don't wish you to make
more of the acquaintance than I have done. It
wouldn't be right; it might be very unfortunate.
Don't give the dinner !"

" It 's too late now, my son," said Mrs. Corey.
"I sent my note to Mrs. Lapham an hour ago."
Her courage rose at the trouble which showed in
Corey's face. " But don't be annoyed by it, Tom.
It isn't a family dinner, you know, and everything
can be managed without embarrassment. If we
take up the affair at this point, you will seem to
have been merely acting for us; and they can't
possibly understand anything more."

248 THE RISE OF

" Well, well ! Let it go ! I dare say it 's all right.
Vt any rate, it can't be helped now."

" I don't wish to help it, Tom," said Mrs. Corey,
•with a cheerfulness which the thought of the Laphams
had never brought her before. "I am sure it is
quite fit and proper, and we can make them have a
very pleasant time. They are good, inoffensive
people, and we owe it to ourselves not to be afraid
to show that we have felt their kindness to us, and
his appreciation of you."

"Well," consented Corey. The trouble that his
mother had suddenly cast off was in his tone ; but
she was not sorry. It was quite time that he should
think seriously of -his attitude toward these people if
he had not thought of it before, but, according to
his father's theory, had been merely dangling.

It was a view of her son's character that could
hardly have pleased her in different circumstances,
yet it was now unquestionably a consolation if not
wholly a pleasure. If she considered the Laphams
at all, it was with the resignation which we feel at
the evils of others, even when they have not brought
them on themselves.

Mrs. Lapham, for her part, had spent the hours
between Mrs. Corey's visit and her husband 's coming
home from business in reaching the same conclusion
with regard to Corey ; and her spirits were at the
lowest when they sat down to supper. Irene was
downcast with her ; Penelope was purposely gay ; and
the Colonel was beginning, after his first plate of the
boiled ham, — which, bristling with cloves, rounded

SILAS LAPHAM. 249

its bulk on a wide platter before him, — to take note
of the surrounding mood, when the door-bell jingled
peremptorily, and the girl left waiting on the table
to go and answer it. She returned at once with a
note for Mrs. Lapham, which she read, and then,
after a helpless survey of her family, read again.

"Why, what is it, mamma1?" asked Irene, while
the Colonel, who had taken up his carving-knife for
another attack on the ham, held it drawn half across
it.

" Why, / don't know what it ctemean," answered
Mrs. Lapham tremulously, and she let the girl take
the note from her.

Irene ran it over, and then turned to the name at
the end with a joyful cry and a flush that burned
to the top of her forehead. Then she began to read
it once more.

The Colonel dropped his knife and frowned im
patiently, and Mrs. Lapham said, " You read it out
loud, if you know what to make of it, Irene." But
Irene, with a nervous scream of protest, handed it
to her father, who performed the office.

" DEAR MRS. LAPHAM :

" Will you and General Lapham "

"I. didn't know I was a general," grumbled
Lapham. " I guess I shall have to be looking up
my back pay. Who is it writes this, anyway ? " he
asked, turning the letter over for the signature.

" Oh, never mind. Read it through ! " cried his
wife, with a kindling glance of triumph at Penelope,
and he resumed —

250 THE RISE OF

" — and your daughters give us the pleasure ox your
company at dinner on Thursday, the 28th, at half-
past six.

" Yours sincerely,

" ANNA B. COREY."

The brief invitation had been spread over two
pages, and the Colonel had difficulties with the
signature which he did not instantly surmount.
When he had made out the name and pronounced
it, he looked across at his wife for an explanation.

"/ don't know what it all means," she said,
shaking her head and speaking with a pleased
flutter. " She was here this afternoon, and I should
have said she had come to see how bad she could
make us feel. I declare I never felt so put down in
my life by anybody."

" Why, what did she do 1 What did she say ? "
Lapham was ready, in his dense pride, to resent any
affront to his blood, but doubtful, with the evidence
of this invitation to the contrary, if any affront had
been offered. Mrs. Lapham tried to tell him, but
there was really nothing tangible ; and when she
came to put it into words, she could not make out
a case. Her husband listened to her excited at
tempt, and then he said, with judicial superiority,
" / guess nobody 's been trying to make you feel bad,
Persis. What would she go right home and invite
you to dinner for, if she 'd acted the way you say 1 "

In this view it did seem improbable, and Mrs.
Lapham was shaken. She could only say, " Peiie-
lope felt just the way I did about it."

SILAS LAPHAM. 251

Lapliam looked at the girl, who said, " Oh, / can't
prove it ! I begin to think it never happened. I
guess it didn't."

" Humph ! " said her father, and he sat frowning
thoughtfully a while — ignoring her mocking irony, or
choosing to take her seriously. "You can't really
put your finger on anything," he said to his wife,
" and it ain't likely there is anything. Anyway,
she 's done the proper thing by you now."

Mrs. Lapham faltered between her lingering; re
sentment and the appeals of her flattered vanity.
She looked from Penelope's impassive face to the
eager eyes of Irene. " Well — just as you say, Silas.
I don't know as she ivas so very bad. I guess may
be she was embarrassed some "

" That's what I told you, mamma, from the start,"
interrupted Irene. " Didn't I tell you she didn't
mean anything by it ? It 's just the way she acted
at Baie St. Paul, when she got well enough to realise
what you 'd done for her ! "

Penelope broke into a laugh. " Is that her way
of showing her gratitude? I'm sorry I didn't un
derstand that before."

Irene made no effort to reply. She merely looked
from her mother to her father with a grieved face
for their protection, and Lapham said, " When we 've
done supper, you answer her, Persis. Say we'll
come."

" With one exception," said Penelope.

" What do you mean ? " demanded her father,
with a mouth full of ham.

252 THE RISE OF

" Oh, nothing of importance. Merely that I 'ID
not going."

Lapham gave himself time to swallow his morsel,
and his rising wrath went down with it. " I guess
you '11 change your mind when the time comes," he
said. " Anyway, Persis, you say we '11 all come, and
then, if Penelope don't want to go, you can excuse
her after we get there. That 's the best way."

None of them, apparently, saw any reason why
the affair should not be left in this way, or had a
sense of the awful and binding nature of a dinner
engagement. If she believed that Penelope woulcj
not finally change her mind and go, no doubt Mrs.
Lapham thought that Mrs. Corey would easily excuse
her absence. She did not find it so simple a matter
to accept the invitation. Mrs. Corey had said "Deal
Mrs. Lapham," but Mrs. Lapham had her doubts
whether it would not be a servile imitation to say
" Dear Mrs. Corey " in return ; and she was tor
mented as to the proper phrasing throughout and
the precise temperature which she should impart to
her politeness. She wrote an unpractised, unchar
acteristic round hand, the same in which she used to
set the children's copies at school, and she subscribed
herself, after some hesitation between her husband's
given name and her own, "Yours truly, Mrs. S.
Lapham."

Penelope had gone to her room, without waiting to
be asked to advise or criticise ; but Irene had decided
upon the paper, and on the whole, Mrs. Lapham's
note made a very decent appearance on the page.

SILAS LAPHAM. 253

When the furnace-man came, the Colonel sent him
nut to post it in the box at the corner of the square.
He had determined not to say anything more about
the matter before the girls, not choosing to let them
see that he was elated ; he tried to give the effect of
its being an everyday sort of thing, abruptly closing
the discussion with his order to Mrs. Lapham to
accept ; but he had remained swelling behind his
newspaper during her prolonged struggle with her
note, and he could no longer hide his elation when
Irene followed her sister upstairs.

" Well, Pers," he demanded, " what do you say
now?"

Mrs. Lapham had been sobered into something of
her former misgiving by her difficulties with her
note. " Well, I ddflrt know what to say. I declare,
I'm all mixed up about it, and I don't know as
we Ve begun as we can carry out in promising to go.
I presume," she sighed, " that we can all send some
excuse at the last moment, if we don't want to go."

" I guess we can carry out, and I guess we shan't
want to send any excuse," bragged the Colonel.
"If we 're ever going to be anybody at all, we Ve
got to go and see how it 's done. I presume we Ve
got to give some sort of party when we get into the
new house, and this gives the chance to ask 'em back
again. You can't complain now but what they Ve
made the advances, Persis ? "

" No," said Mrs. Lapham lifelessly ; " I wonder
why they wanted to do it. Oh, I suppose it 's all
right," she added in deprecation of the anger with

254 THE RISE OF

her humility which she saw rising in her husband's
face ; " but if it 's all going to be as much trouble as
that letter, I'd rather be whipped. / don't know
what I 'm going to wear ; or the girls either. I do
wonder — I Ve heard that people go to dinner in low-
necks. Do you suppose it 's the custom 1"

" How should / know ? " demanded the Colonel.
" I guess you 've got clothes enough. Any rate, you
needn't fret about it. You just go round to White's
or Jordan & Marsh's, and ask for a dinner dress.
I guess that '11 settle it ; they '11 know. Get some
of them imported dresses. I see 'em in the window
every time I pass ; lots of 'em,"

" Oh, it ain't the dress ! " said Mrs. Lapham. " I
don't suppose but what we could get along with that ;
and I want to do the best we can for the children ;
but I don't know what we 're going to talk about to
those people when we get there. We haven't got
anything in common with them. Oh, I don't say
they 're any better," she again made haste to say in
arrest of her husband's resentment. "I don't be
lieve they are ; and I don't see why they should be.
And there ain't anybody has got a better right to
hold up their head than you have, Silas. You've
got plenty of money, and you 've made every cent
of it."

" I guess I shouldn't amounted to much without
you, Persis," interposed Lapham, moved to this
justice by her praise.

" Oh, don't talk about me 1 " protested the wife.
" Now that you Ve made it all right abtrut Rbgers,

I

SILAS LAPHAM. 255

there ain't a thing in this world against you. But
still, for all that, I can see — and I can feel it when I
can't see it — that we 're different from those people.
They 're well-meaning enough, and they 'd excuse it,
I presume, but we're too old to learn to be like
them."

" The children ain't," said Lapham shrewdly.

" No, the children ain't," admitted his wife, " and
that's the only thing that reconciles me to it."

"You see how pleased Irene looked when I read
it?"

" Yes, she was pleased."

" And I guess Penelope '11 think better of it before
the time comes."

" Oh yes, we do it for them. But whether we Jre
doing the best thing for 'em, goodness knows. I'm
not saying anything against him. Irene '11 be a lucky
girl to get him, if she wants him. But there ! I 'd
ten times rather she was going to marry such a
fellow as you were, Si, that had to make every inch
of his own way, and she had to help him. It 's in
her ! "

Lapham laughed aloud for pleasure in his wife's
fondness; but neither of them wished that he should
respond directly, to it. " I guess, if it wan't for me,
he wouldn't have a much easier time. But don't
you fret ! It 's all coming out right. That dinner
ain't a thing for you to be uneasy about. It '11 pass
off perfectly easy and natural."

Lapham did not keep his courageous mind quite
to the end of the week that followed. It was hia

256 THE RISE OF

theory not to let Corey see that he was set up about
the invitation, and when the young man said politely
that his mother was glad they were able to come,
Lapham was very short with him. He said yes, he
believed that Mrs. Lapham and the girls were going.
Afterward he was afraid Corey might not under
stand that he was coming too ; but he did not know
how to approach the subject again, and Corey did
not, so he let it pass. It worried him to see all the
preparation that his wife and Irene were making,
and he tried to laugh at them for it ; and it worried
him to find that Penelope was making no preparation
at all for herself, but only helping the others. He
asked her what should she do if she changed her
mind at the last moment and concluded to go, and
she' said she guessed she should not change her
mind, but if she did, she would go to White's with
him and get him to choose her an imported dress,
he seemed to like them so much. He was too proud
to mention the subject again to her.

Finally, all that dress-making in the house began
to scare him with vague apprehensions in regard to
his own dress. As soon as he had determined to go,
an ideal of the figure in which he should go pre
sented itself to his mind. He should not wear any
dress-coat, because, for one thing, he considered that
a man looked like a fool in a dress-coat, and, for
another thing, he had none — had none on principle.
He would go in a frock-coat and black pantaloons,
and perhaps a white waistcoat, but a black cravat
anyway. But as soon as he developed this ideal to

SILAS LAPHAM. 257

his family, which he did in pompous disdain of their
anxieties about their own dress, they said he should
not go so. Irene reminded him that he was the only
person without a dress-coat at a corps reunion dinner
which he had taken her to some years before, and
she remembered feeling awfully about it at the time.
Mrs. Lapham, who would perhaps have agreed of
herself, shook her head with misgiving. " I don't
see but what you'll have to get you one, Si," she
said. " I don'c believe they ever go without 'em to a
private house."

He held out openly, but on his way home the
next day, in a sudden panic, he cast anchor before
his tailor's door and got measured for a dress-coat.
After that he began to be afflicted about his waist
coat, concerning which he had hitherto been airily
indifferent. He tried to get opinion out of his
family, but they were not so clear about it as they
were about the frock. It ended in their buying a
book of etiquette, which settled the question ad
versely to a white waistcoat. The author, however,
after being very explicit in telling them not to eat
with their knives, and above all not to pick their
teeth with their forks, — a thing which he said no
lady or gentleman ever did, — was still far from de
cided as to the kind of cravat Colonel Lapham ough'
to wear : shaken on other points, Lapham had begun
to waver also concerning the black cravat. As to
the question of gloves for the Colonel, which sud
denly flashed upon him one evening, it appeared
never to have entered the thoughts of the etiquette
R

258, THE RISE OF

man, as Lapham called him. Other authors on the
same subject were equally silent, and Irene could only
remember having heard, in some vague sort of way,
that gentlemen did not wear gloves so much any more.

Drops of perspiration gathered on Lapham's fore
head in the anxiety of the debate ; he groaned, and
he swore a little in the compromise profanity which
he used.

"I declare," said Penelope, where she sat pur-
blindly sewing on a bit of dress for Irene, "the
Colonel's clothes are as much trouble as anybody's.
Why don't you go to Jordan & Marsh's and order
one of the imported dresses for yourself, father 1 "
That gave them all the relief of a laugh over it, the
Colonel joining in piteously.

He had an awful longing to find out from Corey
how he ought to go. He formulated and repeated
over to himself an apparently careless question, such
as, " Oh, by the way, Corey, where do you get your
gloves?" This would naturally lead to some talk
on the subject, which would, if properly managed,
clear up the whole trouble. But Lapham found that
he would rather die than ask this question, or any
question that would bring up the dinner again.
Corey did not recur to it, and Lapham avoided the
matter with positive fierceness. He shunned talking
with Corey at all, and suffered in grim silence.

One night, before they fell asleep, his wife said to
him, " I was reading in one of those books to-day,
and I don't believe but what we Ve made a mistake
if Pen holds out that she won't go."

SILAS LAPHAM. 259

" Why ?" demanded Lapham, in the dismay which
beset him at every fresh recurrence to the subject.

" The book says that it 's very impolite not to
answer a dinner invitation promptly. Well, we Jve
done that all right, — at first I didn't know but what
we had been a little too quick, may be, — but then it
says if you 're not going, that it 's the height of rude
ness not to let them know at once, so that they can
fill your place at the table."

The Colonel was silent for a while. " Well, I 'm
dumned," he said finally, " if there seems to be any
end to this thing. If it was to do over again, I 'd
say no for all of us."

" I 've wished a hundred times they hadn't asked
us ; but it 's too late to think about that now. The
question is, what are we going to do about Pene-
lope r

" Oh, I guess she '11 go, at the last moment."

"She says she won't. She took a prejudice
against Mrs. Corey that day, and she can't seem to
get over it."

" Well, then, hadn't you better write in the morn
ing, as soon as you 're up, that she ain't coming 1 "

Mrs. Lapham sighed helplessly. "I shouldn't
know how to get it in. It 's so late now ; I don't
see how I could have the face."

" Well, then, she 's got to go, that's all."

"She's set she won't."

" And I 'm set she shall," said Lapham with the
loud obstinacy of a man whose women always have
their way.

260 THE RISE OF

Mrs. Lapham was not supported by the sturdiness
of his proclamation.

But she did not know how to do what she knew
ghe ought to do about Penelope, and she let matters
drift. After all, the child had a right to stay at
home if she did not wish to go. That was what
Mrs. Lapham felt, and what she said to her husband
next morning, bidding him let Penelope alone, unless
she chose herself to go. She said it was too late
now to do anything, and she must make the best
excuse she could when she saw Mrs. Corey. She
began to wish that Irene and her father would go
and excuse her too. She could not help saying this,
and then she and Lapham had some unpleasant words.

" Look here !" he cried. " Who wanted to go in
for these people in the first place ? Didn't you come
home full of 'em last year, and want me to sell out
here and move somewheres else because it didn't seem
to suit 'em ? And now you want to put it all on me !
I ain't going to stand it."

"Hush!" said his wife. "Do you want to raise
the house ? I didn't put it on you, as you say. You
took it on yourself. Ever since that fellow happened
to come into the new house that day, you 've been
perfectly crazy to get in with them. And now
you 're so afraid you shall do something wrong be
fore 'em, you don't hardly dare to say your life's
your own. I declare, if you pester me any more
about those gloves, Silas Lapham, I won't go."

"Do you suppose I want to go on my own
account ?" he demanded furiously.

SILAS LAPHAM. 261

" No," she admitted. " Of course I don't. I know
f ery well that you 're doing it for Irene ; but, for
goodness gracious' sake, don't worry our lives out,
and make yourself a perfect laughing-stock before
the children."

With this modified concession from her, the
quarrel closed in sullen silence on Lapham's part.
The night before the dinner came, and the question
of his gloves was still unsettled, and in a fair way to
remain so. He had bought a pair, so as to be on the
safe side, perspiring in company with the young lady
who sold them, and who helped him try them on
at the shop ; his nails were still full of the powder
which she had plentifully peppered into them in
order to overcome the resistance of his blunt fingers.
But he was uncertain whether he should wear them.
They had found a book at last that said the ladies
removed their gloves on sitting down at table, but it
said nothing about gentlemen's gloves. He left his
wife where she stood half hook-and-eyed at her glass
in her new dress, and went down to his own den
beyond the parlour. Before he shut his door he
caught a glimpse of Irene trailing up and down be
fore the long mirror in her new dress, followed by
the seamstress on her knees ; the woman had her
mouth full of pins, and from time to time she made
Irene stop till she could put one of the pins into her
train ; Penelope sat in a corner criticising and coun
selling. It made Lapham sick, and he despised him
self and all his brood for the trouble they were
taking. But another glance gave him a sight of the

262 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

young girl's face in the mirror, beautiful and radiant
with happiness, and his heart melted again with
paternal tenderness and pride. It was going to be a
great pleasure to Irene, and Lapham felt that she
was bound to cut out anything there. He was vexed
with Penelope that she was not going too ; he would
have liked to have those people hear her talk. He
held his door a little open, and listened to the things
she was "getting off" there to Irene. He showed
that he felt really hurt and disappointed about Pene
lope, and the girl's mother made her console him the
next evening before they all drove away without her.
" You try to look on the bright side of it, father.
I guess you 11 see that it 's best I didn't go when you
get there. Irene needn't open her lips, and they can
all see how pretty she is ; but they wouldn't know
how smart I was unless I talked, and maybe then
they wouldn't."

This thrust at her father's simple vanity in her
made him laugh ; and then they drove away, and
Penelope shut the door, and went upstairs with her
lips firmly shutting in a sob.

XIV.

THE Coreys were one of the few old families who
lingered in Bellingham Place, the handsome, quiet
old street which the sympathetic observer must
grieve to see abandoned to boarding-houses. The
dwellings are stately and tall, and the whole place
wears an air of aristocratic seclusion, which Mrs.
Corey's father might well have thought assured
when he left her his house there at his death. It is
one of two evidently designed by the same architect
who built some houses in a characteristic taste on
Beacon Street opposite the Common. It has a
wooden portico, with slender fluted columns, which
have always been painted white, and which, with the
delicate mouldings of the cornice, form the sole and
sufficient decoration of the street front; nothing
could be simpler, and nothing could be better.
Within, the architect has again indulged his pre
ference for the classic ; the roof of the vestibule,
wide and low, rests on marble columns, slim and
fluted like the wooden columns without, and an
ample staircase climbs in a graceful, easy curve from
the tesselated pavement. Some carved Venetian

268

264 THE RISE OF

scrigni stretched along the wall ; a rug lay at the
foot of the stairs; but otherwise the simple ade
quacy of the architectural intention had been re
spected, and the place looked bare to the eyes of
the Laphams when they entered. The Coreys had
once kept a man, but when young Corey began his
retrenchments the man had yielded to the neat
maid who showed the Colonel into the reception-
room and asked the ladies to walk up two flights.

He had his charges from Irene not to enter
the drawing-room without her mother, and he spent
five minutes in getting on his gloves, for he had
desperately resolved to wear them at last. When
he had them on, and let his large fists hang down
on either side, they looked, in the saffron tint
which the shop-girl said his gloves should be of,
like canvased hams. He perspired with doubt as
he climbed the stairs, and while he waited on the
landing for Mrs. Lapham and Irene to come down
from above before going into the drawing-room, he
stood Staring at his hands, now open and now shut,
and breathing hard. He heard quiet talking beyond
the portikre within, and presently Tom Corey came
out.

"Ah, Colonel Lapham ! Very glad to see you."
Lapham shook hands with him and gasped, "Wait
ing for Mis' Lapham," to account for his presence.
He had not been able to button his right glove, and
he now began, with as much indifference as he could
assume, to pull them both off, for he saw that Corey
wore none. By the time he had stuffed them into

SILAS LAPHAM. 265

the pocket of his coat-skirt his wife and daughter
descended.

Corey welcomed them very cordially too, but
looked a little mystified. Mrs. Lapham knew that
he was silently inquiring for Penelope, and she did
not know whether she ought to excuse her to him
first or not. She said nothing, and after a glance
toward the regions where Penelope might conjectur-
ably be lingering, he held aside the portikre for the
Laphams to pass, and entered the room with them.

Mrs. Lapham had decided against low-necks on
her own responsibility, and had entrenched herself
in the safety of a black silk, in which she looked
very handsome. Irene wore a dress of one of those
shades which only a woman or an artist can decide
to be green or blue, and which to other eyes looks
both or neither, according to their degrees of ignor
ance. If it was more like a ball dress than a dinner
dress, that might be excused to the exquisite effect.
She trailed, a delicate splendour, across the carpet
in her mother's sombre wake, and the consciousness
of success brought a vivid smile to her face. Lapham,
pallid with anxiety lest he should somehow disgrace
himself, giving thanks to God that he should have
been spared the shame of wearing gloves where no
one else did, but at the same time despairing that
Corey should have seen him in them, had an un
wonted aspect of almost pathetic refinement.

Mrs. Corey exchanged a quick glance of surprise
and relief with her husband as she started across
the room to meet her guests, and in her gratitude to

266 THE RISE OF

them for being so irreproachable, she threw into her
manner a warmth that people did not always find
there. " General Lapham ?" she said, shaking hands
in quick succession with Mrs. Lapham and Irene,
and now addressing herself to him.

" No, ma'am, only Colonel," said the honest man,
but the lady did not hear him. She was introduc
ing her husband to Lapham's wife and daughter, and
Bromfield Corey was already shaking his hand and
saying he was very glad to see him again, while he
kept his artistic eye on Irene, and apparently could
not take it off. Lily Corey gave the Lapham ladies
a greeting which was physically rather than socially
cold, and Nanny stood holding Irene's hand in both
of hers a moment, and taking in her beauty and her
style with a generous admiration which she could
afford, for she was herself faultlessly dressed in the
quiet taste of her city, and looking very pretty. The
interval was long enough to let every man present
confide his sense of Irene's beauty to every other ;
and then, as the party was small, Mrs. Corey made
everybody acquainted. When Lapham had not
quite understood, he held the person's hand, and,
leaning urbanely forward, inquired, " What name 1"
He did that because a great man to whom he had
been presented on the platform at a public meeting
had done so to him, and he knew it must be right.

A little lull ensued upon the introductions, and
Mrs. Corey said quietly to Mrs. Lapham, "Can I
send any one to be of use to Miss Lapham ?M as if
Penelope must be in the dressing-room.

SILAS LAPHAM. 267

Mrs. Lapham turned fire-red, and the graceful
forms in which she had been intending to excuse her
daughter's absence went out of her head. " She isn't
upstairs," she said, at her bluntest, as country people
are when embarrassed. " She didn't feel just like
coming to-night. I don't know as she's feeling very
well."

Mrs. Corey emitted a very small " 0 ! " — very
small, very cold, — which began to grow larger and
hotter and to burn into Mrs. Lapham's soul before
Mrs. Corey could add, "I'm very sorry. It 's nothing
serious, I hope ?"

Robert Chase, the painter, had not come, and Mrs.
James Bellingham was not there, so that the table
really balanced better without Penelope ; but Mrs.
Lapham could not know this, and did not deserve to
know it. Mrs. Corey glanced round the. room, as if
to take account of her guests, and said to her
husband, " I think we are all here, then," and he
came forward and gave his arm to Mrs. Lapham. She
perceived then that in their determination not to be
the first to come they had been the last, and must
have kept the others waiting for them.

Lapham had never seen people go down to dinner
sirm-in-arm before, but he knew that his wife was dis
tinguished in being taken out by the host, andhe waited
in jealous impatience to see if Tom Corey would offer
his arm to Irene. He gave it to that big girl they
called Miss Kingsbury, and the handsome old fellow
whom Mrs. Corey had introduced as her cousin took
Irene out. Lapham was startled from the misgiving

268 THE RISE OF

in which this left him by Mrs. Corey's passing her
hand through his arm, and he made a sudden move
ment forward, but felt himself gently restrained. They
went out the last of all ; he did not know why, but
he submitted, and when they sat down he saw that
Irene, although she had come in with that Mr.
Bellingham, was seated beside young Corey, after all.
He fetched a long sigh of relief when he sank into
his chair and felt himself safe from error if he kept
a sharp lookout and did only what the others did.
Bellingham had certain habits which he permitted
himself, and one of these was tucking the corner of
his napkin into his collar ; he confessed himself an
uncertain shot with a spoon, and defended his
practice an the ground of neatness and common-
sense. Lapham put his napkin into his collar too,
and then, seeing that no one but Bellingham did it,
became alarmed and took it out again slyly. He never
had wine on his table at home, and on principle he
was a prohibitionist ; but now he did not know just
what to do about the glasses at the right of his plate.
He had a notion to turn them all down, as he had
read of a well-known politician's doing at a public
dinner, to show that he did not take wine ; but, after
twiddling with one of them a moment, he let them
be, for it seemed to him that would be a little too
conspicuous, and he felt that every one was looking.
He let the servant fill them all, and he drank out of
each, not to appear odd. Later, he observed that the
young ladies were not taking wine, and he was glad
to see that Irene had refused it, and that Mrs

SILAS LAPHAM. 269

Lapham was letting it stand untasted. He did not
know but he ought to decline some of the dishes, or
at least leave most of some on his plate, but he was
not able to decide ; he took everything and ate
everything.

He noticed that Mrs. Corey seemed to take no
more trouble about the dinner than anybody, and
Mr. Corey rather less ; he was talking busily to
Mrs. Lapham, and Lapham caught a word here and
there that convinced him she was holding her own.
He was getting on famously himself with Mrs.
Corey, who had begun with him about his new
house ; he was telling her all about it, and giving
her his ideas. Their conversation naturally included
his architect across the table ; Lapham had been
delighted and secretly surprised to find the fellow
there ; and at something Seymour said the talk
spread suddenly, and the pretty house he was build
ing for Colonel Lapham became the general theme.
Young Corey testified to its loveliness, and the
architect said laughingly that if he had been able to
make a nice thing of it, he owed it to the practical
sympathy of his client.

"Practical sympathy is good," said Bromfield
Corey ; and, slanting his head confidentially to
Mrs. Lapham, he added, " Does he bleed your
husband, Mrs. Lapham ? He 's a terrible fellow
for appropriations ! "

Mrs. Lapham laughed, reddening consciously, and
said she guessed the Colonel knew how to take care
of himself. This struck Lapham, then draining his

270 THE RISE OF

glass of sauterne, as wonderfully discreet in his
wife.

Bromfield Corey leaned back in his chair a
moment. " Well, after all, you can't say, with all
your modern fuss about it, that you do much better
now than the old fellows who built such houses as
this."

" Ah," said the architect, " nobody can do better
than well. Your house is in perfect taste ; you
know I 've always admired it ; and I don't think it 's
at all the worse for being old-fashioned. What
we 've done is largely to go back of the hideous
style that raged after they forgot how to make this
sort of house. But I think we may claim a better
feeling for structure. We use better material, and
more wisely; and by and by we shall work out
something more characteristic and original."

" With your chocolates and olives, and your
clutter of bric-a-brac ? "

" All that 's bad, of course, but I don't mean that.
I don't wish to make you envious of Colonel
Lapham, and modesty prevents i»y saying that
his house is prettier, — though I may have my con
victions, — but it 's better built. All the new houses
are better built. Now, your house "

" Mrs. Corey's house," interrupted the host, with
a burlesque haste in disclaiming responsibility for it
that made them all laugh. " My ancestral halls are
in Salem, and I 'm told you couldn't drive a nail
into their timbers ; in fact, I don't know that you
would want to do it"

SILAS LAPHAM. 271

" I should consider it a species of sacrilege,"
answered Seymour, " and I shall be far from pressing
the point I was going to make against a house of
Mrs. Corey's."

This won Seymour the easy laugh, and Lapham
silently wondered that the fellow never got off any
of those things to him.

"Well," said Corey, "you architects and the
musicians J%re the true and only artistic creators.
All the rest of us, sculptors, painters, novelists, and
tailors, deal with forms that we have before us ; we
try to imitate, we try to represent. But you two
sorts of artists create form. If you represent, you
fail. Somehow or other you ,do evolve the camel
out of your inner consciousness."

" I will not deny the soft impeachment," said the
architect, with a modest air.

"I dare say. And you'll own that it's very
handsome of me to say this, after your unjustifiable
attack on Mrs. Corey's property."

Bromfield Corey addressed himself again to Mrs.
Lapham, and the talk subdivided itself as before.
It lapsed so entirely away from the subject just in
hand, that Lapham was left with rather a good idea,
as he thought it, to perish in his mind, for want of a
chance to express it. The only thing like a re
currence to what they had been saying was Bromfield
Corey's warning Mrs. Lapham, in some connection
that Lapham lost, against Miss Kingsbury. " She 's
worse," he was saying, "when it comes to appro
priations than Seymour himself. Depend upon it,

272 THE RISE OF

Mrs. Lapham, she will give you no peace of your
mind, now she's met you, from this out. Her
tender mercies are cruel ; and I leave you to supply
the context from your own scriptural knowledge.
Beware of her, and all her works. She calls them
works of charity ; but heaven knows whether they
are. It don't stand to reason that she gives the poor
all the money she gets out of people. I have my own
belief " — he gave it in a whisper for the whole table
to hear — "that she spends it for champagne and
cigars."

Lapham did not know about that kind of talking ;
but Miss Kingsbury seemed to enjoy the fun as
much as anybody, and he laughed with the rest.

"You shall be asked to the very next debauch
of the committee, Mr. Corey ; then you won't dare
expose us," said Miss Kingsbury.

" I wonder you haven't been down upon Corey to
go to the Chardon Street home and talk with your
indigent Italians in their native, tongue," said Charles
Bellingham. "I saw in the Transcript the other
night that you wanted some one for the work."

"We did think of Mr. Corey," replied Miss
Kingsbury; "but we reflected that he probably
wouldn't talk with them at all ; he would make
them keep still to be sketched, and forget all about
their wants."

Upon the theory that this was a fair return for
Corey's pleasantry, the others laughed again.

"There is one charity," said Corey, pretending
superiority to Miss Kingsbury's point, "that is so

SILAS LAPHAM. 273

difficult, I wonder it hasn't occurred to a lady of
your courageous invention."

" Yes ? " said Miss Kingsbury. " What is that ? "

" The occupation, by deserving poor of neat habits5
of all the beautiful, airy, wholesome houses that
stand empty the whole summer long, while their
owners are away in their lowly cots beside the
sea."

u Yes, that is terrible," replied Miss Kingsbury,
with quick earnestness, while her eyes grew moist
" I have often thought of our great, cool houses
standing useless here, and the thousands of poor
creatures stifling in their holes and dens, and the
little children dying for wholesome shelter. How
cruelly selfish we are ! "

" That is a very comfortable sentiment, Miss
Kingsbury," said Corey, " and must make you feel
almost as if you had thrown open No. 31 to the
whole North End. But I am serious about this
matter. I spend my summers in town, and I occupy
my own house, so that I can speak impartially and
intelligently; and I tell you that in some of my
walks on the Hill and down on the Back Bay,
nothing but the surveillance of the local policeman
prevents my offering personal violence to those long
rows of close-shuttered, handsome, brutally insensible
houses. If I were a poor man, with a sick child
pining in some garret or cellar at the North End, I
should break into one of them, and camp out on the
grand piano."

"Surely, Bromfield," said his wife, "you don't
B

274 THE RISE OF

consider what havoc such people would make wit'
the furniture of a nice house 1"

" That is true," answered Corey, with meek coiv
viction. " I never thought of that."

" And if you were a poor man with a sick child, 1
doubt if you 'd have so much heart for burglary as
you have now," said James Belli ngham.

"It 's wonderful how patient they are," said the
minister. " The spectacle of the hopeless comfort the
hard-working poor man sees must be hard to bear."

Lapham wanted to speak up and say that he had
been there himself, and knew how such a man felt.
He wanted to tell them that generally a poor man
was satisfied if he could make both ends meet ; that
he didn't envy any one his good luck, if he had
earned it, so long as he wasn't running under him
self. But before he could get the courage to address
the whole table, Sewell added, " I suppose he don't
always think of it."

" But some day he will think about it," said Corey.
" In fact, we rather invite him to think about it, in
this country."

"My brother-in-law," said Charles Bellingham,
with the pride a man feels in a mention ably remark
able brother-in-law, " has no end of fellows at work
under him out there at Omaha, and he says it's
the fellows from countries where they've been kept
from thinking about it that are discontented. The
Americans never make any trouble. They seem to
understand that so long as we give unlimited oppor
tunity, nobody has a right to complain."

SILAS LAPHAM. 275

" What do you hear from Leslie ? " asked Mrs.
Corey, turning from these profitless abstractions to
Mrs. Bellingham.

" You know," said that lady in a lower tone,
" that there is another baby ? "

" No ! I hadn't heard of it ! "

" Yes ; a boy. They have named him after his
uncle."

" Yes," said Charles Bellingham, joining in. " He
is said to be a noble boy, and to resemble me."

" All boys of that tender age are noble," said
Corey, " and look like anybody you wish them to
resemble. Is Leslie still home-sick for the bean-pots
of her native Boston ? "

" She is getting over it, I fancy," replied Mrs.
Bellingham. " She 's very much taken up with Mr.
Blake's enterprises, and leads a very exciting life.
She says she's like people who have been home
from Europe three years ; she 's past the most poi
gnant stage of regret, and hasn't reached the second,
when they feel that they must go again."

Lapham leaned a little toward Mrs. Corey, and
said of a picture which he saw on the wall opposite,
" Picture of your daughter, I presume ? "

" No; my daughter's grandmother. It 's a Stewart
Newton ; he painted a great many Salem beauties.
She was a Miss Polly Burroughs. My daughter is
like her, don't you think ? " They both looked at
Nanny Corey and then at the portrait. " Those
pretty old-fashioned dresses are coming in again.
I 'm not surprised you took it for her. The Dthers "

276 THE RISE OF

— she referred to the other portraits more or lesw
darkling on the walls — " are my people ; mostly
Copleys."

These names, unknown to Lapham, went to hia
head like the wine he was drinking; they seemed tc
carry light for the moment, but a film of deeper
darkness followed. He heard Charles Bellingham
telling funny stories to Irene and trying to amuse
the girl ; she was laughing, and seemed very happy.
From time to time Bellingham took part in the
general talk between the host and James Bellingham
and Miss Kingsbury and that minister, Mr. SewelL
They talked of people mostly ; it astonished Lapham
to hear with what freedom they talked. They dis
cussed these persons unsparingly ; James Belling
ham spoke of a man known to Lapham for his busk
ness success and great wealth as not a gentleman ;
his cousin Charles said he was surprised that the
fellow had kept from being governor so long.

When the latter turned from Irene to make one
of these excursions into the general talk, young
Corey talked to her; and Lapham caught some
words from which it seemed that they were speak'
ing of Penelope. It vexed him to think she had not
come ; she could have talked as well as any of them ;
she was just as bright ; and Lapham was aware that
Irene was not as bright, though when he looked at
her face, triumphant in its young beauty and fond
ness, he said to himself that it did not make any
difference. He felt that he was not holding up his
end of the line, however. When some one spoke to

SILAS LAPIIAM. 277

»

him he could only summon a few words of reply,
that seemed to lead to nothing ; things often came
into his mind appropriate to what they were saying,
but before he could get them out they were off on
something else ; they jumped about so, he could not
keep up ; but he felt, all the same, that he was not
doing himself justice.

At one time the talk ran off upon a subject that
Lapham had never heard talked of before ; but again
he was vexed that Penelope was not there, to have
her say ; he believed that her say would have been
worth hearing.

Miss Kingsbury leaned forward and asked Charles
Bellingham if he had read Tears, Idle Tears, the
novel that was making such a sensation ; and when
he said no, she said she wondered at him. "It 's per
fectly heart-breaking, as you'll imagine from the
name ; but there 's such a dear old-fashioned hero
and heroine in it, who keep dying for each other all
the way through, and making the most wildly satisfac
tory and unnecessary sacrifices for each other. You
feel as if you 'd done them yourself."

" Ah, that 's the secret of its success," said Brom-
field Corey. " It flatters the reader by painting
the characters colossal, but with his limp and stoop,
so that he feels himself of their supernatural propor
tions. You've read it, Nanny ]"

" Yes," said his daughter. "It ought to have been
called Slop, Silly Slop."

" Oh, not quite slop, Nanny," pleaded Miss Kings-
bury.

278 THE RISE OP

"It's astonishing," said Charles Bellingham, "how
we do like the books that go for our heart-strings.
And I really suppose that you can't put a more
popular thing than self-sacrifice into a novel. We
do like to see people suffering sublimely."

" There was talk some years ago," said James
Bellingham, " about novels going out."

"They're just coming in!" cried Miss Kings-
bury.

"Yes," said Mr. Sewell, the minister. "And I
don't think there ever was a time when they formed
the whole intellectual experience of more people.
They do greater mischief tjian ever."

" Don't be envious, parson," said the host.

" No," answered Sewell. " I should be glad of
their help. But those novels with old-fashioned
heroes and heroines in them — excuse me, Miss
Kingsbury — are ruinous !"

" Don't you feel like a moral wreck, Miss Kings-
bury ?" asked the host.

But Sewell went on : " The novelists might be the
greatest possible help to us if they painted life as it
is, and human feelings in their true proportion and
relation, but for the most part they have been and
are altogether noxious."

This seemed sense to Lapham ; but Bromfield
Corey asked : " But what if life as it is isn't amus
ing ] Aren't we to be amused ?"

" Not to our hurt," sturdily answered the minis
ter. " And the self-sacrifice painted in most novels
like this "

SILAS LAPHAM. 279

"Slop, Silly Slop?" suggested the proud father of
the inventor of the phrase.

« Yes — is nothing but psychical suicide, and is as
wholly immoral as the spectacle of a man falling
upon his sword."

" Well, I don't know but you 're right, parson," said
the host ; and the minister, who had apparently got
upon a battle- horse of his, careered onward in spite
of some tacit attempts of his wife to seize the bridle.

"Eight? To be sure I am right. The whole
business of love, and love-making and marrying, is
painted by the novelists in a monstrous dispropor
tion to the other relations of life. Love is very
sweet, very pretty "

" Oh, thank you, Mr. Sewell," said Nanny Corey,
in a way that set them all laughing.

"But it's the affair, commonly, of very young
people, who have not yet character and experience
enough to make them interesting. In novels it's
treated, not only as if it were the chief interest of
life, but the sole interest of the lives of two ridicu
lous young persons ; and it is taught that love is per
petual, that the glow of a true passion lasts for ever ;
and that it is sacrilege to think or act otherwise."

"Well, but isn't that true, Mr. SewelH" pleaded
Miss Kingsbury.

" I have known some most estimable people who
had married a second time," said the minister, and
then he had the applause with him. Lapham wanted
to make some open recognition of his good sense, but
could not

280 THE RISE OF

" I suppose the passion itself has been a good deal
changed," said Bromfield Corey, " since the poets be
gan to idealise it in the days of chivalry."

" Yes ; and it ought to be changed again," said
Mr. SewelL

" What ! Back 1"

" I don't say that. But it ought to be recognised
as something natural and mortal, and divine honours,
which belong to righteousness alone, ought not to be
paid it."

"Oh, you ask too much, parson," laughed his host,
and the talk wandered away to something else.

It was not an elaborate dinner ; but Lapham was
used to having everything on the table at once, and
this succession of dishes bewildered him; he was
afraid perhaps he was eating too much. He now no
longer made any pretence of not drinking his wine,
for he was thirsty, and there was no more water, and
he hated to ask for any. The ice-cream came, and
then the fruit. Suddenly Mrs. Corey rose, and said
across the table to her husband, " I suppose you will
want your coffee here." And he replied, "Yes;
we '11 join you at tea,"

The ladies all rose, and the gentlemen got up with
them. Lapham started to follow Mrs. Corey, but
the other men merely stood in their places, except
young Corey, who ran and opened the door for his
mother. Lapham thought with shame that it was he
who ought to have done that ; but no one seemed to
notice, and he sat down again gladly, after kicking
out one of his legs which had gone to sleep.

SILAS LAPHAM. 281

They brought in cigars with coffee, and Bromfield
Corey advised Lapham to take one that he chose
for him. Lapham confessed that he liked a good
cigar about as well as anybody, and Corey said :
" These are new. I had an Englishman here the
other day who was smoking old cigars in the super
stition that tobacco improved with age, like wine."

"Ah," said Lapham, "anybody who had ever
lived off a tobacco country could tell him better
than that." With the fuming cigar between his
lips he felt more at home than he had before. He
turned sidewise in his chair and, resting one arm on
the back, intertwined the fingers of both hands, and
smoked at large ease.

James Bellingham came and sat down by him.
"Colonel Lapham, weren't you with the 96th Ver
mont when they charged across the river in front of
Pickensburg, and the rebel battery opened fire on
them in the water 1 "

Lapham slowly shut his eyes and slowly dropped
his head for assent, letting out a white volume of
smoke from the corner of his mouth.

" I thought' so," said Bellingham. " I was with
the 85th Massachusetts, and I sha'n't forget that
slaughter. We wore all new to it still. Perhaps
that's why it made such an impression."

"I don't know," suggested Charles Bellingham.
"Was there anything much more impressive after
ward ? I read of it out in Missouri, where I was
stationed at the time, and I recollect the talk of
some old army men about it. They said that death-

282 THE RISE OF

rate couldn't be beaten. I don't know that it ever
was."

" About one in five of us got out safe," said
Lapham, breaking his cigar-ash off on the edge of
a plate. James Bellingham reached him a bottle of
Apollinaris. He drank a glass, and then went on
smoking.

They all waited, as if expecting him to speak, and
then Corey said: "How incredible those things
seem already ! You gentlemen know that they hap
pened ; but are you still able to believe it ? "

" Ah, nobody feels that anything happened," said
Charles Bellingham. " The past of one's experi
ence doesn't differ a great deal from the past of
one's knowledge. It isn't much more probable;
it 's really a great deal less vivid than some scenes
in a novel that one read when a boy."

" I 'm not sure of that," said James Bellingham.

" Well, James, neither am I," consented his cousin,
helping himself from Lapham's Apollinaris bottle.
" There would be very little talking at dinner if one
only said the things that one was sure of."

The others laughed, and Bromfield Corey remarked
thoughtfully, "What astonishes the craven civilian
in all these things is the abundance — the superabun
dance — of heroism. The cowards were the excep
tion ; the men that were ready to die, the rule."

"The woods were full of them," said Lapham,
without taking his cigar from his mouth.

" That 's a nice little touch in School" inter
posed Charles Bellingham, " where the girl says to

SILAS LAPHAM. 283

the fellow who was at Inkerman, 'I should think
you would be so proud of it,' and he reflects a while,
and says, 'Well, the fact is, you know, there were
so many of us.'"

" Yes, I remember that," said James Bellingham,
smiling for pleasure in it. " But I don't see why
you claim the credit of being a craven civilian,
Bromfield," he added, with a friendly glance at his
brother-in-law, and with the willingness Boston men
often show to turn one another's good points to the
light in company; bred so intimately together at
school and college and in society, they all know
these points. " A man who was out with Garibaldi
in '48," continued James Bellingham.

" Oh, a little amateur red-shirting," Corey inter
rupted in deprecation. "But even if you choose
to dispute my claim, what has become of all the
heroism 1 Tom, how many club men do you know
who would think it sweet and fitting to die for
their country ? "

" I can't think of a great many at the moment,
sir," replied the son, with the modesty of his gene
ration.

" And I couldn't in '61 ," said his uncle. "Never
theless they were there."

" Then your theory is that it 's the occasion that
is wanting," said Bromfield Corey. " But why /
shouldn't civil service reform, and the resumption of /
specie payment, and a tariff for revenue only, inspire /
heroes ? They are all good causes."

"It's the occasion that's wanting," said James

284 THE RISE OF

Bellingham, ignoring the persiflage. " And I 'm very
glad of it."

" So am I," said Lapham, with a depth of feeling
that expressed itself in spite of the haze in which his
brain seemed to float. There was a great deal of the
talk that he could not follow ; it was too quick for
him ; but here was something he was clear of. " I
don't want to see any more men killed in my time."
Something serious, something sombre must lurk
behind these words, and they waited for Lapham to
aay more ; but the haze closed round him again, and
tie remained silent, drinking Apollinaris.

"We non-combatants were notoriously reluctant
k> give up fighting," said Mr. Sewell, the minister ;
11 but I incline to think Colonel Lapham and Mr.
Bellingham may be right. I dare say we shall have
tfie heroism again if we have the occasion. Till it
comes, we must content ourselves with the every
day generosities and sacrifices. They make up in
quantity what they lack in quality, perhaps."

" They 're not so picturesque," said Bromfield
Corey. "You can paint a man dying for his
country, but you can't express on canvas a man
fulfilling the duties of a good citizen."

" Perhaps the novelists will get at him by and by,"
suggested Charles Bellingham. "If I were one of
these fellows, I shouldn't propose to myself anything
short of that."
, " What 1 the commonplace?" asked his cousin.

" Commonplace ? The commonplace is just that
light, impalpable, aerial essence which they 've nevei

SILAS LAPHAM. 285

got into their confounded books yet. The novelist
who could interpret the common feelings of common
place people would have the answer to * the riddle
of the painful earth ' on his tongue."

" Oh, not so bad as that, I hope," said the host
and Lapham looked from one to the other, trying ti
make out what they were at. He had never been sc
up a tree before.

" I suppose it isn't well for us to see human nature
at white heat habitually," continued Bromfield Corey,
after a while. " It would make us vain of our
species. Many a poor fellow in that war and in
many another has gone into battle simply and purely
for his country's sake, not knowing whether, if he
laid down his life, he should ever find it again, or
whether, if he took it up hereafter, he should take it
up in heaven or hell. Come, parson !" he said, turn
ing to the minister, " what has ever been conceived
of omnipotence, of omniscience, so sublime, so divine
as that?"

" Nothing," answered the minister quietly. " God
has never been imagined at all. But if you suppose
such a man as that was Authorised, I think it will
help you to imagine what God must be."

" There 's sense in that," said Lapham. He took
his cigar out of his mouth, and pulled his chair a
little toward the table, on which he placed his
ponderous fore-arms. " I want to tell you about a
fellow I had in my own company when we first went
out. We were all privates to begin with ; after a
while they elected me captain— I 'd had the tavern

286 THE RISE OF

stand, and most of 'em knew me. But Jim Millon
never got to be anything more than corporal ;
corporal when he was killed." The others arrested
themselves in various attitudes of attention, and
remained listening to Lapham with an interest that
profoundly flattered him. Now, at last, he felt that
he was holding up his end of the rope. " I can't say
he went into the thing from the highest motives,
altogether ; our motives are always pretty badly
mixed, and when there 's such a hurrah-boys as there
was then, you can't tell which is which. I suppose
Jim Millon's wife was enough to account for his
going, herself. She was a pretty bad assortment, "
said Lapham, lowering his voice and glancing round
at the door to make sure that it was shut, " and she
used to lead Jim one kind of life. Well, sir," con
tinued Lapham, synthetising his auditors in that form
of address, " that fellow used to save every cent of
his pay and send it to that woman. Used to get me
to do it for him. I tried to stop him. ' Why, Jim,1
said I, * you know what she '11 do with it.' ' That 's
so, Cap,' says he, ' but I don't know what she '11 do
without it.' And it did keep her straight — straight
as a string — as long as Jim lasted. Seemed as it
there was something mysterious about it. They had
a little girl, — about as old as my oldest girl, — and
Jim used to talk to me about her. Guess he done
it as much for her as for the mother ; and he said to
me before the last action we went into, * I should
like to turn tail and run, Cap. I ain't comin' out o*
this one. But I don't suppose it would do.7 ' Well,

SILAS LAPHAM. 287

not for you, Jim,' said I. l 1 want to live,' lie says ;
and he bust out crying right there in my tent. ' I
want to live for poor Molly and Zerrilla ' — that 's
what they called the little one ; I dunno where they
got the name. 'I ain't ever had half a chance ; and
now she 's doing better, and I believe we should get
along after this.' He set there cryin' like a baby.
But he wan't no baby when he went into action. I
hated to look at him after it was over, not so much
because he 'd got a ball that was meant for me by a
sharpshooter — he saw the devil takin' aim, and he
jumped to warn me — as because he didn't look like
Jim ; he looked like — fun ; all desperate and savage.
I guess he died hard."

The story made its impression, and Lapham saw
it. " Now I say," he resumed, as if he felt that he
was going to do himself justice, and say something
to heighten the effect his story had produced. At
the same time he was aware of a certain want of
clearness. He had the idea, but it floated vague,
elusive, in his brain. He looked about as if for
something to precipitate it in tangible shape.

" Apollinaris ?" asked Charles Bellingham, handing
the bottle from the other side. He had drawn his
chair closer than the rest to Lapham's, and was
listening with great interest. When Mrs. Corey
asked him to meet Lapham, he accepted gladly.
" You know I go in for that sort of thing, Anna.
Since Leslie's affair we're rather bound to do it.
And I think we meet these practical fellows too
little. There 's always something original about

288 THE RISE OF

them." He might naturally have believed that
the reward of his faith was coming.

" Thanks, I will take some of this wine," said
Lapham, pouring himself a glass of Madeira from a
black and dusty bottle caressed by a label bearing
the date of the vintage. He tossed off the wine,
unconscious of its preciousness, and waited for the
result. That cloudiness in his brain disappeared
before it, but a mere blank remained. He not only
could not remember what he was going to say, but
he could not recall what they had been talking about.
They waited, looking at him, and he stared at them
in return. After a while he heard the host saying,
" Shall we join the ladies ? "

Lapham went, trying to think what had happened.
It seemed to him a long time since he had drunk
that wine.

Miss Corey gave him a cup of tea, where he stood
aloof from his wife, who was talking with Miss
Kingsbury and Mrs. Sewell ; Irene was with Miss
Nanny Corey. He could not hear what they were
talking about ; but if Penelope had come,' he knew
that she would have done them all credit. He
meant to let her know how he felt about her be
haviour when he got home. It was a shame for her
to miss such a chance. Irene was looking beautiful,
as pretty as all the rest of them put together, but
she was not talking, and Lapham perceived that at
a dinner-party you ought to talk. He was himself
conscious of having talked very well. He now wore
an air of great dignity, and, in conversing with the

SILAS LAPHAM. 289

other gentlemen, he used a grave and weighty de
liberation. Some of them wanted him to go into
the library. There he gave his ideas of books. He
said he had not much time for anything but the
papers ; but he was going to have a complete library
in his new place. He made an elaborate acknow
ledgment to Bromfield Corey of his son's kindness
in suggesting books for his library ; he said that he
had ordered them all, and that he meant to have
pictures. He asked Mr. Corey who was about the
best American painter going now. " I don't set up
to be a judge of pictures, but I know what I like,"
he said. He lost the reserve which he had main
tained earlier, and began to boast. He himself
introduced the subject of his paint, in a natural
transition from pictures ; he said Mr. Corey must
take a run up to Lapham with him some day, and
see the Works ; they would interest him, and he
would drive him round the country ; he kept most
of his horses up there, and he could show Mr. Corey
some of the finest Jersey grades in the country.
He told about his brother William, the judge at
Dubuque ; and a farm he had out there that paid
for itself every year in wheat. As he cast off all fear,
his voice rose, and he hammered his arm-chair with
the thick of his hand for emphasis. Mr. Corey
seemed impressed ; he sat perfectly quiet, listening,
and Lapham saw the other gentlemen stop in their
talk every now and then to listen. After this proof
of his ability to interest them, he would have liked
to have Mrs. Lapham suggest again that he was

T

290 THE RISE OF

unequal to their society, or to the society of anybody
else. He surprised himself by his ease among men
whose names had hitherto overawed him. He got
to calling Bromfield Corey by his surname alone.
He did not understand why young Corey seemed so
preoccupied, and he took occasion to tell the company
how he had said to his wife the first time he saw
that fellow that he could make a man of him if he
had him in the business ; and he guessed he was not
mistaken. He began to tell stories of the different
young men he had had in his employ. At last he
had the talk altogether to himself ; no one else
talked, and he talked unceasingly. It was a great
time ; it was a triumph.

He was in this successful mood when word came
to him that Mrs. Lapham was going ; Tom Corey
seemed to have brought it, but he was not sure.
Anyway, he was not going to hurry. He made
cordial invitations to each of the gentlemen to drop
in and see him at his office, and would not be satis
fied till he had exacted a promise from each. He
told Charles Bellingham that he liked him, and
assured James Bellingham that it had always been
his ambition to know him, and that if any one had
said when he first came to Boston that in less than
ten years he should be hobnobbing with Jim Belling
ham, he should have told that person he lied. He
would have told anybody he lied that had told him
ten years ago that a son of Bromfield Corey would
have come and asked him to take him into the busi
ness. Ten years ago he, Silas Lapham, had come to

SILAS LAPHAM. 291

Boston a little worse off than nothing at all, for he
was in debt for half the money that he had bought
out his partner with, and here he was now worth a
million, and meeting you gentlemen like one of you.
And every cent of that was honest money, — no
speculation, — every copper of it for value received.
And here, only the other day, his old partner, who
had been going to the dogs ever since he went out
of the business, came and borrowed twenty thousand
dollars of him ! Lapham lent it because his wife
wanted him to : she had always felt bad about the
fellow's having to go out of the business.

He took leave of Mr. Sewell with patronising
affection, and bade him come to him if he ever got
into a tight place with his parish work ; he would
let him have all the money he wanted ; he had
more money than he knew what to do with. " Why,
when your wife sent to mine last fall," he said,
turning to Mr. Corey, " I drew my cheque for five
hundred dollars, but my wife wouldn't take more
than one hundred ; said she wasn't going to show off
before Mrs. Corey. I call that a pretty good joke
on Mrs. Corey. I must tell her how Mrs. Lapham
done her out of a cool four hundred dollars."

He started toward the door of the drawing-room
to take leave of the ladies ; but Tom Corey was at
his elbow, saying, " I think Mrs. Lapham is waiting
for you below, sir," and in obeying the direction
Corey gave him toward another door he forgot al)
[ • about his purpose, and came away without saying
good-night to his hostess.

292 THE RISE OF

Mrs. Lapham had not known how soon she ought
to go, and had no idea that in her quality of chief
guest she was keeping the others. She stayed till
eleven o'clock, and was a little frightened when she
found what time it was ; but Mrs. Corey, without
pressing her to stay longer, had said it was not at
all late. She and Irene had had a perfect time.
Everybody had been very polite ; on the way home
they celebrated the amiability of both the Miss
Coreys and of Miss Kingsbury. Mrs. Lapham
thought that Mrs. Bellingham was about the pleasant-
est person she ever saw ; she had told her all about
her married daughter who had married an inventor
and gone to live in Omaha — a Mrs. Blake.

" If it 's that car- wheel Blake," said Lapham
proudly, " I know all about him. I 've sold him tons
of the paint."

" Pooh, papa ! How you do smell of smoking ! "
cried Irene.

" Pretty strong, eh ? " laughed Lapham, letting
down a window of the carriage. His heart was
throbbing wildly in the close air, and he was glad of
the rush of cold that came in, though it stopped his
tongue, and he listened more and more drowsily to
the rejoicings that his wife and daughter exchanged.
He meant to have them wake Penelope up and tell
her what she had lost ; but when he reached home
he was too sleepy to suggest it. He fell asleep as
soon as his head touched the pillow, full of supreme
triumph.

But in the morning his skull was sore with the

SILAS LAPHAM. 293

unconscious, night-long ache j and he rose cross and
taciturn. They had a silent breakfast. In the cold
grey light of the morning the glories of the night
before showed poorer. Here and there a painful
doubt obtruded itself and marred them with its
awkward shadow. Penelope sent down word that
she was not well, and was not coming to breakfast,
and Lapham was glad to go to his office without see
ing her.

He was severe and silent all day with his clerks,
and peremptory with customers. Of Corey he was
slyly observant, and as the day wore away he grew
more restively conscious. He sent out word by his
office-boy that he would like to see Mr. Corey for a
few minutes after closing. The type- writer girl had
lingered too, as if she wished to speak with him, and
Corey stood in abeyance as she went toward Lap-
ham's door.

" Can't see you to-night, Zerrijla.^ he said bluffly,
but not unkindly. " Perhaps I '11 call at the house,
if it's important."

"It is," said the girl, with a spoiled air of in
sistence.

" Well," said Lapham, and, nodding to Corey to
enter, he closed the door upon her. Then he turned
to the young man and demanded : " Was I drunk
last night]"

XV.

LAPHAM'S strenuous face was broken up with the
emotions that had forced him to this question :
shame, fear of the things that must have been
thought of him, mixed with a faint hope that he
might be mistaken, which died out at the shocked
and pitying look in Corey's eyes.

" Was I drunk f ' he repeated. " I ask you, be
muse I was never touched by drink in my life before,
and I don't know." He stood with his huge hands
trembling on the back of his chair, and his dry lips
apart, as he stared at Corey.

" That is what every one understood, Colonel
Lapham," said the young man. "Every one saw
how it was. Don't "

" Did they talk it over after I left 1" asked Lapham
vulgarly.

" Excuse me," said Corey, blushing, " my father
doesn't talk his guests over with one another." He
added, with youthful superfluity, " You were among
gentlemen."

" I was the only one that wasn't a gentleman
there!" lamented Lapham. "I disgraced you! I
disgraced my family ! I mortified your father before

294

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 295

his friends!" His head dropped. "I showed that
I wasn't fit to go with you. I'm not fit for any
decent place. What did I say 1 What did I do ]"
he asked, suddenly lifting his head and confronting
Corey. " Out with it ! If you could bear to see it
and hear it, I had ought to bear to know it !"

" There was nothing — really nothing," said Corey.
" Beyond the fact that you were not quite yourself,
there was nothing whatever. My father did speak
of it to me," he confessed, " when we were alone.
He said that he was afraid we had not been thought
ful of you, if you were in the habit of taking only
water ; I told him I had not seen wine at your
table. The others said nothing about you."

" Ah, but what did they think ?"

" Probably what we did : that it was purely s
misfortune — an accident."

" I wasn't fit to be there," persisted Lapham. " Do
you want to leave 1" he asked, with savage abruptness.

" Leave 1 " faltered the young man.

" Yes ; quit the business ? Cut the , whole con
nection?"

" I haven't the remotest idea of it !" cried Corey
in amazement. " Why in the world should 1 1"

"Because you're a gentleman, and I'm not, and
it ain't right I should be over you. If you want to
go, I know some parties that would be glad to get
you. I will give you up if you want to go before
anything worse happens, and I shan't blame you.
I can help you to something better than I can offer
you here, and I will."

296 THE RISE OF

" There 's no question of my going, unless you wish
it," said Corey. " If you do "

" Will you tell your father," interrupted Lapham,
" that I had a notion all the time that I was acting
the drunken blackguard, and that I 've suffered for
it all day ] Will you tell him I don't want him
to notice me if we ever meet, and that I know I 'm
not fit to associate with gentlemen in anything but a
business way, if I am that 1 "

" Certainly I shall do nothing of the kind," re
torted Corey. " I can't listen to you any longer.
What you say is shocking to me — shocking in a way
you can't think."

" Why, man !" exclaimed Lapham, with astonish
ment ; " if / can stand it, you can !"

" No," said Corey, with a sick look, " that doesn't
follow. You may denounce yourself, if you will ;
but I have my reasons for refusing to hear you — my
reasons why I can't hear you. If you say another
word I must go away."

<c / don't^ understand you," faltered Lapham, in
bewilderment, which absorbed even his shame.

" You exaggerate the effect of what has happened,"
said the young man. "It's enough, more than
enough, for you to have mentioned the matter to me,
and I think it 's unbecoming in me to hear you."

He made a movement toward the door, but Lap-
ham stopped him with the tragic humility of his
appeal. " Don't go yet ! I can't let you. I Ve dis
gusted you, — I see that ; but I didn't mean to. I — •
1 take it back."

SILAS LAPHAM. 297

" Oh, there 's nothing to take back," said Corey,
with a repressed shudder for the abasement which
he had seen. " But let us say no more about it —
think no more. There wasn't one of the gentlemen
present last night who didn't understand the matter
precisely as my father and I did, and that fact must
end it between us two."

He went out into the larger office beyond, leaving
Lapham helpless to prevent his going. It had be
come a vital necessity with him to think the best of
Lapham, but his mind was in a whirl of whatever
thoughts were most injurious. He thought of him
the night before in the company of those ladies and
gentlemen, and he quivered in resentment of his
vulgar, braggart, uncouth nature. He recognised
his own allegiance to the exclusiveness to which he
was born and bred, as a man perceives his duty to
his country when her rights are invaded. His eye
fell on the porter going about in his shirt-sleeves to
make the place fast for the night, and he said to
himself that Dennis was not more plebeian than his
master ; that the gross appetites, the blunt sense,
the purblind ambition, the stupid arrogance were
the same in both, and the difference was in a brute
will that probably left the porter the gentler man of
the two. The very innocence of Lapham's life in
the direction in which he had erred wrought against
him in the young man's mood : it contained the
insult of clownish inexperience. Amidst the stings
and flashes of his wounded pride, all the social tradi
tions, all the habits of feeling, which he had silenced

298 THE RISE OF

more and more by force of will during the past
months, asserted their natural sway, and he rioted
in his contempt of the offensive boor, who was even
more offensive in his shame than in his trespass.
He said to himself that he was a Corey, as if that
were somewhat ; yet he knew that at the bottom of
his heart all the time was that which must control
him at last, and which seemed sweetly to be suffer
ing his rebellion, secure of his submission in the end.
It was almost with the girl's voice that it seemed to
plead with him, to undo in him, effect by effect, the
work of his indignant resentment, to set all things
in another and fairer light, to give him hopes, to
suggest palliations, to protest against injustices. It
was in Lapham's favour that he was so guiltless in
the past, and now Corey asked himself if it were the
first time he could have wished a guest at his father's
table to have taken less wine ; whether Lapham was
not rather to be honoured for not knowing how to
contain his folly where a veteran transgressor might
have held his tongue. He asked himself, with a
thrill of sudden remorse, whether, when Lapham
humbled himself in the dust so shockingly, he had
shown him the sympathy to which such abandon had
the right ; and he had to own that he had met him
on the gentlemanly ground, sparing himself and
asserting the superiority of his sort, and not recog
nising that Lapham's humiliation came from the
sense of wrong, which he had helped to accumulate
upon him by superfmely standing aloof and refusing
to touch him.

BILAS LAPHAM. 299

He shut his desk and hurried out into the early
night, not to go anywhere, but to walk up and down,
to try to find his way out of the chaos, which now
seemed ruin, and now the materials out of which
fine actions and a happy life might be shaped.
Three hours later he stood at Lapham's door.

At times what he now wished to do had seemed
for ever impossible, and again it had seemed as if he
could not wait a moment longer. He had not been
careless, but very mindful of what he knew must be
the feelings of his own family in regard to the Lap-
hams, and he had not concealed from himself that
his family had great reason and justice on their side
in not wishing him to alienate himself from their
common life and associations. The most that he
could urge to himself was that they had not all the
reason and justice ; but he had hesitated and delayed
because they had so much. Often he could not make
it appear right that he should merely please himself in
what chiefly concerned himself. He perceived how
far apart in all their experiences and ideals the Lap-
ham girls and his sisters were ; how different Mrs.
Lapham was from his mother ; how grotesquely
unlike were his father and Lapham ; and the dis
parity had not always amused him.

He had often taken it very seriously, and some
times he said that he must forego the hope on which
his heart was set. There had been many times in
the past months when he had said that he must go
no further, and as often as he had taken this stand
he had yielded it, upon this or that excuse, which

300 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

he was aware of trumping up. It was part of the
complication that he should be unconscious of the
injury he might be^ doing to some one besides his
family and himself ; this was the defect of his diffi
dence } and it had come to him in a pang for the
first time when his mother said that she would not
have the Laphams think she wished to make more
of the acquaintance than he did ; and then it had
come too late. Since that he had suffered quite as
much from the fear that it might not be as that it
might be so ; and now, in the mood, romantic and
exalted, in which he found himself concerning Lap-
ham, he was as far as might be from vain confidence.
He ended the question in his own mind by affirming
to himself that he was there, first of all, to see
Lapham and give him an ultimate proof of his own
perfect faith and unabated respect, and to offer him
what reparation this involved for that want of
sympathy — of humanity — which he had shown.

XVI.

THE Nova Scotia second-girl who answered Corey's
ring said that Lapham had not come home yet.

"Oh," said the young man, hesitating on the
outer step.

"I guess you better come in," said the girl, "I'll
go and see when they're expecting him."

Corey was in the mood to be swayed by any
chance. He obeyed the suggestion of the second-
girl's patronising friendliness, and let her shut him
into the drawing-room, while she went upstairs to
announce him to Penelope.

" Did you tell him father wasn't at home ?"

" Yes. He seemed so kind of disappointed, I
told him to come in, and I 'd see when he would
be in," said the girl, with the human interest which
sometimes replaces in the American domestic the
servile deference of other countries.

A gleam of amusement passed over Penelope's
face, as she glanced at herself in the glass. "Well,"
she cried finally, dropping from her shoulders the
light shawl in which she had been huddled over a
book when Corey rang, " I will go down."

"All right," said the girl, and Penelope began

302 THE RISE OP

hastily to amend the disarray of her hair, which she
tumbled into a mass on the top of her little head,
setting off the pale dark of her complexion with a
flash of crimson ribbon at her throat. She moved
Across the carpet once or twice with the quaint grace
that belonged to her small figure, made a dissatisfied
grimace at it in the glass, caught a handkerchief out
i>f a drawer and slid it into her pocket, and then
descended to Corey.

The Lapham drawing-room in Nankeen Square
was in the parti-coloured paint which the Colonel
had hoped to repeat in his new house : the trim of
the doors and windows was in light green and the
panels in salmon ; the walls were a plain tint of
French grey paper, divided by gilt mouldings into
broad panels with a wide stripe of red velvet paper
running up the corners ; the chandelier was of
massive imitation bronze ; the mirror over the
mantel rested on a fringed mantel-cover of green
reps, and heavy curtains of that stuff hung from gilt
lambrequin frames at the window ; the carpet was
of a small pattern in crude green, which, at the
time Mrs. Lapham bought it, covered half the new
floors in Boston. In the panelled spaces on the walls
were some stone-coloured landscapes, representing
the mountains and canons of the West, which the
Colonel and his wife had visited on one of the early
official railroad excursions. In front of the long
windows looking into the Square were statues,
kneeling figures which turned their backs upon the
company within-doors, and represented allegories of

-

SILAS LAPHAM. 303

Faith and Prayer to people without. A white
marble group of several figures, expressing an Italian
conception of Lincoln Freeing the Slaves, — a Latin
negro and his wife, — with our Eagle flapping his
wings in approval, at Lincoln's feet, occupied one
corner, and balanced the what-not of an earlier
period in another. These phantasms added their
chill to that imparted by the tone of the walls, the
landscapes, and the carpets, and contributed to the
violence of the contrast when the chandelier was
lighted up full glare, and the heat of the whole fur
nace welled up from the registers into the quivering
atmosphere on one of the rare occasions when the
Laphams invited company.

Corey had not been in this room before ; the
family had always received him in what they called
the sitting-room. Penelope looked into this first,
and then she looked into the parlour, with a smile
that broke into a laugh as she discovered him
standing under the single burner which the second-
girl had lighted for him in the chandelier.

" I don't understand how you came to be put in
there," she said, as she led the way to the cozier
place, " unless it was because Alice thought you
were only here on probation, anyway. Father hasn't
got home yet, but I 'm expecting him every moment;
I don't know what's keeping him. Did the girl
tell you that mother and Irene were out 1 "

" No, she didn't say. It 's very good of you to
see me." She had not seen the exaltation which he
had been feeling, he perceived with half a sigh \ it

304 THE RISE OF

must all be upon this lower level ; perhaps it was
best so. " There was something I wished to say to

your father 1 hope," he broke off, " you 're better

to-night."

" Oh yes, thank you," said Penelope, remembering
that she had not been well enough to go to dinner
the night before.

" We all missed you very much."

" Oh, thank you ! I 'm afraid you wouldn't have
missed me if I had been there."

" Oh yes, we should," said Corey, " I assure you."

They looked at each other.

" I really think I believed I was saying some
thing," said the girl.

" And so did I," replied the young man. They
laughed rather wildly, and then they both became
rather grave.

He took the chair she gave him, and looked across
at her, where she sat on the other side of the hearth,
in a chair lower than his, with her hands dropped in
her lap, and the back of her head on her shoulders
as she looked up at him. The soft-coal fire in the
grate purred and flickered; the drop-light cast a
mellow radiance on her face. She let her eyes fall,
and then lifted them for an irrelevant glance at the
clock on the mantel.

"Mother and Irene have gone to the Spanish
Students' concert."

" Oh, have they 1 " asked Corey ; and he put his
hat, which he had been holding in his hand, on the
floor beside his chair.

SILAS LAPHAM. 305

She looked down at it for no reason, and then
looked up at his face for no other, and turned a
little red. Corey turned a little red himself. She
who had always been so easy with him now became
a little constrained.

" Do you know how warm it is out-of-doors 1 " he
asked.

" No ; is it warm ? I haven't been out all day."

" It 's like a summer night."

She turned her face towards the fire, and then
started abruptly. " Perhaps it 's too warm for you
here?"

" Oh no, it 's very comfortable."

" I suppose it 's the cold of the last few days
that's still in the house. I was reading with a
shawl on when you came."

" I interrupted you."

" Oh no. I had finished the book. I was just
looking over it again."

" Do you like to read books over ? "

" Yes ; books that I like at all."

" What was it 1 " asked Corey.

The girl hesitated. "It has rather a senti
mental name. Did you ever read it 1 — Tears, Idle
Tears."

" Oh yes ; they were talking of that last night ;
it Js a famous book with ladies. They break their
hearts over it. Did it make you cry ?"

" Oh, it 's pretty easy to cry over a book," said
Penelope, laughing ; " and that one is very natural
till you come to the main point. Then the natural-
u

306 THE RISE OF

ness of all the rest makes that seem natural toe ;
but I guess it 's rather forced."

" Her giving him up to the other one ? "

" Yes ; simply because she happened to know that
the other one had cared for him first. Why should
she have done it ? What right had she 1"

" I don't know. I suppose that the self-sacri-
fice-

" But it wasn't self-sacrifice — or not self-sacrifice
alone. She was sacrificing him too ; and for some
one who couldn't appreciate him half as much as
she could. I 'm provoked with myself when I think
how I cried over that book — for I did cry. It's
silly — it 's wicked for any one to do what that girl
did. Why can't they let people have a chance to
behave reasonably in stories ? "

"Perhaps they couldn't make it so attractive,"
suggested Corey, with a smile.

" It would be novel, at any rate," said the girl.
" But so it would in real life, I suppose," she added.

"I don't know. Why shouldn't people in love
behave sensibly 1"

"That's a very serious question," said Penelope
gravely. " / couldn't answer it," and she left him
the embarrassment of supporting an inquiry which
she had certainly instigated herself. She seemed to
have finally recovered her own ease in doing this.
" Do you admire our autumnal display, Mr. Corey ? "

"Your display?"

" The trees in the Square. We think it 's quite
equal to an opening at Jordan & Marsh's."

SILAS LAPHAM. 307

" Ah, I 'm afraid you wouldn't let me be serious
even about your maples."

" Oh yes, I should — if you like to be serious."

" Don't you 1 "

"Well not about serious matters. That's the
reason that book made me cry/'

" You make fun of everything. Miss Irene was
telling me last night about you."

" Then it 's no use for me to deny it so soon. I
must give Irene a talking to."

" I hope you won't forbid her to talk about you !"

She had taken up a fan from the table, and held
it, now between her face and the fire, and now be
tween her face and him. Her Jittle visage, with
that arch, lazy look in it, topped by its mass of
dusky hair, and dwindling from the full cheeks to
the small chin, had a Japanese effect in the subdued
light, and it had the charm which comes to any woman
with happiness. It would be hard to say how much
of this she perceived that he felt. They talked
about other things a while, and then she came back
to what he had said. She glanced at him obliquely
round her fan, and stopped moving it. "Does
Irene talk about me 1 " she asked.

" I think so — yes. Perhaps it 's only I who talk
about you. You must blame me if it 's wrong," he
returned.

" Oh, I didn't say it was wrong," she replied.
" But I hope if you said anything very bad of me
you 11 let me know what it was, so that I can re
form »

308 THE RISE OF

"No, don't change, please!" cried the young
man.

Penelope caught her breath, but went on reso
lutely, — " or rebuke you for speaking evil of digni
ties." She looked down at the fan, now flat in her
lap, and tried to govern her head, but it trembled,
and she remained looking down. Again they let
the talk stray, and then it was he who brought it
back to themselves, as if it had not left them.

" I have to talk of you," said Corey, " because I
get to talk to you so seldom."

" You mean that I do all the talking when we 're
— together ? " She glanced sidewise at him ; but
she reddened after speaking the last word.

" We 're so seldom together," he pursued.

" I don't know what you mean "

" Sometimes I 've thought — I 've been afraid — •
that you avoided me."

"Avoided you?"'

"Yes ! Tried not to be alone with me."

She might have told him that there was no reason
why she should be alone with him, and that it was
very strange he should make this complaint of her.
But she did not. She kept looking down at the
fan, and then she lifted her burning face and looked
at the clock again. ."Mother and Irene will be
sorry to miss you," she gasped.

He instantly rose and came towards her. She
rose too, and mechanically put out her hand. He
took it as if to say good-night. " I didn't mean to
send you away," she besought him.

SILAS LAPHAM. 309

" Oh, I 'm not going," he answered simply. " I
wanted to say — to say that it's I who make her

talk about you. To say I There is something

I want to say to you ; I 've said it so often to myself
that I feel as if you must know it." She stood
quite still, letting him keep her hand, and question
ing his face with a bewildered gaze. "You must
know — she must have told you — she must have

guessed " Penelope turned white, but outwardly

quelled the panic that sent the blood to her heart.
" I — I didn't expect — I hoped to have seen your
father — but I must speak now, whatever — • — I love
you ! "

She freed her hand from both of those he had
closed upon it, and went back from him across the
room with a sinuous spring. "Me!" Whatever
potential complicity had lurked in her heart, his
words brought her only immeasurable dismay.

He came towards her again. "Yes, you. Who
else lf>

She fended him off with an imploring gesture. " I
thought — I — it was "

She "shut her lips tight, and stood looking at him
where he remained in silent amaze. Then her
words came again, shudderingly. " Oh, what have
you done ? "

"Upon my soul," he said, with a vague smile, "I
don't know. I hope no harm 1 "

" Oh, don't laugh ! " she cried, laughing hysteri
cally herself. " Unless you want me to think you
the greatest wretch in the world ! "

S10 THE RISE OF

"It" he responded. " For heaven's sake tell me
what you mean ! "

" You know I can't tell you. Can you say — can
you put your hand on your heart and say that — you
— say you never meant — that you meant me — all
along?"

" Yes ! — yes ! Who else ? I came here to see
your father, and to tell him that I wished to tell

you this — to ask him But what does it matter ?

You must have known it — you must have seen — and
it 's for you to answer me. I 've been abrupt, I
know, and I 've startled you ; but if you love me,
you can forgive that to my loving you so long before
I spoke."

She gazed at him with parted lips.

" Oh, mercy ! What shall I do 1 If it 's true—
what you say — you must go ! " she said. " And
you must never come any more. Do you promise
that 1 "

"Certainly not," said the young man. "Why
should I promise such a thing — so abgminably
wrong ? I could obey if you didn't love me "

" Oh, I don't ! Indeed I don't ! Now will you
obey."

" No. I don't believe you."

"Oh!"

He possessed himself of her hand again.

" My love — my dearest ! What is this trouble,
that you can't tell it 1 It can't be anything about
yourself. If it is anything about any one else, it
wouldn't make the least difference in the world, no

SILAS LAPHAM. 311

matter what it was. I would be only too glad to
show by any act or deed I could that nothing could
change me towards you."

" Oh, you don't understand ! "

11 No, I don't. You must tell me."

"I will never do that."

" Then I will stay here till your mother comes,
.and ask her what it is."

"Ask her?"

" Yes ! Do you think I will give you up till I
know why I must ?"

" You force me to it ! Will you go if I tell you,
and never let any human creature know what you
have said to me 1 "

"Not unless you give me leave."

"That will be never. Well, then " She

stopped, and made two or three ineffectual efforts
to begin again. "No, no ! I can't. You must
go!"

"I will not go!"

" You said you — loved me. If you do, you will

go-"

He dropped the hands he had stretched towards
her, and she hid her face in her own.

" There !" she said, turning it suddenly upon him.
" Sit down there. And will you promise me — on
your honour — not to speak — not to try to persuade
me — not to — touch me ? You won't touch me ?"

" I will obey you, Penelope."

" As if you were never to see me again ? As if I
were dying ?"

312 THE RISE OF

" I will do what you say. But I shall see you
again ; and don't talk of dying. This is the begin
ning of life "

"No. It's the end," said the girl, resuming at
last something of the hoarse drawl which the tumult
of her feeling had broken into those half-articulate
appeals. She sat down too, and lifted her face to-
wards him. " It 's the end of life for me, because I
know now that I must have been playing false from
the beginning. You don't know what I mean, and
I can never tell you. It isn't my secret— it 's some
one else's. You — you must never come here again.
I can't tell you why, and you must never try to
know. Do you promise ?"

" You can forbid me. I must do what you say."

" I do forbid you, then. And you shall not think
I am cruel "

" How could I think that V

" Oh, how hard you make it !"

Corey laughed for very despair. " Can I make it
easier by disobeying you ?"

" I know I am talking crazily. But I 'm not
crazy."

"No, no," he said, with some wild notion of
comforting her ; " but try to tell me this trouble !
There is nothing under heaven — no calamity, no
sorrow — that I wouldn't gladly share with you,
or take all upon myself if I could ! "

" I know ! But this you can't. Oh, my "

" Dearest ! Wait ! Think ! Let me ask your
mother— your father "

SILAS LAPHAM. 313

She gave a cry.

" No ! If you do that, you will make me hate
you ! Will you "

The rattling of a latch-key was heard in the outer
door.

'* Promise !" cried Penelope.

"Oh, I promise!"

" Good-bye !" She suddenly flung her arms round
his neck, and, pressing her cheek tight against his,
flashed out of the room by one door as her father
entered it by another.

Corey turned to him in a daze. " I — I called to

speak with you — about a matter But it's so

late now. 1 11 — I '11 see you to-morrow."

" No time like the present," said Lapham, with a
fierceness that did not seem referable to Corey.
He had his hat still on, and he glared at the young
man out of his blue eyes with a fire that something
else must have kindled there.

"I really can't now," said Corey weakly. "It
will do quite as well to-morrow. Good night, sir."

" Good night," answered Lapham abruptly, follow
ing him to the door, and shutting it after him. " I
think the devil must have got into pretty much
everybody to-night," he muttered, coming back to
the room, where he put down his hat Then he
went to the kitchen-stairs and called down, " Hello,
Alice ! I want something to eat !

XVII.

" WHAT 's the reason the girls never get down to
breakfast any more ?" asked Lapham, when he met
his wife at the table in the morning. He had been
up an hour and a half, and he spoke with the sever
ity of a hungry man. " It seems to me they don't
amount to anything. Heije I am, at my time of life,
up the first one in the house. I ring the bell for the
cook at quarter-past six every morning, and the
breakfast is on the table at half-past seven right along,
like clockwork, but I never see anybody but you till
I go to the office."

"Oh yes, you do, Si," said his wife soothingly.
"The girls are nearly always down. But they're
young, and it tires them more than it does us to get
up early."

" They can rest afterwards. They don't do any
thing after they are up," grumbled Lapham.

" Well, that 's your fault, ain't it ? You oughtn't
to have made so much money, and then they 'd have
had to work." She laughed at Lapham's Spartan
mood, and went on to excuse the young people.
" Irene 's been up two nights hand running, and

Penelope says she ain't well. What makes you so
tu

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 315

eross about the girls 1 Been doing something you 're
ashamed of 1 "

" I '11 tell you when I 've been doing anything to
be ashamed of," growled Lapham.

" Oh no, you won't ! " said his wife jollily.
" You '11 only be hard on the rest of us. Come
now, Si ; what is it ? "

Lapham frowned into his coffee with sulky dignity,
and said, without looking up, " I wonder what that
fellow wanted here last night 1"

" What fellow 1"

" Corey. I found him here when I came home, and
he said he wanted to see me ; but he wouldn't stop."

" Where was he 1 "

" In the sitting-room."

" Was Pen there 1 "

"/didn't see her."

Mrs. Lapham paused, with her hand on the cream-
jug. "Why, what in the land did he want ? Did
he say he wanted you ? "

" That 's what he said."

" And then he wouldn't stay ? "

"No."

" Well, then, I '11 tell you just what it is, Silas
Lapham. He came here " — she looked about the
room and lowered her voice — " to see you about
Irene, and then he hadn't the courage."

" I guess he 's got courage enough to do pretty
much what he wants to," said Lapham glumly.
'* All I know is, he was here. You better ask Pen
about it, if she ever gets down."

316 THE RISE OF

" I guess I shan't wait for her," said Mrs. Lap-
ham ; and, as her husband closed the front door
after him, she opened that of her daughter's room
and entered abruptly.

The girl sat at the window, fully dressed, and as
if she had been sitting there a long time. Without
rising, she turned her face towards her mother. It
merely showed black against the light, and revealed
nothing till her mother came close to her with suc
cessive questions. " Why, how long have you been
up, Pen ? Why don't you come to your breakfast 1
Did you see Mr. Corey when he called last night ?
Why, what 's the matter with you t What have
you been crying about ?

" Have I been crying ?"

" Yes ! Your cheeks are all wet ! "

"I thought they were on fire. Well, I'll tell
you what's happened." She rose, and then
fell back in her chair. " Lock the door ! " she
ordered, and her mother mechanically obeyed. " I
don't want Irene in here. There's nothing the
matter. Only, Mr. Corey offered himself to me last
night."

Her mother remained looking at her, helpless, not
so much with amaze, perhaps, as dismay.

" Oh, I 'm not a ghost ! I wish I was ! You
had better sit down, mother. You have got to
know all about it."

Mrs. Lapham dropped nervelessly into the chair
at the other window, and while the girl went slowly
but briefly on, touching only the vital points of the

SILAS IAPHAM. 317

etory, and breaking at times into a bitter drollery
she sat as if without the power to speak or stir.

" Well, that 's all, mother. I should say I had
dreamt it, if I had slept any last night ; but I guess
it really happened."

The mother glanced round at the bed, and said,
glad to occupy herself delayingly with the minor
care : " Why, you have been sitting up all night !
You will kill yourself."

" I don't know about killing myself, but I Ve been
sitting up all night," answered the girl. Then, see
ing that her mother remained blankly silent again,
she demanded, " Why don't you blame me, mother 1
Why don't you say that I led him on, and tried to
get him away from her ? Don't you believe I did ? "

Her mother made her no answer, as if these
ravings of self-accusal needed none. " Do you
think," she asked simply, " that he got the idea
rou cared for him 1 "

" He knew it ! How could I keep it from him ?
1 said I didn't— at first ! "

"It was no use," sighed the mother. "You
might as well said you did. It couldn't help Irene
tny, if you didn't."

" I always tried to help her with him, even when
t "

" Yes, I know. But she never was equal to him.
1 saw that from the start ; but I tried to blind
myself to it. And when he kept coming "

" You never thought of me ! " cried the girl, with
a bitterness that reached her mother's heart "J

318 THE RISE OF

was nobody ! I couldn't feel ! No one could care
for ine ! " The turmoil of despair, of triumph, of
remorse and resentment, which filled her soul, tried
to express itself in the words.

" No," said the mother humbly. " I didn't think
of you. Or I didn't think of you enough. It did

come across me sometimes that may be But it

didn't seem as if And your going on so for

Irene

" You let me go on. You made me always go
and talk with him for her, and you didn't think I
would talk to him for myself. Well, I didn't ! "

" I 'm punished for it. When did you — begin to
care for him 1 "

" How do I know 1 What difference does it
make ? It 's all over now, no matter when it began.
He won't come here any more, unless I let him."
She could not help betraying her pride in this
authority of hers, but she went on anxiously enough,
" What will you say to Irene 1 She 's safe as far as
I 'm concerned ; but if he don't care for her, what
will you do 1 "

" I don't know what to do," said Mrs. Lapham.
She sat in an apathy from which she apparently
could not rouse herself. "I don't see as anything
can be done."

Penelope laughed in a pitying derision.

" Well, let things go on then. But they won't go
on."

"No, they won't go on," echoed her mother.
" She 's pretty enough, and she 's capubte ; and your

SILAS LAPHAM. 319

father 's got the money — I don't know what I 'm
saying ! She ain't equal to him, and she never was.
I kept feeling it all the time, and yet I kept blinding
myself."

" If he had ever cared for her," said Penelope,
" it wouldn't have mattered whether she was equal
to him or not. I'm not equal to him either."

Her mother went on : " I might have thought it

was you ; but I had got set Well ! I can see it

all clear enough, now it 's too late. / don't know
what to do."

" And what do you expect me to do T demanded
the girl. " Do you want me to go to Irene and tell
her that I 've got him away from her 1 "

"0 good Lord !" cried Mrs. Lapham. "What
shall I do ? What do you want I should do, Pen ? "

"Nothing for me," said Penelope. "I've had it
out with myself. Now do the best you can for
Irene."

" I couldn't say you had done wrong, if you was
to marry him to-day."

" Mother ! "

"No, I couldn't. I couldn't say but what you
had been good and faithful all through, and you had
a perfect right to do it. There ain't any one to
blame. He 's behaved like a gentleman, and I can
see now that he never thought of her, and that it
was you all the while. Well, marry him, then !
He 's got the right, and so have you."

" What about Irene 1 I don't want you to talk
about me. I can take care of mysel£"

320 THE RISE OF

"She's nothing but a child. It's only a fancy
with her. She 11 get over it. She hain't really got
her heart set on him."

" She 's got her heart set on him, mother. She 's
got her whole life set on him. You know that"

uYes, that's so," said the mother, as promptly
as if she had been arguing to that rather than the
contrary effect.

"If I could give him to her, I would. But he
isn't mine to give." She added in a burst of despair,
" He isn't mine to keep !"

" Well," said Mrs. Lapham, " she has got to bear
it. I don't know what 's to come of it all. But she 's
got to bear her share of it/' She rose and went
toward the door.

Penelope ran after her in a sort of terror.
" You 're not going to tell Irene 1 " she gasped,
seizing her mother by either shoulder.

"Yes, I am," said Mrs. Lapham. "If she's a
woman grown, she can bear a woman's burden."

" I can't let you tell Irene," said the girl, letting
fall her face on her mother's neck. "Not Irene,"
she moaned. " I 'm afraid to let you. How can I
ever look at her again 1 "

" Why, you haven't done anything, Pen," said her
mother soothingly.

" I wanted to ! Yes, I must have done something.
How could I help it ? I did care for him from the
first, and I must have tried to make him like me.
Do you think I did 1 No, no ! You mustn't tell
Irene ! Not— not— yet ! Mother ! Yes ! I did

SILAS LAPHAM. 321

try to get him from her ! " she cried, lifting her
head, and suddenly looking her mother in the face
with those large dim eyes of hers. " What do you
think 1 Even last night ! It was the first time I
ever had him all to myself, for myself, and I know
now that I tried to make him think that I was pretty
and — funny. And I didn't try to make him think
of her. I knew that I pleased him, and I tried to
please him more. Perhaps I could have kept him
from saying that he cared for me ; but when I saw
he did — I must have seen it — I couldn't. I had
never had him to myself, and for myself before. I
needn't have seen him at all, but I wanted to see
him ; and when I was sitting there alone with him,
how do I know what I did to let him feel that I
cared for him 1 Now, will you tell Irene ] I never
thought he did care for me, and never expected him
to. But I liked him. Yes— I did like him ! Tell
her that ! Or else / will."

" If it was to tell her he was dead," began Mrs.
Lapham absently.

'* How easy it would be ! " cried the girl in self-
mockery. " But he 's worse than dead to her ; and
so am I. I 've turned it over a million ways,
mother ; I 've looked at it in every light you can
put it in, and I can't make anything but misery out
of it. You can see the misery at the first glance,
and you can't see more or less if you spend your life
looking at it." She laughed again, as if the hope
lessness of the thing amused her. Then she flew to
the extreme of self-assertion. " Well, I have a right
X

322 THE RISE OF

to him, and he has a right to me. If he 's never
done anything to make her think he cared for her,
—and I know he hasn't; it's all been our doing,—
then he 's free and I 'm free. We can't make her

happy whatever we do \ and why shouldn't I

No, that won't do ! I reached that point before ! "
She broke again into her desperate laugh. " You
may try now, mother ! "

" I 'd best speak to your father first "

Penelope smiled a little more forlornly than she
had laughed.

" Well, yes ; the Colonel will have to know. It
isn't a trouble that I can keep to myself exactly. It
seems to belong to too many other people."

Her mother took a crazy encouragement from her
return to her old way of saying things. " Perhaps
1 he can think of something."

"Oh, I don't doubt but the Colonel will know
just what to do ! "

" You mustn't be too down-hearted about it. It
— it '11 all come right "

u You tell Irene that, mother."

Mrs. Lapham had put her hand on the door-key ;
she dropped it, and looked at the girl with a sort of
beseeching appeal for the comfort she could not
imagine herself. " Don't look at me, mother," said
Penelope, shaking her head. " You know that if
Irene were to die without knowing it, it wouldn't
come right for me."
, " Pen ! "

" I Ve read of cases where a girl gives up the man

SILAS LAPHAM. 323

that loves her so as to make some other girl happy
that the man doesn't love. That might be done."

" Your father would think you were a fool," ss^l
Mrs. Lapham, finding a sort of refuge in her strong
disgust for the pseudo heroism. " No ! If there '3
to be any giving up, let it be by the one that shan't
make anybody but herself suffer. There 's trouble
and sorrow enough in the world, without making it
on purpose ! "

She unlocked the door, but Penelope slipped
round and set herself against it. " Irene shall not
give up ! "

" I will see your father about it," said the mother.
" Let me out now "

" Don't let Irene come here ! "

" No. I will tell her that you haven't slept. Go
to bed now, and try to get some rest. She isn't up
herself yet. You must have some breakfast."

" No ; let me sleep if I can. I can get something
when I wake up. I '11 corne down if I can't sleep.
Life has got to go on. It does when there 's a death
in the house, and this is only a little worse."

" Don't you talk nonsense 1 " cried Mrs. Lapham,
with angry authority.

" Well, a little better, then," said Penelope, with
meek concession.

Mrs. Lapham attempted to say something, and
could not. She went out and opened Irene's dooc
The girl lifted her head drowsily from her pillow
" Don't disturb your sister when you get up, Irena
She hasn't slept well "

324 THE RISE OF

" Please don't talk ! I 'm almost dead with sleep !*
returned Irene. " Do go, mamma ! I shan't disturb
her." She turned her face down in the pillow, and
pulled the covering up over her ears.

The mother slowly closed the door and went
downstairs, feeling bewildered and baffled almost
beyond the power to move. The time had been
when she would have tried to find out why this
judgment had been sent upon her. But now she
could not feel that the innocent suffering of others
was inflicted for her fault ; she shrank instinctively
from that cruel and egotistic misinterpretation of
the mystery of pain and loss. She saw her two
children, equally if differently dear to her, destined
to trouble that nothing could avert, and she could
not blame either of them; she could not blame
the means of this misery to them; he was as in
nocent as they, and though her heart was sore
against him in this first moment, she could still b«
just to him in it. She was a woman who had been
used to seek the light by striving ; she had hitherto
literally worked to it. But it is the curse of pro
sperity that it takes work away from us, and shuts
that door to hope and health of spirit. In this
house, where everything had come to be done for
her, she had no tasks to interpose between her and
her despair. She sat down in her own room and let
her hands fall in her lap, — the hands that had once
been so helpful and busy, — and tried to think it all
out. She had never heard of the fate that was once
supposed to appoint the sorrows of men irrespective
of their blamelessness or blame, before the time

SILAS LAPHAM. 325

when it came to be believed that sorrows were
penalties; but in her simple way she recognised
something like that mythic power when she rose
from her struggle with the problem, and said aloud
to herself, " Well, the witch is in it." Turn which
way she would, she saw no escape from the misery
to come — the misery which had come already to
Penelope and herself, and that must come to Irene
and her father. She started when she definitely
thought of her husband, and thought with what
violence it would work in every fibre of his rude
strength. She feared that, and she feared some
thing worse — the effect which his pride and am
bition might seek to give it ; and it was with terror
of this, as well as the natural trust with which a
woman must turn to her husband in any anxiety at
last, that she felt she could not wait for evening to
take counsel with him. When she considered how
wrongly he might take it all, it seemed as if it
were already known to him, and she was impatient
to prevent his error.

She sent out for a messenger, whom she despatched
with a note to his place of business : " Silas, I should
like to ride witih you this afternoon. Can't you come
home early ? Persis." And she was at dinner with
Irene, evading her questions about Penelope, when
answer came that he would be at the house with the
buggy at half-past two. It is easy to put off a girl
who has but one thing in her head ; but though
Mrs. Lapham could escape without telling anything
of Penelope, she could not escape seeing how wholly
Irene was engrossed with hopes now turned so vain

325 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

and impossible. She was still talking of that dinner,
of nothing but that dinner, and begging for flattery
of herself and praise of him, which her mother had
till now been so ready to give.

" Seems to me you don't take very much interest,
mamma!" she said, laughing and blushing atone point.

" Yes, — yes, I do," protested Mrs. Lapham, and
then the girl prattled on.

" I guess I shall get one of those pins that Nanny
Corey had in her hair. I think it would become
me, don't you ? "

" Yes ; but Irene — I don't like to have you go on
so, till — unless he 's said something to show — You

oughtn't to give yourself up to thinking " But

at this the girl turned so white, and looked such re
proach at her, that she added frantically : " Yes,
get the pin. It is just the thing for you ! But
don't disturb Penelope. Let her alone till I get
back. I'm going out to ride with your father.
He '11 be here in half an hour. Are you through ?
Ring, then. Get yourself that fan you saw the
other day. Your father won't say anything ; he likes
to have you look well. I could see his eyes on you
half the time the other night."

" I should have liked to have Pen go with me,"
said Irene, restored to her normal state of innocent
selfishness by these flatteries. " Don't you suppose
she '11 be up in time ? What 's the matter with her
that she didn't sleep 1 "

" I don't know. Better let her alone."

" Well," submitted Irene.

xvirr.

MRS. LAPHAM went away to put on her bonnet
and cloak, and she was waiting at the window when
her husband drove up. She opened the door and
ran down the steps. "Don't get out; I can help
myself in," and she clambered to his side, while he
kept the fidgeting mare still with voice and touch.

" Where do you want I should go ? " he asked,
turning the buggy.

" Oh, I don't care. Out Brookline way, I guess.
I wish you hadn't brought this fool of a horse," she
gave way petulantly. " I wanted to have a talk."

" When I can't drive this mare and talk too, I '11
sell out altogether," said Lapham. " She '11 be
quiet enough when she 's had her spin."

" Well," said his wife ; and while they were
making their way across the city to the Milldam she
answered certain questions he asked about some
points in the new house.

"I should have liked to have you stop there,"
he began ; but she answered so quickly, " Not to
day," that he gave it up and turned his horse's head
westward when they struck Beacon Street.

MT

328 THE RISE OF

He let the mare out, and he did not pull her in
till he left the Brighton road and struck off under
the low boughs that met above one of the quiet
streets of Brookline, where the stone cottages, with
here and there a patch of determined ivy on their
northern walls, did what they could to look English
amid the glare of the autumnal foliage. The smooth
earthen track under the mare's hoofs was scattered
with flakes of the red and yellow gold that made
the air luminous around them, and the perspective
was gay with innumerable tints and tones.

" Pretty sightly," said Lapham, with a long sign,
letting the reins lie loose in his vigilant hand, to
which he seemed to relegate the whole charge of
the mare. " I want to talk with you about Rogers,
Persis, He 's been getting in deeper and deeper
with me; and last night he pestered me half to
death to go in with him in one of his schemes. I
ain't going to blame anybody, but I hain't got very
much confidence in Rogers. And I told him so last
right."

" Oh, don't talk to me about Rogers ! " his wife
broke in. " There 's something a good deal more
important than Rogers in the world, and more im
portant than your business. It seems as if you ;
couldn't think of anything else — that and the new j
house. Did you suppose I wanted to ride so as to
talk Rogers with you ? " she demanded, yielding to
the necessity a wife feels of making her husband
pay for her suffering, even if he has not inflicted it.
* I declare "

SILAS LAPHAM. 329

"Well, hold on, now!" said Lapham. "What
jL you want to talk about ? I 'm listening."

His wife began, "Why, it's just this, Silas
Lapham ! " and then she broke off to say, " Well,
you may wait, now — starting me wrong, when it 's
hard enough anyway."

Lapham silently turned his whip over and over in
his hand and waited.

" Did you suppose," she asked at last, " that that
young Corey had been coming to see Irene 1 "

" I don't know what I supposed," replied Lapham
sullenly. " You always said so." He looked sharply
at her under his lowering brows.

" Well, he hasn't," said Mrs. Lapham ; and she
replied to the frown that blackened on her husband's
face. " And I can tell you what, if you take it in
that way I shan't speak another word."

" Who 's takin' it what way 1 " retorted Lapham
savagely. " What are you drivin' at 1 "

" I want you should promise that you '11 hear me
out quietly."

" 1 11 hear you out if you '11 give me a chance. I
haven't said a word yet."

" Well, I 'm not going to have you flying into
forty furies, and looking like a perfect thunder
cloud at the very start. I 've had to bear it, and
you 've got to bear it too."

" Well, let me have a chance at it, then."

" It 's nothing to blame anybody about, as I can
see, and the only question is, what 's the best thing
to do about it There 's only one thing we can do ;

330 THE RISE OF

for if he don't care for the child, nobody wants to
make him. If he hasn't been coming to see her, he
hasn't, and that 's all there is to it."

" No, it ain't ! " exclaimed Lapham.

" There !" protested his wife.

" If he hasn't been coming to see her, what has he
been coming for V

" He 's been coming to see Pen ! " cried the wife.
" Now are you satisfied ?" Her tone implied that he
had brought it all upon them ; but at the sight of
the swift passions working in his face to a perfect
comprehension of the whole trouble, she fell to
trembling, and her broken voice lost all the spurious
indignation she had put into it. " O Silas ! what
are we going to do about it ? I 'm afraid it 11 kill
Irene."

Lapham pulled off the loose driving-glove from his
right hand with the fingers of his left, in which the
reins lay. He passed it over his forehead, and then
flicked from it the moisture it had gathered there.
He caught his breath once or twice, like a man who
meditates a struggle with superior force and then
remains passive in its grasp.

His wife felt the need of comforting him, as she
had felt the need of afflicting him. " I don't say but
what it can be made to come out all right in the end.
All I say is, I don't see my way clear yet."

" What makes you think he likes Pen ?" he asked
quietly.

" He told her so last night, and she told me this
morning. Was he at the office to^iay ?"

SILAS LAPHAM. 331

" Yes, he was there. I haven't been there much
myself. He didn't say anything to me. Does Irene
know?"

" No ; I left her getting ready to go out shopping.
She wants to get a pin like the one Nanny Corey
had on."

" 0 my Lord !" groaned Lapham.

" It 's been Pen from the start, I guess, or almost
from the start. I don't say but what he was
attracted some by Irene at the very first ; but I
guess it Js been Pen ever since he saw her ; and
we 've taken up with a notion, and blinded ourselves
with it Time and again I've had my doubts
whether he cared for Irene any ; but I declare to
goodness, when he kept coming, I never hardly
thought of Pen, and I couldn't help believing at
last he did care for Irene. Did it ever strike you
he might be after Pen ? "

" No. I took what you said. I supposed you
knew."

" Do you blame me, Silas ?" she asked timidly.

"No. What's the use of blaming? We don't
either of us want anything but the children's good.
What 's it all of it for, if it ain't for that ? That 's
what we 've both slaved for all our lives."

"Yes, I know. Plenty of people lose their
children," she suggested.

"Yes, but that don't comfort me any. I never
was one to feel good because another man felt bad.
How would you have liked it if some one had taken
comfort betausB his boy lived when ours diedl

332 THE RISE OF

No, I can't do it. And this is worse than death,
someways. That comes and it goes ; but this looks
as if it was one of those things that had come to
stay. The way I look at it, there ain't any hope for
anybody. Suppose we don't want Pen to have him ;
will that help Irene any, if he don't want her 1
Suppose we don't want to let him have either ; does
that help either ! "

" You talk," exclaimed Mrs. Lapham, " as if our
say was going to settle it. Do you suppose that
Penelope Lapham is a girl to take up with a fellow
that her sister is in love with, and that she always
thought was in love with her sister, and go off and
be happy with him ? Don't you believe but what it
would come back to her, as long as she breathed the
breath of life, how she 'd teased her about him, as
I 've heard Pen tease Irene, and helped to make her
think he was in love with her, by showing that she
thought so herself ? It 's ridiculous ! "

Lapham seemed quite beaten down by this argu
ment. His huge head hung forward over his breast ;
the reins lay loose in his moveless hand ; the mare
took her own way. At last he lifted his face and
shut his heavy jaws.

" Well 1 " quavered his wife.

" Well," he answered, "if he wants her, and she
wants him, I don't see what that 's got to do with it."
He looked straight forward, and not at his wife.

She laid her hands on the reins. " Now, you stop
right here, Silas Lapbam ! If I thought that— if I
really believed you could be willing to break that

SILAS LAPHAM. 333

poor child's heart, and let Pen disgrace herself by
marrying a man that had as good as killed her sister,
just because you wanted Bromfield Corey's son foi
a son-in-law "

Lapham turned his face now, and gave her a look.
" You had better not believe that, Persis ! Get
up ! " he called to the mare, without glancing at her,
and she sprang forward. " I see you 've got past
being any use to yourself on this subject."

" Hello ! " shouted a voice in front of him. " Where
the devil you goin' to 1 "

" Do you want to kill somebody ? " shrieked his
wife.

There was a light crash, and the mare recoiled her
length, and separated their wheels from those of the
open buggy in front which Lapham had driven into.
He made his excuses to the occupant; and the
accident relieved the tension of their feelings, and
left them far from the point of mutual injury which
they had reached in their common trouble and their
unselfish will for their children's good.

It was Lapham who resumed the talk. " I 'm
afraid we can't either of us see this thing in the
right light. We 're too near to it. I wish to the
Lord there was somebody to talk to about it."

"Yes," said his wife ; " but there ain't anybody."

"Well, I dunno," suggested Lapham, after a
moment; "why not talk to the minister of your
church ? May be he could see some way out of it. "

Mrs. Lapham shook her head hopelessly. "It
wouldn't do. I've never taken up my connection

334 THE RISE OF

with the church, and I don't feel as if I 'd got any
claim on him."

"If he 's anything of a man, or anything of a
preacher, you have got a claim on him," urged Lap-
ham ; and he spoiled his argument by adding, " I 've
contributed enough money to his church."

"Oh, that's nothing," said Mrs. Lapham. "I
ain't well enough acquainted with Dr. Langworthy,
or else I 'm too well. No ; if I was to ask any one,
I should want to ask a total stranger. But what 's
the use, Si 1 Nobody could make us see it any dif
ferent from what it is, and I don't know as I should
want they should."

It blotted out the tender beauty of the day, and
weighed down their hearts ever more heavily within
them. They ceased to talk of it a hundred times,
and still came back to it. They drove on and on.
It began to be late. " I guess we better go back, Si/'
said his wife ; and as he turned without speaking,
she pulled her veil down and began to cry softly
behind it, with low little broken sobs.

Lapham started the mare up and drove swiftly
homeward. At last his wife stopped crying and
began trying to find her pocket. " Here, take mine,
Persis," he said kindly, offering her his handkerchief,
and she took it and dried her eyes with it. " There
was one of those fellows there the other night," he
spoke again, when his wife leaned back against the
cushions in peaceful despair, " that I liked the looks
of about as well as any man I ever saw. I guess he
was a pretty good man. It was that Mr. Sewell."

SILAS LAPHAM. 335

He looked at his wife, but she did not say anything.
" Persis," he resumed, " I can't bear to go back with
nothing settled in our minds. I can't bear to let
you."

"We must, Si," returned his wife, with gentle
gratitude. Lapham groaned. " Where does he
live ?" she asked.

" On Bolingbroke Street He gave me his
number."

" Well, it wouldn't do any good. What could he
say to us?"

" Oh, I don't know as he could say anything," said
Lapham hopelessly ; and neither of them said any
thing more till they crossed the Milldam and found
themselves between the rows of city houses."

" Don't drive past the new house, Si," pleaded his
wife. " I couldn't bear to see it. Drive — drive up
Bolingbroke Street. We might as well see where
he does live."

" Well," said Lapham. He drove along slowly.
"That's the place," he said finally, stopping the
mare and pointing with his whip.

" It wouldn't do any good," said his wife, in a
tone which he understood as well as he understood
her words. He turned the mare up to the curb
stone.

" You take the reins a minute," he said, handing
them to his wife.

He got down and rang the bell, and waited till
the door opened ; then he came back and lifted hia
wife out. " He 's in," he said.

336 THE RISE OF

He got the hitching-weight from under the buggy-
seat and made it fast to the mare's bit.

"Do you think she'll stand with that?" asked
Mrs. Lapham.

" I guess so. If she don't, no matter."

" Ain't you afraid she '11 take cold," she persisted,
trying to make delay.

" Let her ! " said Lapham. He took his wife's
trembling hand under his arm, and drew her to the
door.

" He '11 think we 're crazy," she murmured in her
broken pride.

" Well, we are" said Lapham. " Tell him we 'd
like to see him alone a while," he said to the girl
who was holding the door ajar for him, and she
showed him into the reception-room, which had
been the Protestant confessional for many burdened
souls before their time, coming, as they did, with the
belief that they were bowed down with the only
misery like theirs in the universe ; for each one of
us must suffer long to himself before he can learn
that he is but one in a great community of wretched
ness which has been pitilessly repeating itself from
the foundation of the world.

They were as loath to touch their trouble when
the minister came in as if it were their disgrace ;
but Lapham did so at last, and, with a simple
dignity which he had wanted in his bungling and
apologetic approaches, he laid the affair clearly be
fore the minister's compassionate and reverent eye.
He spared Corey's name, but he did not pretend that

SILAS LAPHAM. 337

it was not himself and his wife and their daughters
who were concerned.

" I don't know as I Ve got any right to trouble
you with this thing," he said, in the moment while
Sewell sat pondering the case, " and I don't know as
I Ve got any warrant for doing it. But, as I told
my wife here, there was something about you — I
don't know whether it was anything you said
exactly — that made me feel as if you could help us.
I guess I didn't say so much as that to her; but
that's the way I felt. And here we are. And if
it ain't all right "

" Surely," said Sewell, " it 's all right. I thank
you for coming — for trusting your trouble to me.
A time comes to every one of us when we can't help
ourselves, and then we must get others to help us.
If people turn to me at such a time, I feel sure that
I was put into the world for something — if nothing
more than to give my pity, my sympathy."

The brotherly words, so plain, so sincere, had a
welcome in them that these poor outcasts of sorrow
could not doubt.

"Yes," said Lapham huskily, and his wife began
to wipe the tears again under her veil.

Sewell remained silent, and they waited till he
should speak. " We can be of use to one another
here, because we can always be wiser for some one
else than we can for ourselves. We can see
another's sins and errors in a more merciful light
— and that is always a fairer light — than we can
our own ; and we can look more sanely at others'

Y

338 THE RISE OP

afflictions." He had addressed these words to
Lapham ; now he turned to his wife. " If some
one had come to you, Mrs. Lapham, in just this
perplexity, what would you have thought 1 "

"I don't know as I understand you," faltered
Mrs. Lapham.

Sewell repeated his words, and added, " I mean,
what do you think some one else ought to do in
your place ? "

" Was there ever any poor creatures in such a
strait before 1 " she asked, with pathetic incredulity.

"There's no new trouble under the sun," said
the minister.

" Oh, if it was any one else, I should say — I
should say — Why, of course ! I should say that
their duty was to let " She paused.

" One suffer instead of three, if none is to blame 1"
suggested Sewell. " That 's sense, and that 's justice.
It's the economy of pain which naturally suggests
itself, and which would insist upon itself, if we were
not all perverted by traditions which are the figment
of the shallowest sentimentality. Tell me, Mrs.
Lapham, didn't this come into your mind when you
first learned how matters stood 1 "

"Why, yes, it flashed across me. But I didn't
think it could be right."

" And how was it with you, Mr. Lapham ?"

" Why, that 's what / thought, of course. But I
didn't see my way "

" No," cried the minister, " we are all blinded, we
are all weakened by a false ideal of self-sacrifice. It

SILAS LAPHAM. 339

Wraps us round with its meshes, and we can't fight
our way out of it. Mrs. Lapham, what made you
feel that it might be better for three to suffer than
one ?"

" Why, she did herself. I know she would die
sooner than take him away from her."

" I supposed so ! " cried the minister bitterly.
" And yet she is a sensible girl, your daughter 1"

" She has more common-sense —

" Of course ! But in such a case we somehow
think it must be wrong to use our common-sense.
I don't know where this false ideal comes from,
unless it comes from the novels that befool and
debauch almost every intelligence in some degree.
It certainly doesn't come from Christianity, which
instantly repudiates it when confronted with it.
Your daughter believes, in spite of her common-
sense, that she ought to make herself and the man
who loves her unhappy, in order to assure the life
long wretchedness of her sister, whom he doesn't
love, simply because her sister saw him and fancied
him first ! And I 'm sorry to say that ninety-nine
young people out of a hundred — oh, nine hundred
and ninety-nine out of a thousand ! — would consider
that noble and beautiful and heroic ; whereas you
know at the bottom of your hearts that it would be
foolish and cruel and revolting. You know what
marriage is ! And what it must be without love on
both sides."

The minister had grown quite heated and red w
the faca

340 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

" I lose all patience !" he went on vehemently,
" This poor child of yours has somehow been brought
to believe that it will kill her sister if her sister does
not have what does not belong to her, and what it
is not in the power of all the world, or any soul in
the world, to give her. Her sister will suffer — yes,
keenly ! — in heart and in pride ; but she will not die.
You will suffer too, in your tenderness for her ; but
you must do your duty. You must help her to give
up. You would be guilty if you did less. Keep
clearly in mind that you are doing right, and the
only possible good. And God be with you !"

XIX.

" HE talked sense, Persis," said Lapliam gently, as
he mounted to his wife's side in the buggy and drove
slowly homeward through the dusk.

"Yes, he talked sense," she admitted. But she
added bitterly, " I guess, if he had it to do I Oh,
he 's right, and it 's got to be done. There ain't any
other way for it. It 's sense ; and, yes, it 's justice."
They walked to their door after they left the horse
at the livery stable around the corner, where Lapham
kept it. " I want you should send Irene up to our
room as soon as we get in, Silas."

"Why, ain't you going to have any supper first 1"
faltered Lapham with his latch-key in the lock.

" No. I can't lose a minute. If I do, I shan't do
it at all."

" Look here, Persis," said her husband tenderly,
"let me do this thing."

" Oh, you ! " said his wife, with a woman's com
passionate scorn for a man's helplessness in such a
case. " Send her right up. And I shall feel —
She stopped to spare him.

Then she opened the door, and ran up to her
room without waiting to speak to Irene, who had

Ml

342 THE RISE OF

come into the hall at the sound of her father's key
in the door.

" I guess your mother wants to see you upstairs,'*
said Lapham, looking away.

Her mother turned round and faced the girl's
wondering look as Irene entered the chamber, so
close upon her that she had not yet had time to lay
off her bonnet ; she stood with her wraps still on
her arm.

" Irene ! " she said harshly, " there is something
you have got to bear. It 's a mistake we Ve all
made. He don't care anything for you. He never
did. He told Pen so last night. -He cares for her."

The sentences had fallen like blows. But the girl
had taken them without flinching. She stood up
immovable, but the delicate rose- light of her com
plexion went out and left her colourless. She did
not offer to speak.

" Why don't you say something ? " cried her
mother. " Do you want to kill me, Irene 1 "

" Why should I want to hurt you, mamma ? " the
girl replied steadily, but in an alien voice. " There's
nothing to say. I want to see Pen a minute.'

She turned and left the room. As she mounted
the stairs that led to her own and her sister's rooms
on the floor above, her mother helplessly followed.
Irene went first to her own room at the front of the
house, and then came out leaving the door open and
the gas flaring behind her. The mother could see
that she had tumbled many things out of the drawers
of her bureau upon the marble top.

SILAS LAPHAM. 343

She passed her mother, where she stood in the
" You can come too, if you want to,
mamma," she said.

She opened Penelope's door without knocking,
and went in. Penelope sat at the window, as in the
morning. Irene did not go to her ; but she went
ind laid a gold hair-pin on her bureau, and said,
without looking at her, " There 's a pin that I got
to-day, because it was like his sister's. It won't be
come a dark person so well, but you can have it."

She stuck a scrap of paper in the side of Pene
lope's mirror. "There's that account of Mr.
Stan ton's ranch. You 11 want to read it, I pre
sume."

She laid a withered boutonnihe on the bureau
beside the pin. " There 's his button-hole bouquet.
He left it by his plate, and I stole it"

She had a pine-shaving fantastically tied up with
a knot of ribbon, in her hand. She held it a
moment; then, looking deliberately at Penelope,
she went up to her, and dropped it in her lap with
out a word. She turned, and, advancing a few steps,
tottered and seemed about to fall.

Her mother sprang forward with an imploring
cry, " 0 'Rene, 'Rene, 'Rene ! "

Irene recovered herself before her mother could
reach her. "Don't touch me," she said icily.
" Mamma, I 'm going to put on my things. I want
papa to walk with me. I 'm choking here."

" I—I can't let you go out, Irene, child," began
her mother.

344 THE RISE OF

" You Ve got to," replied the girl. " Tell papa to
hurry his supper."

" 0 poor soul ! He doesn't want any supper.
He knows it too."

" I don't want to talk about that. Tell him to
get ready."

She left them once more.

Mrs. Lapham turned a hapless glance upon Pene*
lope.

"Go and tell him, mother," said the girl. "I
would, if I could. If she can walk, let her. It 's
the only thing for her." She sat still ; she did not
even brush to the floor the fantastic thing that lay
in her lap, and that sent up faintly the odour of the
sachet powder with which Irene liked to perfume
her boxes.

Lapham went out with the unhappy child, and.
began to talk with her, crasily, incoherently, enough.1

She mercifully stopped him. " Don't talk, papa.
I don't want any one should talk with me."

He obeyed, and they walked silently on and on.
In their aimless course they reached the new house
on the water side of Beacon, and she made him stop,
and stood looking up at it. The scaffolding which
had so long defaced the front was gone, and in the
light of the gas-lamp before it all the architectural
beauty of the facade was suggested, and much of
the finely felt detail was revealed. Seymour had
pretty nearly satisfied himself in that rich fa9&de ;
certainly Lapham had not stinted him of the
means.

SILAS LAPHAM. 345

"Well," said the girl, "I shall never live in it,"
and she began to walk on.

Laphara's sore heart went down, as he lumbered
heavily after her. " Oh yes, you will, Irene. You '11
have lots of good times there yet."

"No," she answered, and said nothing more about
it. They had not talked of their trouble at all, and
they did not speak of it now. Lapham understood
that she was trying to walk herself weary, and he
was glad to hold his peace and let her have her way.
She halted him once more before the red and yellow
lights of an apothecary's window.

"Isn't there something they give you to make
you sleep ? " she asked vaguely. " I 've got to sleep
to-night ! "

Lapham trembled. "I guess you don't want
anything, Irene."

" Yes, I do ! Get me something ! " she retorted
wilfully. "If you don't, I shall die. I must sleep."

They went in, and Lapham asked for something
to make a nervous person sleep. Irene stood poring
over the show-case full of brushes and trinkets,
while the apothecary put up the bromide, which he
guessed would be about the best thing. She did
not show any emotion ; her face was like a stone,
while her father's expressed the anguish of his
sympathy. He looked as if he had not slept for a
week ; his fat eyelids drooped over his glassy eyes,
and his cheeks and throat hung flaccid. He started
as the apothecary's cat stole smoothly up and rubbed
itself against his leg : and it was to him that the man

34:6 THE RISE OF

said, " You want to take a table-spoonful of that aa
long as you 're awake. I guess it won't take a great
many to fetch you."

" All right," said Laphara, and paid and went out
" I don't know but I shall want some of it," he said,
with a joyless laugh.

Irene came closer up to him and took his arm.
He laid his heavy paw on her gloved fingers. After
a while she said, " I want you should let me go up
to Lapham to-morrow."

" To Lapham ? Why, to-morrow 'a Sunday, Irene 1
You can't go to-morrow."

"Well, Monday, then. I can live through one
day here."

" Well," said the father passively. He made no
pretence of asking her why she wished to go, nor
any attempt to dissuade her.

" Give me that bottle," she said, when he opened
the door at home for her, and she ran up to her own
room.

The next morning Irene came to breakfast with
her mother ; the Colonel and Penelope did not
appear, and Mrs. Lapham looked sleep-broken and
careworn.

The girl glanced at her. " Don't you fret about
me, mamma," she said. " I shall get along." She
seemed herself as steady and strong as rock.

" I don't like to see you keeping up so, Irene,"
replied her mother. " It '11 be all the worse for you
when you do break. Better give way a little at th«
start."

SILAS LAPHAM. 347

" I shan't break, and I 've given way all I 'm
joing to. I 'm going to Lapham to-morrow, — I
want you should go with me, mamma, — and I guess
I can keep up one day here. All about it is, I don't
want you should say anything, or look anything.
And, whatever I do, I don't want you should try to
stop me. And, the first thing, I 'm going to take
her breakfast up to her. Don't ! " she cried, inter
cepting the protest on her mother's lips. " I shall
not let it hurt Pen, if I can help it. She 's never
done a thing nor thought a thing to wrong me. I
had to fly out at her last night ; but that 's all over
now, and I know just what I 've got to bear."

She had her way unmolested. She carried Pene
lope's breakfast to her, and omitted no care or
attention that could make the sacrifice complete,
with an heroic pretence that she was performing no
unusual service. They did not speak, beyond her
saying, in a clear dry note, " Here 's your breakfast,
Pen," and her sister 's answering, hoarsely and tremu
lously, " Oh, thank you, Irene." And, though two
or three times they turned their faces toward each
other while Irene remained in the room, mechani
cally putting its confusion to rights, their eyes did
not meet. Then Irene descended upon the other
rooms, which she set in order, and some of which
she fiercely swept and dusted. She made the
beds ; arid she sent the two servants away to church
as soon as they had eaten their breakfast, telling
them that she would wash their dishes. Through
out the morning her father and mother heard her

348 THE RISE OF

about the work of getting dinner, with certain
silences which represented the moments when she
stopped and stood stock-still, and then, readjusting
her burden, forced herself forward under it again.

They sat alone in the family room, out of which
their two girls seemed to have died. Lapham could
not read his Sunday papers, and she had no heart to
go to church, as she would have done earlier in life
when in trouble. Just then she was obscurely feel
ing that the church was somehow to blame for that
counsel of Mr. Se well's on which they had acted.

"I should like to know," she said, having brought
the matter up, " whether he would have thought
it was such a light matter if it had been his own
children. Do you suppose he 'd have been so ready
to act on his own advice if it had been 1 "

" He told us the right thing to do, Persia, — the
only thing. We couldn't let it go on," urged her
husband gently.

" Well, it makes me despise Pen ! Irene 's show
ing twice the character that she is, this very minute."

The mother said this so that the father might
defend her daughter to her. He did not fail.
" Irene 's got the easiest part, the way I look at it.
And you'll see that Pen '11 know how to behave
when the time comes."

"What do you want she should do ?"

" I haven't got so far as that yet. What are we
going to do about Irene ?"

"What do you want Pen should do," repeated
Mrs. Lapham, " when it comes to it I "

SILAS LAPHAM. 349

" Well, I don't want she should take him, for we
thing," said Lapham.

This seemed to satisfy Mrs. Lapham as to her
husband, and she said in defence of Corey, " Why,
I don't see what he 's done. It 's all been our doing.';

" Never mind that now. What about Irene ? "

"She says she's going to Lapham to-morrow.
She feels that she 's got to get away somewhere.
It's natural she should."

"Yes, and I presume it will be about the best
thing for her. Shall you go with her 1 "

"Yes."

" Well." He comfortlessly took up a newspaper
again, and she rose with a sigh, and went to her
room to pack some things for the morrow's journey.

After dinner, when Irene had cleared away the
last trace of it in kitchen and dining-room with
unsparing punctilio, she came downstairs, dressed
to go out, and bade her father come to walk with
her again. It was a repetition of the aimlessness of
the last night's wanderings. They came back, and
she got tea for them, and after that they heard her
stirring about in her own room, as if she were busy
about many things ; but they did not dare to look in
upon her, even after all the noises had ceased, and
they knew she had gone to bed.

" Yes ; it 's a thing she 's got to fight out by her
self," said Mrs Lapham.

" I guess she '11 get along," said Lapham. " But
I don't want you should misjudge Pen either.
She 's all right too. She ain't to blame."

350 THE RISE OF

" Yes, I know. But I can't work round to it all
at once. I shan't misjudge her, but you can't expect
me to get over it right away."

"Mamma," said Irene, when she was hurrying
their departure the next morning, " what did she
tell him when he asked her T'

" Tell him ? " echoed the mother ; and after a
while she added, "She didn't tell him anything."

" Did she say anything about me ? "

" She said he mustn't come here any more."

Irene turned and went into her sister's room.
" Good-bye, Pen," she said, kissing her with an
effect of not seeing or touching her. " I want you
should tell him all about it. If he 's half a man, he
won't give up till he knows why you won't have
him ; and he has a right to know."

"It wouldn't make any difference. I couldn't
have him after "

"That's for you to say. But if you don't tell
him about me, J will."

" 'Rene ! "

" Yes ! You needn't say I cared for him. But you
can say that you all thought he — cared for — me."

" 0 Irene—

" Don't ! " Irene escaped from the arms that tried
to cast themselves about her. " You are all right,
Pen. You haven't done anything. You 've helped
me all you could. But I can't — yet."

She went out of the room and summoned Mrs.
Lapham with a sharp " Now, mamma ! " and went,
on putting the last things into her trunks.

SILAS LAPHAM. 351

The Colonel went to the station with them, and
put them on the train. He got them a little com
partment to themselves in the Pullman car ; and as
he stood leaning with his lifted hands against the
sides of the doorway, he tried to say something con
soling and hopeful : " I guess you '11 have an easy
ride, Irene. I don't believe it '11 be dusty, any, after
the rain last night."

"Don't you stay till the train starts, papa," re
turned the girl, in rigid rejection of his futilities.
" Get off, now."

"Well, if you want I should," he said, glad to be
able to please her in anything. He remained on the
platform till the cars started. He saw Irene bustling
about in the compartment, making her mother com
fortable for the journey ; but Mrs. Lapham did not
lift her head. The train moved off, and he went
heavily back to his business.

From time to time during the day, when he caught
a glimpse of him, Corey tried to make out from his
face whether he knew what had taken place between
him and Penelope. When Rogers came in about
time of closing, and shut himself up with Lapham
in his room, the young man remained till the two
came out together and parted in their salutationless
fashion.

Lapham showed no surprise at seeing Corey still
there, and merely answered, " Well ! " when the
young man said that he wished to speak with him,
and led the way back to his room.

Corey shut the door behind them. "I only

352 THE RISE OF

wish to speak to you in case you know of the
matter already ; for otherwise I 'm bound by a pro
mise."

"I guess I know what you mean. It's about
Penelope."

" Yes, it 's about Miss Lapham. I am greatly
attached to her — you '11 excuse my saying it ; I
couldn't excuse myself if I were not."

"Perfectly excusable," said Lapham. "It's all
right"

" Oh, I 'm glad to hear you say that ! " cried the
young fellow joyfully. " I want you to believe that
this isn't a new thing or an unconsidered thing with
me — though it seemed so unexpected to her."

Lapham fetched a deep sigh. "It's all right
as far as I 'm concerned — or her mother. We 've
both liked you first-rate."

"Yes?"

" But there seems to be something in Penelope's

mind — I don't know " The Colonel consciously

dropped his eyes.

" She referred to something— I couldn't make out
what — but I hoped — I hoped — that with your lea^e
I might overcome it— the barrier — whatever it was.
Miss Lapham — Penelope — gave me the hope — that
I was — wasn't — indifferent to her "

" Yes, I guess that 's so," said Lapham. He
suddenly lifted his head, and confronted the young
fellow's honest face with his own face, so different
in its honesty. " Sure you never made up to any
one else at the same time 1 "

SILAS LAPHAM. 353

" Never I Who could imagine such a thing 1 If
that 's all, I can easily "

" I don't say that 's all, nor that that 's it. I don't
want you should go upon that idea. 1 just thought,
may be — you hadn't thought of it."

" No, I certainly hadn't thought of it ! Such a
thing would have been so impossible to me that I
couldn't have thought of it ; and it 's so shocking to
mo now that I don't know what to say to it"

"Well, don't take it too much to heart," said
Lapham, alarmed at the feeling he had excited ; " I
don't say she thought so. I was trying to guess —
trying to —

" If there is anything I can say or do to convince
you "

" Oh, it ain't necessary to say anything. I 'm all
right."

"But Miss Lapham ! I may see her again] I
may try to convince her that "

He stopped in distress, and Lapham afterwards
told his wife that he kept seeing the face of Irene as
it looked when he parted with her in the car ; and
whenever he was going to say yes., he could not open
his lips. At the same time he could not help feel
ing that Penelope had a right to what was her own,
and Sewell's words came back to him. Besides,
they had already put Irene to the worst suffering.
Lapham compromised, as he imagined.

" You can come round to-night and see me, if you
want to," he said ; and he bore grimly the gratitude
the young man poured out upon him.

354 THE RISE OF

Penelope came down to supper and took her
mother's place at the head of the table.

Lapham sat silent in her presence as long as he
could bear it. Then he asked, " How do you feel
to-night, Pen 1 "

" Oh, like a thief," said the girl. " A thief that
hasn't been arrested yet."

Lapham waited a while before he said, "Well,
now, your mother and I want you should hold up
on that a while."

" It isn't for you to say. It 's something I carii
hold up on."

" Yes, I guess you can. If I know what 's hap
pened, then what 's happened is a thing that nobody
is to blame for. And we want you should make the
best of it and not the worst. Heigh? It ain't
going to help Irene any for you to hurt yourself — or
anybody else ; and I don't want you should take up
with any such crazy notion. As far as heard from,
you haven't stolen anything, and whatever you've
got belongs to you."

" Has he been speaking to you, father 1 "

"Your mother's been speaking to me."

" Has He been speaking to you ?"

" That's neither here nor there."

"Then he's broken his word, and I will never
speak to him again ! "

" If he was any such fool as to promise that he
wouldn't talk to me on a subject " — Lapham drew a
deep breath, and then made the plunge — " that I
brought up "

SILAS LAPHAM. 355

" Did you bring it up ? "

" The same as brought up — the quicker he broke
his word the better; and I want you should act
upon that idea. Recollect that it's my business,
and your mother's business, as well as yours, and
\ve 're going to have our say. lie hain't done any
thing wrong, Pen, nor anything that he 's going to
be punished for. Understand that. He's got to
have a reason, if you 're not going to have him. I
don't say you 've got to have him ; I want you
should feel perfectly free about that ; but I do say
you Ve got to give him a reason."

" Is he coming here ? "

" I don't know as you 'd call it coming "

" Yes, you do, father ! " said the girl, in forlorn
amusement at his shuffling.

" He 's coming here to see me "

" When 's he coming 1 "

" I don't know but he 's coming to-night."

" And you want I should see him 1 "

" I don't know but you 'd better."

"All right. I '11 see him."

Lapham drew a long deep breath of suspicion in
spired by this acquiescence. " What you going to
do 1 " he asked presently.

" I don't know yet," answered the girl sadly. " It
depends a good deal upon what he does."

" Well," said Lapham, with the hungriness of un
satisfied anxiety in his tone. When Corey's card
was brought into the family room where he and
Penelope were sitting, he went into the parlour to

356 THE RISE OF

find him. " I guess Penelope wants to see you," he
said; and, indicating the family-room, he added,
u She 's in there," and did not go back himself.

Corey made his way to the girl's presence with
open trepidation, which was not allayed by her
silence and languor. She sat in the chair where she
had sat the other night, but she was not playing
with a fan now.

He came toward her, and then stood faltering.
A faint smile quivered over her face at the spectacle
of his subjection. " Sit down, Mr. Corey," she said.
" There 's no reason why we shouldn't talk it over
quietly ; for I know you will think I 'm right."

"I'm sure of that," he answered hopefully.
" When I saw that your father knew of it to-day, I
asked him to let me see you again. I 'm afraid that
I broke my promise to you — technically "

" It had to be broken."

He took more courage at her words. " But I Ve
only come to do whatever you say, and not to be an
— annoyance to you "

" Yes, you have to know ; but I couldn't tell you
before. Now they all think I should."

A tremor of anxiety passed over the young man's
face, on which she kept her eyes steadily fixed.

" We supposed it — it was — Irene "

He remained blank a moment, and then he said
with a smile of relief, of deprecation, of protest, of
amazement, of compassion —

" Oh ! Never ! Never for an instant ! How
could you think such a thing ? It was impossible 1

SILAS LAPHAM. 357

I never thought of her. But I see — I see ! I can ex
plain — no, there 's nothing to explain ! I have never
knowingly done or said a thing from first to last to
make you think that. I see how terrible it is ! " he
said ; but he still smiled, as if he could not take it
seriously. " I admired her beauty— who could help
doing that? — and I thought her very good and
sensible. Why, last winter in Texas, I told Stanton
about our meeting in Canada, and we agreed — I
only tell you to show you how far I always was
from what you thought — that he must come North
and try to see her, and — and — of course, it all
sounds very silly ! — and he sent her a newspaper
with an account of his ranch in it "

" She thought it came from you."

" Oh, good heavens ! He didn't tell me till after
he 'd done it But he did it for a part of our foolish
joke. And when I met your sister again, I only
admired her as before. I can see, now, how I must
have seemed to be seeking her out ; but it was to
talk of you with her — I never talked of anything
else if I could help it, except when I changed the
subject because I was ashamed to be always talking
of you. I see how distressing it is for all of you.
But tell me that you believe me ! "

" Yes, I must. It 's all been our mistake "

" It has indeed 1 But there 's no mistake about
my loving you, Penelope," he said ; and the old-
fashioned name, at which she had often mocked,
was sweet to her from his lips.

" That only makes it worse ! " she answered.

358 THE RISE OF

w< Oh no ! " he gently protested " It makes it
better. It makes it right. How is it worse ? How
is it wrong ? "

" Can't you see ? You must understand all now !
Don't you see that if she believed so too, and if
she " She could not go on.

"Did she — did your sister — think that too?"
gasped Corey.

" She used to talk with me about you ; and when
you say you care for me now, it makes me feel like
the vilest hypocrite in the world. That day you
gave her the list of books, and she came down to
Nantasket, and went on about you, I helped her to
natter herself — oh ! I don't see how she can forgive
me. But she knows I can never forgive myself !
That 's the reason she can do it I can see now,"
she went on, "how I must have been trying to get
you from her. I can't endure it ! The only way is
for me never to see you or speak to you again ! "
She laughed forlornly. " That would be pretty hard
on you, if you cared."

" I do care— all the world ! "

" Well, then, it would if you were going to keep
on caring. You won't long, if you stop coming now."

" Is this all, then ? Is it the end ? "

"It's — whatever it is. I can't get over the
thought of her. Once I thought I could, but now I
see that I can't. It seems to grow worse. Some
times I feel as if it would drive me crazy."

He sat looking at her with lack-lustre eyes. The
light suddenly came back into them. "Do you

SILAS LAPHAM. 359

think I could love you if you had been false to her 1
I know you have been true to her, and truer still to
yourself. I never tried to see her, except with the
hope of seeing you too. I supposed she must know
that I was in love with you. From the first time I
saw you there that afternoon, you filled my fancy.
Do you think I was flirting with the child, or — no,
you don't think that ! We have not done wrong.
We have not harmed any one knowingly. We have
a right to each other "

" No ! no ! you must never speak to me of this
again. If you do, I shall know that you despise
me."

" But how will that help her ? I don't love her."

" Don't say that to me ! I have said that to my
self too much."

" If you forbid me to love you, it won't make me
love her," he persisted.

She was about to speak, but she caught her breath
without doing so, and merely stared at him.

" I must do what you say," he continued. " But
what good will it do her? You can't make her
happy by making yourself unhappy."

" Do you ask me to profit by a wrong ? "

" Not for the world. But there is no wrong ! "

"There is something — I don't know what.
There's a wall between us. I shall dash myself
against it as long as I live ; but that won't break it."

" Oh ! " he groaned. " We have done no wrong.
Why should we suffer from another's mistake as if
it were our sin ? "

360 THE RISE OF

" I don't know. But we must suffer."

" Well, then, I will not, for my part, and I will
not let you. If you care for me "

" You had no right to know it."

" You make it my privilege to keep you from
doing wrong for the right's sake. I 'm sorry, with
all my heart and soul, for this error; hut I can't
blame myself, and I won't deny myself the happi
ness I haven't done anything to forfeit. I will
never give you up. I will wait as long as you
please for the time when you shall feel free from
this mistake; but you shall be mine at last. Re
member that. I might go away for months — a
year, even ; but that seems a cowardly and guilty
thing, and T 'm not afraid, and I 'm not guilty, anc|
I 'm going to stay here and try to see you."

She shook her head. " It won't change anything.
Don't you see that there 's no hope for us 1 "

" When is she coming back 1 " he asked.

"I don't know. Mother wants father to coma
and take her out West for a while."

" She 's up there in the country with your mother
yet?"

" Yes."

He was silent ; then he said desperately —

" Penelope, she is very young ; and perhaps —
perhaps she might meet "

"It would make no difference. It wouldn't
change it for me."

" You are cruel — cruel to yourself, if you love me,
and cruel to ine. Don't you remember that night —

SILAS LAPHAM. 361

before I spoke — you were talking of that book ; and
you said it was foolish and wicked to do as that
girl did. Why is it different with you, except that
you give me nothing, and can never give me any
thing when you take yourself away 1 If it were
anybody else, I am sure you would say —

" But it isn't anybody else, and that makes it im
possible. Sometimes I think it might be if I would
only say so to myself, and then all that I said to
her about you comes up "

" I will wait. It can't always come up. I won't
urge you any longer now. But you will see it
differently — more clearly. Good-bye — no ! Good
night ! I shall come again to-morrow. It will
surely come right, and, whatever happens, you have
done no wrong. Try to keep that in mind. I am
so happy, in spite of all ! "

He tried to take her hand, but she put it behind
her. " No, no ! I can't let you — yet 1 "

XX.

AFTER a week Mrs. Lapham returned, leaving
Irene alone at the old homestead in Vermont.
"She's comfortable there — as comfortable as she
can be anywheres, I guess," she said to her husband
as they drove together from the station, where he
had met her in obedience to her telegraphic summons.
" She keeps herself busy helping about the house ;
and she goes round amongst the hands in their
houses. There 's sickness, and you know how help
ful she is where there's sickness. She don't com
plain any. I don't know as I 've heard a word out
of her mouth since we left home; but I'm afraid
it'll wear on her, Silas."

" You don't look over and above well yourself,
Persis," said her husband kindly.

" Oh, don't talk about me. What I want to know
is whether you can't get the time to run off with
her somewhere. I wrote to you about Dubuque.
She'll work herself down, I'm afraid; and then I
ion't know as she '11 be over it. But if she could
go off, and be amused — see new people "

"I could make the time," said Lapham, "if I had
to. But, as it happens, I 've got to go out West on

THE RISK OF SILAS LAPHAM. 363

business, — I '11 tell you about it, — and I '11 take
Irene along."

" Good 1 " said his wife. " That 's about the best
thing I 've heard yet. Where you going 1 "

" Out Dubuque way."

" Anything the matter with Bill's folks ? "

"No. It's business."

" How 's Pen ? "

" I guess she ain't much better than Irene."

" He been about any ? "

" Yes. But I can't see as it helps matters much."

" Tchk ! " Mrs. Lapham fell back against tho
carriage cushions. " I declare, to see her willing to
take the man that we all thought wanted her sister !
I can't make it seem right."

" It 's right," said Lapham stoutly ; " but I guess
she ain't willing ; I wish she was. But there don't
seem to be any way out of the thing, anywhere.
It 's a perfect snarl. But I don't want you should
be anyways ha'sh with Pen."

Mrs. Lapham answered nothing; but when she
met Penelope she gave the girl's wan face a sharp
look, and began to whimper on her neck.

Penelope's tears were all spent. " Well, mother,"
she said, " you come back almost as cheerful as you
went away. I needn't ask if 'Rene 's in good spirits.
We all seem to be overflowing with them. I sup
pose this is one way of congratulating me. Mrs.
Corey hasn't been round to do it yet."

"Are you — are you engaged to him, Pen?"
gasped her mother.

• 364 THE RISE OF

"Judging by my feelings, I should say not. I
feel as if it was a last will and testament. But
you 'd better ask him when he comes."

" I can't bear to look at him."

" I guess he 's used to that. He don't seem to
expect to be looked at. Well ! we 're all just where
we started. I wonder how long it w|ll_keep upj^

Mrs. Lapham reported to her husband when he
came home at night — he had left his business to go
and meet her, and then, after a desolate dinner at
the house, had returned to the office again — that
Penelope was fully as bad as Irene. "And she
don't know how to work it off. Irene keeps doing ;
but Pen just sits in her room and mopes. She don't
even read. I went up this afternoon to scold her
about the state the house was in — you can see that
Irene's away by the perfect mess ; but when I saw
her through the crack of the door I hadn't the heart.
She sat there with her hands in her lap, just staring.
And, my goodness ! she jumped so when she saw
me; and then she fell back, and began to laugh,
and said she, ' I thought it was my ghost, mother ! '
I felt as if I should give way."

Lapham listened jadedly, and answered far from
i the point. "I guess I've got to start out there
pretty soon, Persis."

"How soon?"

"Well, to-morrow morning."

Mrs. Lapham sat silent. Then, " All right," she
said. " I '11 get you ready."

"I shall run up to Lapham for Irene, and then

SILAS LAPHAM. 365

I '11 push on through Canada. I can get there about
as quick."

" Is it anything you can tell me about, Silas ? "

"Yes," said Lapham. "But it's a long story,
and I guess you 've got your hands pretty full as it
is. I 've been throwing good money after bad, —
the usual way, — and now I 've got to see if I can
save" the pieces."

After a moment Mrs. Lapham asked, "Is it —
Rogers?"

"It's Rogers."

"I didn't want you should get in any deeper
with him."

" No. You didn't want I should press him either;
and I had to do one or the other. And so I got in
deeper."

" Silas," said his wife, " I 'm afraid I made you ! "

" It 'a all right, Persis, as far forth as that goes.
I was glad to make it up with him — I jumped at
the chance. I guess Rogers saw that he had a soft
thing in me, and he 's worked it for all it was worth.
But it '11 all come out right in the end."

Lapham said this as if he did not care to talk any
more about it. He added casually, "Pretty near
everybody but the fellows that owe me seem to
expect me to do a cash business, all of a sudden."

"Do you mean that you've got payments to
make, and that people are not paying you ? "

Lapham winced a little. " Something like that,"
he said, and he lighted a cigar. " But when I tell
it 's all right, I mean it, Persis. I ain't going

366 THE RISE OF

fco let the grass grow under my feet, though, —
especially while Rogers digs the ground away from
the roots."

" What are you going to do ? "

" If it has to come to that, I 'm going to squeeze
him." Lapham's countenance lighted up with
greater joy than had yet visited it since the day
they had driven out to Brookline. "Milton K.
Rogers is a rascal, if you want to know ; or else all
the signs fail. But I guess he '11 find he rs got his
come-uppance." Lapham shut his lips so that the
short, reddish-grey beard stuck straight out on
them.

"What 'she done?"

"What's he done? Well, now, 111 tell you
what he 's done, Persis, since you think Rogers is
such a saint, and that I used him so badly in getting
him out of the business. He's been dabbling in
every sort of fool thing you can lay your tongue to,
—wild-cat stocks, patent-rights, land speculations,
oil claims, — till he 's run through about everything.
But he did have a big milling property out on the
line of the P. Y. & X., — saw-mills and grist-mills
and lands, — and for the last eight years he 's been
doing a land-office business with 'em — business that
would have made anybody else rich. But you can't
make Milton K. Rogers rich, any more than you
can fat a hide-bound colt. It ain't in him. He 'd
run through Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Tom Scott
rolled into one in less than six months, give him a-
chance, and come out and want to borrow money

SILAS LAPHAM. 367

of you. Well, he won't borrow any more money of
me ; and if he thinks I don't know as much about
that milling property as he does he 's mistaken.
I 've taken his mills, but I guess I Ve got the inside
track ; Bill 's kept me posted ; and now I 'm going
out there to see how I can unload ; and I shan't
mind a great deal if Rogers is under the load when
it 's off once."

" I don't understand you, Silas."

" Why, it 's just this. The Great Lacustrine &
Polar Railroad has leased the P. Y. & X. for ninety-
nine years, — bought it, practically, — and it 's going
to build car-works right by those mills, and it may
want them. And Milton K. Rogers knew it when
he turned 'em in on me."

" Well, jf the road wants them, don't that make the
mills valuable ? You can get what you ask for them 1 "

" Can I ? The P. Y. & X is the only road that
runs within fifty miles of the mills, and you can't
get a foot of lumber nor a pound of flour to market
any other way. As long as he had a little local
road like the P. Y. & X. to deal with, Rogers could
manage ; but when it come to a big througli line
like the G. L. & P., he couldn't stand any chance at
nil. If such a road as that took a fancy to his mills,
do you think it would pay what he asked1? No,
sir ! He would take what the road offered, or else
the road would tell him to carry his flour and
lumber to market himself."

"And do you suppose he knew the G. L. & P.
wanted the mills when he turned them in on you ? "

368 THE RISE OF

asked Mrs. Lapham aghast, and falling helplessly
into his alphabetical parlance.

The Colonel laughed scoffingly. "Well, when
Milton K. Kogers don't know which side his
bread 's buttered on ! I don't understand," he
added thoughtfully, " how he 's always letting it
fall on the buttered side. But such a man as that
is sure to have a screw loose in him somewhere."

Mrs. Lapham sat discomfited. All that she could
say was, "Well, I want you should ask yourself
whether Rogers would ever have gone wrong, or
got into these ways of his, if it hadn't been for your
forcing him out of the business when you did. I
want you should think whether you 're not respon
sible for everything he 's done since."

" You go and get that bag of mine ready," said
Lapham sullenly. "I guess I can take care of
myself. And Milton K. Rogers too," he added.

That evening Corey spent the time after dinner
in his own room, with restless excursions to the
library, where his mother sat with his father and
sisters, and showed no signs of leaving them. At
last, in coming down, he encountered her on the
stairs, going up. They both stopped consciously.

" I would like to speak with you, mother. I have
been waiting to see you alone."

" Come to my room," she said.

" I have a feeling that you know what I want to
say," he began there.

She looked up at him where he stood by the

SILAS LAPHAM. 369

chimney-piece, and tried to put a cheerful note into
her questioning " Yes ? "

" Yes ; and I have a feeling that you won't like it
— that you won't approve of it. I wish you did —
I wish you could ! "

"I'm used to liking and approving everything
you do, Tom. If I don't like this at once, I shall
try to like it — you know that — for your sake, what
ever it is."

" I 'd better be short," he said, with a quick sigh.
"It's about Miss Lapham." He hastened to add,
"I hope it isn't surprising to you. I'd have told
you before, if I could."

"No, it isn't surprising. I was afraid — I sus
pected something of the kind."

They were both silent in a painful silence.

" Well, mother 1 " he asked at last

"If it's something you've quite made up your
mind to "

" It is 1"

" And if you 've already spoken to her "

" I had to do that first, of course."

"There would be no use of my saying anything,
even if I disliked it."

"You do dislike it 1"

" No — no ! I can't say that. Of course I should
have preferred it if you had chosen some nice girl
among those that you had been brought up with —
some friend or associate of your sisters, whose people
we had known "

" Yes, I understand that, and I can assure you

370 THE RISE OF

that I haven't been indifferent to your feelings. I
have tried to consider them from the first, and it
kept me hesitating in a way that I 'm ashamed to
think of ; for it wasn't quite right towards — others.
But your feelings and my sisters' have been in my
mind, and if I couldn't yield to what I supposed
they must be, entirely "

Even so good a son and brother as this, when it
came to his love affair, appeared to think that he
had yielded much in considering the feelings of his
family at all.

His mother hastened to comfort him. " I know
— I know. I 've seen for some time that this might
happen, Tom, and I have prepared myself for it. I
have talked it over with your father, and we both
agreed from the beginning that you were not to be
hampered by our feeling. Still — it is a surprise.
It must be."

" I know it. I can understand your feeling. But
I 'm sure that it 's one that will last only while you
don't know her well."

" Oh, I 'm sure of that, Tom. I 'm sure that we
shall all be fond of her, — for your sake at first, even
— and I hope she '11 like us."

"I am quite certain of that," said Corey, with that
confidence which experience does not always confirm
in such cases. " And your taking it as you do lifts
a tremendous load off me."

But he sighed so heavily, and looked so troubled,
that his mother said, " Well, now, you mustn't thinh
of that any more. We wish what is for your happi-

SILAS LAPHAM. 371

ness, my son, and we will gladly reconcile ourselves
to anything that might have been disagreeable. I
suppose we needn't speak of the family. We must
both think alike about them. They have their —
drawbacks, but they are thoroughly good people, and
I satisfied myself the other night that they were not
to be dreaded." She rose, and put her arm round
his neck. " And I wish you joy, Tom ! If she 's
half as good as you are, you will both be very
happy." She was going to kiss him, but something
in his looks stopped her — an absence, a trouble,
which broke out in his words.

" I must tell you, mother ! There 's been a com
plication — a mistake — that's a blight on me yet,
and that it sometimes seems as if we couldn't escape
from. I wonder if you can help us ! They all
thought I meant — the other sister."

" 0 Tom ! But how could they 1 "

" I don't know. It seemed so glaringly plain — I
was ashamed of making it so outright from the
beginning. But they did. Even she did, her
self ! "

" But where could they have thought your eyes
were — your taste 1 It wouldn't be surprising if
any one were taken with that wonderful beauty ;
and I 'm sure she 's good too. But I 'm astonished
at them ! To think you could prefer that little,
black, odd creature, with her joking and "

" Mother ! " cried the young man, turning a ghastly
face of warning upon her.

" What do you mean, Tom ? *

372 THE RISE OF

"Did you — did — did you think so too — that it
was Irene I meant ? "

" Why, of course ! "

He stared at her hopelessly.

" O my son ! " she said, for all comment on the
situation.

" Don't reproach me, mother ! I couldn't stand
it."

" No. I didn't mean to do that But how— how
could it happen 1 "

" I don't know. When she first told me that they
had understood it so, I laughed — almost — it was so
far from me. But now when you seem to have had
the same idea — Did you all think so 1 "

" Yes."

They remained looking at each other. Then Mrs.
Corey began : "It did pass through my mind once
— that day I went to call upon them — that it might
not be as we thought; but I knew so little of —
of "

" Penelope," Corey mechanically supplied.

" Is that her name ? — I forgot — that I only
thought of you in relation to her long enough to
reject the idea ; and it was natural after our seeing
something of the other one last year, that I might
suppose you had formed some — attachment "

"Yes; that's what they thought too. But I
never thought of her as anything but a pretty child.
I was civil to her because you wished it ; and when
I met her here again, I only tried to see her so that
I could talk with her about her sister."

SILAS LAPHAM. 373

" You needn't defend yourself to me, Tom," said
his mother, proud to say it to him in his trouble.
" It 's a terrible business for them, poor things," she
added. " I don't know how they could get over it.
But, of course, sensible people must see "

"They haven't got over it. At least she hasn't.
Since it 's happened, there 's been nothing that hasn't
made me prouder and fonder of her ! At first I
was charmed with her — my fancy was taken ; she
delighted me — I don't know how ; but she was
simply the most fascinating person I ever saw.
Now I never think of that. I only think how good
she is — how patient she is with me, and how
unsparing she is of herself. If she were concerned
alone — if I were not concerned too — it would soon
end. She 's never had a thought for anything but
her sister's feeling and mine from the beginning. I
go there, — I know that I oughtn't, but I can't
help it, — and she suffers it, and tries not to let me
see that she is suffering it. There never was any
one like her — so brave, so true, so noble. I won't
give her up — I can't. But it breaks my heart when
she accuses herself of what was all my doing. We
spend our time trying to reason out of it, but we
always come back to it at last, and I have to heat
her morbidly blaming herself. Oh ! "

Doubtless Mrs. Corey imagined some reliefs to
this suffering, some qualifications of this sublimity
in a girl she had disliked so distinctly ; but she saw
none in her son's behaviour, and she gave him her
further sympathy. She tried to praise Penelope,

374 THE RISE OF

and said that it was not to be expected that she
could reconcile herself at once to everything. "I
shouldn't have liked it in her if she had. But time
will bring it all right And if she really cares for
you "

" I extorted that from her."

" Well, then, you must look at it in the best light
you can. There is no blame anywhere, and the
mortification and pain is something that must be
lived down. That's all. And don't let what I
said grieve you, Tom. You know I scarcely knew
her, and I — I shall be sure to like any one you like,
after all."

"Yes, I know," said the young man drearily.
" Will you tell father V

"If you wish."

" He must know. And I couldn't stand any more
of this, just yet — any more mistake."

" I will tell him," said Mrs. Corey ; and it was
naturally the next thing for a woman who dwelt so
much on decencies to propose : " We must go to call
on her — your sisters and I. They have never seen
her even ; and she mustn't be allowed to think we 're
indifferent to her, especially under the circumstances."

" Oh no ! Don't go — not yet," cried Corey, with
an instinctive perception that nothing could be worse
for him. "We must wait — we must be patient.
I 'm afraid it would be painful to her now."

He turned away without speaking further; and
his mother's eyes followed him wistfully to the door.
There were some questions that she would have liked

SILAS LAPHAM. 375

to ask him ; but she had to content herself with try
ing to answer them when her husband put them to
her.

There was this comfort for her always in Broin-
field Corey, that he never was much surprised at any
thing, however shocking or painful. His standpoint
in regard to most matters was that of the sympa
thetic humorist who would be glad to have the victim
of circumstance laugh with him, but was not too
much vexed when the victim could not. He laughed
now when his wife, with careful preparation, got
the facts of his $»on's predicament fully under his eye.

" Really, Bromfield," she said, " I don't see how
you can laugh. Do you see any way out of it 1 "

" It seems to me that the way has been found
already. Tom has told his love to the right one,
and the wrong one knows it. Time will do the
rest"

" If I had so low an opinion of them all as that,
it would make me very unhappy. It 's shocking to
think of it."

"It is upon the theory of ladies and all young
people," said her husband, with a shrug, feeling his
way to the matches on the mantel, and then drop
ping them with a sigh, as if recollecting that he must
not smoke there. " I 've no doubt Tom feels him
self an awful sinner. But apparently he 's resigned
to his sin ; he isn't going to give her up."

" I 'm glad to say, for the sake of human nature,
that she isn't resigned — little as I like her," cried
Mrs. Corey.

376 THE RISE OF

Her husband shrugged again. " Oh, there mustn't
be any indecent haste. She will instinctively observe
the proprieties. But come, now, Anna ! you mustn't
pretend to me here, in the sanctuary of home, that
practically the human affections don't reconcile them
selves to any situation that the human sentiments
condemn. Suppose the wrong sister had died :
would the right one have had any scruple in marry
ing Tom, after they had both * waited a proper time,'
as the phrase is ? "

" Bromfield, you 're shocking ! "

" Not more shocking than reality. You may regard
this as a second marriage." He looked at her with
twinkling eyes, full of the triumph the spectator of
his species feels in signal exhibitions of human
nature. " Depend upon it, the right sister will be
reconciled ; the wrong one will be consoled ; and all
will go merry as a marriage bell — a second marriage
bell. Why, it 's quite like a romance ! " Here he
laughed outright again.

"Well," sighed the wife, "I could almost wish
the right one, as you call her, would reject Tom,
I dislike her so much."

"Ah, now you're talking business, Anna," said
her husband, with his hands spread behind the back
he turned comfortably to the fire. " The whole
Lapham tribe is distasteful to me. As I don't
happen to have seen OUT daughter-in-law elect, I
aave still the hope — which you 're disposed to forbid
me — that she may not be quite so unacceptable as
the others. "

SILAS LAPHAM. 377

"Do you really feel so, Bromfield?" anxiously
inquired his wife.

« Yes — I think I do ; " and he sat down, and
stretched out his long legs toward the fire.

"But it's very inconsistent of you to oppose the
matter now, when you 've shown so much indiffer
ence up to this time. You've told me, all along,
that it was of no use to oppose it."

" So I have. I was convinced of that at the be
ginning, or my reason was. You know very well
that I am equal to any trial, any sacrifice, day after
to-morrow ; but when it comes to-day it 's another
thing. As long as this crisis decently kept its
distance, I could look at it with an impartial eye ;
but now that it seems at hand, I find that, while my
reason is still acquiescent, my nerves are disposed to
— excuse the phrase — kick. I ask myself, what
have I done nothing for, all my life, and lived as a
gentleman should, upon the earnings of somebody
else, in the possession of every polite taste and feel
ing that adorns leisure, if I 'm to come to this at
last 1 And I find no satisiactory answer. I say to
myself that I might as well have yielded to the
pressure all round me, and gone to work, as Tom
has."

Mrs. Corey looked at him forlornly, divining the
core of real repugnance that existed in his self-satire.

" I assure you, my dear," he continued, " that the
recollection of what I suffered from the Laphams at
that dinner of yours is an anguish still. It wasn't
their behaviour, — they behaved well enough — or ill

378 THE RISE OF

enough ; but their conversation was terrible. Mrs.
Lapham's range was strictly domestic; and when
the Colonel got me in the library, he poured mineral
paint all over me, till I could have been safely
warranted not to crack or scale in any climate. I
suppose we shall have to see a good deal of them.
They will probably come here every Sunday night
to tea. It's a perspective without a vanishing-
point"

" It may not be so bad, after all," said his wife ;
and she suggested for his consolation that he knew
very little about the Laphams yet.

He assented to the fact. " I know very little
about them, and about my other fellow-beings. I
dare say that I should like the Laphams better if I
knew them better. But in any case, I resign my
self. And we must keep in view the fact that this
is mainly Tom's affair, and if his affections have
regulated it to his satisfaction, we must be content."

" Oh yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. " And perhaps it
won't turn out so badly. It's a great comfort to
know that you feel just as I do about it."

" I do," said her husband, " and more too."

It was she and her daughters who would be
chiefly annoyed by the Lapham connection ; she
knew that. But she had to begin to bear the
burden by helping her husband to , bear his light
share of it. To see him so depressed dismayed her,
and she might well have reproached him more
sharply than she did for showing so much indiffer
ence, when she was so anxious, at first. But that

SILAS LAPHAM. 379

rould not have served any good end now. She
even answered him patiently when he asked her,
" What did you say to Tom when he told you it
was the other one ? "

" What could I say 1 I could do nothing, but
try to take back what I had said against her."

" Yes, you had quite enough to do, I suppose.
It 's an awkward business. If it had been the pretty
one, her beauty would have been our excuse. But
the plain one — what do you suppose attracted him
in her ? "

Mrs. Corey sighed at the futility of the question.
" Perhaps I did her injustice. I only saw her a few
moments. Perhaps I got a false impression. I
don't think she 's lacking in sense, and that 's a great
thing. She '11 be quick to see that we don't mean
unkindness, and can't, by anything we say or do,
when she's Tom's wife." She pronounced the dis
tasteful word with courage, and went on : " The
pretty one might not have been able to see that.
She might have got it into her head that we were
looking down on her ; and those insipid people are
terribly stubborn. We can come to some under
standing with this one; I'm sure of that." She
ended by declaring that it was now their duty to
help Tom out of his terrible predicament.

" Oh, even the Lapham cloud has a silver lining,"
said Corey. " In fact, it seems really to have all
turned out for the best, Anna ; though it 's rather
curious to find you the champion of the Lapham
side, at last. Confess, now, that the right girl has

380 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

secretly been your choice all along, and that while
you sympathise with the wrong one, you rejoice in
the tenacity with which the right one is clinging to
her own ! " He added with final seriousness, " It 's
just that she should, and, so far as I understand the
case, I respect her for it."

"Oh yes," sighed Mrs. Corey. "It's natural,
and it 's right." But she added, " I suppose they 're
glad of him on any terms."

"That is what I have been taught to believe,"
said her husband. " When shall we see our
daughter-in-law elect? I find myself rather im
patient to have that part of it over."

Mrs. Corey hesitated. "Tom thinks we had
better not call, just yet."

"She has told him of your terrible behaviour
when you called before ? "

" No, Bromfield ! She couldn't be so vulgtr as
that?"

" But anything short of it 1 "

XXI.

LAPHAM was gone a fortnight. He was in e
sullen humour when he came back, and kept him
self shut close within his own den at the office the
first day. He entered it in the morning without a
word to his clerks as he passed through the outer
room, and he made no sign throughout the forenoon,
except to strike savagely on his desk-bell from time
to time, and send out to Walker for some book of
accounts or a letter-file. His boy confidentially
reported to Walker that the old man seemed to
have got a lot of papers round ; and at lunch the
book-keeper said to Corey, at the little table which
they had taken in a corner together, in default of
seats at the counter, "Well, sir, I guess there's a
cold wave coming."

Corey looked up innocently, and said, " I haven't
read the weather report."

"Yes, sir," Walker continued, "it's coming.
Areas of rain along the whole coast, and increased
pressure in the region of the private office. Storm •
signals up at the old man's door now."

Corey perceived that he was speaking figuratively,
and that his meteorology was entirely personal to

381

382 THE RISE OF

Lapham. " What do you mean ? " he asked, with
out vivid interest in the allegory, his mind being
full of his own tragi-comedy.

" Why, just this : I guess the old man 's takin' in
sail. And I guess he 's got to. As I told you the
first time we talked about him, there don't any
one know one-quarter as much about the old man's
business as the old man does himself; and I ain't
betraying any confidence when I say that I guess that
old partner of his has got pretty deep into his books.
I guess he 's over head and ears in 'em, and the old
man 's gone in after him, and he 's got a drownin'
man's grip round his neck. There seems to be a kind
of a lull — kind of a dead calm, / call it — in the paint
market just now; and then again a ten-hundred-
thousand-dollar man don't build a hundred-thousand-
dollar house without feeling the drain, unless there 's
a regular boom. And just now there ain't any boom
at all. Oh, I don't say but what the old man 's got
anchors to windward; guess he has; but if he's
goin' to leave me his money, I wish he 'd left it six
weeks ago. Yes, sir, I guess there's a cold wave
comin' ; but you can't generally 'most always tell, as a
usual thing, where the old man 's concerned, and it 's
only a guess." Walker began to feed in his breaded
chop with the same nervous excitement with which
he abandoned himself to the slangy and figurative
excesses of his talks. Corey had listened with a
miserable curiosity and compassion up to a certain
moment, when a broad light of hope flashed upon
him. It came from Laphairi's potential ruin; and

SILAS LAPHAM 383

the way out of the labyrinth that had hitherto
seemed so hopeless was clear enough, if another's
disaster would befriend him, and give him the
opportunity to prove the unselfishness of his con
stancy. He thought of the sum of money that was
his own, and that he might offer to lend, or practi
cally give, if the time came ; and with his crude
hopes and purposes formlessly exulting in his heart,
he kept on listening with an unchanged countenance.

Walker could not rest till he had developed the
whole situation, so far as he knew it. " Look at the
stock we 've got on hand. There 's going to be an
awful shrinkage on that, now ! And when every
body is shutting down, or running half-time, the
works up at Lapham are going full chip, just the
same as ever. Well, it 's his pride. I don't say but
what it 's a good sort of pride, but he likes to make
his brags that the fire 's never been out in the works
since they started, and that no man's work or wages
has ever been cut down yet at Lapham, it don't matter
what the times are. Of course," explained Walker,
" I shouldn't talk so to everybody ; don't know as I
should talk so to anybody but you, Mr. Corey."

" Of course," assented Corey.

" Little off your feed to-day," said Walker, glanc
ing at Corey's plate.

"I got up with a headache."

" Well, sir, if you 're like me you ?11 carry it round
all day, then. I don't know a much meaner thing
than a headache — unless it's earache, or toothache,
or some other kind of ache. I 'm pretty hard to

THE RISE OP

suit, when it comes to diseases. Notice how yellow
the old man looked when he came in this morning ?
I don't like to see a man of his build look yellow —
much."

About the middle of the afternoon the dust-
coloured face of Rogers, now familiar to Lapham's
clerks, showed itself among them. "Has Colonel
Lapham returned yet ?" he asked, in his dry, wooden
tones, of Lapham's boy.

" Yes, he 's in his office," said the boy ; and as
Rogers advanced, he rose and added, " I don't know
as you can see him to-day. His orders are not to
let anybody in."

" Oh, indeed ! " said Rogers ; " I think he will
see me ! " and he pressed forward.

" Well, I '11 have to ask," returned the boy ; and
hastily preceding Rogers, he put his head in at
Lapham's door, and then withdrew it. " Please to
sit down," he said ; " he '11 see you pretty soon ;" and,
with an air of some surprise, Rogers obeyed. His
sere, dull-brown whiskers and the moustache clos
ing over both lips were incongruously and illogically
clerical in effect, and the effect was heightened for
no reason by the parchment texture of his skin ;
the baldness extending to the crown of his head
was like a baldness made up for the stage. What
his face expressed chiefly was a bland and beneficent
caution. Here, you must have said to yourself, is
a man of just, sober, and prudent views, fixed pur
poses, and the good citizenship that avoids debt
and hazard of every kind.

SILAS LAPHAM. 385

" What do you want ? " asked Lapham, wheeling
round in his swivel-chair as Rogers entered his
room, and pushing the door shut with his foot,
without rising.

Rogers took the chair that was not offered him,
and sat with his hat-brim on his knees, and its
crown pointed towards Lapham. " I want to know
what you are going to do," he answered with suf
ficient self-possession.

" I '11 tell you, first, what I 've done" said Lapham.
" I 've been to Dubuque, and I 've found out all
about that milling property you turned in on me.
Did you know that the G. L. & P. had leased the

p. Y. & x. r

"I some suspected that it might."

" Did you know it when you turned the property
in on me 1 Did you know that the G. L. & P.
wanted to buy the mills 1 "

" I presumed the road would give a fair price for
them," said Rogers, winking his eyes in outward
expression of inwardly blinking the point.

" You lie," said Lapham, as quietly as if correct
ing him in a slight error; and Rogers took the
word with equal sang froid. " You knew the road
wouldn't give a fair price for the mills. You knew
it would give what it chose, and that I couldn't
help myself, when you let me take them. You 're
a thief, Milton K. Rogers, and you stole money I
lent you." Rogers sat listening, as if respectfully
considering the statements. "You knew how I
felt about that old matter — or my wife did; and
2 B

386 THE RISE OF

that I wanted to make it up to you, if you felt any
way badly used. And you took advantage of it.
You 've got money out of me, in the first place, on
securities that wan't worth thirty-five cents on the
dollar, and you 've let me in for this thing, and that
thing, and you've bled me every time. And all
I 've got to show for it is a milling property on a
line of road that caft squeeze me, whenever it wants
to, as dry as it pleases. And you want to know
what I 'm going to do ? I 'm going to squeeze you.
I 'm going to sell these collaterals of yours," — he
touched a bundle of papers among others that lit
tered his desk, — " and I 'm going to let the mills go
for what they '11 fetch. / ain't going to fight the
G. L. & P."

Lapham wheeled about in his chair and turned
his burly back on his visitor, who sat wholly un
moved.

" There are some parties," he began, with a dry
tranquillity ignoring Lapham's words, as if they had
been an outburst against some third person, who
probably merited them, but in whom he was so
little interested that he had been obliged to use
patience in listening to his condemnation, — "there
are some English parties who have been making
inquiries in regard to those mills."

" I guess you 're lying, Rogers," said Lapham,
without looking round.

" Well, all that I have to ask is that you will not
act hastily."

"I see you don't think I'm in earnest!"

SILAS LAPHAM. 387

jried Lapham, facing fiercely about. " You think
I 'm fooling, do you ? " He struck his bell, and
u William," he ordered the boy who answered it,
and who stood waiting while he dashed off a note
to the brokers and enclosed it with the bundle
of securities in a large envelope, "take these
down to Gallop & Paddock's, in State Street,
right away. Now go ! " he said to Rogers, when
the boy had closed the door after him ; and he
turned once more to his desk.

Rogers rose from his chair, and stood with his
hat in his hand. He was not merely dispassionate
in his attitude and expression, he was impartial.
He wore the air of a man who was ready to return
to business whenever the wayward mood of his
interlocutor permitted. "Then I understand," he
said, " that you will take no action in regard to the
mills till I have seen the parties I speak of."

Lapham faced about once more, and sat looking
up into the visage of Rogers in silence. " I wonder
what you're up to," he said at last ; "I should like
to know." But as Rogers made no sign of gratify
ing his curiosity, and treated this last remark of
Lapham's as of the irrelevance of all the rest, he said,
frowning, " You bring me a party that will give me
enough for those mills to clear me of you, and I '11
talk to you. But don't you come here with any
man of straw. And I '11 give you just twenty-four
hours to prove yourself a swindler again."

Once more Lapham turned his back, and Rogers,
after looking thoughtfully into his hat a moment,

388 THE RISE OF

cleared his throat, and quietly withdrew, maintain*
ing to the last his unprejudiced demeanour.

Lapham was not again heard from, as Walker
phrased it, during the afternoon, except when the
last mail was taken in to him ; then the sound of
rending envelopes, mixed with that of what seemed
suppressed swearing, penetrated to the outer office.
Somewhat earlier than the usual hour for closing, he
appeared there with his hat on and his overcoat
buttoned about him. He said briefly to his boy,
" William, I shan't be back again this afternoon,"
and then went to Miss Dewey and left a number
of letters on her table to be copied, and went out.
Nothing had been said, but a sense of trouble subtly
diffused itself through those who saw him go out.

That evening as he sat down with his wife alone
at tea, he asked, " Ain't Pen coming to supper ? "

" No, she ain't," said his wife. " I don't know as
I like the way she 's going on, any too well. I 'm
afraid, if she keeps on, she '11 be down sick. She 's
got deeper feelings than Irene."

Lapham said nothing, but having helped himself
to the abundance of his table in his usual fashion,
he sat and looked at his plate with an indifference
that did not escape the notice of his wife. " What 's
the matter with you ? " she asked.

" Nothing. I haven't got any appetite."

" What 's the matter ? " she persisted.

" Trouble 's the matter ; bad luck and lots of it ;s
the matter," said Lapham. "I haven't ever hid
anything from you, Persis, when you asked me, and

SILAS LAPHAM. 389

it 's too late to begin now. I 'm in a fix. I '11 tell
you what kind of a fix, if you think it '11 do you any
good ; but I guess you '11 be satisfied to know that
it's a fix."

" How much of a one 1 " she asked with a look of
grave, steady courage in her eyes.

" Well, I don't know as I can tell, just yet," said
Lapham, avoiding this look. " Things have been
dull all the fall, but I thought they 'd brisk up come
winter. They haven't. There have been a lot of
failures, and some of 'em owed me, and some of 'em
had me on their paper ; and " Lapham stopped.

" And what ? " prompted his wife.

He hesitated before he added, " And then —
Rogers."

" I 'm to blame for that," said Mrs. Lapham. " I
forced you to it."

" No ; I was as willing to go into it as what you
were," answered Lapham. " I don't want to blame
anybody."

Mrs. Lapham had a woman's passion for fixing
responsibility ; she could not help saying, as soon as
acquitted, " I warned you against him, Silas. I told
you not to let him get in any deeper with you."

" Oh yes. I had to help him to try to get my
money back. I might as well poured water into a
sieve. And now — Lapham stopped.

" Don't be afraid to speak out to me, Silas Lap-
ham. If it comes to the worst, I want to know it
— I 've got to know it. What did I ever care for
the money 1 I 've had a happy home with you ever

390 THE RISE OF

since we were married, and I guess I shall have as
long as you live, whether we go on to the Back Bay,
or go back to the old house at Lapham. I know
who's to blame, and I blame myself. It was my
forcing Rogers on to you." She came back to this,
with her helpless longing, inbred in all Puritan souls,
to have some one specifically suffer for the evil in
the world, even if it must be herself.

" It hasn't come to the worst yet, Persis," said
her husband. "But I shall have to hold up on
the new house a little while, till I can see where I
am."

" I shouldn't care if we had to sell it," cried his
wife, in passionate self-condemnation. "I should
be glad if we had to, as far as I 'm concerned."

" I shouldn't," said Lapham.

" I know ! " said his wife ; and she remembered
ruefully how his heart was set on it.

He sat musing. " Well, I guess it 's going to
come out all right in the end. Or, if it ain't," he
sighed, " we can't help it. May be Pen needn't
worry so much about Corey, after all," he continued,
with a bitter irony new to him. " It 's an ill wind
that blows nobody good. And there's a chance,"
he ended, with a still bitterer laugh, " that Eogers
will come to time, after all."

" I don't believe it ! " exclaimed Mrs. Lapham,
with a gleam of hope in her eyes. " What chance 1 "

" One in ten million," said Lapham ; and her face
fell again. " He says there are some English parties
after him to buy these mills."

SILAS LAPHAM. 391

"Well?"

" Well, I gave him twenty-four hour* to prove
himself a liar."

" You don't believe there are any such parties 1 "

" Not in this world."

" But if there were 1 "

" Well, if there were, Persis— But pshaw ! "

" No, no ! " she pleaded eagerly. " It don't seem
as if he could be such a villain. What would be the
use of his pretending ? If he brought the parties to
you "

"Well," said Lapham scornfully, "I'd let them
have the mills at the price Rogers turned 'em in on
me at. / don't want to make anything on 'em. But
guess I shall hear from the G. L. & P. first And
when they make their offer, I guess I '11 have to
accept it, whatever it is. I don't think they'll
have a great many competitors."

Mrs. Lapham could not give up her hope. " If
you could get your price from those English parties
before they knew that the G. L. & P. wanted to
buy the mills, would it let you out with Rogers ? "

" Just about," said Lapham.

"Then I know he'll move heaven and earth to
bring it about. I know you won't be allowed to
suffer for doing him a kindness, Silas. He can't be
so ungrateful ! Why, why should he pretend to have
any such parties in view when he hasn't? Don't
you be down-hearted, Si. You '11 see that he '11 be
round with them to-morrow."

Lapham laughed, but she urged so many reasons

392 THE RISE OF

for her belief in Rogers that Lapham began to re
kindle his own faith a little. He ended by asking
for a hot cup of tea ; and Mrs. Lapham sent the pot
out and had a fresh one steeped for him. After
that he made a hearty supper in the revulsion from
his entire despair ; and they fell asleep that night
talking hopefully of his affairs, which he laid before
her fully, as he used to do when he first started in
business. That brought the old times back, and
he said : " If this had happened then, I shouldn't
have cared much. I was young then, and I wasn't
afraid of anything. But I noticed that after I
passed fifty I began to get scared easier. I don't
believe I could pick up, now, from a regular knock
down."

" Pshaw ! You scared, Silas Lapham ? " cried his
wife proudly. " I should like to see the thing that
ever scared you ; or the knockdown that you couldn't
pick up from ! "

" Is that so, Persis 1 " he asked, with the joy her
courage gave him.

In the middle of the night she called to him, in a
voice which the darkness rendered still more deeply
troubled : " Are you awake, Silas 1 "

"Yes; I'm awake."

" I Ve been thinking about those English parties,
Si "

"So'vel."

" And I can't make it out but what you 'd be just
«,s bad as Eogers, every bit and grain, if you were
to let them have the mills "

SILAS LAPHAM. 393

" And not tell 'em what the chances were with the
G. L. & P. ? I thought of that, and you needn't be
afraid."

She began to bewail herself, and to sob convul
sively : "0 Silas! 0 Silas!" Heaven knows in
what measure the passion of her soul was mixed
with pride in her husband's honesty, relief from an
apprehended struggle, and pity for him.

" Hush, hush, Persia 1" he besought her. " You '11
wake Pen if you keep on that way. Don't cry any
more ! You mustn't."

"Oh, let me cry, Silas! It'll help me. I shall
be all right in a minute. Don't you mind." She
sobbed herself quiet. " It does seem too hard," she
said, when she could speak again, " that you have
to give up this chance when Providence had fairly
raised it up for you."

" I guess it wan't Providence raised it up," said
Lapham. " Any rate, it 's got to go. Most likely
Rogers was lyin', and there ain't any such parties ;
but if there were, they couldn't have the mills
from me without the whole story. Don't you be
troubled, Persis. I 'm going to pull through all
right."

" Oh, I ain't afraid. I don't suppose but what
there's plenty would help you, if they knew you
Tieeded it, Si."

" They would if they knew I didn't need it," said
Lapham sardonically.

" Did you tell Bill how you stood ? "

* No, I couldn't bear to. I Ve been the rich one

394 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

so long, that I couldn't bring myself to own up that
I was in danger."
" Yes."
" Besides, it didn't look so ugly till to-day. But

we shan't let ugly looks scare us."
Ho."

XXIL

THE morning postman brought Mrs. Lapham a
letter from Irene, which was chiefly significant be
cause it made no reference whatever to the writer or
her state of mind. It gave the news of her uncle's
family ; it told of their kindness to her ; her cousin
Will was going to take her and his sisters ice-boating
on the river, when it froze.

By the time this letter came, Lapham had gone to
his business, and the mother carried it to Penelope
to talk over. " What do you make out of it 1 " she
asked ; and without waiting to be answered wshe
said, " I don't know as I believe in cousins marry
ing, a great deal ; but if Irene and Will were to fix
it up between 'em " She looked vaguely at Pene
lope.

" It wouldn't make any difference as far as I was
concerned," replied the girl listlessly.

Mrs. Lapham lost her patience.

" Well, then, I '11 tell you what, Penelope ! " she
exclaimed. " Perhaps it '11 make a difference to
you if you know that your father 's in real trouble.
He 's harassed to death, and he was awake half the
night, talking aterut it That abominable oM Rogers

Mb

396 THE RISE OF

has got a lot of money away from him ; and he *>
lost by others that he 's helped," — Mrs. Lapham put
it in this way because she had no time to be explicit,
— " and I want you should come out of your room
now, and try to be of some help and comfort to
him when he comes home to-night. I guess Irene
wouldn't mope round much, if she was here," she
could not help adding.

The girl lifted herself on her elbow. "What's
that you say about father ? " she demanded eagerly.
" Is he in trouble 1 Is he going to lose his money ?
Shall we have to stay in this house ? "

" We may be very glad to stay in this house," said
Mrs. Lapham, half angry with herself for having
given cause for the girl's conjectures, and half with
the habit of prosperity in her child, which could
conceive no better of what adversity was. " And I
want you should get up and show that you Ve got
some feeling for somebody in the world besides
yourself."

" Oh, I '11 get up f" said the girl promptly, almost
cheerfully.

" I don't say it 's as bad nov as it looked a little
while ago," said her mother, conscientiously hedging
a little from the statement which she had based
rather upon her feelings than her facts. "Your
father thinks he'll pull through all right, and I
don't know but what he will. But I want you
should see if you can't do something to cheer him
up and keep him from getting so perfectly down-
l earted as he seems to get, under the load he 's got

SILAS LAPHAM. 397

to carry. And stop thinking about yourself a while,
and behave yourself like a sensible girl."

" Yes, yes," said the girl ; " I will. You needn't
be troubled about me any more."

Before she left her room she wrote a note, and
when she came down she was dressed to go out-of-
doors and post it herself. The note was to Corey : —

" Do not come to see me any more till you hear
from me. I have a reason which I cannot give you
now ; and you must not ask what it is."

All day she went about in a buoyant desperation,
and she came down to meet her father at supper.

" Well, Persis," he said scornfully, as he sat down,
" we might as well saved our good resolutions till
they were wanted. I guess those English parties
have gone back on Rogers."

" Do you mean he didn't come 1 "

" He hadn't come up to half-past five," said Lap-
ham.

" Tchk ! " uttered his wife.

"But I guess I shall pull through without Mr.
Rogers," continued Lapham. " A firm that I didn't
think could weather it is still afloat, and so far forth
as the danger goes of being dragged under with it,
I 'm all right." Penelope came in. " Hello, Pen 1 "
cried her father. " It ain't often I meet you nowa
days." He put up his hand as she passed his chair,
and pulled her down and kissed her.

" No," she said ; " but I thought I }d come down
to-night and cheer you up a little. I shall not talk ;
the sight of me will be enough."

398 THE RISE OP

Her father laughed out. "Mother been telling
you ? Well, I was pretty blue last night ; but I
guess I was more scared than hurt. How 'd you
like to go to the theatre to-night? Sellers at the
Park. Heigh?"

"Well, I don't know. Don't you think they
could get along without me there ? "

" No ; couldn't work it at all," cried the Colonel.
"Let's all go. Unless," he added inquiringly,
" there 's somebody coming here 1 "

" There 's nobody coming," said Penelope.

" Good ! Then we 11 go. Mother, don't you be
late now."

" Oh, / shan't keep you waiting," said Mrs. Lap-
ham. She had thought of telling what a cheerful
letter she had got from Irene; but upon the whole it
seemed better not to speak of Irene at all just then.
After they returned from the theatre, where the
Colonel roared through the comedy, with continual
reference of his pleasure to Penelope, to make sure
that she was enjoying it too, his wife said, as if the
whole affair had been for the girl's distraction rather
than his, " I don't believe but what it 's going to
come out all right about the children;" and then
she told him of the letter, and the hopes she had
founded upon it.

"Well, perhaps you're right, Persis," he con
sented.

" I haven't seen Pen so much like herself since it
happened. I declare, when I see the way she came
out to-night, just to please you, I don't know as I

SILAS LAPHAM. 399

want you should get over all your troubles right
away."

" I guess there '11 be enough to keep Pen going
for a while yet," said the Colonel, winding up his
watch.

But for a time there was a relief, which Walker
noted, in the atmosphere at the office, and then came
another cold wave, slighter than the first, but dis
tinctly felt there, and succeeded by another relief.
It was like the winter which was wearing on to the
end of the year, with alternations of freezing
weather, and mild days stretching to weeks, in
which the snow and ice wholly disappeared. It was
none the less winter, and none the less harassing for
these fluctuations, and Lapham showed in his face
and temper the effect of like fluctuations in his
affairs. He grew thin and old, and both at home
and at his office he was irascible to the point of
offence. In these days Penelope shared with her
mother the burden of their troubled home, and
united with her in supporting the silence or the
petulance of the gloomy, secret man who replaced
the presence of jolly prosperity there. Lapham had
now ceased to talk of his troubles, and savagely
resented his wife's interference. " You mind your
own business, Persis," he said one day, " if you 've
got any ;" and after that she left him mainly to Pene
lope, who did not think of asking him questions.

" It's pretty hard on you, Pen," she said.

" That makes it easier for me," returned the girl,
who did not otherwise refer to her own trouble.

400 THE RISE OF

In her heart she had wondered a little at the abso
lute obedience of Corey, who had made no sign since
receiving her note. She would have liked to ask
her father if Corey was sick ; she would have liked
him to ask her why Corey did not come any more.
Her mother went on —

" I don't believe your father knows where he stands.
He works away at those papers he brings home here
at night, as if he didn't half know what he was about.
He always did have that close streak in him, and I
don't suppose but what he 's been going into things
he don't want anybody else to know about, and he 's
kept these accounts of his own."

Sometimes he gave Penelope figures to work at,
which he would not submit to his wife's nimbler
arithmetic. Then she went to bed and left them
sitting up till midnight, struggling with problems in
which they were both weak. But she could see that
the girl was a comfort to her father, and that his
troubles were a defence and shelter to her. Some
nights she could hear them going out together, and
then she lay awake for their return from their long
walk. When the hour or day of respite came again,
the home felt it first. Lapham wanted to know
what the news from Irene was ; he joined his wife
in all her cheerful speculations, and tried to make
her amends for his sullen reticence and irritability.
Irene was staying on at Dubuque. There came a
letter from her, saying that her uncle's people wanted
her to spend the winter there. " Well, let her,"
said Lapham. "It'll be the best thing for her."

SILAS LAPHAM. 401

Lapham himself had letters from his brother at
frequent intervals. His brother was watching the
G. L. & P., which as yet had made no offer for
the mills. Once, when one of these letters came, he
submitted to his wife whether, in the absence of
any positive information that the road wanted
the property, he might not, with a good conscience,
dispose of it to the best advantage to anybody
who came along.

She looked wistfully at him ; it was on the rise
from a season of deep depression with him. " No,
Si," she said ; " I don't see how you could do
that."

He did not assent and submit, as he had done at
first, but began to rail at the unpractically of women ;
and then he shut some papers he had been looking
over into his desk, and flung out of the room.

One of the papers had slipped through the crevice
of the lid, and lay upon the floor. Mrs. Lapham kept
on at her sewing, but after a while she picked the
paper up to lay it on the desk. Then she glanced at
it, and saw that it was a long column of dates and
figures, recording successive sums, never large ones,
paid regularly to " Wm. M." The dates covered a
year, and the sum amounted at least to several hun
dreds.

Mrs. Lapham laid the paper down on the desk,
and then she took it up again and put it into her
work-basket, meaning to give it to him. When he
came in she saw him looking absent-mindedly about
for something, and then going to work upon hi»
2c

402 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

papers, apparently without it. She thought she
would wait till he missed it definitely, and then give
him the scrap she had picked up. It lay in her
basket, and after some days it found its way under
the work in it, and she forgot it.

XXIIT.

SINCE New Year's there had scarcely been a mild
day, and the streets were full of snow, growing foul
under the city feet and hoofs, and renewing its purity
from the skies with repeated falls, which in turn lost
their whiteness, beaten down, and beaten black and
hard into a solid bed like iron. The sleighing was
incomparable, and the air was full of the din of
bells ; but Lapham's turnout was not of those that
thronged the Brighton road every afternoon ; the
man at the livery-stable sent him word that the
mare's legs were swelling.

He and Corey had little to do with each other.
He did not know how Penelope had arranged it with
Corey ; his wife said she knew no more than he did,
and he did not like to ask the girl herself, especially
as Corey no longer came to the house. He saw that
she was cheerfuller than she had been, and helpfuller
with him and her mother. Now and then Lapham
opened his troubled soul to her a little, letting his
thought break into speech without preamble or con
clusion. Once he said—

" Pen, I presume you know I 'm in trouble."

403

404 THE RISE OF

" We all seem to be there," said the girl.

" Yes, but there 's a difference between being there
by your own fault and being there by somebody
else's."

" I don't call it his fault," she said.

" I call it mine," said the Colonel.

The girl laughed. Her thought was of her own
care, and her father's wholly of his. She must
come to his ground. " What have you been doing
wrong ? "

" I don't know as you 'd call it wrong. It 's what
people do all the time. But I wish I 'd let stocks
alone. It 's what I always promised your mother I
would do. But there's no use cryin' over spilt
milk ; or watered stock, either."

"I don't think there's much use crying about
anything. If it could have been cried straight, it
would have been all right from the start," said the
girl, going back to her own affair ; and if Lapham
had not been so deeply engrossed in his, he might
have seen how little she cared for all that money
could do or undo. He did not observe her enough
to see how variable her moods were in those days,
and how often she sank from some wild gaiety into
abject melancholy; how at times she was fiercely
defiant of nothing at all, and at others inexplicably
humble and patient. But no doubt none of these
signs had passed unnoticed by his wife, to whom
Lapham said one day, when he came home, " Persis,
what 's the reason Pen don't marry Corey ?"

"You know as well as I do, Silas," said Mrs.

SILAS LAPHAM. 405

Lapham, with an inquiring look at him for what
lay behind his words.

" Well, I think it 's all tomfoolery, the way she 's
going on. There ain't any rhyme nor reason to it."
He stopped, and his wife waited. " If she said the
word, I could have some help from them." He hung
his head, and would not meet his wife's eye.

" I guess you 're in a pretty bad way, Si," she said
pityingly, " or you wouldn't have come to that"

" I 'in in a hole," said Lapham, " and I don't know
where to turn. You won't let me do anything about
those mills — — '

" Yes, I '11 let you," said his wife sadly.

He gave a miserable cry. " You know I can't do
anything, if you do. O my Lord !"

She had Hot seen him so low as that before. She
did not know what to say. She was frightened, and
could only ask, " Has it come to the worst f

" The new house has got to go," he answered
evasively.

She did not say anything. She knew that the
work on the house had been stopped since the be
ginning of the year. Lapham had told the architect
that he preferred to leave it unfinished till the
spring, as there was no prospect of their being able
to get into it that winter ; and the architect had
agreed with him that it would not hurt it to stand.
Her heart was heavy for him, though she could not
say so. They sat together at the table, where she
had come to be with him at his belated meal. She
saw that he did not eat, and she waited for him to

406 THE RISE OF

speak again, without urging him to take anything.
They were past that.

" And I Ve sent orders to shut down at the
Works," he added.

" Shut down at the Works ! " she echoed with
dismay. She could not take it in. The fire at the
Works had never been out before since it was first
kindled. She knew how he had prided himself upon
that ; how he had bragged of it to every listener, and
had always lugged the fact in as the last expression
of his sense of success. " 0 Silas ! "

4 'What's the use?" he retorted. "I saw it was
coming a month ago. There are some fellows out in
West Virginia that have been running the paint as
hard as they could. They couldn't do much ; they
used to put it on the market raw. But lately
they got to baking it, and now they've struck a
vein of natural gas right by their works, and they
pay ten cents for fuel, where I pay a dollar, and
they make as good a paint. Anybody can see where
it's going to end. Besides, the market's over
stocked. It 's glutted. There wan't anything to do
but to shut down, and I 've shut down."

"I don't know what's going to become of the
hands in the middle of the winter, this way," said
Mrs. Lapham, laying hold of one definite thought
which she could grasp in the turmoil of ruin that
whirled before her eyes.

" I don't care what becomes of the hands," cried
Lapham. " They 've shared my luck ; now let 'em
share the other thing. And if you 're so very sorry

SILAS LAPHAM. 407

for the hands, I wish you 'd keep a little of your pity
for me. Don't you know what shutting down the
Works means?"

" Yes, indeed I do, Silas," said his wife tenderly.

" Well, then !" He rose, leaving his supper un-
tasted, and went into the sitting-room, where she
presently found him, with that everlasting confusion
of papers before him on the desk. That made her
think of the paper in her work-basket, and she
decided not to make the careworn, distracted man
ask her for it, after all. She brought it to him.

He glanced blankly at it and then caught it from
her, turning red and looking foolish. " Where 'd
you get that?"

" You dropped it on the floor the other night, and
I picked it up. Who is ' Wm. M."J "

" « Wm. M.' ?" he repeated, looking confusedly at
her, and then at the paper. "Oh, — it's nothing."
He tore the paper into small pieces, and went and
dropped them into the fire. When Mrs. Lapham
came into the room in the morning, before he was
down, she found a scrap of the paper, which must
have fluttered to the hearth ; and glancing at it she
saw that the words were " Mrs. M." She wondered
what dealings with a woman her husband could have,
and she remembered the confusion he had shown
about the paper, and which she had thought was
because she had surprised one of his business secrets.
She was still thinking of it when he came down to
breakfast, heavy-eyed, tremulous, with deep seams
and wrinkles in his face.

4C8 THE RISE OF

After a silence which he did not seem inclined to
break, " Silas/' she asked, " who is ' Mrs. M.' 1 "

He stared at her. " I don't know what you 're
talking about."

" Don't you ? " she returned mockingly. " When
you do, you tell me. Do you want any more coffee ] "

"No."

" Well, then, you can ring for Alice when you 've
finished. I've got some. things to attend to." She
rose abruptly, and left the room. Lapham looked
after her in a dull way, and then went on with his
breakfast While he still sat at his coffee, she flung
into the room again, and dashed some papers down
beside his plate. " Here are some more things of
yours, and I '11 thank you to lock them up in your
desk and not litter my room with them, if you please."
Now he saw that she was angry, and it must be with
him. It enraged him that in such a time of trouble
she should fly out at him in that way. He left the
house without trying to speak to her.

That day Corey came just before closing, and,
knocking at Lapham's door, asked if he could speak
with him a few moments.

" Yes," said Lapham, wheeling round in his swivel-
chair and kicking another towards Corey. " Sit
down. I want to talk to you. I 'd ought to tell you
you're wasting your time here. I spoke the other
day about your placin' yourself better, and I can help
you to do it, yet. There ain't going to be the out
come for the paint in the foreign markets that we
expected, and I guess you better give it up."

SILAS LAPHAM. 409

" I don't wish to give it up," said the young fellow^
setting his lips. " I 've as much faith in it as ever ;
and 1 want to propose now what I hinted at in thc»
first place. I want to put some money into the
business."

" Some money ! " Lapham leaned towards him, and
frowned as if he had not quite understood, while he
clutched the arms of his chair.

" I 've got about thirty thousand dollars that J
could put in, and if you don't want to consider me a
partner — I remember that you objected to a partner —
you can let me regard it as an investment. But I
think I see the way to doing something at once in
Mexico, and I should like to feel that I had some
thing more than a drummer's interest in the ven
ture."

The men sat looking into each other's eyes. Then
Lapham leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his
hand hard and slowly over his face. His features
were still twisted with some strong emotion when
he took it away. " Your family know about
this ? "

" My Uncle James knows. "

" He thinks it would be a good plan for you ? "

" He thought that by this time I ought to be able
to trust my own judgment."

"Do you suppose I could see your uncle at his
office 1 "

" I imagine he 's there."

" Well, I want to have a talk with him, one of
these days." He sat pondering a while, and then

410 THE RISE OP

rose, and went with Corey to his door. " I guess
I shan't change my mind about taking you into the
business in that way," he said coldly. " If there
was any reason why I shouldn't at first, there's
more now."

"Very well, sir," answered the young man, and
went to close his desk. The outer office was empty ;
but while Corey was putting his papers in order it
was suddenly invaded by two women, who pushed
by the protesting porter on the stairs and made
their way towards Lapham's room. One of them
was Miss Dewey, the type-writer girl, and the other
was a woman whom she would resemble in face and
figure twenty years hence, if she led a life of hard
work varied by paroxysms of hard drinking.

"That his room, Z'rillal" asked this woman,
pointing towards Lapham's door with a hand that
had not freed itself from the fringe of dirty shawl
under which it had hung. She went forward with
out waiting for the answer, but before she could reach
it the door opened, and Lapham stood filling its
space.

" Look here, Colonel Lapham !" began the woman,
in a high key of challenge. " I want to know if this
is the way you 're goin' back on me and Z'rilla 1 "

" What do you want 1 " asked Lapham.

" What do I want 1 What do you s'pose I want ?
I want the money to pay my month's rent ; there
ain't a bite to eat in the house ; and I want some
money to market."

Lapham bent a frown on the woman, under which

SILAS LA PH AM. 411

she shrank back a step. " You 've taken the wrong
way to get it. Clear out ! "

" I ivon't clear out ! " said the woman, beginning
to whimper.

" Corey ! " said Lapham, in the peremptory voice
of a master, — he had seemed so indifferent to Corey's
presence that the young man thought he must have
forgotten he was there, — " Is Dennis anywhere
round 1 "

" Yissor," said Dennis, answering for himself from
the head of the stairs, and appearing in the ware-
room.

Lapham spoke to the woman again. "Do you
want I should call a hack, or do you want I should
call an officer ? "

The woman began to cry into an end of her shawl.
" / don't know what we 're goin' to do."

" You 're going to clear out," said Lapham. " Call
a hack, Dennis. If you ever come here again, I '11
have you arrested. Mind that ! Zerrilla, I shall
want you early to-morrow morning."

" Yes, sir," said the girl meekly ; she and her
mother shrank out after the porter.

Lapham shut his door without a word.

At lunch the next day Walker made himself
amends for Corey's reticence by talking a great deal.
He talked about Lapham, who seemed to have, more
than ever since his apparent difficulties began, the
fascination of an enigma for his book-keeper, and he
ended by asking, " Did you see that little circus last
night?"

412 THE RISE OF

" What little circus ? " asked Corey in his turn.

" Those two women and the old man. Dennis
told me about it. I told him if he liked his place
he 'd better keep his mouth shut."

"That was very good advice," said Corey.

" Oh, all right, if you don't want to talk. Don't
know as I should in your place," returned Walker,
in the easy security he had long felt that Corey had
no intention of putting on airs with him. " But I '11
tell you what : the old man can't expect it of every
body. If he keeps this thing up much longer, it 's
going to be talked about. You can't have a woman
walking into your place of business, and trying to
bulldoze you before your porter, without setting your
porter to thinking. And the last thing you want a
porter to do is to think ; for when a porter thinks,
he thinks wrong."

" I don't see why even a porter couldn't think
right about that affair," replied Corey. "I don't
know who the woman was, though I believe she was
Miss Dewey's mother ; but I couldn't see that
Colonel Lapham showed anything but a natural
resentment of her coming to him in that way. I
should have said she was some rather worthless
person whom he 'd been befriending, and that she
had presumed upon his kindness."

" Is that so ? What do you think of his never
letting Miss Dewey's name go on the books ? "

" That .it 's another proof it 's a sort of charity of
his. That 's the only way to look at it."

" Oh, I'm all right." Walker lighted a cigar and

SILAS LAPHAM. 413

began to smoke, with his eyes closed to a fine straight
line. " It won't do for a book-keeper to think wrong,
any more than a porter, I suppose. But I guess you
and I don't think very different about this thing."

" Not if you think as I do," replied Corey steadily;
" and I know you would do that if you had seen the
' circus ' yourself. A man doesn't treat people who
have a disgraceful hold upon him as he treated
them."

" It depends upon who he is," said Walker, taking
his cigar from his mouth. " I never said the old
man was afraid of anything."

"And character," continued Corey, disdaining to
touch the matter further, except in generalities,
" must go for something. If it 's to be the prey of
mere accident and appearance, then it goes for
nothing."

" Accidents will happen in the best regulated
families," said Walker, with vulgar, good-humoured
obtuseness that filled Corey with indignation.
Nothing, perhaps, removed his matter-of-fact nature
further from the commonplace than a certain gene
rosity of instinct, which I should not be ready to say
was always infallible.

That evening it was Miss Dewey's turn to wait for
speech with Lapham after the others were gone.
He opened his door at her knock, and stood looking
at her with a worried air. " Well, what do you want,
Zerrilla ? " he asked, with a sort of rough kindness.

" I want to know what I 'm going to do about
Hen. He 's back again ; and he and mother have

414 THE RISE OF

made it up, and they both got to drinking last night
after I went home, and carried on so that the neigh
bours came in."

Lapham passed his hand over his red and heated
face. " I don't know what I 'm going to do. You 're
twice the trouble that my own family is, now. Bui
I know what I Jd do, mighty quick, if it wasn't for
you, Zerrilla," he went on relentingly. " I 'd shut
your mother up somewheres, and if I could get that
fellow off for a three years' voyage "

" I declare," said Miss Dewey, beginning to
whimper, " it seems as if he came back just so often
to spite me. He 's never gone more than a year at
the furthest, and you can't make it out habitual
drunkenness, either, when it 's just sprees. I Jm at
my wit's end."

"Oh, well, you mustn't cry around here," said
Lapham soothingly.

" I know it," said Miss Dewey. " If I could get
rid of Hen, I could manage well enough with mother.
Mr. Wemmel would marry me if I could get the
divorce. He 's said so over and over again."

" I- don't know as I like that very well," said
Lapham, frowning. " I don't know as I want you
should get married in any hurry again. I don't
know as I like your going with anybody else just
yet."

" Oh, you needn't be afraid but what it 11 be all
right. It '11 be the best thing all round, if I can
marry him."

"Well!" said Lapham impatiently; "I can't

SILAS LAPHAM. 41 &

think about it now. I suppose they Ve cleaned
everything out again 1 "

" Yes, they have," said Zerrilla ; " there isn't a
cent left."

" You 're a pretty expensive lot," said Lapham.
" Well, here ! " He took out his pocket-book and
gave he*r a note. " I '11 be round to-night and see
what can be done."

He shut himself into his room again, and Zerrilla
dried her tears, put the note into her bosom, and
went her way.

Lapham kept the porter nearly an hour later. It
was then six o'clock, the hour at which the Laphams
usually had tea ; but all custom had been broken up
with him during the past months, and he did not go
home now. He determined, perhaps in the extremity
in which a man finds relief in combating one care
with another, to keep his promise to Miss Dewey,
and at the moment when he might otherwise have
been sitting down at his own table he was climbing
the stairs to her lodging in the old-fashioned dwelling
which had been portioned off into flats. It was in
a region of depots, and of the cheap hotels, and
* ladies' and gents' " dining-rooms, and restaurants
with bars, which abound near depots ; and Lapham
followed to Miss Dewey's door a waiter from one of
these, who bore on a salver before him a supper
covered with a napkin. Zerrilla had admitted them,
and at her greeting a young fellow in the shabby
shore-suit of a sailor, buttoning imperfectly over the
nautical blue flannel of his shirt, got up from where

416 THE RISE OF

he had been sitting, on one side of the stove, and
stood infirmly on his feet, in token of receiving the
visitor. The woman who sat on the other side did
not rise, but began a shrill, defiant apology.

"Well, I don't suppose but what you'll think
we're livin' on the fat o' the land, right straight
along, all the while. But it 's just like this. When
that child came in from her work, she didn't seem tc
have the spirit to go to cookin' anything, and I had
such a bad night last night I was feelin' all broke
up, and s'd I, what's the use, anyway1? By the
time the butcher 's heaved in a lot o' bone, and made
you pay for the suet he cuts away, it comes to the
same thing, and why not git it from the rest'rant
first off, and save the cost o' your fire 1 s'd I."

" What have you got there under your apron 1 A
bottle ? " demanded Lapham, who stood with his hat
on and his hands in his pockets, indifferent alike to
the ineffective reception of the sailor and the chair
Zerrilla had set him.

"Well, yes, it's a bottle," said the woman, with
an assumption of virtuous frankness. " It 's whisky ;
I got to have southing to rub my rheumatism with."

" Humph ! " grumbled Lapham. " You Ve been
rubbing his rheumatism too, I see."

He twisted his head in the direction of the sailor,
now softly and rhythmically waving to and fro on
his feet.

" He hain't had a drop to-day in this house ! " cried
the woman.

" What are you^ doing around here ? " said Lap-
ham, turning fiercely upon him. "You've got no

SILAS LAPHAM. 417

business ashore. Where 's your ship 1 Do you think
I 'm going to let you come here and eat your wife
out of house and home, and then give money to keep
the concern going 1 "

" Just the very words I said when he first showed
his face here, yist'day. Didn't I, Z'rilla 1 " said the
woman, eagerly joining in the rebuke of her late
boon companion. " You got no business here, Hen,
s'd I. You can't come here to live on me and Z'rilla,
s'd I. You want to go back to your ship, s'd I.
That's what I said."

The sailor mumbled, with a smile of tipsy amia
bility for Lapham, something about the crew being
discharged.

"Yes," the woman broke in, "that's always the
way with these coasters. Why don't you go off on
some them long v'y'ges ] s'd I. It 's pretty hard
when Mr. Wemmel stands ready to marry Z'rilla and
provide a comfortable home for us both — I hain't got
a great many years more to live, and I should like to
get some satisfaction out of 'em, and not be beholden
and dependent all my days, — to have Hen, here,
blockin' the way. I tell him there 'd be more money
for him in the end ; but he can't seem to make up
his mind to it."

" Well, now, look here," said Lapham. " I don't
care anything about all that. It 's your own business,
and I 'm not going to meddle with it. But it 's my
business who lives off me ; and so I tell you all three,
I 'm willing to take care of Zerrilla, and I 'm willing

to take care of her mother "

2D

418 THE RISE OF

"I guess if it hadn't been for that child's father/'
the mother interpolated, "you wouldn't been here
to tell the tale, Colonel Laphain."

"I know all about that," said Laphain. "But
I'll tell you what, Mr. Dewey, I'm not going to
support you"

11 1 don't see what Hen's done," said the old woman
impartially.

" He hasn't done anything, and I 'm going to stop
it. He 's got to get a ship, and he 's got to get out
of this. And Zerrilla needn't come back to work
till he does. I 'm done with you all."

" Well, I vow," said the mother, " if I ever heard
anything like it ! Didn't that child's father lay down
his life for you ? Hain't you said it yourself a hun
dred times ? And don't she work for her money, and
slave for it mornin', noon, and night ? You talk as
if we was beholden to you for the very bread in
our mouths. I guess if it hadn't been for Jim, you
wouldn't been here crowin' over us."

"You mind what I say. I mean business this
time," said Lapham, turning to the door.

The woman rose and followed him, with her bottle
in her hand. " Say, Colonel ! what should you
advise Z'rilla to do about Mr. Wemmel ? I tell her
there ain't any use goin' to the trouble to git a divorce
without she 's sure about him. Don't you think we'd
ought to git him to sign a paper, or something, that
he '11 marry her if she gits it 1 I don't like to have
things going at loose ends the way they are. It ain't
sense. It ain't right."

SILAS LAPHAM. 419

Lapham made no answer to the mother anxious
for her child's future, and concerned for the moral
questions involved. He went out and down the
stairs, and on the pavement at the lower door he
almost struck against Rogers, who had a bag in his
hand, and seemed to be hurrying towards one of the
depots. He halted a little, as if to speak to Lapham ;
but Lapham turned his back abruptly upon him, and
took the other direction.

The days were going by in a monotony of adver
sity to him, from which he could no longer escape,
even at home. He attempted once or twice to talk
of his troubles to his wife, but she repulsed him
sharply ; she seemed to despise and hate him ; but he
set himself doggedly to make a confession to her, and
he stopped her one night, as she came into the room
where he sat — hastily upon some errand that was to
take her directly away again.

" Persis, there 's something I Ve got to tell you."

She stood still, as if fixed against her will, to
listen.

" I guess you know something about it already,
and I guess it set you against me."

" Oh, I guess not, Colonel Lapham. You go your
way, and I go mine. That's all."

She waited for him to speak, listening with a cold,
hard smile on her face.

" I don't say it to make favour with you, because
I don't want you to spare me, and I don't ask you ;
but I got into it through Milton K. Rogers."

" Oh ! " said Mrs. Lapham contemptuously.

420 THE KISE OF

"I always felt the way I said about it — that it
wan't any better than gambling, and I say so now.
It 's like betting on the turn of a card ; and I give
you my word of honour, Persis, that I never was in
it at all till that scoundrel began to load me up with
those wild-cat securities of his. Then it seemed to
me as if I ought to try to do something to get some
where even. I know it 's no excuse ; but watching
the market to see what the infernal things were
worth from day to day, and seeing it go up, and
seeing it go down, was too much for me ; and, to
make a long story short, I began to buy and sell on
a margin — just what I told you I never would do.
I seemed to make something — I did make something ;
and I 'd have stopped, I do believe, if I could have
reached the figure I 'd set in my own mind to start
with ; but I couldn't fetch it. I began to lose, and
then I began to throw good money after bad, just as
I always did with everything that Kogers ever came
within a mile of. Well, what 's the use 1 I lost the
money that would have carried me out of this, and I
shouldn't have had to shut down the Works, or sell
the house, or "

Lapham stopped. His wife, who at first had
listened with mystification, and then dawning in
credulity, changing into a look of relief that was
almost triumph, lapsed again into severity. " Silas
Lapham, if you was to die the next minute, is this
what you started to tell me 1 "

" Why, of course it is. What did you suppose I
started to tell you ? "

SILAS LAPHAM. .21

" And — look me in the eyes ! — you haven't got
anything else on your mind now ? "

"No ! There 's trouble enough, the Lord knows :
but there 's nothing else to tell you. I suppose Pen
gave you a hint about it. I dropped something to
her. I 'vo been feeling bad about it, Persis, a good
while, but I hain't had the heart to speak of it. I
can't expect you to say you like it. I 've been a fool,
I '11 allow, and I 've been something worse, if you
choose to say so ; but that 's all. I haven't hurt
anybody but myself — and you and the children."

Mrs. Lapham rose and said, with her face from
him, as she turned towards the door, " It 's all right,
Silas. I shan't ever bring it up against you."

She fled out of the room, but all that evening she
was very sweet with him, and seemed to wish in all
tacit ways to atone for her past unkindness.

She made him talk of his business, and he told her
of Corey's offer, and what he had done about it. She
did not seem to care for his part in it, however ; at
which Lapham was silently disappointed a little, for
he would have liked her to praise him.

" He did it on account of Pen ! "

"Well, he didn't insist upon it, anyway," said
Lapham, who must have obscurely expected that
Corey would recognise his own magnanimity by
repeating his offer. If the doubt that follows a self-
devoted action — the question whether it was not
after all a needless folly — is mixed, as it was in
Lapham's case, with the vague belief that we might
have done ourselves a good turn without great risk

422 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

of hurting any one else by being a little less unselfish,
it becomes a regret that is hard to bear. Since Corey
spoke to him, some things had happened that gave
Lapham hope again.

" I 'm going to tell her about it," said his wife, and
she showed herself impatient to make up for the
time she had lost. " Why didn't you tell me before,
Silas ? "

" I didn't know we were on speaking terms before,"
said Lapham sadly.

" Yes, that's true," she admitted, with a conscious
flush. " I hope he won't think Pen 's known about
it all this while."

XXIV.

THAT evening James Bellingham came to see
Corey after dinner, and went to find him in his own
room.

"I've come at the instance of Colonel Lapham,"
said the uncle. " He was at my office to-day, and I
had a long talk with him. Did you know that he
was in difficulties 1 "

" I fancied that he was in some sort of trouble.
And I had the book-keeper's conjectures — he doesn't
really know much about it."

"Well, he thinks it time — on all accounts — that
you should know how he stands, and why he de
clined that proposition of yours. I must say he has
behaved very well— like a gentleman."

" I 'm not surprised"

" I am. It 's hard to behave like a gentleman
where your interest is vitally concerned. And Lap-
ham doesn't strike me as a man who 's in the habit
of acting from the best in him always."

" Do any of us ? " asked Corey.

"Not all of us, at any rate," said Bellingham.
"It must have cost him something to say no to

424 THE RISE OF

you, for he 's just in that state when he believes
that this or that chance, however small, would save
him."

Corey was silent. "Is he really in such a bad
way 1 "

" It 's hard to tell just where he stands. I suspect
that a hopeful temperament and fondness for round
numbers have always caused him to set his figures
beyond his actual worth. I don't say that he 's been
dishonest about it, but he 's had a loose way of
estimating his assets ; he 's reckoned his wealth on
the basis of his capital, and some of his capital is
borrowed. He 's lost heavily by some of the recent
failures, and there 's been a terrible shrinkage in his
values. I don't mean merely in the stock of paint
on hand, but in a kind of competition which has be
come very threatening. You know about that West
Virginian paint ? "

Corey nodded.

" Well, he tells me that they Ve struck a vein of
natural gas out there which will enable them to
make as good a paint as his own at a cost of manu
facturing so low that they can undersell him every
where. If this proves to be the case, it will not only
drive his paint out of the market, but will reduce
the value of his Works— the whole plant— at Lap-
ham to a merely nominal figure."

" I see," said Corey dejectedly. " I Ve understood
that he had put a great deal of money into his
Works."

" Yes, and he estimated his mine there at a high

SILAS LAPHAM. 425

figure. Of course it will be worth little or nothing
if the West Virginia paint drives his out. Then, be
sides, Lapham has been into several things outside
of his own business, and, like a good many other
men who try outside things, he's kept account of
them himself; and he's all mixed up about them.
He 's asked me to look into his affairs with him, and
I 've promised to do so. Whether he can be tided
over his difficulties remains to be seen. I rm afraid
it will take a good deal of money to do it — a great
deal more than he thinks, at least. He believes com
paratively little would do it. I think differently. I
think that anything less than a great deal would be
thrown away on him. If it were merely a question
of a certain sum — even a large sum — to keep him
going, it might be managed ; but it 's much more
complicated. And, as I say, it must have been »
trial to him to refuse your offer."

This did not seem to be the way in which Belling-
ham had meant to conclude. But he said no more ;
and Corey made him no response.

He remained pondering the case, now hopefully,
now doubtfully, and wondering, whatever his mood
was, whether Penelope knew anything of the fact
with which her mother went nearly at the same
moment to acquaint her.

" Of course, he 's done it on your account," Mrs.
Lapham could not help saying.

" Then he was very silly. Does he think I would
let him give father money ? And if father lost it for
him, does he suppose it would make it any easier for

426 THE R!SE OF

me1? I think father acted twice as well. It was
very silly."

In repeating the censure, her look was not so
severe as her tone ; she even smiled a little, and her
mother reported to her father that she acted more
like herself than she had yet since Corey's offer.

" I think, if he was to repeat his offer, she would
have him now," said Mrs. Lapham.

"Well, I'll let her know if he does,"' said the
Colonel.

" I guess he won't do it to you ! " she cried.

" Who else will he do it to ? " he demanded.

They perceived that they had each been talking
of a different offer.

After Lapham went to his business in the morning
the postman brought another letter from Irene,
which was full of pleasant things that were happen
ing to her ; there was a great deal about her cousin
Will, as she called him. At the end she had written,
" Tell Pen I don't want she should be foolish."

" There ! " said Mrs. Lapham. " I guess it 's going
to come out right, all round ; " and it seemed as if
even the Colonel's difficulties were past. "When
your father gets through this, Pen," she asked im
pulsively, " what shall you do 1 "

"What have you been telling Irene about me 1 "

" Nothing much. What should you do ? "

" It would be a good deal easier to say what I
should do if father didn't," said the girl.

" I know you think it was nice in him to make
your father that offer," urged the mother.

SILAS LAPHAM. 427

" It was nice, yes ; but it was silly," said the
girl. "Most nice things are silly, I suppose," she
added.

She went to her room and wrote a letter. It was
very long, and very carefully written ; and when she
read it over, she tore it into small pieces. She
wrote another one, short and hurried, and tore that
up too. Then she went back to her mother, in the
family room, and asked to see Irene's letter, and read
it over to herself. " Yes, she seems to be having a
good time," she sighed. " Mother, do you think I
ought to let Mr. Corey know that I know about
itl"

" Well, I should think it would be a pleasure to
him," said Mrs. Lapham judicially.

" I 'm not so sure of that — the way I should havQ
to tell him. I should begin by giving him a scolding.
Of course, he meant well by it, but can't you see that
it wasn't very flattering K How did he expect it
would change me 1 "

" I don't believe he ever thought of that."

" Don't you ? Why 1 "

" Because you can see that he isn't one of that
kind. He might want to please you without want-
ing to change you by what he did."

" Yes. He must have known that nothing would
change me, — at least, nothing that he could do. I
thought of that. I shouldn't like him to feel that I
couldn't appreciate it, even if I did think it was silly,
Should you write to him ?"

" I don't see why not."

428 THE RISE OF

" It would be too pointed. No, I shall just let it
go. I wish he hadn't done it."

"Well, he has done it."

"And I've tried to write to him about it — two
letters : one so humble and grateful that it couldn't
stand up on its edge, and the other so pert and flip
pant. Mother, I wish you could have seen those
two letters ! I wish I had kept them to look at if I
ever got to thinking I had any sense again. They
would take the conceit out of me."

" What 's the reason he don't come here any more? "

"Doesn't he come?" asked Penelope in turn, as
if it were something she had not noticed particularly.

"You'd ought to know."

"Yes." She sat silent a while. "If he doesn't
come, I suppose it 's because he 's offended at some
thing I did."

"What did you do?"

" Nothing. I — wrote to him — a little while ago.
I suppose it was very blunt, but I didn't believe he
would be angry at it. But this — this that he 's done
shows he was "angry, and that he wasn't just seizing
the first chance to get out of it."

"What have you done, Pen ?"' demanded her
mother sharply.

" Oh, I don't know. All the mischief in the world,
I suppose. I '11 tell you. When you first told me
that father was in trouble with his business, I wrote
to him not to come any more till I let him. I said
I couldn't tell him why, and he hasn't been here
since. I 'm sure I don't know what it means."

SILAS LAPHAM. 429

Her mother looked at her with angry severity.
" Well, Penelope Lapham ! For a sensible child,
you are the greatest goose I ever saw. Did you
think he would come here and see if you wouldn't
let him come ? "

" He might have written," urged the girl.

Her mother made that despairing " Tchk ! " with
her tongue, and fell back in her chair. " I should
have despised him if he had written. He 's acted
just exactly right, and you — you 've acted — I don't
know how you 've acted. I 'm ashamed of you. A
girl that could be so sensible for her sister, and
always say and do just the right thing, and then
when it comes to herself to be such a disgusting
simpleton ! "

" I thought I ought to break with him at once,
and not let him suppose that there was any hope for
him or me if father was poor. It was my one
chance, in this whole business, to do anything
heroic, and I jumped at it. You mustn't think, be
cause I can laugh at it now, that I wasn't in earnest,
mother ! I was — dead ! But the Colonel has gone
to ruin so gradually, that he 's spoilt everything. I
expected that he would be bankrupt the next day,
and that then he would understand what I meant.
But to have it drag along for a fortnight seems
to take all the heroism out of it, and leave it as
flat !" She looked at her mother with a smile that
shone through her tears, and a pathos that quivered
round her jesting lips. "It's easy enough to be
sensible for other people. But when it comes to

430 THE RISE OF

myself, there I am ! Especially, when I want to do
what I oughtn't so much that it seems as if doing
what I didn't want to do must be doing what I ought !
But it 's been a great success one way, mother. It 's
helped me to keep up before the Colonel. If it
hadn't been for Mr. Corey 's staying away, and my
feeling so indignant with him for having been badly
treated by me, I shouldn't have been worth anything
at all."

The tears started down her cheeks, but her mother
said, " Well, now, go along, and write to him. It
don't matter what you say, much ; and don't be so
very particular."

Her third attempt at a letter pleased her scarcely
better than the rest, but she sent it, though it seemed
so blunt and awkward. She wrote : —

BEAR FRIEND, — I expected when I sent you that note,
that you would understand, almost the next day, why I
could not see you any more. You must know now, and
you must not think that if anything happened to my
father, I should wish you to help him. But that is no
reason why I should not thank you, and I do thank you,
for offering. It was like you, I will say that.

Yours sincerely, PENELOPE LAPHAM.

She posted her letter, and he sent his reply in the
evening, by hand : —

DEAREST, — What I did was nothing, till you praised it.
Everything I have and am is yours. Won't you send a line
by the bearer, to say that I may come to see you ? I know
how you feel ; but I am sure that I cau make you think

SILAS LAPHAM 431

differently. You must consider that I loved you without
a thought of your father's circumstances, and always shall.

T. C.

The generous words were blurred to her eyes by
the tears that sprang into them. But she could only
write in answer : —

" Please do not come ; I have made up my mind. As
long as this trouble is hanging over us, I cannot see you.
And if father is unfortunate, all is over between us."

She brought his letter to her mother, and told her
what she had written in reply. Her mother was
thoughtful a while before she said, with a sigh, "Well,
I hope you 've begun as you can carry out, Pen."

" Oh, I shall not have to carry out at all. I shall
not have to do anything. That 's one comfort — the
only comfort." She went away to her own room,
and when Mrs. Lapham told her husband of the
affair, he was silent at first, as she had been. Then
he said, " I don't know as I should have wanted her
to done differently ; I don't know as she could. If
I ever come right again, she won't have anything to
feel meeching about ; and if I don't, I don't want
she should be beholden to anybody. And I guess
that 's the way she feels."

The Coreys in their turn sat in judgment on the
fact which their son felt bound to bring to their
knowledge.

" She has behaved very well," said Mrs. Corey, to
whom her son had spoken.

" My dear," said her husband, with his laugh,

432 THE RISE OF

" she has behaved too well. If she had studied the
whole situation with the most artful eye to its
mastery, she could not possibly have behaved
better."

The process of Lapham's financial disintegration
was like the course of some chronic disorder, which
has fastened itself upon the constitution, but advances
with continual reliefs, with apparent amelioration,
and at times seems not to advance at all, when it
gives hope of final recovery not only to the sufferer,
but to the eye of science itself. There were moments
when James Bellingham, seeing Lapham pass this
crisis and that, began to fancy that he might pull
through altogether ; and at these moments, when his
adviser could not oppose anything but experience
and probability to the evidence of the fact, Lapham
was buoyant with courage, and imparted his hopeful
ness to his household. Our theory of disaster, of
sorrow, of affliction, borrowed from the poets and
novelists, is that it is incessant ; but every passage in
our own lives and in the lives of others, so far as we
have witnessed them, teaches us that this is false.
The house of mourning is decorously darkened to the
world, but within itself it is also the house of laugh
ing. Bursts of gaiety, as heartfelt as its grief, re
lieve the gloom, and the stricken survivors have
their jests together, in which the thought of the
dead is tenderly involved, and a fond sense, not
crazier than many others, of sympathy and enjoy
ment beyond the silence, justifies the sunnier mood
before sorrow rushes back, deploring and de-

SILAS LAPHAM. 433

spairing, and making it all up again with the
conventional fitness of things. Lapham's adver
sity had this quality in common with bereave
ment It was not always like the adversity we
figure in allegory ; it had its moments of being
like prosperity, and if upon the whole it was
continual, it was not incessant. Sometimes there
was a week of repeated reverses, when he had to
keep his teeth set and to hold on hard to all his
hopefulness ; and then days came of negative result
or slight, success, when he was full of his jokes at
the tea-table, and wanted to go to the theatre, or to
do something to cheer Penelope up. In some mira
culous way, by some enormous stroke of success
which should eclipse the brightest of his past pro
sperity, he expected to do what would reconcile all
difficulties, not only in his own affairs, but in hers
too. " You '11 see," he said to his wife ; " it 's going
to come out all right. Irene '11 fix it up with Bill's
boy, and then she '11 be off Pen's mind ; and if things
go on as they 've been going for the last two days,
I 'm going to be in a position to do the favours my
self, and Pen can feel that she 's makin' a sacrifice,
and then I guess may be she 11 do it. If things turn
out as I expect now, and times ever do get any better
generally, I can show Corey that I appreciate his
offer. I can offer him the partnership myself then."
Even in the other moods, which came when every
thing had been going wrong, and there seemed no
way out of the net, there were points of consolation
to Lapham and his wife. They rejoiced that Irene

2E

434 THE RISE OF

was safe beyond the range of their anxieties, and
they had a proud satisfaction that there had been no
engagement between Corey and Penelope, and that it
was she who had forbidden it. In the closeness of
interest and sympathy in which their troubles had
reunited them, they confessed to each other that
nothing would have been more galling to their pride
than the idea that Lapham should not have been able
to do everything for his daughter that the Coreys
might have expected. Whatever happened now,
the Coreys could not have it to say that ,the Lap-
hams had tried to bring any such thing about.

Bellingham had lately suggested an assignment to
Lapham, as the best way out of his difficulties. It
was evident that he had not the money to meet his
liabilities at present, and that he could not raise it
without ruinous sacrifices, that might still end in
ruin after all If he made the assignment, Belling
ham argued, he could gain time and make terms ;
the state of things generally would probably im
prove, since it could not be worse, and the market,
which he had glutted with his paint, might recover
and he could start again. Lapham had not agreed with
him. When his reverses first began it had seemed
easy for him to give up everything, to let the people
he owed take all, so only they would let him go out
with clean hands ; and he had dramatised this feeling
in his talk with his wife, when they spoke together
of the mills on the G. L. & P. But ever since then
it had been growing harder, and he could not con
sent even to seem to do it now in the proposed

SILAS LAPHAM. 435

assignment. He had not found other men so very
liberal or faithful with him ; a good many of them
appeared to have combined to hunt him down ; a
sense of enmity towards all his creditors asserted it
self in him ; he asked himself why they should not
suffer a little too. Above all, he shrank from the
publicity of the assignment. It was open confession
that he had been a fool in some way ; he could not
bear to have his family — his brother the judge,
especially, to whom he had always appeared the
soul* of business wisdom — think him imprudent or
stupid. He would make any sacrifice before it came
to that. He determined in parting with Bellingham
to make the sacrifice which he had oftenest in his
mind, because it was the hardest, and to sell his new
house. That would cause the least comment. Most
people would simply think that he had got a splendid
offer, and with his usual luck had made a very good
thing of it ; others who knew a little more about him
would say that he was hauling in his horns, but they
could not blame him ; a great many other men were
doing the same in those hard times — the shrewdest
and safest men : it might even have a good effect.
He went straight from Bellingham's office to the real
estate broker in whose hands he meant to put his
house, for he was not the sort of man to shilly-shally
when he had once made up his mind. But he found
it hard to get his voice up out of his throat, when he
said he guessed he would get the broker to sell that
new house of his on the water side of Beacon. The
broker answered cheerfully, yes ; he supposed

439 THE RISE OF

Colonel Lapham knew it was a pretty dull time in
real estate 1 and Lapham said yes, he knew that,
but he should not sell at a sacrifice, and he did
not care to have the broker name him or describe
the house definitely unless parties meant business..
Again the broker said yes ; and he added, as a
joke Lapham would appreciate, that he had half a
dozen houses on the water side of Beacon, on the
same terms ; that nobody wanted to be named or to
have his property described.

It did, in fact, comfort Lapham a little to find
himself in the same boat with so many others ; he
smiled grimly, and said in his turn, yes, he guessed
that was about the size of it with a good many
people. But he had not the heart to tell his wife
what he had done, and he sat taciturn that whole
evening, without even going over his accounts, and
went early to bed, where he lay tossing half the night
before he fell asleep, He slept at last only upon the
promise he made himself that he would withdraw
the house from the broker's hands ; but he went
heavily to his own business in the morning without
doing so. There was no such rush, anyhow, he re
flected bitterly ; there would be time to do that a
month later, probably.

It struck him with a sort of dismay when a boy
came with a note from a broker, saying that a party
who had been over the house in the fall had come to
him to know whether it could be bought, and was
willing to pay the cost of the house up to the time
he had seen it. Lapham took refuge in trying to

SILAS LAPHAM. 437

khink who the party could be ; he concluded that it
must have been somebody who had gone over it with
the architect, and he did not like that ; but he was
aware that this was not an answer to the broker,
and he wrote that he would give him an answer in
the morning.

Now that it had come to the point, it did not seem
to him that he could part with the house. So much
of his hope for himself and his children had gone
into it that the thought of selling it made him tremu
lous and sick. He could not keep about his work
steadily, and with his nerves shaken by want of
sleep, and the shock of this sudden and unexpected
question, he left his office early, and went over to
look at the house and try to bring himself to some
conclusion here. The long procession of lamps on
the beautiful street was flaring in the clear red of the
sunset towards which it marched, and Lapham, with
a lump in his throat, stopped in front of his house
and looked at their multitude. They were not merely
a part of the landscape ; they were a part of his pride
and glory, his success, his triumphant life's work
which was fading into failure in his helpless hands.
He ground his teeth to keep down that lump, but the
moisture in his eyes blurred the lamps, and the keen
pale crimson against which it made them flicker. He
turned and looked up, as he had so often done^ at the
window-spaces, neatly glazed for the winter with white
linen, and recalled the night when he had stopped
with Irene before the house, and she had said that
she should never live there, and he had tried to coax

438 THE RISE OF

her into courage about it. There was no such fa$ade
as that on the whole street, to his thinking. Through
his long talks with the architect, he had come to
feel almost as intimately and fondly as the architect
himself the satisfying simplicity of the whole design
and the delicacy of its detail. It appealed to him as
an exquisite bit of harmony appeals to the unlearned
ear, and he recognised the difference between this
fine work and the obstreperous pretentiousness
of the many overloaded house-fronts which Sey
mour had made him notice for his instruction else
where on the Back Bay, Now, in the depths of
his gloom, he tried to think what Italian city it was
where Seymour said he had first got the notion of
treating brick-work in that way. '

He unlocked the temporary door with the key he
always carried, so that he could let himself in and
out whenever he liked, and entered the house, dim
and very cold with the accumulated frigidity of the
whole winter in it, and looking as if the arrest of
work upon it had taken place a thousand years
belore. It smelt of the unpainted woods and the
clean, hard surfaces of the plaster, where the experi
ments in decoration had left it untouched; and
mingled with these odours was that of some rank
pigments and metallic compositions which Seymour
had used in trying to realise a certain daring novelty
of finish, which had not proved successful. Above
all, Lapham detected the peculiar odour of his own
paint, with which the architect had been greatly
interested one day, when Lapham showed it to him

SILAS LAPHAM. 439

at the office. He had asked Lapham to let him try
the Persis Brand in realising a little idea he had for
the finish of Mrs. Lapham's room. If it succeeded
they could tell her what it was, for a surprise.

Lapham glanced at the bay-window in the re
ception-room, where he sat with his girls on the
trestles when Corey first came by ; and then he
explored the whole house to the attic, in the light
faintly admitted through the linen sashes. The
floors were strewn with shavings and chips which
the carpenters had left, and in the music-room these
had been blown into long irregular windrows by the
draughts through a wide rent in the linen sash,
Lapham tried to pin it up, but failed, and stood
looking out of it over the water. The ice had left
the river, and the low tide lay smooth and red in
the light of the sunset The Cambridge flats showed
the sad, sodden yellow of meadows stripped bare
after a long sleep under snow ; the hills, the naked
trees, the spires and roofs had a black outline, as if
they were objects in a landscape of the French
school.

The whim seized Lapham to test the chimney in
the music-room ; it had been tried in the dining-
room below, and in his girls' fireplaces above, but
here the health was still clean. He gathered some
shavings and blocks together, and kindled them, and
as the flame mounted gaily from them, he pulled up
a nail keg which he found there and sat down to
watch it. Nothing could have been better; the
chimney wa» a perfect success; and as Lapham

440 THE RISE OF

glanced out of the torn linen sash he said to himself
that that party, whoever he was, who had offered to
buy his house might go to the devil ; he would never
sell it as long as he had a dollar. He said that he
should pull through yet ; and it suddenly came into
his mind that, if he could raise the money to buy out
those West Virginia fellows, he should be all right,
and would have the whole game in his own hand.
He slapped himself on the thigh, and wondered that
he had never thought of that before ; and then, light
ing a cigar with a splinter from the fire, he sat down
again to work the scheme out in his own mind.

He did not hear the feet heavily stamping up the
stairs, and coming towards the room where he sat ;
and the policeman to whom the feet belonged had to
call out to him, smoking at his chimney-corner, with
his back turned to the door, " Hello ! what are you
doing here ? "

"What's that to you ? " retorted Lapham, wheeling
half round on his nail-keg.

*' I '11 show you," said the officer, advancing upon
him, and then stopping short as he recognised him.
" Why, Colonel Lapham ! I thought it was some
tramp got in here ! "

" Have a cigar 1 " said Lapham hospitably. " Sorry
there ain't another nail-keg."

The officer took the cigar. " I '11 smoke it outside.
I Ve just come on, and I can't stop. Tryin' your
chimney ? "

" Yes, I thought I 'd see how it would draw, in
here. It seems to go first-rate."

SILAS LAPHAM. 441

The policeman looked about him with an eye of
inspection. " You want to get that linen window,
there, mended up."

" Yes, I '11 speak to the builder about that. It can
go for one night."

The policeman went to the window and failed to
pin the linen together where Lapham had failed
before. " / can't fix it." He looked round once
more, and saying, " Well, good night," went cub and
down the stairs.

Lapham remained by the fire till he had smoked
his cigar ; then he rose and stamped upon the embers
that still burned with his heavy boots, and went
home. He was very cheerful at supper. He told
his wife that he guessed he had a sure thing of it
now, and in another twenty-four hours he should tell
her just how. He made Penelope go to the theatre
with him, and when they came out, after the play,
the night was so fine that he said they must walk
round by the new house and take a look at it in the
starlight. He said he had been there before l>e came
home, and tried Seymour's chimney in the music-
room, and it worked like a charm.

As they drew near Beacon Street they were aware
of unwonted stir and tumult, and presently the still
air transmitted a turmoil of sound, through which a
powerful and incessant throbbing made itself felt.
The sky had reddened above them, and turning the
corner at th« Public Garden, they saw a black mass
of people obstructing the perspective of the brightly-
lighted street, and out of this mass a half-dozen

442 THE RISE OF

engines, whose strong heart-beats had already reached
them, sent up volumes of fire-tinged smoke and
steam from their funnels. Ladders were planted
against the fa$ade of a building, from the roof of
which a mass of flame burnt smoothly upward, except
where here and there it seemed to pull contemp
tuously away from the heavy streams of water which
the firemen, clinging like great beetles to their
ladders, poured in upon it.

Lapham had no need to walk down through the
crowd, gazing and gossiping, with shouts and cries
and hysterical laughter, before the burning house, to
make sure that it was his.

" I guess I done it, Pen," was all he said.

Among the people who were looking at it were a
party who seemed to have run out from dinner in
some neighbouring house ; the ladies were fantas
tically wrapped up, as if they had flung on the first
things they could seize.

" Isn't it perfectly magnificent ! " cried a pretty girl.
" I wouldn't have missed it on any account. Thank
you so much, Mr. Symington, for bringing us out ! "

"Ah, I thought you'd like it," said this Mr.
Symington, who must have been the host; "and
you can enjoy it without the least compunction,
Miss Delano, for I happen to know that the house
belongs to a man who could afford to burn one up
for you once a year."

" Oh, do you think he would, if I came again ? "

"I haven't the least doubt of it We don't do
things by halves in Boston."

^^L& L IAM. 443

"He ought to have had a coat of his noncom-
bustible paint on it," said another gentleman of the
party.

Penelope pulled her father away toward the first
carriage she could reach of a number that had driven
up. " Here, father ! get into this."

" No, no ; I couldn't ride," he answered heavily,
and he walked home in silence. He greeted his wife
with, " Well, Persis, our house is gone ! And I guess
I set it on fire myself;" and while he rummagld
among the papers in his desk, still with his coat and
hat on, his wife got the facts as she could from
Penelope. She did not reproach him. Here was a
case in which his self-reproach must be sufficiently
sharp without any edge from her. Besides, her
mind was full of a terrible thought.

"0 Silas," she faltered, "they'll think you set
it on fire to get the insurance ! "

Lapham was staring at a paper which he held in
his hand. "I had a builder's risk on it, but it
expired last week. It 's a dead loss."

"Oh, thank the merciful Lord !" cried his wife.

" Merciful I " said Lapham. " Well, it 's a queer
way of showing it."

He went to bed, and fell into the deep sleep
which sometimes follows a great moral shock It
was perhaps rather a torpor than a sleep.

XXV.

LAPHAM awoke confused, and in a kind of remote
ness from the loss of the night before, through
which it loomed mistily. But before he lifted his
head from the pillow, it gathered substance and
weight against which it needed all his will to bear
up and live. In that moment he wished that he had
not wakened, that he might never have wakened;
but he rose, and faced the day and its cares.

The morning papers brought the report of the fire,
and the conjectured loss. The reporters somehow
had found out the fact that the loss fell entirely
upon Lapham , they lighted up the hackneyed char
acter of their statements with the picturesque
interest of the coincidence that the policy had
expired only the week before ; heaven knows how
they knew it. They said that nothing remained of
the building but the walls ; and Lapham, on his way
to business, walked up past the Asmoke-stained shell.
The windows looked like the eye-sockets of a skull
down upon the blackened and trampled snow of the
street; the pavement was a sheet of ice, and the
water from the engines had frozen, like stream* of

THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM. 445

tears, down the face of the house, and hung in icy
tags from the window-sills and copings.

He gathered himself up as well as he could, and
went on to his office. The chance of retrieval that
had flashed upon him, as he sat smoking by that
ruined hearth the evening before, stood him in such
stead now as a sole hope may ; and he said to him
self that, having resolved not to sell his house, he
was no more crippled by its loss than he would have
been by letting his money lie idle in it ; what he
might have raised by mortgage on it could be made
up in some other way ; and if they would sell he
could still buy out the whole business of that West
Virginia company, mines, plant, stock on hand, good
will, and everything, and unite it with his own. He
went early in the afternoon to see Bellingham,
whose expressions of condolence for his loss he cut
short with as much politeness as he knew how to
throw into his impatience. Bellingham seemed at
first a little dazzled with the splendid courage of his
scheme ; it was certainly fine in its way ; but then
he began to have his misgivings.

" I happen to know that they haven't got much
money behind them," urged Lapham. "They'll
jump at an offer."

Bellingham shook his head. " If they can show
profit on the old manufacture, and prove they can
make their paint still cheaper and better hereafter,
they can have all the money they want And it
will be very difficult for you to raise it if you're
threatened by them. With that competition, you

446 THE RISE OF

know what your plant at Lapham would be worth,
and what the shrinkage on your manufactured stock
would be. Better sell out to them," he concluded,
" if they will buy."

" There ain't money enough in this country to buy
out my paint," said Lapham, buttoning up his coat
in a quiver of resentment. " Good afternoon, sir.*'
Men are but grown-up boys after all. Bellingham
watched this perversely proud and obstinate child
fling petulantly out of his door, and felt a sympathy
for him which was as truly kind as it was helpless.

But Lapham was beginning to see through Belling
ham, as he believed. Bellingham was, in his way,
part of that conspiracy by which Lapham's creditors
were trying to drive him to the wall. More than
ever now he was glad that he had nothing to do
with that cold-hearted, self-conceited race, and that
the favours so far were all from his side. He was
more than ever determined to show them, every one
of them, high and low, that he and his children
could get along without them, and prosper and
triumph without them. He said to himself that if
Penelope were engaged to Corey that very minute,
he would make her break with him.

•He knew what he should do now, and he was
going to do it without loss of time. He was going
on to New York to see those West Virginia people ;
they had their principal office there, and he intended
to get at their ideas, and then he intended to make
them an offer. He managed this business better
than could possibly have been expected of a man in
his impassioned mood. But when it came really to

SILAS LAPHAM. 447

Business, his practical instincts, alert and wary, came
to his aid against the passions that lay in wait to
betray after they ceased to dominate him. He found
the West Virginians full of zeal and hope, but in ten
minutes he knew that they had not yet tested their
strength in the money market, and had not ascer
tained how much or how little capital they could
command. Lapham himself, if he had had so much,
would not have hesitated to put a million dollars into
their business. He saw, as they did not see, that
they had the game in their own hands, and that
if they could raise the money to extend their busi
ness, they could ruin him. It was only a question
of time, and he was on the ground first He frankly
proposed a union of their interests. He admitted
that they had a good thing, and that he should have
to fight them hard ; but he meant to fight them to
the death unless they could come to some sort of
terms. Now, the question was whether they had
better go on and make a heavy loss for both sides
by competition, or whether they had better form a
partnership to run both paints and command the
whole market Lapham made them three proposi
tions, each of which was fair and open : to sell out
to them altogether; to buy them out altogether; to
join facilities and forces with them, and go on in an
invulnerable alliance. Let them name a figure at
which they would buy, a figure at which they would
sell, a figure at which they would combine, — or, in
other words, the amount of capital they needed.

They talked all day, going out to lunch together
at the Astor House, and sitting with their kneea

448 THE RISE OF

against the counter on a row of stools before it for
fifteen minutes of reflection and deglutition, with
their hats on, and then returning to the basement
from which they emerged. The West Virginia
company's name was lettered in gilt on the wide
low window, and its paint, in the form of ore, burnt,
and mixed, formed a display on the window shelf.
Lapham examined it and praised it ; from time to
time they all recurred to it together ; they sent out
for some of Lapham's paint and compared it, the
West Virginians admitting its former superiority.
They were young fellows, and country persons, like
Lapham, by origin, and they looked out with the
same amused, undaunted provincial eyes at the
myriad metropolitan legs passing on the pavement
above the level of their window. He got on well
with them. At last, they said what they would do.
They said it was nonsense to talk of buying Lapham
out, for they had not the money ; and as for selling
out, they would not do it. for they knew they had a
big thing. But they would as soon use his capital
to develop it as anybody else's, and if he could put
in a certain sum for this purpose, they would go in
with him. He should run the works at Lapham
and manage the business in Boston, and they would
run the works at Kanawha Falls and manage the
business in New York. The two brothers with
whom Lapham talked named their figure, subject
to the approval of another brother at Kanawha
Falls, to whom they would write, and who would
telegraph his answer, so that Lapham could have it

SILAS LAPHAM. 449

inside of three days. But they felt perfectly sure
that he would approve ; and Lapham started back
on the eleven o'clock train with an elation that
gradually left him as he drew near Boston, where
the difficulties of raising this sum were to be over
come. It seemed to him, then, that those fellows
had put it up on him pretty steep, but he owned to
himself that they had a sure thing, and that they
were right in believing they could raise the same
sum elsewhere ; it would take all of it, lie admitted,
to make their paint pay on the scale they had the
right to expect. At their age, he would not have
done differently ; but when he emerged, old, sore,
and sleep-broken, from the sleeping car in the
Albany depot at Boston, he wished with a pathetic
self-pity that they knew how a man felt at his age.
A year ago, six months ago, he would have laughed
at the notion that it would be hard to raise the money.
But he thought ruefully of that immense stock of
paint on hand, which was now a drug in the market,
of his losses by Rogers and by the failures of other
men, of the fire that had licked up so many
thousands in a few hours ; he thought with bitter
ness of the tens of thousands that he had gambled
away in stocks, and of the commissions that the
brokers had pocketed whether he won or lost ; and
he could not think of any securities on which he
could borrow, except his house in Nankeen Square,
or the mine and works at Lapham. He set his
teeth in helpless rage when he thought of that
property out on the G. L. & P., that ought to be
2F

450 THE RISE OF

worth so much, and was worth so little if the Koad
chose to say so.

He did not go home, but spent most of the day
shining round, as he would have expressed it, and
trying to see if he could raise the money. But he
found that people of whom he hoped to get it were
in the conspiracy which had been formed to drive
him to the wall. Somehow, there seemed a sense of
his embarrassments abroad. Nobody wanted to
lend money on the plant at Lapham without taking
time to look into the state of the business; but
Lapham had no time to give, and he knew that the
state of the business would not bear looking into.
He could raise fifteen thousand on his Nankeen
Square house, and another fifteen on his Beacon
Street lot, and this was all that a man who was
worth a million by rights could do ! He said a
million, and he said it in defiance of Bellingham,
who had subjected his figures to an analysis which
wounded Lapham more than he chose to show at the
time, for it proved that he was not so rich and not
so wise as he had seemed. His hurt vanity forbade
him to go to Bellingham now for help or advice ;
and if he could have brought himself to ask his
brothers for money, it would have been useless ; they
Were simply well-to-do Western people, but not
capitalists on the scale he required.

Lapham stood in the isolation to which adversity
*o often seems to bring men. When its test was
applied, practically or theoretically, to all those who
had seemed his friends, there was none who bore it ;

SILAS LAPHAM. 451

and lie thought with bitter self-contempt of the
people whom he had befriended in their time of need.
He said to himself that he had been a fool for that ;
and he scorned himself for certain acts of scrupulosity
by which he had lost money in the past. Seeing the
moral forces all arrayed against him, Lapham said
that he would like to have the chance offered him to
get even with them again ; he thought he should
know how to look out for himself. As he understood
it, he had several days to turn about in, and he did
not let one day's failure dishearten him. The morn
ing after his return he had, in fact, a gleam of luck
that gave him the greatest encouragement for the
moment. A man came in to inquire about one of
Rogers's wild cat patents, as Lapham called them, and
ended by buying it. He got it, of course, for less
than Lapham took it for, but Lapham was glad to be
rid of it for something, when he had thought it
worth nothing ; and when the transaction was closed,
he asked the purchaser rather eagerly if he knew
where Rogers was; it was Lapham's secret belief
that Rogers had found there was money in the thing,
and had sent the man to buy it. But it appeared
that this was a mistake ; the man had not come from
Bogers, but had heard of the patent in another way ;
and Lapham was astonished in the afternoon, when
his boy came to tell him that Rogers was in the
outer office, and wished to speak with him.

" All right," said Lapham, and he could not com
mand at once the severity for the reception of
Rogers which he would have liked to use. He found

452 THE RISE OF

himself, in fact, so much relaxed towards him by the
morning's touch of prosperity that he asked him to
sit down, gruffly, of course, but distinctly ; and when
Kogers said in his lifeless way, and with the effect
of keeping his appointment of a month before,
" Those English parties are in town, and would like
to talk with you in reference to the mills," Lapham
did not turn him out-of-doors.

He sat looking at him, and trying to make out
what Rogers was after ; for he did not believe that
the English parties, if they existed, had any notion
of buying his mills.

" What if they are not for sale 1 " he asked. " You
know that I've been expecting an offer from ths
G. L. & P."

"I've kept watch of that. They haven't made
you any offer," said Rogers quietly.

"And did you think," demanded Lapham, firing
up, " that I would turn them in on somebody else
as you turned them in on me, when the chances are
that they won't be worth ten cents on the dollar six
months from now ? "

" I didn't know what you would do," said Rogers
non-committally. " I 've come here to tell you that
these parties stand ready to take the mills off your
hands at a fair valuation — at the value I put upon
them when I turned them in."

" I don't believe you ! " cried Lapham brutally, but
a wild predatory hope made his heart leap so that it
seemed to tun over in his breast. " I don't believe
there are any s'ich parties to begin with ; and in the

SILAS LAPHAM. 453

next place, I don't believe they would buy at any
such figure ; unless — unless you 've lied to them, as
you Ve lied to me. Did you tell them about the

G. L. & p.r

Rogers looked compassionately at him, but he
answered, with unvaried dryness, "I did not think
that necessary."

Lapham had expected this answer, and he had
expected or intended to break out in furious denun
ciation of Rogers when he got it ; but he only found
himself saying, in a sort of baffled gasp, " I wonder
what your game is ! "

Rogers did not reply categorically, but he an
swered, with his impartial calm, and as if Lapham
had said nothing to indicate that he differed at all
with him as to disposing of the property in the
way he had suggested : " If we should succeed in
selling, I should be able to repay you your loans,
End should have a little capital for a scheme that I
think of going into "

" And do you think that I am going to steal these
men's money to help you plunder somebody in a new
scheme1?" answered Lapham. The sneer was on
behalf of virtue, but it was still a sneer.

" I suppose the money would be useful to you too,
\ust now."

"Why?"

" Because I know that you have been trying to
borrow."

At this proof of wicked omniscience in Rogers,
the question whether he had better not regard the

454 THE RISE OF

affair as a fatality, and yield to his destiny, flashed
upon Lapham; but he answered, "I shall want
money a great deal worse than I Ve ever wanted it
yet, before I go into such rascally business with
you. Don't you know that we might as well knock
these parties down on the street, and take the money
out of their pockets ? "

" They have come on," answered Rogers, " from
Portland to see you. I expected them some weeks
ago, but they disappointed me. They arrived on the
Circassian last night ; they expected to have got in
five days ago, but the passage was very stormy."

" Where are they 1 " asked Lapham, with helpless
irrelevance, and feeling himself somehow drifted
from his moorings by Rogers's shipping intelligence.

" They are at Young's. I told them we would call
upon them after dinner this evening ; they dine late."

"Oh, you did, did you?" asked Lapham, trying
to drop another anchor for a fresh clutch on his
underlying principles. " Well, now, you go and tell
them that I said I wouldn't come."

"Their stay is limited," remarked Rogers. "I
mentioned this evening because they were not cer
tain they could remain over another night. But if
to-morrow would suit you better "

" Tell 'em I shan't come at all," roared Lapham,
as much in terror as defiance, for he felt his anchor
dragging. " Tell 'em I shan't come at all ! Do you
understand that?"

"I don't see why you should stickle as to the
matter of going to them," said Rogers ; " but if you

SILAS LAPHAAI. 455

think it will be better to have them approach you,
I suppose I can bring them to you."

" No, you can't ! I shan't let you ! I shan't see
them! I shan't have anything to do with them.
Now do you understand 1"

" I inferred from our last interview," persisted
Rogers, unmoved by all this violent demonstration
of Lapham's, " that you wished to meet these parties.
You told me that you would give me time to pro
duce them; and I have promised them that you
would meet them ; I have committed myself."

It was true that Lapham had defied Rogers to
bring on his men, and had implied his willingness to
negotiate with them. That was before he had talked
the matter over with his wife, and perceived his
moral responsibility in it ; even she had not seen this
at once. He could not enter into this explanation
with Rogers ; he could only say, " I said I 'd give
you twenty-four hours to prove yourself a liar, and
you did it. I didn't say twenty-four days."

"I don't see the difference," returned Rogers. "The
parties are here now, and that proves that I was
acting in good faith at the time. There has been no
change in the posture of affairs. You don't know now
any more than you knew then that the G. L. & P.
is going to want the property. If there 's any dif
ference, it 'a in favour of the Road's having changed
its mind."

There was some sense in this, and Lapham felt it
— felt it only too eagerly, as he recognised the next
instant.

456 THE RISE OF

Rogers went on quietly : " You 're not obliged to
sell to these parties when you meet them ; but you 've
allowed me to commit myself to them by the promise
that you would talk with them."

" Twan't a promise," said Lapham.

"It was the same thing; they have come out
from England on my guaranty that there was such
and such an opening for their capital ; and now what
am I to say to them 1 It places me in a ridiculous
position." Eogers urged his grievance calmly,
almost impersonally, making his appeal to Lapham's
sense of justice. " I can't go back to those parties
and tell them you won't see them. It 's no answer
to make. They 've got a right to know why you
won't see them."

"Very well, then!" cried Lapham; "I'll come
and tell them why. Who shall I ask for 1 When
shall I be there ?"

"At eight o'clock, ' please," said Rogers, rising,
without apparent alarm at his threat, if it was a
threat. "And ask for me; I've taken a room at
the hotel for the present."

" I won't keep you five minutes when I get there,"
said Lapham ; but he did not come away till ten
o'clock.

It appeared to him as if the very devil was in it.
The Englishmen treated his downright refusal to sell
as a piece of bluff, and talked on as though it were
merely the opening of the negotiation. When he
became plain with them in his anger, and told them
why he would not sell, they seemed to have been

SILAS LAPHAM. 457

prepared for this as a stroke of business, and were
ready to meet it.

" Has this fellow," he demanded, twisting his head
in the direction of Rogers, but disdaining to notice
him otherwise, " been telling you that it 's part of
my game to say this 3 Well, sir, I can tell you, on
my side, that there isn't a slipperier rascal unhung
in America than Milton K. Rogers!"

The Englishmen treated this as a piece of genuine
American hurriour, and returned to the charge with
unabated courage. They owned now, that a person
interested with them had been out to look at the
property, and that they were satisfied with the
appearance of things. They developed further the
fact that they were not acting solely, or even
principally, in their own behalf, but were the agents
of people in England who had projected the coloni
sation of a sort of community on the spot, some
what after the plan of other English dreamers, and
that they were satisfied, from a careful inspection,
that the resources and facilities were those best
calculated to develop the energy and enterprise of
the proposed community. They were piepared to
meet Mr. Lapham — Colonel, they begged his pardon,
at the instance of Rogers — at any reasonable figure,
and were quite willing to assume the risks he had
pointed out. Something in the eyes of these men,
something that lurked at an infinite depth below
their speech, and was not really in their eyes when
Lapham looked again, had flashed through him a
sense of treachery in them. He had thought them

458 THE RISE OF

the dupes of Rogers ; but in that brief instant he
had seen them — or thought he had seen them — his
accomplices, ready to betray the interests of which
they went on to speak with a certain comfortable
jocosity, and a certain incredulous slight of his
show of integrity. It was a deeper game than
Lapham was used to, and he sat looking with a sort
of admiration from one Englishman to the other,
and then to Rogers, who maintained an exterior
of modest neutrality, and whose air said, " I have
brought you gentlemen together as the friend of all
parties, and I now leave you to settle it among your
selves. I ask nothing, and expect nothing, except
the small sum which shall accrue to me after the
discharge of my obligations to Colonel Lapham."

While Rogers's presence expressed this, one of the
Englishmen was saying, " And if you have any
scruple in allowin' us to assume this risk, Colonel
Lapham, perhaps you can console yourself with the
fact that the loss, if there is to be any, will fall upon
people who are able to bear it — upon an association
of rich and charitable people. But we 're quite satis
fied there will be no loss," he added savingly. " All
you have to do is to name your price, and we will
do our best to meet it."

There was nothing in the Englishman's sophistry
very shocking to Lapham. It addressed itself in
him to that easy-going, not evilly intentioned,
potential immorality which regards common property
us common prey, and gives us the most corrupt
municipal governments under the sun — which makes

SILAS LAPHAM. • 459

the poorest voter, when he has tricked into place,
as unscrupulous in regard to others' money as an
hereditary prince. Lapham met the Englishman's
eye, and with difficulty kept himself from winking.
Then he looked away, and tried to find out where
he stood, or what he wanted to do. He could
hardly tell. He had expected to come into that
room and unmask Rogers, and have it over. But
he had unmasked Rogers without any effect what
ever, and the play had only begun. He had a
whimsical and sarcastic sense of its being very
different from the plays at the theatre. He could
not get up and go away in silent contempt; he
could not tell the Englishmen that he believed them
a pair of scoundrels and should have nothing to do
with them ; he could no longer treat them as in
nocent dupes. He remained baffled and perplexed,
and the one who had not spoken hitherto remarked—

" Of course we shan't 'aggie about a few pound,
more or less. If Colonel LaphanVs figure should be
a little larger than ours, I 've no doubt 'e '11 not be
too 'ard upon us in the end."

Lapham appreciated all the intent of this subtle
suggestion, and understood as plainly as if it had
been said in so many words, that if they paid him a
larger price, it was to be expected that a certain
portion of the purchase-money was to return to their
own hands. Still he could not move ; and it seemed
bo him that he could not speak.

" Ring that bell, Mr. Rogers," said the English-
man who had last spoken, glancing at the anmincia-

460 . THE RISE OF

tor button in the wall near Rogers's head, "
'ave up something 'ot, can't you 1 I should like to
wet me w'istle, as you say 'ere, and Colonel Lapham
seems to find it rather dry work."

Lapham jumped to his feet, and buttoned his
overcoat about him. He remembered with terror
the dinner at Corey's where he had disgraced and
betrayed himself, and if he went into this thing
at all, he was going into it sober. "I can't stop," he
said, " I must be going."

" But you haven't given us an answer yet, Mr.
Lapham," said the first Englishman with a successful
show of dignified surprise.

"The only answer I can give you now is, No"
said Lapham. " If you want another, you must let
me have time to think it over."

" But 'ow much time '{ " said the other English
man. " We 're pressed for time ourselves, and we
hoped for an answer — 'oped for a hanswer," he
corrected himself, "at once. That was our under-
standin' with Mr. Rogers."

" I can't let you know till morning, anyway," said
Lapham, and he went out, as his custom often was,
without any parting salutation. He thought Rogers
might try to detain him ; but Rogers had remained
seated when the others got to their feet, and paid no
attention to his departure.

He walked out into the night air, every pulse
throbbing with the strong temptation. He knew
very well those men would wait, and gladly wait, till
the morning, and that the whole affair was in hir

SILAS LAPHAM. 46 1

hands. It made him groan in spirit to think that it
was. If he had hoped that some chance might take
the decision from him, there was no such chance, in
the present or future, that he could see. It was for
him alone to commit this rascality — if it was a
rascality— or not.

He walked all the way home, letting one car after
another pass him on the street, now so empty of
other passing, and it was almost eleven o'clock when
he reached home. A carriage stood before his house,
and when he let himself in with his key, he heard
talking in the family-room. It came into his head
that Irene had got back unexpectedly, and that the
sight of her was somehow going to make it harder
for him ; then he thought it might be Corey, come
upon some desperate pretext to see Penelope ; but
when he opened the door he saw, with a certain
absence of surprise, that it was Rogers. He was
standing with his back to the fireplace, talking to
Mrs. Lapham, and he had been shedding tears ; dry
tears they seemed, and they had left a sort of sandy,
glistening trace on his cheeks. Apparently he was
not ashamed of them, for the expression with which
he met Lapham was that of a man making a de
sperate appeal in his own cause, which was identical
with that of humanity, if not that of justice.

"I some expected," began Rogers, "to find you

V »

" No, you didn't," interrupted Lapham ; " you
wanted to come here and make a poor mouth to
Mrs. Lapham before I got home."

462 THE RISE OF

"I knew that Mrs. Lapham would know what
was going on," said Rogers more candidly, but not
more virtuously, for that he could not, "and I
wished her to understand a point that I hadn't put
to you at the hotel, and that I want you should
consider. And I want you should consider me a
little in this business too ; you 're not the only one
that 's concerned, I tell you, and I Ve been telling
Mrs. Lapham that it 's my one chance ; that if you
don't meet me on it, my wife and children will be
reduced to beggary."

"So will mine," said Lapham, "or the next thing
to it."

" Well, then, I want you to give me this chance
to get on my feet again. You 've no right to deprive
me of it ; it 's unchristian. In our dealings with each
other we should be guided by the Golden Rule, as I
was saying to Mrs. Lapham before you came in. I
told her that if I knew myself, I should in your
place consider the circumstances of a man in mine,
who had honourably endeavoured to discharge his
obligations to me, and had patiently borne my
undeserved suspicions. I should consider that man's
family, I told Mrs. Lapham/'

" Did you tell her that if I went in with you and
those fellows, I should be robbing the people who
trusted them 1 "

"I don't see what you've got to do with the
people that sent them here. They are rich people,
and could bear it if it came to the worst. But
there 's no likelihood, now, that it will come to the

SILAS LAPHAM. 463

#orst; you can see yourself that the Road has
changed its mind about buying. And here am I
without a cent in the world ; and my wife is an
invalid. She needs comforts, she needs little luxu
ries, and she hasn't even the necessaries; and you
want to sacrifice her to a mere idea! You don't
know in the first place that the Road will ever want
to buy ; and if it does, the probability is that with a
colony like that planted on its line, it would make
very different terms from what it would with you or
me. These agents are not afraid, and their princi
pals are rich people ; and if there was any loss, it
would be divided up amongst them so that they
wouldn't any of them feel it."

Lapham stole a troubled glance at his wife, and
saw that there was no help in her. Whether she
was daunted and confused in her own conscience by
the outcome, so evil and disastrous, of the reparation
to Rogers which she had forced her husband to
make, or whether her perceptions had been blunted
and darkened by the appeals which Rogers had now
used, it would be difficult to say. Probably there
was a mixture of both causes in the effect which her
husband felt in her, and from which he turned, gird
ing himself anew, to Rogers.

" I have no wish to recur to the past," continued
Rogers, with growing superiority. "You have
.hown a proper spirit in regard to that, and you
have done what you could to wipe it out."

" I should think I had," said Lapham. " I Ve used
up about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars trying."

464 THE RISE OF

"Some of my enterprises," Rogers admitted,
"have been unfortunate, seemingly; but I have
hopes that they will yet turn out well — in time. I
can't understand why you should be so mindful of
others now, when you showed so little regard for me
then. I had come to your aid at a time when you
needed help, and when you got on your feet you
kicked me out of the business. I don't complain,
but that is the fact ; and I had to begin again, after
I had supposed myself settled in life, and establish
myself elsewhere."

t Lapham glanced again at his wife ; her head had
i fallen ; he could see that she was so rooted in her
1 old remorse for that questionable act of his, amply
! and more than fully atoned for since, that she was
helpless, now in the crucial moment, when he had
the utmost need of her insight. He had counted
upon her; he perceived now that when he had
thought it was for him alone to decide, he had
counted upon her just spirit to stay his own in its
struggle to be just. He had not forgotten how she
held out against him only a little while ago, when
he asked her whether he might not rightfully sell in
some such contingency as this ; and it was not now
that she said or even looked anything in favour of
Rogers, but that she was silent against him, which
dismayed Lapham. He swallowed the lump that
rose in his throat, the self-pity, the pity for her, the
despair, and said gently, " I guess you better go to
bed, Persis. It 's pretty late."

She turned towards the door, when Rogers said,

SILAS LAPHAM. 465

with the obvious intention of detaining her through
her curiosity —

" But I let that pass. And I don't ask now that
you should sell to these men."

Mrs. Lapham paused, irresolute.

" What are you making this bother for, then 1 "
demanded Lapham. " What do you want 1 "
f " What I 've been telling your wife here. Lwant
you should sell to me. I don't say what I 'm going
to do with the property, and you will not have an
iota of responsibility, whatever happens."

Lapham was staggered, and he saw his wife's face
light up with eager question.

" I want that property," continued Rogers, " and
I 've got the money to buy it. What will you take
for it ? If it 's the price you 're standing out for —

" Persis," said Lapham, " go to bed," and he gave
her a look that meant obedience for her. She went
out of the door, and left him with his tempter.

" If you think I 'm going to help you whip the
devil round the stump, you 're mistaken in your manf
Milton Rogers," said Lapham, lighting a cigar. " As
soon as I sold to you, you would sell to that other
pair of rascals. / smelt 'em out in half a minute."

" They are Christian gentlemen," said Rogers.
"But I don't purpose defending them ; and I don't
purpose telling you what I shall or shall not do with
the property when it is in my hands again. The
question is, Will you sell, and, if so, what is your
figure 1 You have got nothing whatever to dp with
it after you 've sold."

2G

466 THE RISE OP

It was perfectly true. Any lawyer would have
told him the same. He could not help admiring
Eogers for his ingenuity, and every sejfish interest
of his nature joined with many obvious duties to
urge him to consent. He did not see why he should
refuse. There was no longer a reason. He was
standing out alone for nothing, any one else would
say. He smoked on as if Rogers were not there,
and Rogers remained before the fire as patient as the
clock ticking behind his head on the mantel, and
showing the gleam of its pendulum beyond his face
on either side. But at last he said, " Well f '

" Well," answered Lapham, " you can't expect
me to give you an answer to-night, any more than
before. You know that what you Ve said now
hasn't changed the thing a bit. I wish it had. The
Lord knows, I want to be rid of the property fast
enough."

" Then why don't you sell to me ? Can't you see
that you will not be responsible for what happens
after you have sold ] "

" No, I can't, see that ; but if I can by morning,
I '11 sell"

"Why do you expect to know any better by
morning ? You 're wasting time for nothing ! " cried
Rogers, in his disappointment. u Why are you so
particular 1 When you drove me out of the business
you were not so very particular."

Lapham winced. It was certainly ridiculous for
ft man who had o^ce so selfishly consulted his own
interests to be stickling now about the rights a'
others.

SILAS LAPHAM. 467

"I guess nothing's going to happen overnight,"
he answered sullenly. "Anyway, I shan't say what
I shall do till morning."

" What time can I see you in the morning ?"

" Half-past nine."

Rogers buttoned his coat, and went out of the
room without another word. Lapham followed him
to close the street-door after him.

His wife called down to him from above as he
approached the room again, "Well?"

" I 've told him I 'd let him know in the morning."

"Want I should come down and talk with you ?"

" No," answered Lapham, in the proud bitterness
which his isolation brought, "you couldn't do any
good." He went in and shut the door, and by and
by his wife neard him begin walking up and down ;
and then the rest of the night she lay awake and
listened, to him walking up and down. But when
the first light whitened the window, the words of the
Scripture came into her mind : " And there wrestled
a man with him until the breaking of the day. . . .
And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And
he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me."

She could not ask him anything when they met,
but he raised his dull eyes after the first silence, and
said, " / don't know what I 'm going to say to
Rogers."

She could not speak ; she did not know what to
say, and she saw her husband, when she followed
him with her eyes from the window, drag heavily
down toward the corner, where he was to take the
horse-car.

468 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

He arrived rather later than usual at his office,
and he found his letters already on his table. There
was one, long and official-looking, with a printed
letter-heading on the outside, and Lapham had no
need to open it in order to know that it was the
offer of the Great Lacustrine & Polar Eailroad for
his mills. But he went mechanically through the
verification of his prophetic fear, which was also his
sole hope, and then sat looking blankly at it.

Rogers came promptly at the appointed time, and
Lapham handed him the letter. He must have
taken it all in at a glance, and seen the impossibility
of negotiating any further now, even with victims so
pliant and willing as those Englishmen.

"You've ruined me!" Rogers broke out. "I
haven't a cent left in the world ! God help my poor
wife !"

He went out, and Lapham remained staring at the
door which closed upon him. This was his reward
for standing firm for right and justice to his own
destruction ; to feel like a thief and a murderer.

XXVI

LATER in the forenoon came the despatch from the
West Virginians in New York, saying their brother
assented to their agreement ; and it now remained
for Lapham to fulfil his part of it. He was ludi
crously far from able to do this ; and unless he could
get some extension of time from them, he must lose
this chance, his only chance, to retrieve himself.
He spent the time in a desperate endeavour to raise
the money, but he had not raised the half of it when
the banks closed. With shame in his heart he
went to Bellingham, from whom he had parted so
haughtily, and laid his plan before him. He could
not bring himself to ask Bellingham's help, but he
told him what he proposed to do. Bellingham
pointed out that the whole thing was an experi
ment, and that the price asked was enormous, un
less a great success were morally certain. He advised
delay, he advised prudence ; he insisted that Lapham
ought at least to go out to Kanawha Falls, and see
the mines and works before he put any such sum
into the development of the enterprise.

" That 's all well enough," cried Lapham ; " but if
I don't clinch this offer within twenty-four hours,

470 THE RISE OP

they'll withdraw it, and go into the market; and
then where am 1 1 "

"Go on and see them again," said Bellingham.
"They can't be so peremptory as that with you.
They must give you time to look at what they
*vant to sell. If it turns out what you hope, then
—I'll see what can be done. But look into it
thoroughly."

" Well ! " cried Lapham, helplessly submitting.
He took out his watch, and saw that he had forty
minutes to catch the four o'clock train. He hurried
back to his office, and put together some papers pre
paratory to going, arid despatched a note by his boy
to Mrs. Lapham saying that he was starting for
New York, and did not know just when he should
get back.

The early spring day was raw and cold. As he
went out through the office he saw the clerks at
work with their street-coats and hats on; Miss
Dewey had her jacket dragged up on her shoulders,
and looked particularly comfortless as she operated
her machine with her red fingers. " What 's up ? "
asked Lapham, stopping a moment.

"Seems to be something the matter with the
steam," she answered, with the air of unmerited
wrong habitual with so many pretty women who
have to work for a living.

" Well, take your writer into my room. There 's
a fire in the stove there," said Lapham, passing
out.

Half an hour later his wife came into the outei

SILAS LAPHAM. 471

office. She had passed the day in a passion of self-
reproach, gradually mounting from the mental numb
ness in which he had left her, and now she could
wait no longer to tell him that she saw how she had
forsaken him in his hour of trial and left him to
bear it alone. She wondered at herself in shame
and dismay; she wondered that she could have
been so confused as to the real point by that old
wretch of a Rogers, that she could have let him
hoodwink her so, even for a moment It astounded
her that such a thing should have happened, for if
there was any virtue upon which this good woman
prided herself, in which she thought herself superior
to her husband, it was her instant and steadfast per
ception of right and wrong, and the ability to choose
the right to her own hurt. But she had now to
confess, as each of us has had likewise to confess in
his own case, that the very virtue on which she had
prided herself was the thing that had played her
false; that she had kept her mind so long upon
that old wrong which she believed her husband had
done this man that she could not detach it, but
clung to the thought of reparation for- it when she
ought to have seen that he was proposing a piece of
%roguery as the means. The suffering which Lapham
must inflict on him if he decided against him had
been more to her apprehension than the harm h<
might do if he decided for him. But now she
owned her limitations to herself, and above every
thing in the world she wished the man whom her
conscience had roused and driven on whither her

472 THE RISE OF

intelligence had not followed, to do right, to do
what he felt to be right, and nothing else. She
admired and revered him for going beyond her, and
she wished to tell him that she did not know what
he had determined to do about Rogers, but that she
knew it was right, and would gladly abide the con
sequences with him, whatever they were.

She had not been near his place of business for
nearly a year, and her heart smote her tenderly as
she looked about her there, and thought of the early
days when she -knew as much about the paint as he
did; she wished that those days were back again.
She saw Corey at his desk, and she could not bear
to speak to him ; she dropped her veil that she need
not recognise him, and pushed on to Lapham's room,
and opening the door without knocking, shut it be
hind her.

Then she became aware with intolerable disap
pointment that her husband was not there. Instead,
a very pretty girl sat at his desk, operating a type
writer. She seemed quite at home, and she paid
Mrs. Laphain the scant attention which such young
women often bestow upon people not personally in
teresting to them. It vexed the wife that any one
else should seem to be helping her husband about busi
ness that she had once been so intimate with ; and
she did not at all like the girl's indifference to her
presence. Her hat and sack hung on a nail in one
sorner, and Lapham's office coat, looking intensely
like him to his wife's familiar eye, hung on a nail in
the other corner ; and Mrs. Laphain liked even less

SILAS LAPHAM. 473

than the girl's good looks this domestication of her
garments in her husband's office. She began to ask
herself excitedly why he should be away from his
office when she happened to come ; and she had not
the strength at the moment to reason herself out of
her unreasonableness.

" When will Colonel Lapham be in, do you sup
pose 1 " she sharply asked of the girl.

" I couldn't say exactly," replied the girl, without
looking round.

" Has he been out long ? "

" I don't know as I noticed," said the girl, looking
up at the clock, without looking at Mrs. Lapham.
She went on working her machine.

" Well, I can't wait any longer," said the wife
abruptly. " When Colonel Lapham comes in, you
please tell him Mrs. Lapham wants to see him."

The girl started to her feet and turned toward
Mrs. Lapham with a red and startled face, which
she did not lift to confront her. "Yes — yes— I
will," she faltered.

The wife went home with a sense of defeat mixed
with an irritation about this girl which she could
not/ quell or account for. She found her husband's
message, and it seemed intolerable that he should
have gone to New York without seeing her; she
asked herself in vain what the mysterious business
could be that took him away so suddenly. She said
to herself that he was neglecting her; he was leaving
her out a little too much ; and in demanding of her
self why he had never mentioned that girl there in

474 THE RISE OF

his office, she forgot how much she had left herself
out of his business life. That was another curse of
their prosperity. Well, she was glad the prosperity
was going ; it had never been happiness. After thia
she was going to know everything as she used.

She tried to dismiss the whole matter till Lapham
returned ; and if there had been anything for her to
do in that miserable house, as she called it in her
thought, she might have succeeded. But again the
curse was on her ; there was nothing to do ; and the
looks of that girl kept coming back to her vacancy,
her disoccupation. She tried to make herself some
thing to do, but that beauty, which she had not
liked, followed her amid the work of overhauling the
summer clothing, which Irene had seen to. putting
away in the fall. Who was the thing, anyway 1 It
was very strange, her being there; why did she
jump up in that frightened way when Mrs. Lapham
had named herself ?

After dark, that evening, when the question had
worn away its poignancy from mere iteration, a note
for Mrs. Lapham was left at the door by a messenger
who said there was no answer. " A note for me 1 "
she said, staring at the unknown, and somehow
artificial-looking, handwriting of the superscription.
Then she opened it and read: "Ask your hus
band about his lady copying-clerk. A Friend and
Well-wisher," who signed the note, gave no other
name.

Mrs. Lapham sat helpless with it in her hand.
Her brain reeled ; she tried to fight the madness off;

SILAS LAPHAM. 475

but before Lapham came back the second morning,
it had become, with lessening intervals of sanity and
release, a demoniacal possession. She passed the
night without sleep, without rest, in the frenzy of
the cruellest of the passions, -which covers with
shame the unhappy soul it possesses, and murder
ously lusts for the misery of its object. If she had
known where to find her husband in New York, she
would have followed him ; she waited his return in
an ecstasy of impatience. In the morning he came
back, looking spent and haggard. She saw him
drive up to the door, and she ran to let him in her
self.

" Who is that girl you Ve got in your office, Silas
Lapham 1 " she demanded, when her husband en
tered.

" Girl in my office 1 "

" Yes ! Who is she ? What is she doing there ? "
" Why, what have you heard about her 1 "
" Never you mind what I Ve heard. Who is she ?
Is it Mrs. M. that you gave that money to? I want to
know who she is ! I want to know what a respect
able man, with grown-up girls of his own, is doing
with such a looking thing as that in his office ? I
want to know how long she 's been there 1 I want
to know what she 's there at all for ?"

He had mechanically pushed her before him into
the long, darkened parlour, and he shut himself in
there with her now, to keep the household from
hearing her lifted voice. For a while he stood be
wildered, and could not have answered if he would ;

476 » THE RISE OF

and then he would not. He merely asked, " Have T
ever accused you of anything wrong, Persis ?"

" You no need to !" she answered furiously,
placing herself against the closed door.

" Did you ever know me to do anything out oi
the way?"

" That isn't what I asked you."

" Well, I guess you may find out about that girl
yourself. Get away from the door."

" I won't get away from the door."

She felt herself set lightty aside, and her husband
opened the door and went out. " I will find out
about her," she screamed after him. " I '11 find out,
and I '11 disgrace you. I '11 teach you how to treat
me "

The air blackened round her: she reeled to the
sofa and then she found herself waking from a
faint. She did not know how long she had lain
there ; she did not care. In a moment her madness
came whirling back upon her. She rushed up to his
room ; it was empty ; the closet-doors stood ajar and
the drawers were open ; he must have packed a bag
hastily and fled. She went out and wandered crazily
up and down till she found a hack. She gave the
driver her husband's business address, and told him
to drive there as fast as he could ; and three times
she lowered the* window to put her head out and
ask him if he could not hurry. A thousand things
thronged into her mind to support her in her evil
will. She remembered how glad and proud that
man had been to marry her, and how everybody said

SILAS LAl'HAM. 477

she was marrying beneath her when she took him.
She remembered how good she had always been to
him, how perfectly devoted, slaving early and late to
advance him, and looking out for his interests in all
things, and sparing herself in nothing. If it had not
been for her, he might have been driving stage yet ;
and since their troubles had begun, the troubles which
his own folly and imprudence had brought on them,
her conduct had been that of a true and faithful wife.
Was he the sort of man to be allowed to play her
false with impunity ? She set her teeth and drew
her breath sharply through them when she thought
how willingly she had let him befool her, and delude
her about that memorandum of payments to Mrs. M.,
because she loved him so much, and pitied him for
his cares and anxieties. She recalled his confusion,
his guilty looks.

She plunged out of the carriage so hastily when
she reached the office that she did not think of paying
the driver ; and he had to call after her when she
had got half-way up the stairs. Then she went
straight to Lapham's room, with outrage in her heart.
There was again no one there but that type-writer
girl ; she jumped to her feet in a fright, as Mrs.
Lapham dashed the door to behind her and flung up
her veil.

The two women confronted each other.

44 Why, the good land !" cried Mrs. Lapham, " ain't
you Zerrilla Millon 1"

44 1 — I 'm married," faltered the girl " My name 'a
Dewey, now."

478 THE RISE OF

"You're Jim Millon's daughter, anyway. How
long have you been here ?w

" I haven't been here regularly ; I 've been here
off and on ever since last May."

" Where 's your mother ?"

" She 's here— in Boston."

Mrs. Lapham kept her eyes on the girl, but she
dropped, trembling, into her husband's chair, and a
sort of amaze and curiosity were in her voice instead
of the fury she had meant to put there.

"The Colonel," continued Zerrilla, "he's been
helping us, and he 's got me a type-writer, so that I
can help myself a little. Mother 's doing pretty well
now ; and when Hen isn't around we can get along."

"That your husband]"

" I never wanted to marry him ; but he promised
to try to get something to do on shore ; and mother
was all for it, because he had a little property then,
and I thought may be I 'd better. But it 's turned
out just as I said^ and if he don't stay away long
enough this time to let me get the divorce, — he's
agreed to it, time and again, — I don't know what
we're going to do." Zerrilla's voice fell, and the
trouble which she could keep out of her face usually,
when she was comfortably warmed and fed and
prettily dressed, clouded it in the presence of a
sympathetic listener. " I saw it was you, when you
came in the other day," she went on ; " but you
didn't seem to know me. I suppose the Colonel 's
told you that there's a gentleman going to marry
me — Mr. Wemmel 's his name — as soon as I get the

SILAS LAPHAM. 479

divorce j but sometimes I 'm completely discouraged ;
it don't seem as if I ever could get it."

Mrs. Lapham would not let her know that she was
ignorant of the i'act attributed to her knowledge.
She remained listening to Zerrilla, and piecing out
the whole history of her presence there from the
facts of the past, and the traits of her husband's
sharacter. One of the things she had always had
to fight him about was that idea of his that he was
bound to take care of Jim Millon's worthless wife
and her child because Mil Ion had got the bullet that
was meant for him. It was a perfect superstition of
his ; she could not beat it out of him ; but she had
made him promise the last time he had done any
thing for that woman that it should be the last time.
He had then got her a little house in one of the
fishing uorf.s where she could take the sailors to
board and wash for, and earn an honest living if she
would keep straight. That was five or six years
ago, and Mrs. Lapham had heard nothing of Mrs.
Millon since ; she had heard quite enough of her
before ; and had known her idle and baddish ever
since she was the worst little girl at school in Lum-
berville, and all through her shameful girlhood, and
the married days which she had made so miserable
to the poor fellow who had given her his decent
name and a chance to behave herself. Mrs. Lapham
had no mercy on Moll Millon, and she had quarrelled
often enough with her husband for befriending her.
As for the child, if the mother would put Zerrilla
out with some respectable family, that would be on*

480 THE RISE OF

thing; but as long as she kept Zerrilla with her,
she was against letting her husband do anything for
either of them. He had done ten times as much for
them now as he had any need to, and she had made
him give her his solemn word that he would do no
more. She saw now that she was wrong to make
him give it, and that he must have broken it again
and again for the reason that he had given when she
once scolded him for throwing away his money on
that hussy —

" When I think of Jim Millon, I 've got to ; that Js
all."

She recalled now that whenever she had brought
up the subject of Mrs. Millon and her daughter, he
had seemed shy of it, and had dropped it with some
guess that they were getting along now. She won
dered that she had not thought at once of Mrs.
Millon when she saw that memorandum about Mrs.
M. ; but the woman had passed so entirely out of
her life, that she had never dreamt of her in con
nection with it. Her husband had deceived her, yet
her heart was no longer hot against him, but rather
tenderly grateful that his deceit was in this sort, and
not in that other. All cruel and shameful doubt of
him went out of it. She looked at this beautiful
girl, who had blossomed out of her knowledge since
she saw her last, and she knew that she was only a
blossomed weed, of the same worthless root as her
mother, and saved, if saved, from the same evil
destiny, by the good of her father in her ; but so far
as the girl and her mother were concerned, Mrs.

SILAS LAPHAM. 481

Lapham knew that her husband was to blame for
nothing but his wilful, wrong-headed, kind-hearted*
ness, which her own exactions had turned into
deceit She remained a while, questioning the girl
quietly about herself and her mother, and then, with
a better mind towards Zerrilla, at least, than she had
ever had before, she rose up and went out. There
must have been some outer hint of the exhaustion
in which the subsidence of her excitement had left
her within, for before she had reached the head of
the stairs, Corey came towards her.

" Can I be of any use to you, Mrs. Lapham ? The
Colonel was here just before you came in, on his way
to the train."

" Yes, — yes. I didn't know — I thought perhaps
I could catch him here. But it don't matter. I
wish you would let some one go with me to get a
carriage," she begged feebly.

" I '11 go with you myself," said the young fellow,
ignoring the strangeness in her manner. He offered
her his arm in the twilight of the staircase, and she
was glad to put her trembling hand through it, and
keep it there till he helped her into a hack which he
found for her. He gave the driver her direction,
and stood looking a little anxiously at her.

" I thank you ; I am all right now," she said, and
he bade the man drive on.

When she reached home she went to bed, spent

with the tumult of her emotions and sick with shame

and self reproach. She understood now, as clearly

as if he had told her in as many words, that if he

2H

482 . THE RISE OF

had befriended those worthless jades — the Millon?
characterised themselves so, even to Mrs. Lapham 's
remorse — secretly and in defiance of her, it was be
cause he dreaded her blame, which was so sharp
and bitter, for what he could not help doing. It
consoled her that he had defied her, deceived her ;
when he came back she should tell him that ; and
then it flashed upon her that she did not know
where he was gone, or whether he would ever come
again. If he never came, it would be no more than
she deserved ; but she sent for Penelope, and tried
to give herself hopes of escape from this just
penalty.

Lapham had not told his daughter where he was
going ; she had heard him packing his bag, and had
offered to help him ; but he had said he could do it
best, and had gone off, as he usually did, without
taking leave of any one.

" What were you talking about so loud, down in
the parlour," she asked her mother, " just before he
came up ? Is there any new trouble ?"

" No ; it was nothing."

" I couldn't tell. Once I thought you were laugh
ing." She went about, closing the curtains on account
of her mother's headache, and doing awkwardly and
imperfectly the things that Irene would have done
so skilfully for her comfort.

The day wore away to nightfall, and then Mrs
Lapham said she must know. Penelope said there
was no one to ask; the clerks would all be gone
home, and her mother said yes, there was Mr.

SILAS LAPHAM. 483

Corey ; they could send and ask him ; he would
know.

The girl hesitated. "Very well," she said, then,
scarcely above a whisper, and she presently laughed
huskily. " Mr. Corey seems fated to come in, some
where. I guess it's a Providence, mother."

She sent off a note, inquiring whether he could
tell her just where her father had expected to be
that night ; and the answer came quickly back that
Corey did not know, but would look up the book
keeper and inquire. This office brought him in
person, an hour later, to tell Penelope that the
Colonel was to be at Lapham that night and next
day.

" He came in from New York, in a groat hurry,
and rushed off as soon as he could pack his bag,"
Penelope explained, "and we hadn't a chance to ask
him where he was to be to-night And mother
wasn't very well, and —

" I thought she wasn't looking well when she was
at the office to-day. And so I thought I would come
rather than send," Corey explained in his turn.

"Oh, thank you!"

"If there is anything I can do — telegraph Colonel
Lapham, or anything ?"

" Oh no, thank you ; mother 's better now. She
merely wanted to be sure where he was."

He did not offer to go, upon this conclusion of his
business, but hoped he was not keeping her from her
mother. She thanked him once again, and said no,
that her mother was much better since she had had

484 THE RISE OF

a cup of tea ; and then they looked at each other,
and without any apparent exchange of intelligence
he remained, and at eleven o'clock he was still there.
He was honest in saying he did not know it was so
late ; but he made no pretence of being sorry, and
she took the blame to herself.

" I oughtn't to have let you stay," she said.
" But with father gone, and all that trouble hanging
over us "

She was allowing him to hold her hand a moment
at the door, to which she had followed him.

" I 'm so glad you could let me ! " he said, " and I
want to ask you now when I may come again. But
if you need me, you '11—

A sharp pull at the door-bell outside made them
start asunder, and at a sign from Penelope, who
knew that the maids were abed by this time, he
opened it.

" Why, Irene !" shrieked the girl.

Irene entered with the hackman^ who had driven
her unheard to the door, following with her small
bags, and kissed her sister with resolute composure.
"That's all," she said to the hackman. "I gave
my checks to the expressman," she explained to
Penelope.

Corey stood helpless. Irene turned upon him,
and gave him her hand. " How do you do, Mr.
Corey 1 " she said, with a courage that sent a thrill
of admiring gratitude through him. " Where 's
mamma, Pen ? Papa gone to bed ? "

Penelope faltered out some reply embodying the

SILAS LAPHAM. 485

Micts, and Irene ran up ^he stairs to her mother's
room. Mrs. Lapham started ^D in bed at her
apparition.

" Irene Lapham "

" Uncle William thought he ought to tell me the
trouble papa was in ; and did you think I was going
to stay off there junketing, while you were going
through all this at home, and Pen acting so silly,
too 1 You ought to have been ashamed to let me
stay so long ! I started just as soon as I could pack.
Did you get my despatch 1 I telegraphed from
Springfield. But it don't matter, now. Here I am.
And I don't think I need have hurried on Pen's
account," she added, with an accent prophetic of the
sort of old maid she would become, if she happened
not to marry.

"Did you see him?" asked her mother. "It's
the first time he 's been here since she told him he
mustn't come."

" I guess it isn't the last time, by the looks," said
Irene, and before she took off her bonnet she began
to undo some of Penelope's mistaken arrangements
of the room.

At breakfast, where Corey and his mother met the
next morning before his father and sisters came
down, he told her, with embarrassment which told
much more, that he wished now that she would go
and call upon the Laphams.

Mrs. Corey turned a little pale, but shut her lips
tight and mourned in silence whatever hopes she
had lately permitted herself. She answered with

486 THE RISE OF

Eoman fortitude : " Of course, if there 's anything
between you and Miss Lapham, your family ought
to recognise it."

" Yes," said Corey.

" You were reluctant to have me call at first, but
now if the affair is going on—

" It is ! I hope— yes, it is !"

"Then I ought to go and see her, with your
sisters ; and she ought to come here and — we ought
all to see her and make the matter public. We
can't do so too soon. It will seem as if we were
ashamed if we don't."

" Yes, you are quite right, mother," said the
young man gratefully, ' and I feel how kind and
good you are. I have tried to consider you in this
matter, though I don't seem to have done so ; I
know what your rights are, and I wish with all my
heart that I were meeting even your tastes perfectly.
But I know you will like her when you come to
know her. It 's been very hard for her every way
— about her sister, — and she 's made a great sacrifice
for me. She 's acted nobly."

Mrs. Corey, whose thoughts cannot always be
reported, said she was sure of it, and that . all she
desired was her son's happiness.

" She 's been very unwilling to consider it an
engagement on that account, and on account of
Colonel Lapham's difficulties. I should like to have
you go, now, for that very reason. I don't know
just how serious the trouble is ; but it isn't a time
when we can seem indifferent."

SILAS LAPHAM. 487

The logic of this was not perhaps so apparent to
the glasses of fifty as to the eyes of twenty-six ; but
Mrs. Corey, however she viewed it, could not allow
herself to blench before the son whom she had
taught that to want magnanimity was to be less
than gentlemanly. She answered, with what com
posure she could, " I will take your sisters," and
then she made some natural inquiries about Lap-
ham's affairs.

" Oh, I hope it will come out all right," Corey
said, with a lover's vague smile, and left her.
When his father came down, rubbing his long hands
together, and looking aloof from all the cares of the
practical world, in an artistic withdrawal, from which
his eye ranged over the breakfast-table before he sat
down, Mrs. Corey told him what she and their sou
had been saying.

He laughed, with a delicate impersonal apprecia
tion of the predicament. " Well, Anna, you can't
say but if you ever were guilty of supposing your
self porcelain, this is a just punishment of your
arrogance. Here you are bound by the very quality
on which you 've prided yourself to behave well to
a bit of earthenware who is apparently in danger of
losing the gilding that rendered her tolerable."

"We never cared for the money," said Mrs.
Corey. " You know that."

" No ; and now we can't seem to care for the loss
of it. That would be still worse. Either horn of
the dilemma gores us. Well, we still have the
comfort we had in the beginning; we can't help

488 THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM.

ourselves ; and we should only make bad worse "by
trying. Unless we can look to Tom's inamorata
herself for help."

Mrs. Corey shook her head so gloomily that her
husband broke off with another laugh. But at the
continued trouble of her face, he said, sympatheti
cally . "My dear, I know it's a very disagreeable
affair ; and I don't think either of us has failed to
see that it was so from the beginning. I have had
my way of expressing my sense of it, and you yours,
but we have always been of the same mind about it.
We would both have preferred to have Tom marry
in his own set ; the Laphams are about the last set
we could have wished him to marry into. They are
uncultivated people, and so far as I have seen them,
I 'm not able to believe that poverty will improve
them. Still, it may. Let us hope for the best, and
let us behave as well as we know how. I 'm sure
you will behave well, and I shall try. I'm going
with you to call on Miss Lapham. This is a thing
that can't be done by halves !"

He cut his orange in the Neapolitan manner, and
ate it in quarters.

xxvn

IRENE did not leave her mother in any illusion
concerning her cousin Will and herself. She said
they had all been as nice to her as they could be,
and when Mrs. Lapham hinted at what had been in
her thoughts, — or her hopes, rather, — Irene severely
snubbed the notion. She said that he was as good
as engaged to a girl out there, and that he had
never dreamt of her. Her mother wondered at her
severity; in these few months the girl had toughened
and hardened ; she had lost all her babyish depend
ence and pliability; she was like iron; and her*
and there she was sharpened to a cutting edge. It
had been a life and death struggle with her ; she
had conquered, but she had also necessarily lost
much. Perhaps what she had lost was not worth
keeping; .but at any rate she had lost it.

She required from her mother a strict and accu
rate account of her father's affairs, so far as Mrs
Lapham knew them; and she showed a business
like quickness in comprehending them that Penelope
had never pretended to. With her sister she ignored
the past as completely as it was possible to do and
she treated both Corey and Penelope with the justice

490 THE RISE OF

which their innocence of voluntary offence deserved.
It was a difficult part, and she kept away from them
as much as she could. She had been easily excused,
on a plea of fatigue from her journey, when Mr.
and Mrs. Corey had called the day after her arrival,
and Mrs. Lapham being still unwell, Penelope re
ceived them alone.

The girl had instinctively judged best that they
should know the worst at once, and she let them
have the full brunt of the drawing-room, while she
was screwing her courage up to come down and see
them. She was afterwards — months afterwards-
able to report to Corey that when she entered the
room his father was sitting with his hat on his knees,
a little tilted away from the Emancipation group, as
if he expected the Lincoln to hit him, with that lifted
hand of benediction ; and that Mrs. Corey looked as
if she were not sure but the Eagle pecked. But for
the time being Penelope was as nearly crazed as
might be by the complications of her position, and
received her visitors with a piteous distraction which
could not fail of touching Bromfield Corey's Italian
ised sympatheticism. He was very polite and tender
with her at first, and ended by making a joke with
her, to which Penelope responded, in her sort. He
said he hoped they parted friends, if not quite
acquaintances ; and she said she hoped they would
be able to recognise each other if they ever nn.;
again.

" That is what I meant by her pertness," said Mra
Corey, when they were driving away.

SILAS LAPHAM. 491

" Was it very pert ? " he queried. " The child
had to answer something."

" I would much rather she had answered nothing,
under the circumstances," said Mrs. Corey. " How
ever ! " she added hopelessly.

" Oh, she 's a merry little grig, you can see that,
and there 's no harm in her. I can understand a
little why a formal fellow like Tom should be taken
with her. She hasn't the least reverence, I suppose,
and joked with the young man from the beginning.
You must remember, Anna, that there was a time
when you liked my joking."

" It was a very different thing ! "

" But that drawing room," pursued Corey; " really,
I don't see how Tom stands that. Anna, a terrible
thought occurs to me ! Fancy Tom being married
in front of that group, with a floral horse-shoe iu
tuberoses coming down on either side of it !

" Bromfield ! " cried his wife, " you are unmerci
ful."

" No, no, my dear," he argued ; " merely imagin
ative. And I can even imagine that little thing
finding Tom just the least bit slow, at times, if it
were not for his goodness. Tom is so kind that
I 'm convinced he sometimes feels your joke in his
heart when his head isn't quite clear about it.
Well, we will not despond, my dear."

" Your father seemed actually to like her," Mrs.
Corey reported to her daughters, very much shaken
in her own prejudices by the fact. If the girl were
not so offensive to his fastidiousness, there might be

492 THE RISE OF

some hope that she was not so offensive as Mrs.
Corey had thought " I wonder how she will strike
you" she concluded, looking from one daughter to
another, as if trying to decide which of them would
like Penelope least.

Irene's return and the visit of the Coreys formed
a distraction for the Laphams in which their impend
ing troubles seemed to hang further aloof; but it
was only one of those reliefs which mark the course of
adversity, and it was not one of the cheerful reliefs.
At any other time, either incident would have been
an anxiety and care for Mrs. Lapham which she
would have found hard to bear ; but now she almost
welcomed them. At the end of three days Lapham
returned, and his wife met him as if nothing unusual
had marked their parting ; she reserved her atone
ment for a fitter time; he would know now from the
way she acted that she felt all right towards him.
He took very little note of her manner, but met his
family with an austere quiet that puzzled her, and a
sort of pensive dignity that refined his rudeness to
an effect that sometimes comes to such natures after
long sickness, when the animal strength has been
taxed and lowered. He sat silent with her at the
table after their girls had left them alone, and seeing
that he did not mean to speak, she began to explain
why Irene had come home, and to praise her.

" Yes, she done right," said Lapham. " It was
time for her to come," he added gently.

Then he was silent again, and his wife told hiir
of Corey 's having been there, and of his father 's ant

SILAS LAPHAM. 493

mother 's calling. " I guess Pen 's concluded to
make it up," she said.

" Well, we '11 see about that," said Lapham ; and
now she could no longer forbear to ask him about
his affairs.

" I don't know as I 've got any right to know
anything about it," she said humbly, with remote
allusion to her treatment of him. " But I can't help
wanting to know. ' How are things going, Si 1 "

" Bad," he said, pushing his plate from him, and
tilting himself back in his chair. " Or they ain't
going at all. They 've stopped."

" What do you mean, Si ? " she persisted, ten
derly.

" I 've got to the end of my string. To-morrow I
shall call a meeting of my creditors, and put myself
in their hands. If there's enough left to satisfy
them, I 'm satisfied." His voice dropped in his
throat; he swallowed once or twice, and then did
not speak.

" Do you mean that it 's all over with you 1 " she
asked fearfully.

He bowed his big head, wrinkled and grizzled ;
and after a while he said, " It 's hard to realise it ;
but I guess there ain't any doubt about it." He
drew a long breath, and then he explained to her
about the West Virginia people, and how he had got
an extension of the first time they had given him,
and had got a man to go up to Lapham with him
and look at the works, — a man that had turned up
in New York, and wanted to put money in the

i94 THE RISE OF

business. His money would have enabled Lapham
to close with the West Virginians. " The devil was
in it, right straight along," said Lapham. "All I
had to do was to keep quiet about that other com
pany. It was Kogers and his property right over
again. He liked the look of things, and he wanted
to go into the business, and he had the money —
plenty ; it would have saved me with those West
Virginia folks. But I had to tell him how I stood. I
had to tell him all about it, and what I wanted to
do. He began to back water in a minute, and the
next morning I saw that it was up with him. He 's
gone back to New York. I 've lost my last chance.
Now all I Ve got to do is to save the pieces."

" Will — will— everything go ? " she asked.

" I can't tell, yet. But they shall have a chance
at everything — every dollar, every cent. I 'ia sorry
for you, Persis — and the girls."

" Oh, don't talk of us ! " She was trying to realise
that the simple, rude soul to which her heart clove in
her youth, but which she had put to such cruel proof,
with her unsparing conscience and her unsparing
tongue, had been equal to its ordeals, and had come
out unscathed and unstained. He was able in his
talk to make so little of them ; he hardly seemed to
see what they were ; he was apparently not proud of
them, and certainly not glad; if they were victories of
any sort, he bore them with the patience of defeat.
His wife wished to praise him, but she did not know
how ; so she offered him a little reproach, in which
alone she touched the cause of her behaviour at part-

SILAS LAPHAM. 495

ing. " Silas," she asked, after a long gaze at him, "why
didn't you tell me you had Jim Millon's girl there 1 "

" I didn't suppose you 'd like it, Persis," he
answered. " I did intend to tell you at first, but
then I put — I put it off. I thought you'd come
round some day, and find it out for yourself."

"I'm punished," said his wife, "for not taking
enough interest in your business to even come near
it. If we 're brought back to the day of small things,
I guess it 's a lesson for me, Silas."

"Oh, I don't know about the lesson," he said
wearily.

That night she showed him the anonymous scrawl
which had kindled her fury against him. He turned
it listlessly over in his hand. " I guess I know who
it's from," he said, giving it back to her, "and I
guess you do too, Persis."

"But how — how could he "

" Mebbe he believed it," said Lapham, with,
patience that cut her more keenly than any re
proach. " You did. '

Perhaps because the process of his ruin had been
so gradual, perhaps because the excitement of pre
ceding events had exhausted their capacity for
emotion, the actual consummation of his bankruptcy
brought a relief, a repose to Lapham and his family,
rather than a fresh sensation of calamity. In the
shadow of his disaster they returned to something
like their old, united life ; they were at least all
together again ; and it will be intelligible to those
whom life has blessed with vicissitude, that Lapham

^96 THE RISE OP

should come home the evening after he had given up
everything to his creditors, and should sit down to
his supper so cheerful that Penelope could joke him
in the old way, and tell him that she thought from
his looks they had concluded to pay him a hundred
cents on every dollar he owed them.

As James Bellingham had taken so much interest
in his troubles from the first, Lapham thought he
ought to tell him, before taking the final step, just
how things stood with him, and what he meant to
do. Bellingham made some futile inquiries about
his negotiations with the West Virginians, and
Lapham told him they had come to nothing. He
spoke of the New York man, and the chance that
he might have sold out half his business to him.
" But, of course, I had to let him know how it was
about those fellows."

" Of course," said Bellingham, not seeing till after
wards the full significance of Lapham's action.

Lapham said nothing about Rogers and the
Englishmen. He believed that he had acted right
in that matter, and he was satisfied ; but he did not
care to have Bellingham, or anybody, perhaps, think
he had been a fool.

All those who were concerned in his affairs said
he behaved well, and even more than well, when it
came to the worst. The prudence, the good sense,
which he had shown in the first years of his success,
and of which his great prosperity seemed to have
bereft him, came back, and these qualities, used in
his own behalf, commended him as much to hi?

SILAS LAPHAM. 497

creditors as the anxiety he showed that no one
should suffer by him ; this even made some of
them doubtful of his sincerity. They gave him
time, and there would have been no trouble in his
resuming on the old basis, if the ground had not
been cut from under him by the competition of the
West Virginia company. He saw himself that it
was useless to try to go on in the old way, and he
preferred to go back and begin the world anew
where he had first begun it, in the hills at Lapham.
He put the house at Nankeen Square, with every
thing else he had, into the payment of his debts, and
Mrs. Lapham found it easier to leave it for the old
farmstead in Vermont than it would have been to go
from that home of many years to the new house on
the water side of Beacon. This thing and that is
embittered to us, so that we may be willing to re
linquish it; the world, life itself, is embittered to
most of us, so that we are glad to have done with
them at last ; and this home was haunted with such
memories to each of those who abandoned it that to
go was less exile than escape. Mrs. Lapham could
not look into Irene's room without seeing the girl
there before her glass, tearing the poor little keep
sakes of her hapless fancy from their hiding-places
to take them and fling them in passionate renuncia
tion upon her sister ; she could not come into the
sitting-room, where her little ones had grown up,
without starting at the thought of her husband sitting
so many weary nights at his desk there, trying to
fight his way back to hope out of the ruin into which

498 THE RISE OF

he was slipping. When she remembered that night
when Rogers came, she hated the place. Irene ac
cepted her release from the house eagerly, and was
glad to go before and prepare for the family at Lap-
ham. Penelope was always ashamed of her engage
ment there ; it must seem better somewhere else,
and she was glad to go too. No one but Lapham,
in fact, felt the pang of parting in all its keenness.
Whatever regret the others had was softened to
them by the likeness of their flitting to many of
those removals for the summer which they made in
the late spring when they left Nankeen Square; they
were going directly into the country instead of to
the seaside first ; but Lapham, who usually remained
in town long after they had gone, knew all the dif
ference. For his nerves there was no mechanical
sense of coming back ; this was as much the end of
his proud, prosperous life as death itself could have
been. He was* returning to begin life anew, but he
knew as well as he knew that he should not find his
vanished youth in his native hills, that it could
never again be the triumph that it had been. That
was impossible, not only in his stiffened and weak
ened forces, but in the very nature of things. He
was going back, by grace of the man whom he owed
money, to make what he could out of the one
chance which his successful rivals had left him.

In one phase his paint had held its own against
oad times and ruinous competition, and it was
with the hope of doing still more with the Persis
Brand that he now set himself to work. The West

SILAS LAPHAM. 499

Virginia people confessed that they could not pro
duce those fine grades, and they willingly left the
field to him. A strange, not ignoble friendliness
existed between Lapham and the three brothers;
they had used him fairly ; it was their facilities that
had conquered him, not their ill-will ; and he recog
nised in them without enmity the necessity to which
lie had yielded. If he succeeded in his efforts to
develop his paint in this direction, it must be for a
long time on a small scale compared with his former
business, which it could never equal, and he brought
to them the flagging energies of an elderly man.
He was more broken than he knew by his failure ;
it did not kill, as it often does, but it weakened the
spring once so strong and elastic. He lapsed more
•and more into acquiescence with his changed con
dition, and that bragging note of his \vas rarely
sounded. He worked faithfully enough in his en
terprise, but sometimes he failed to seize occasions
that in his younger days he would have turned to
golden account. His wife saw in him a daunted
look that made her heart ache for him.

One result of his friendly relations with the West
Virginia people was that Corey went in with them,
and the fact that he did so solely upon Lapham's
advice, and by means of his recommendation, was
perhaps the Colonel's proudest consolation'. Corey
knew the business thoroughly, and after half a
year at Kanawha Falls and in the office at New
York, he went out to Mexico and Central Ame
rica, to see what could be done for them upon the

500 THE RISE OF

ground which he had theoretically studied with
Lapham.

Before he went he came up to Vermont, and
urged Penelope to go with him. He was to be
first in the city of Mexico, and if his mission was
successful he was to be kept there and in South
America several years, watching the new railroad
enterprises and the development of mechanical agri
culture and whatever other undertakings offered an
opening for the introduction of the paint. They
were all young men together, and Corey, who had
put his money into the company, had a proprietary
interest in the success which they were eager to
achieve.

" There 'a no more reason now and no less than
ever there was," mused Penelope, in counsel with
her mother, " why I should say Yes, or why I should
say No. Everything else changes, but this is just
where it was a year ago. It don't go backward,
and it don't go forward. Mother, I believe I shall
take the bit in my teeth — if anybody will put it
there!"

"It isn't the same as it was," suggested her
mother. " You can see that Irene 's all over it."

"That's no credit to me," said Penelope. "I
ought to be just as much ashamed as ever."

" You no need ever to be ashamed."

" That 's true, too," said the girl. " And I can
sneak off to Mexico with a good conscience if I
could make up my mind to it." She laughed.
"Well, if J could be sentenced to be married, or

SILAS LAPHAM.

501

somebody would up and forbid the banns ! / don't
know what to do about it."

Her mother left her to carry her hesitation back
to Corey, and she said now, they had better go all
over it and try to reason it out. " And I hope that
whatever I do, it won't be for my own sake, but for
— others ! "

Corey said he was sure of that, and looked at her
with eyes of patient tenderness.

" I don't say it is wrong," she proceeded, rather
aimlessly, " but I can't make it seem right. I don't
know whether I can make you understand, but the
idea of being happy, when everybody else is so
miserable, is more than I can endure. It makes me
wretched."

" Then perhaps that 's your share of the common
suffering," suggested Corey, smiling.

"Oh, you know it isn't! You know it's nothing.
Oh ! One of the reasons is what I told you once
before, that as long as father is in trouble I can't let
you think of me. Now that he 's lost everything — 1 "
She bent her eyes inquiringly upon him, as if for the
effect of this argument.

"I don't think that's a very good reason," he
answered seriously, but smiling still. " Do you
believe me when I tell you that I love you? "

"Why, I suppose I must," she said, dropping her
eyes.

"Then why shouldn't I think all the more of you
on account of your father's loss ? You did n't sup
pose I cared for you because he was prosperous ? "

502 THE RISE OF

There was a shade of reproach, ever so delicate and
gentle, in his smiling question, which she felt.

" No, I couldn't think such a thing of you. I —

I don't know what I meant. I meant that " She

could not go on and say that she had felt herself
more worthy of him because of her father's money ;
it would not have been true ; yet there was no other
explanation. She stopped, and cast a helpless glance
at him.

He came to her aid. " I understand why you
shouldn't wish me to suffer by your father's misfor
tunes."

" Yes, that was it ; and there is too great a differ
ence every way. We ought to look at that again.
You mustn't pretend that you don't know it, for
that wouldn't be true. Your mother will never like
me, and perhaps— perhaps I shall not like her."

" Well," said Corey, a little daunted, " you won't
have to marry my family."

" Ah, that isn't the point ! "

"I know it," he admitted. "I won't pretend
that I don't see what you mean ; but I 'm sure that
all the differences would disappear when you came
to know my family better. I 'm not afraid but you
and my mother will like each other — she can't help
it !" he exclaimed, less judicially than he had hitherto
spoken, and he went on to urge some points of
doubtful tenability. " We have our ways, and you
have yours ; and while I don't say but what you and
my mother and sisters would be a little strange
together at first, it would soon wear off, on both

SILAS LAPHAM. 503

gidei. There can't be anything hopelessly different
in you all, and if there were it wouldn't be any dif
ference to me."

" Do you think it would be pleasant to have you
on my side against your mother 1"

" There won't be any sides. Tell me just what it
is you 're afraid of."

" Afraid ? "

" Thinking of, then."

" I don't know. It isn't anything they say or do,"
she explained, with her eyes intent on his. " It 's
what they are. I couldn't be natural with them,
and if I can't be natural with people, I 'm disagree
able."

" Can you be natural with me ? '

" Oh, I 'm not afraid of you. I never was. That
was the trouble, from the beginning."

" Well, then, that 's all that 's necessary. And it
never was the least trouble to me ! "

" It made me untrue to Irene."

" You mustn't say that ! You were always true
to her."

" She cared for you first"

" Well, but I never cared for her at all ! " he be
sought her.

"She thought you did."

" That was nobody's fault, and I can't let you
make it yours. My dear —

"Wait. We must understand each other," said
Penelope, rising from her seat to prevent an advance
he was making from his ; " I want you to realise the

504 THE RISE OF

whole affair. Should you want a girl who hadn't a
cent in the world, and felt different in your mother's
company, and had cheated and betrayed her own
sister?"

" I want you ! "

" Very well, then, you can't have me. I should
always despise myself. I ought to give you up for
all these reasons. Yes, I must." She looked at him
intently, and there was a tentative quality in her
affirmations.

" Is this your answer ? " he said. " I must submit.
If I asked too much of you, I was wrong. And —
good-bye."

He held out his hand, and she put hers in it
" You think I 'm capricious and fickle ! " she said.
" I can't help it — I don't know myself. I can't keep
to one thing for half a day at a time. But it 's right
for us to part — yes, it must be. It must be," she
repeated ; " and I shall try to remember that. Good
bye ! I will try to keep that in my mind, and you
will too — you won't care, very soon ! I didn't mean
that — no ; I know how true you are ; but you will
soon look at me differently ; and see that even if
there hadn't been this about Irene, I was not the one
for you. You do think so, don't you ? " she pleaded,
clinging to his hand. " I am not at all what they
would like — your family ; I felt that. I am little,
and black, and homely, and they don't understand
my way of talking, and now that we 've lost every
thing— No, I 'm not fit. Good-bye. You 're quite
right, not to have patience with me any longer. I Ve

SILAS LAPHAM. 505

tried you enough. I ought to be willing to marry
you against their wishes if you want me to, but I
can't make the sacrifice — I 'm too selfish for that —
All at once she flung herself on his breast " I can't
even give you up ! I shall never dare look any one
in the face again. Go, go ! But take me with you !
I tried to do without you ! 1 gave it a fair trial, and
it was a dead failure. O poor Irene ! How could
slie give you up 1 "

Corey went back to Boston immediately, and left
Penelope, as he must, to tell her sister that they were
to be married. She was spared from the first advance
toward this by an accident or a misunderstanding.
Irene came straight to her after Corey was gone,
and demanded, " Penelope Lapham, have you been
such a ninny as to send that man away on my ac
count 1 "

Penelope recoiled from this terrible courage ; she
did not answer directly, and Irene went on, " Because
if you did, I '11 thank you to bring him back again.
I 'm not going to have him thinking that I 'in dying
for a man that never cared for me. It 's insulting,
and I 'm not going to stand it. Now, you just send
for him ! "

" Oh, I will, 'Rene," gasped Penelope. And then
she added, shamed out of her prevarication by
Irene's haughty magnanimity, " I have. That is —
he 's coming kick '

Irene looked at her a moment, and then, whatever
thought was in her mind, said fiercely, " Well ! " an<
left her to her dismay — her dismay and her reliei

506 THE RISE OF

for they both knew that this was the last time they
should ever speak of that again.

The marriage came after so much sorrow and
trouble, and the fact was received with so much mis
giving for the past and future, that it brought Lap^
ham none of the triumph in which he had once
exulted at the thought of an alliance with the
Coreys. Adversity had so far been his friend that it
had taken from him all hope of the social success for
which people crawl and truckle, and restored him,
through failure and doubt and heartache, the man
hood which his prosperity had so nearly stolen from
him. Neither he nor his wife thought now that their
daughter was marrying a Corey ; they thought only
that she was giving herself to the man who loved
her, and their acquiescence was sobered still further
by the presence of Irene. Their hearts were far
more with her.

Again and again Mrs. Lapham said she did not
see how she could go through it. " I can't make it
seem right," she said.

" It is right,v steadily answered the Colonel.

" Yes, I know. But it don't seem so."

It would be easy to point out traits in Penelope's
character which finally reconciled all her husband's
f.mily and endeared her to them. These things
continually happen in novels ; and the Coreys, as
they had always promised themselves to do, made
the best, and not the worst of Tom's marriage.

They were people who could value Lapham's be-

SILAS LAPHAM. 507

haviour as Tom reported it to them. They were
proud of him, and Bromfield Corey, who found a
delicate, aesthetic pleasure in the heroism with which
Lapham had withstood Rogers and his temptations
— something finely dramatic and unconsciously effec
tive, — wrote him a letter which would once have
flattered the rough soul almost to ecstasy, though now
he affected to slight it in showing it. " It 's all right
if it makes it more comfortable for Pen," he said to
his wife.

But the differences remained uneffaced, if not un-
effaceable, between the Coreys and Tom Corey's
wife. "If he had only married the Colonel 1"
subtly suggested Nanny Corey.

There was a brief season of civility and forbear
ance on both sides, when he brought her home
before starting for Mexico, and her father-in-law
made a sympathetic feint of liking Penelope's way
of talking, but it is questionable if even he found it
so delightful as her husband did. Lily Corey made
a little, ineffectual sketch of her, which she put by
with other studies to finish up, sometime, and found
her rather picturesque in some ways. Nanny got
on with her.better than the rest, and saw possibilities
for her in the country to which she was going. "As
she 's quite unformed, socially," she explained to her
mother, " there is a chance that she will form her
self on the Spanish manner, if she stays there long
enough, and that when she comes back she will
have the charm of, not olives, perhaps, but tortillas,
whatever they are : something strange and foreign,

508 THE RISE OF

even if it's borrowed. I'm glad she's going to
Mexico. At that distance we can — correspond."

Her mother sighed, and said bravely that she was
sure they all got on very pleasantly as it was, and
that she was perfectly satisfied if Tom was.

There was, in fact, much truth in what she said
of their harmony with Penelope. Having resolved,
from the beginning, to make the best of the worst,
it might almost be said that they were supported
and consoled in their good, intentions by a higher
power. This marriage had not, thanks to an over
ruling Providence, brought the succession of Lapham
teas upon Bromfield Corey which he had dreaded ;
the Laphams were far off in their native fastnesses,
and neither Lily nor Nanny Corey was obliged to
sacrifice herself to the conversation of Irene ; they
were not even called upon to make a social demon
stration for Penelope at a time when, most people
being still out of town, it would have been so easy ;
she and Tom had both begged that there might
be nothing of that kind ; and though none of the
Coreys learned to know her very well in the week
she spent with them, they did not find it hard to
get on with her. There were even mqments when
Nanny Corey, like her father, had glimpses of what
Tom had called her humour, but it was perhaps too
unlike their own to be easily recognisable.

Whether Penelope, on her side, found it more
difficult to harmonise, I cannot say. She had much
more of the harmonising to do, since they were four
to one; but then she had gone through s* much

SILAS LAPHAM. 509

greater trials before. When the door of their
carriage closed and it drove off with her and her
husband to the station, she fetched a long sigh.

" What is it ? " asked Corey, who ought to have
known better.

" Oh, nothing. I don't think I shall feel strange
amongst the Mexicans now."

He looked at her with a puzzled smile, which
grew a little graver, and then he put his arm round
her and drew her closer to him. This made her
cry on his shoulder. " I only meant that I should
have you all to myself." 'There is no proof that she
meant more, but it is certain that our manners and
customs go for more in life than our qualities. The
price that we pay for civilisation is the fine yet im
passable differentiation of these. Perhaps we pay
too much ; but it will not be possible to persuade
those who have the difference in their favour that
this is so. They may be right ; and at any rate, the
blank misgiving, the recurring sense of disappoint
ment to which the young people's departure left the
Coreys is to be considered. That was the end of
their son and brother for them ; they felt that ; and
they were not mean or unamiable people.

He remained three years away. Some changes
took place in that time. One of these was the pur
chase by the Kanawha Falls Company of the mines
and works at Lapham. The transfer relieved Lap-
ham of the load of debt which he was still labouring
under, and gave him an interest in the vaster enter
prise of the younger men, which he had once vainly

510 THE RISE OF

hoped to grasp all in his own hand. He began to
tell of this coincidence as something very striking ;
and pushing on more actively the special branch of
the business left to him, he bragged, quite in his old
way, of its enormous extension. His son-in-law, he
said, was pushing it in Mexico and Central America :
an idea that they had originally had in common.
Well, young blood was what was wanted in a thing
of that kind. Now, those fellows out in West
Virginia : all young, and a perfect team !

For himself, he owned that he had made mis
takes ; he could see just where the mistakes were —
put his finger right on them. But one thing he
could say : he had been no man's enemy but his
own ; every dollar, every cent had gone to pay his
debts ; he had come out with clean hands. He said
all this, and much more, to Mr. Sewell the summer
after he sold out, when the minister and his wife
stopped at Lapham on their way across from the
White Mountains to Lake Champlain ; Lapham had
found them on the cars, and pressed them to stop
off.

There were times when Mrs. Lapham had as great
pride in the clean-handedness with which Lapham
had come out as he had himself, but her satisfaction
was not so constant. At those times, knowing the
temptations he had resisted, she thought him the
noblest and grandest of men ; but no woman could
endure to live in the same house with a perfect
hero, and there were other times when she reminded
him that if he had kept his word to her about

SILAS LAPHAM. 611

speculating in stocks, and had looked after the in
surance of his property half as carefully as he had
looked after a couple of worthless women who had
no earthly claim on him, they would not be wrhere
they were now. He humbly admitted it all, and
left her to think of Rogers herself. She did not
fail to do so, and the thought did not fail to restore
him to her tenderness again.

I do not know how it is that clergymen and phy
sicians keep from telling their wives the secrets
confided to them ; perhaps they can trust their
wives to find them out for themselves whenever
they wish. Sewell had laid before his wife the
case of the Laphams after they came to consult
with him about Corey's proposal to Penelope, for
he wished to be confirmed in his belief that he had
advised them soundly ; but he had not given her
their names, and he had not known Corey's him
self. Now he had no compunctions in talking the
affair over with her without the veil of ignorance
which she had hitherto assumed, for she declared
that as soon as she heard of Corey's engagement
to Penelope, the whole thing had flashed upon her.
"And that night at dinner I could have told the
child that he was in love with her sister by the way
he talked about her; I heard him ; and if she had
not been so blindly in love with him herself, she
would have known it too. I must say, I can't help
feeling a sort of contempt for her sister."

MQh, but you must not!" cried Sewell. "That

512 THE RISE OF

is wrohg, cruelly wrong. I'm sure that's out of
your novel-reading, my dear, and not out of your
heart. Come ! It grieves me to hear you say such
a thing as that."

" Oh, I dare say this pretty thing has got over it
— how much character she has got ! — and I suppose
she '11 see somebody else."

Sewell had to content himself with this partial
concession. As a matter of fact, unless it was the
young West Virginian who had come on to arrange
the purchase of the Works, Irene had not yet seen
any one, and whether there was ever anything be
tween them is a fact that would need a separate in
quiry. It is certain that at the end of five years
after the disappointment which she met so bravely,
she was still unmarried. But she was even then
still very young, and her life at Lapham had been
varied by visits to the West. It had also been
varied by an invitation, made with the politest re
solution by Mrs. Corey, to visit in Boston, which the
girl was equal to refusing in the same spirit

Sewell was intensely interested in the moral spec
tacle which Lapham presented under his changed
conditions. The Colonel, who was more the Colonel
in those hills than he could ever have been on the
Back Bay, kept him and Mrs. Sewell over night at
his house; and he showed the minister minutely
round the Works and drove him all over his farm.
For this expedition he employed a lively colt which
had not yet come of age, and an open buggy long
past its prime, and was no more ashamed of hi*

SILAS LAPHAM. 513

turnout than of the finest he had ever driven on the
Milldam. He was rather shabby and slovenly hi
dress, and he had fallen unkempt, after the country
fashion, as to his hair and beard and boots. The
house was plain, and was furnished with the simpler
moveables out of the house in Nankeen Square.
There were certainly all the necessaries, but no
luxuries, unless the statues of Prayer and Faith
might be so considered. The Laphams now burned
kerosene, of course, and they had no furnace in the
winter; these were the only hardships the Colonel
complained of; but he said that as soon as the
company got to paying dividends again, — he was
evidently proud of the outlays that for the present
prevented this, — he should put in steam heat and
naphtha-gas. He spoke freely of his failure, and
with a confidence that seemed inspired by his former
trust in Sewell, whom, indeed, he treated like an
intimate friend, rather than an acquaintance of two
or three meetings. He went back to his first con
nection with Rogers, and he put before Sewell
hypothetically his own conclusions in regard to the
matter.

" Sometimes," he said, " I get to thinking it all
over, and it seems to me I done wrong about Rogers
in the first place ; that the whole trouble came from
that. It was just like starting a row of bricks. I
tried to catch up and stop 'em from going, but they
all tumbled, one after another. It wan't in the
nature of things that they could be stopped till the
last brick went. I don't talk much with my wife,
2K

514 THE RISE OP

any more about it ; but I should like to know how
it strikes you."

" We can trace the operation of evil in the physical
world," replied the minister, " but I 'm more and
more puzzled about it in the moral world. There
its course is often so very obscure ; and often it
seems to involve, so far as we can see, no penalty
whatever. And in your own case, as I understand,
you don't admit — you don't feel sure — that you ever
actually did wrong this man "

" Well, no ; I don't. That is to say "

He did not continue, and after a while Sewell
said, with that subtle kindness of his, " I should be
inclined to think — nothing can be thrown quite
away ; and it can't be that our sins only weaken us
— that your fear of having possibly behaved selfishly
toward this man kept you on your guard, and
strengthened you when you were brought face to
face with a greater" — he was going to say temp
tation, but he saved Lapham's pride, and said —
" emergency."

"Do you think so?"

"I think that there may be truth in what I
suggest."

" Well, I don't know what it was," said Lapham ;
" all I know is that when it came to the point,
although I could see that I M got to go under unless
I did it — that I couldn't sell out to those English
men, and I couldn't let that man put his money into
my business without I told him just how things

8tOOtl,"

SILAS LAPHAM. 515

As Sewell afterwards told his wife, he could see
that the loss of his fortune had been a terrible trial
to Laphara, just because his prosperity had been so
gross and palpable ; and he had now a burning
desire to know exactly how, at the bottom of his
heart, Laphara still felt. u And do you ever have
any regrets 1 " he delicately inquired of him.

" About what I done ? Well, it don't always
seem as if I done it," replied Lapham. " Seems
sometimes as if it was a hole opened for me, and I
crept out of it. I don't know," he added thought
fully, biting the corner of his stiff moustache. " I
don't know as I should always say it paid ; but if I
done it, and the thing was to do over again, right in
the same way, I guess I should have to do it"

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