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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10322-0.txt b/10322-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a9c98e --- /dev/null +++ b/10322-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13408 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10322 *** + +Note: There are three lines of text missing from the original printed +book. These are marked with: [missing text]. + + + + + MISS PRUDENCE + + A STORY OF TWO GIRLS' LIVES + + By JENNIE M. DRINKWATER + + 1883 + + +"We are not to lead events but to follow them."--_Epictetus_. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP + + I. AFTER SCHOOL + + II. EVANGELIST + + III. WHAT "DESULTORY" MEANS + + IV. A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE + + V. TWO PROMISES + + VI. MARJORIE ASLEEP AND AWAKE + + VII. UNDER THE APPLE-TREE + + VIII. BISCUITS AND OTHER THINGS + + IX. JOHN HOLMES + + X. LINNET + + XI. GRANDMOTHER + + XII. A BUDGET OF LETTERS + + XIII. A WEDDING DAY + + XIV. A TALK AND ANOTHER TALK + + XV. JEROMA + + XVI. MAPLE STREET + + XVII. MORRIS + + XVIII. ONE DAY + + XIX. A STORY THAT WAS NOT VERY SAD + + XX. "HEIRS TOGETHER" + + XXI. MORRIS AGAIN + + XXII. TIDINGS + + XXIII. GOD'S LOVE + + XXIV. JUST AS IT OUGHT TO BE + + XXV. THE WILL OF GOD + + XXVI. MARJORIE'S MOTHER + + XXVII. ANOTHER WALK AND ANOTHER TALE + + XXVIII. THE LINNET + + XXIX. ONE NIGHT + + XXX. THE COSEY CORNER + + XXXI. AND WHAT ELSE? + + + + +MISS PRUDENCE. + + + + +I. + +AFTER SCHOOL. + +"Our content is our best having."--_Shakespeare_. + + +Nobody had ever told Marjorie that she was, as somebody says we all +are, three people,--the Marjorie she knew herself, the Marjorie other +people knew, and the Marjorie God knew. It was a "bother" sometimes to +be the Marjorie she knew herself, and she had never guessed there was +another Marjorie for other people to know, and the Marjorie God knew +and understood she did not learn much about for years and years. At +eleven years old it was hard enough to know about herself--her naughty, +absent-minded, story-book-loving self. Her mother said that she loved +story-books entirely too much, that they made her absent-minded and +forgetful, and her mother's words were proving themselves true this very +afternoon. She was a real trouble to herself and there was no one near to +"confess" to; she never could talk about herself unless enveloped in the +friendly darkness, and then the confessor must draw her out, step by +step, with perfect frankness and sympathy; even then, a sigh, or sob, or +quickly drawn breath and half inarticulate expression revealed more than +her spoken words. + +She was one of the children that are left to themselves. Only Linnet knew +the things she cared most about; even when Linnet laughed at her, she +could feel the sympathetic twinkle in her eye and the sympathetic +undertone smothered in her laugh. + +It was sunset, and she was watching it from the schoolroom window, the +clouds over the hill were brightening and brightening and a red glare +shone over the fields of snow. It was sunset and the schoolroom clock +pointed to a quarter of five. The schoolroom was chilly, for the fire had +died out half an hour since. Hollis Rheid had shoved big sticks into the +stove until it would hold no more and had opened the draft, whispering to +her as he passed her seat that he would keep her warm at any rate. But +now she was shivering, although she had wrapped herself in her coarse +green and red shawl, and tapped her feet on the bare floor to keep them +warm; she was hungry, too; the noon lunch had left her unsatisfied, for +she had given her cake to Rie Blauvelt in return for a splendid Northern +Spy, and had munched the apple and eaten her two sandwiches wishing all +the time for more. Leaving the work on her slate unfinished, she had +dived into the depths of her home-made satchel and discovered two crumbs +of molasses cake. That was an hour ago. School had closed at three +o'clock to-day because it was Friday and she had been nearly two hours +writing nervously on her slate or standing at the blackboard making +hurried figures. For the first time in her life Marjorie West had been +"kept in." And that "Lucy" book hidden in her desk was the cause of it; +she had taken it out for just one delicious moment, and the moment had +extended itself into an hour and a half, and the spelling lesson was +unlearned and the three hard examples in complex fractions unworked. +She had not been ignorant of what the penalty would be. Mr. Holmes had +announced it at the opening of school: "Each word in spelling that is +missed, must be written one hundred times, and every example not brought +in on the slate must be put on the blackboard after school." + +She had smiled in self-confidence. Who ever knew Marjorie West to miss in +spelling? And had not her father looked over her examples last night and +pronounced them correct? But on her way to school the paper on which the +examples were solved had dropped out of her Geography, and she had been +wholly absorbed in the "Lucy" book during the time that she had expected +to study the test words in spelling. And the overwhelming result was +doing three examples on the board, after school, and writing seven +hundred words. Oh, how her back ached and how her wrist hurt her and how +her strained eyes smarted! Would she ever again forget _amateur, abyss, +accelerate, bagatelle, bronchitis, boudoir_ and _isosceles_? + +Rie Blauvelt had written three words one hundred times, laughed at her, +and gone home; Josie Grey had written _isosceles_ one hundred times, and +then taken up a slate to help Marjorie; before Marjorie was aware Josie +had written _abyss_ seventy-five times, then suspecting something by the +demureness of Josie's eyes she had snatched her slate and erased the +pretty writing. + +"You're real mean," pouted Josie; "he said he would take our word for it, +and you could have answered some way and got out of it." + +Marjorie's reply was two flashing eyes. + +"You needn't take my head off," laughed Josie; "now I'll go home and +leave you, and you may stay all night for all I care." + +"I will, before I will deceive anybody," resented Marjorie stoutly. + +Without another word Josie donned sack and hood and went out, leaving the +door ajar and the cold air to play about Marjorie's feet. + +But five o'clock came and the work was done! + +More than one or two tears fell slowly on the neat writing on Marjorie's +slate; the schoolroom was cold and she was shivering and hungry. It would +have been such a treat to read the last chapter in the "Lucy" book; she +might have curled her feet underneath her and drawn her shawl closer; but +it was so late, and what would they think at home? She was ashamed to go +home. Her father would look at her from under his eyebrows, and her +mother would exclaim, "Why, Marjorie!" She would rather that her father +would look at her from under his eyebrows, than that her mother would +say, "Why, _Marjorie!_" Her mother never scolded, and sometimes she +almost wished she would. It would be a relief if somebody would scold her +tonight; she would stick a pin into herself if it would do any good. + +_Her_ photograph would not be in the group next time. She looked across +at the framed photograph on the wall; six girls in the group and herself +the youngest--the reward for perfect recitations and perfect deportment +for one year. Her father was so proud of it that he had ordered a copied +picture for himself, and, with a black walnut frame, it was hanging in +the sitting-room at home. The resentment against herself was tugging away +at her heart and drawing miserable lines on her brow and lips--on her +sweet brow and happy lips. + +It was a bare, ugly country schoolroom, anyway, with the stained floor, +the windows with two broken panes, and the unpainted desks with +innumerable scars made by the boys' jack-knives, and Mr. Holmes was +unreasonable, anyway, to give her such a hard punishment, and she didn't +care if she had been kept in, anyway! + +In that "anyway" she found vent for all her crossness. Sometimes she +said, "I don't care," but when she said, "I don't care, _anyway_!" +then everybody knew that Marjorie West was dreadful. + +"I'm _through_," she thought triumphantly, "and I didn't cheat, and I +wasn't mean, and nobody has helped me." + +Yes, somebody had helped her. She was sorry that she forgot to think that +God had helped her. Perhaps people always did get through! If they didn't +help themselves along by doing wrong and--God helped them. The sunshine +rippled over her face again and she counted the words on her slate for +the second time to assure herself that there could be no possible +mistake. Slowly she counted seven hundred, then with a sudden impulse +seized her pencil and wrote each of the seven words five times more to be +"_sure_ they were all right." + +Josie Grey called her "horridly conscientious," and even Rie Blauvelt +wished that she would not think it wicked to "tell" in the class, and to +whisper about something else when they had permission to whisper about +the lessons. + +By this time you have learned that my little Marjorie was strong and +sweet. I wish you might have seen her that afternoon as she crouched over +the wooden desk, snuggled down in the coarse, plaid shawl, her elbows +resting on the hard desk, her chin dropped in her two plump hands, with +her eyes fixed on the long, closely written columns of her large slate. +She was not sitting in her own seat, her seat was the back seat on the +girls' side, of course, but she was sitting midway on the boys' side, and +her slate was placed on the side of the double desk wherein H.R. was cut +in deep, ugly letters. She had fled to this seat as to a refuge, when she +found herself alone, with something of the same feeling, that once two or +three years ago when she was away from home and homesick she used to +kneel to say her prayers in the corner of the chamber where her valise +was; there was home about the valise and there was protection and safety +and a sort of helpfulness about this desk where her friend Hollis Rheid +had sat ever since she had come to school. This was her first winter at +school, her mother had taught her at home, but in family council this +winter it had been decided that Marjorie was "big" enough to go to +school. + +The half mile home seemed a long way to walk alone, and the huge +Newfoundland at the farmhouse down the hill was not always chained; he +had sprung out at them this morning and the girls had huddled together +while Hollis and Frank Grey had driven him inside his own yard. Hollis +had thrown her an intelligent glance as he filed out with the boys, and +had telegraphed something back to her as he paused for one instant at the +door. Not quite understanding the telegraphic signal, she was waiting for +him, or for something. His lips had looked like: "Wait till I come." If +the people at home were not anxious about her she would have been willing +to wait until midnight; it would never occur to her that Hollis might +forget her. + +Her cheeks flushed as she waited, and her eyes filled with tears; it was +a soft, warm, round face, with coaxing, kissable lips, a smooth, low brow +and the gentlest of hazel eyes: not a pretty face, excepting in its +lovely childishness and its hints of womanly graces; some of the girls +said she was homely. Marjorie thought herself that she was very homely; +but she had comforted herself with, "God made my face, and he likes it +this way." Some one says that God made the other features, but permits us +to make the mouth. Marjorie's sweetness certainly made her mouth. But +then she was born sweet. Josie Grey declared that she would rather see a +girl "get mad" than cry, as Marjorie did when the boys washed her face in +the snow. + +Mr. Holmes had written to a friend that Marjorie West, his favorite among +the girls, was "almost too sweet." He said to himself that he feared she +"lacked character." Marjorie's quiet, observant father would have smiled +at that and said nothing. The teacher said that she did not know how to +take her own part. Marjorie had been eleven years in this grasping world +and had not learned that she had any "part" to take. + +Since her pencil had ceased scribbling the room was so still that a tiny +mouse had been nibbling at the toe of her shoe. Just then as she raised +her head and pinned her shawl more securely the door opened and something +happened. The something happened in Marjorie's face. Hollis Rheid thought +the sunset had burst across it. She did not exclaim, "Oh, I am so glad!" +but the gladness was all in her eyes. If Marjorie had been more given to +exclamations her eyes would not have been so expressive. The closed lips +were a gain to the eyes and her friends missed nothing. The boy had +learned her eyes by heart. How stoutly he would have resisted if some one +had told him that years hence Marjorie's face would be a sealed volume to +him. + +But she was making her eyes and mouth to-day and years hence she made +them, too. Perhaps he had something to do with it then as he certainly +had something to do with it now. + +"I came back with my sled to take you home. I gave Sam my last ten cents +to do the night work for me. It was my turn, but he was willing enough. +Where's your hood, Mousie? Any books to take?" + +"Yes, my Geography and Arithmetic," she answered, taking her fleecy white +hood from the seat behind her. + +"Now you look like a sunbeam in a cloud," he said poetically as she tied +it over her brown head. "Oh, ho!" turning to the blackboard, "you do make +handsome figures. Got them all right, did you?" + +"I knew how to do them, it was only that--I forgot." + +"I don't think you'll forget again in a hurry. And that's a nice looking +slate, too," he added, stepping nearer. "Mother said it was too much of a +strain on your nervous system to write all that." + +"I guess I haven't much of a nervous system," returned Marjorie, +seriously; "the girls wrote the words they missed fifty times last Friday +and he warned us about the one hundred to-day. I suppose it will be one +hundred and fifty next Friday. I don't believe I'll _ever_ miss again," +she said, her lips trembling at the mention of it. + +"I think I'll have a word or two to say to the master if you do. I wonder +how Linnet would have taken it." + +"She wouldn't have missed." + +"I'll ask Mr. Holmes to put you over on the boys side if you miss next +week," he cried mischievously, "and make you sit with us all the +afternoon." + +"I'd rather write each word five hundred times," she cried vehemently. + +"I believe you would," he said good humoredly. "Never mind, Mousie, I +know you won't miss again." + +"I'll do my examples to-night and father will help me if I can't do them. +He used to teach in this very schoolhouse; he knows as much as Mr. +Holmes." + +"Then he must be a Solomon," laughed the boy. + +The stamp of Hollis' boots and the sound of his laughter had frightened +the mouse back into its hiding-place in the chimney; Marjorie would not +have frightened the mouse all day long. + +The books were pushed into her satchel, her desk arranged in perfect +order, her rubbers and red mittens drawn on, and she stood ready, satchel +in hand, for her ride on the sled down the slippery hill where the boys +and girls had coasted at noon and then she would ride on over the snowy +road half a mile to the old, brown farmhouse. Her eyes were subdued a +little, but the sunshine lingered all over her face. She knew Hollis +would come. + +He smiled down at her with his superior fifteen-year-old smile, she was +such a wee mousie and always needed taking care of. If he could have a +sister, he would want her to be like Marjorie. He was very much like +Marjorie himself, just as shy, just as sensitive, hardly more fitted to +take his own part, and I think Marjorie was the braver of the two. He was +slow-tempered and unforgiving; if a friend failed him once, he never took +him into confidence again. He was proud where Marjorie was humble. He +gave his services; she gave herself. He seldom quarrelled, but never was +the first to yield. They were both mixtures of reserve and frankness; +both speaking as often out of a shut heart as an open heart. But when +Marjorie could open her heart, oh, how she opened it! As for Hollis, I +think he had never opened his; demonstrative sympathy was equally the key +to the hearts of both. + +But here I am analyzing them before they had learned they had any self to +analyze. But they existed, all the same. + +Marjorie was a plain little body while Hollis was noticeably handsome +with eloquent brown eyes and hair with its golden, boyish beauty just +shading into brown; his sensitive, mobile lips were prettier than any +girl's, and there was no voice in school like his in tone or culture. Mr. +Holmes was an elocutionist and had taken great pains with Hollis Rheid's +voice. There was a courteous gentleness in his manner all his own; if +knighthood meant purity, goodness, truth and manliness, then Hollis Rheid +was a knightly school-boy. The youngest of five rough boys, with a stern, +narrow-minded father and a mother who loved her boys with all her heart +and yet for herself had no aims beyond kitchen and dairy, he had not +learned his refinement at home; I think he had not _learned_ it anywhere. +Marjorie's mother insisted that Hollis Rheid must have had a praying +grandmother away back somewhere. The master had written to his friend, +Miss Prudence Pomeroy, that Hollis Rheid was a born gentleman, and had +added with more justice and penetration than he had shown in reading +Marjorie, "he has too little application and is too mischievous to become +a real student. But I am not looking for geniuses in a country school. +Marjorie and Hollis are bright enough for every purpose in life excepting +to become leaders." + +"Are you going to church, to-night?" Hollis inquired as she seated +herself carefully on the sled. + +"In the church?" she asked, bracing her feet and tucking the ends of her +shawl around them. + +"Yes; an evangelist is going to preach." + +"Evangelist!" repeated Marjorie in a voice with a thrill in it. + +"Don't you know what that is?" asked Hollis, harnessing himself into the +sled. + +"Oh, yes, indeed," said she. "I know about him and Christian." + +Hollis looked perplexed; this must be one of Marjorie's queer ways of +expressing something, and the strange preacher certainly had something to +do with Christians. + +"If it were not for the fractions I suppose I might go. I wish I wasn't +stupid about Arithmetic." + +"It's no matter if girls are stupid," he said consolingly. "Are you sure +you are on tight? I'm going to run pretty soon. You won't have to earn +your living by making figures." + +"Shall you?" she inquired with some anxiety. + +"Of course, I shall. Haven't I been three times through the Arithmetic +and once through the Algebra that I may support myself and somebody else, +sometime?" + +This seemed very grand to child Marjorie who found fractions a very +Slough of Despond. + +"I'm going to the city as soon as Uncle Jack finds a place for me. I +expect a letter from him every night." + +"Perhaps it will come to-night," said Marjorie, not very hopefully. + +"I hope it will. And so this may be your last ride on Flyaway. Enjoy it +all you can, Mousie." + +Marjorie enjoyed everything all she could. + +"Now, hurrah!" he shouted, starting on a quick run down the hill. "I'm +going to turn you over into the brook." + +Marjorie laughed her joyous little laugh. "I'm not afraid," she said in +absolute content. + +"You'd better be!" he retorted in his most savage tone. + +The whole west was now in a glow and the glorious light stretched across +fields of snow. + +"Oh, how splendid," Marjorie exclaimed breathlessly as the rapid motion +of the sled and the rush of cold air carried her breath away. + +"Hold on tight," he cried mockingly, "we're coming to the brook." + +Laughing aloud she held on "tight." Hollis was her true knight; she would +not have been afraid to cross the Alps on that sled if he had asked her +to! + +She was in a talkative mood to-night, but her horse pranced on and would +not listen. She wanted to tell him about _vibgyor_. The half mile was +quickly travelled and he whirled the sled through the large gateway and +around the house to the kitchen door. The long L at the back of the house +seemed full of doors. + +"There, Mousie, here you are!" he exclaimed. "And don't you miss your +lesson to-morrow." + +"To-morrow is Saturday! oh, I had forgotten. And I can go to see +Evangelist to-night." + +"You haven't said 'thank you' for your last ride on Flyaway." + +"I will when I'm sure that it is," she returned with her eyes laughing. + +He turned her over into a snowdrift and ran off whistling; springing up +she brushed the snow off face and hands and with a very serious face +entered the kitchen. The kitchen was long and low, bright with the sunset +shining in at two windows and cheery with its carpeting of red, yellow +and green mingled confusingly in the handsome oilcloth. + +Unlike Hollis, Marjorie was the outgrowth of home influences; the kitchen +oilcloth had something to do with her views of life, and her mother's +broad face and good-humored eyes had a great deal more. Good-humor in the +mother had developed sweet humor in the child. + +Now I wonder if you understand Marjorie well enough to understand all she +does and all she leaves undone during the coming fifteen or twenty years? + + + + +II. + +EVANGELIST. + +"The value of a thought cannot be told."--_Bailey_. + + +Her mother's broad, gingham back and the twist of iron gray hair low in +her neck greeted her as she opened the door, then the odor of hot +biscuits intruded itself, and then there came a shout from somebody +kneeling on the oilcloth near the stove and pushing sticks of dry wood +through its blazing open door. + +"Oh, Marjie, what happened to you?" + +"Something _didn't_ happen. I didn't have my spelling or my examples. I +read the "Lucy" book in school instead," she confessed dolefully. + +"Why, _Marjie_!" was her mother's exclamation, but it brought the color +to Marjorie's face and suffused her eyes. + +"We are to have company for tea," announced the figure kneeling on the +oilcloth as she banged the stove door. "A stranger; the evangelist Mr. +Horton told us about Sunday." + +"I know," said Marjorie. "I've read about him in _Pilgrim's Progress_; he +showed Christian the way to the Wicket Gate." + +Linnet jumped to her feet and shook a chip from her apron. "O, Goosie! +Don't you know any better?" + +Fourteen-year-old Linnet always knew better. + +"Where is he?" questioned Marjorie. + +"In the parlor. Go and entertain him. Mother and I must get him a good +supper: cold chicken, canned raspberries, currant jelly, ham, hot +biscuit, plain cake and fruit cake and--butter and--tea." + +"I don't know how," hesitated Marjorie. + +"Answer his questions, that's all," explained Linnet promptly. "I've told +him all I know and now it's your turn." + +"I don't like to answer questions," said Marjorie, still doubtfully. + +"Oh, only your age and what you study and--if--you are a Christian." + +"And he tells you how if you don't know how," said Marjorie, eagerly; +"that's what he's for." + +"Yes," replied her mother, approvingly, "run in and let him talk to you." + +Very shyly glad of the opportunity, and yet dreading it inexpressibly, +Marjorie hung her school clothing away and laid her satchel on the shelf +in the hall closet, and then stood wavering in the closet, wondering if +she dared go in to see Evangelist. He had spoken very kindly to +Christian. She longed, oh, how she longed! to find the Wicket Gate, but +would she dare ask any questions? Last Sabbath in church she had seen a +sweet, beautiful face that she persuaded herself must be Mercy, and now +to have Evangelist come to her very door! + +What was there to know any better about? She did not care if Linnet had +laughed. Linnet never cared to read _Pilgrim's Progress_. + +It is on record that the first book a child reads intensely is the book +that will influence all the life. + +At ten Marjorie had read _Pilgrim's Progress_ intensely. Timidly, with +shining eyes, she stood one moment upon the red mat outside the parlor +door, and then, with sudden courage, turned the knob and entered. At a +glance she felt that there was no need of courage; Evangelist was seated +comfortably in the horse-hair rocker with his feet to the fire resting on +the camp stool; he did not look like Evangelist at all, she thought, +disappointedly; he reminded her altogether more of a picture of Santa +Claus: massive head and shoulders, white beard and moustache, ruddy +cheeks, and, as the head turned quickly at her entrance, she beheld, +beneath the shaggy, white brows, twinkling blue eyes. + +"Ah," he exclaimed, in an abrupt voice, "you are the little girl they +were expecting home from school." + +"Yes, sir." + +He extended a plump, white hand and, not at all shyly, Marjorie laid her +hand in it. + +"Isn't it late to come from school? Did you play on the way home?" + +"No sir; I'm too big for that" + +"Doesn't school dismiss earlier?" + +"Yes, sir," flushing and dropping her eyes, "but I was kept in." + +"Kept in," he repeated, smoothing the little hand. "I'm sure it was not +for bad behavior and you look bright enough to learn your lessons." + +"I didn't know my lessons," she faltered. + +"Then you should have done as Stephen Grellet did," he returned, +releasing her hand. + +"How did he do?" she asked. + +Nobody loved stories better than Marjorie. + +Pushing her mother's spring rocker nearer the fire, she sat down, +arranged the skirt of her dress, and, prepared herself, not to +"entertain" him, but to listen. + +"Did you never read about him?" + +"I never even heard of him." + +"Then I'll tell you something about him. His father was an intimate +friend and counsellor of Louis XVI. Stephen was a French boy. Do you +know who Louis XVI was?" + +"No, sir." + +"Do you know the French for Stephen?" + +"No, sir." + +"Then you don't study French. I'd study everything if I were you. My wife +has read the Hebrew Bible through. She is a scholar as well as a good +housewife. It needn't hinder, you see." + +"No, sir," repeated Marjorie. + +"When little Etienne--that's French for Stephen--was five or six years +old he had a long Latin exercise to learn, and he was quite +disheartened." + +Marjorie's eyes opened wide in wonder. Six years old and a long Latin +exercise. Even Hollis had not studied Latin. + +"Sitting alone, all by himself, to study, he looked out of the window +abroad upon nature in all her glorious beauty, and remembered that God +made the gardens, the fields and the sky, and the thought came to him: +'Cannot the same God give me memory, also?' Then he knelt at the foot of +his bed and poured out his soul in prayer. The prayer was wonderfully +answered; on beginning to study again, he found himself master of his +hard lesson, and, after that, he acquired learning with great readiness." + +It was wonderful, Marjorie thought, and beautiful, but she could not say +that; she asked instead: "Did he write about it himself?" + +"Yes, he has written all about himself." + +"When I was six I didn't know my small letters. Was he so bright because +he was French?" + +The gentleman laughed and remarked that the French were a pretty bright +nation. + +"Is that all you know about him?" + +"Oh, no, indeed; there's a large book of his memoirs in my library. He +visited many of the crowned heads of Europe." + +There was another question forming on Marjorie's lips, but at that +instant her mother opened the door. Now she would hear no more about +Stephen Grellet and she could not ask about the Wicket Gate or Mercy or +the children. + +Rising in her pretty, respectful manner she gave her mother the spring +rocker and pushed an ottoman behind the stove and seated herself where +she might watch Evangelist's face as he talked. + +How the talk drifted in this direction Marjorie did not understand; she +knew it was something about finding the will of the Lord, but a story was +coming and she listened with her listening eyes on his face. + +"I had been thinking that God would certainly reveal his will if we +inquired of him, feeling sure of that, for some time, and then I had this +experience." + +Marjorie's mother enjoyed "experiences" as well as Marjorie enjoyed +stories. And she liked nothing better than to relate her own; after +hearing an experience she usually began, "Now I will tell you mine." + +Marjorie thought she knew every one of her mother's experiences. But it +was Evangelist who was speaking. + +The little girl in the brown and blue plaid dress with red stockings and +buttoned boots, bent forward as she sat half concealed behind the stove +and drank in every word with intent, wondering, unquestioning eyes. + +Her mother listened, also, with eyes as intent and believing, and years +afterward, recalled this true experience, when she was tempted to take +Marjorie's happiness into her own hands, her own unwise, haste-making +hands. + +"My wife had been dead about two years," began Evangelist again, speaking +in a retrospective tone. "I had two little children, the elder not eight +years old, and my sister was my housekeeper. She did not like +housekeeping nor taking care of children. Some women don't. She came to +me one day with a very serious face. 'Brother,' said she, 'you need a +wife, you must have a wife. I do not know how to take care of your +children and you are almost never at home.' She left me before I could +reply, almost before I could think what to reply. I was just home from +helping a pastor in Wisconsin, it was thirty-six degrees below zero the +day I left, and I had another engagement in Maine for the next week. I +_was_ very little at home, and my children did need a mother. I had not +thought whether I needed a wife or not; I was too much taken up with the +Lord's work to think about it. But that day I asked the Lord to find me a +wife. After praying about it three days it came to me that a certain +young lady was the one the Lord had chosen. Like Peter, I drew back and +said, 'Not so, Lord.' My first wife was a continual spiritual help to me; +she was the Lord's own messenger every day; but this lady, although a +church member, was not particularly spiritually minded. Several years +before she had been my pupil in Hebrew and Greek. I admired her +intellectual gifts, but if a brother in the ministry had asked me if she +would be a helpful wife to him, I should have hesitated about replying +in the affirmative. And, yet here it was, the Lord had chosen her for me. +I said, 'Not so, Lord,' until he assured me that her heart was in his +hand and he could fit her to become my wife and a mother to my children. +After waiting until I knew I was obeying the mind of my Master, I asked +her to marry me. She accepted, as far as her own heart and will were +concerned, but refused, because her father, a rich and worldly-minded +man, was not willing for her to marry an itinerant preacher. + +"I had not had a charge for three years then. I was so continually called +to help other pastors that I had no time for a charge of my own. So it +kept on for months and months; her father was not willing, and she would +not marry me without his consent. My sister often said to me, 'I don't +see how you can want to marry a woman that isn't willing to have you,' +but I kept my own counsel. I knew the matter was in safe hands. I was not +at all troubled; I kept about my Master's business and he kept about +mine. Therefore, when she wrote to say that suddenly and unexpectedly her +father had withdrawn all opposition, I was not in the least surprised. +My sister declared I was plucky to hold on, but the Lord held on for me; +I felt as if I had nothing to do with it. And a better wife and mother +God never blessed one of his servants with. She could do something beside +read the Bible in Hebrew; she could practice it in English. For forty +years [missing text] my companion and counsellor and dearest +friend. So you see"--he added in his bright, convincing voice, "we may +know the will of the Lord about such things and everything else." + +"I believe it," responded Marjorie's mother, emphatically. + +"Now tell me about all the young people in your village. How many have +you that are unconverted?" + +Was Hollis one of them? Marjorie wondered with a beating heart. Would +Evangelist talk to him? Would he kiss him, and give him a smile, and bid +him God speed? + +But--she began to doubt--perhaps there was another Evangelist and this +was not the very one in _Pilgrim's Progress_; somehow, he did not seem +just like that one. Might she dare ask him? How would she say it? Before +she was aware her thought had become a spoken thought; in the interval +of quiet while her mother was counting the young people in the village +she was very much astonished to hear her own timid, bold, little voice +inquire: + +"Is there more than one Evangelist?" + +"Why, yes, child," her mother answered absently and Evangelist began to +tell her about some of the evangelists he was acquainted with. + +"Wonderful men! Wonderful men!" he repeated. + +Before another question could form itself on her eager lips her father +entered and gave the stranger a cordial welcome. + +"We have to thank scarlet fever at the Parsonage for the pleasure of your +visit with us, I believe," he said. + +"Yes, that seems to be the bright side of the trouble." + +"Well, I hope you have brought a blessing with you." + +"I hope I have! I prayed the Lord not to bring me here unless he came +with me." + +"I think the hush of the Spirit's presence has been in our church all +winter," said Mrs. West. "I've had no rest day or night pleading for our +young people." + +The words filled Marjorie with a great awe; she slipped out to unburden +herself to Linnet, but Linnet was setting the tea-table in a frolicsome +mood and Marjorie's heart could not vent itself upon a frolicsome +listener. + +From the china closet in the hall Linnet had brought out the china, one +of her mother's wedding presents and therefore seldom used, and the glass +water pitcher and the small glass fruit saucers. + +"Can't I help?" suggested Marjorie looking on with great interest. + +"No," refused Linnet, decidedly, "you might break something as you did +the night Mrs. Rheid and Hollis were here." + +"My fingers were too cold, then." + +"Perhaps they are too warm, now," laughed Linnet. + +"Then I can tell you about the primary colors; I suppose I won't break +_them_," returned Marjorie with her usual sweet-humor. + +Linnet moved the spoon holder nearer the sugar bowl with the air of a +house wife, Marjorie stood at the table leaning both elbows upon it. + +"If you remember _vibgyor_, you'll remember the seven primary colors!" +she said mysteriously. + +"Is it like cutting your nails on Saturday without thinking of a fox's +tail and so never have the toothache?" questioned Linnet. + +"_No_; this is earnest. It isn't a joke; it's a lesson," returned +Marjorie, severely. "Mr. Holmes said a professor told it to him when he +was in college." + +"You see it's a joke! I remember _vibgyor_, but now I don't know the +seven primary colors. You are always getting taken in, Goosie! I hope +you didn't ask Mr. Woodfern if he is the man in _Pilgrim's Progress_." + +"I know he isn't," said Marjorie, seriously, "there are a good many of +them, he said so. I guess _Pilgrim's Progress_ happened a long time ago. +I shan't look for Great-heart, any more," she added, with a sigh. + +Linnet laughed and scrutinized the white handled knives to see if there +were any blemishes on the blades; her mother kept them laid away in old +flannel. + +"Now, Linnet, you see it isn't a joke," began Marjorie, protestingly; +"the word is made of all the first letters of the seven colors,--just +see!" counting on her fingers, "violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, +orange, red! Did you see how it comes right?" + +"I didn't see, but I will as soon as I get time. You were not taken in +that time, I do believe. Did Mr. Woodfern ask you questions?" + +"Not _that_ kind! And I'm glad he didn't. Linnet, I haven't any +'experience' to talk about." + +"You are not old enough," said Linnet, wisely. + +"Are you?" + +"Yes, I have a little bit." + +"Shall you tell him about it?" asked Marjorie curiously. + +"I don't know." + +"I wish I had some; how do you get it?" + +"It comes." + +"From where?" + +"Oh, I don't know." + +"Then you can't tell me how to get it," pleaded Marjorie. + +"No," said Linnet, shaking her sunshiny curls, "perhaps mother can." + +"When did you have yours?" Marjorie persisted. + +"One day when I was reading about the little girl in the Sandwich +Islands. Her father was a missionary there, and she wrote in her journal +how she felt and I felt so, too," + +"Did you put it in your journal?" + +"Some of it." + +"Did you show it to mother?" + +"Yes." + +"Was she glad?" + +"Yes, she kissed me and said her prayers were answered." + +Marjorie looked very grave. She wished she could be as old as Linnet and +have "experience" to write in her journal and have her mother kiss her +and say her prayers were answered. + +"Do you have it all the time?" she questioned anxiously as Linnet hurried +in from the kitchen with a small platter of sliced ham in her hand. + +"Not every day; I do some days." + +"I want it every day." + +"You call them to tea when I tell you. And you may help me bring things +in." + +When Marjorie opened the parlor door to call them to tea she heard Mr. +Woodfern inquire: + +"Do all your children belong to the Lord?" + +"The two in heaven certainly do, and I think Linnet is a Christian," her +mother was saying. + +"And Marjorie," he asked. + +"You know there are such things; I think Marjorie's heart was changed in +her cradle." + +With the door half opened Marjorie stood and heard this lovely story +about herself. + +"It was before she was three years old; one evening I undressed her and +laid her in the cradle, it was summer and she was not ready to go to +sleep; she had been in a frolic with Linnet and was all in a gale of +mischief. She arose up and said she wanted to get out; I said 'no,' very +firmly, 'mamma wants you to stay.' But she persisted with all her might, +and I had to punish her twice before she would consent to lie still; I +was turning to leave her when I thought her sobs sounded more rebellious +than subdued, I knelt down and took her in my arms to kiss her, but she +drew back and would not kiss me. I saw there was no submission in her +obedience and made up my mind not to leave her until she had given up her +will to mine. If you can believe it, it was two full hours before she +would kiss me, and then she couldn't kiss me enough. I think when she +yielded to my will she gave up so wholly that she gave up her whole being +to the strongest and most loving will she knew. And as soon as she knew +God, she knew--or I knew--that she had submitted to him." + +"Come to tea," called Marjorie, joyfully, a moment later. + +This lovely story about herself was only one of the happenings that +caused Marjorie to remember this day and evening: this day of small +events stood out clearly against the background of her childhood. + +That evening in the church she had been moved to do the hardest, happiest +thing she had ever done in her hard and happy eleven years. At the close +of his stirring appeal to all who felt themselves sinners in God's sight, +Evangelist (he would always be Evangelist to Marjorie) requested any to +rise who had this evening newly resolved to seek Christ until they found +him. A little figure in a pew against the wall, arose quickly, after an +undecided, prayerful moment, a little figure in a gray cloak and broad, +gray velvet hat, but it was such a little figure, and the radiant face +was hidden by such a broad hat, and the little figure dropped back into +its seat so hurriedly, that, in looking over the church, neither the +pastor nor the evangelist noticed it. Her heart gave one great jump when +the pastor arose and remarked in a grieved and surprised tone: "I am +sorry that there is not one among us, young or old, ready to seek our +Saviour to-night." + +The head under the gray hat drooped lower, the radiant face became for +one instant sorrowful. As they were moving down the aisle an old lady, +who had been seated next to Marjorie, whispered to her, "I'm sorry they +didn't see you, dear." + +"Never mind," said the bright voice, "God saw me." + +Hollis saw her, also, and his heart smote him. This timid little girl had +been braver than he. From the group of boys in the gallery he had looked +down at her and wondered. But she was a girl, and girls did not mind +doing such things as boys did; being good was a part of Marjorie's life, +she wouldn't be Marjorie without it. There was a letter in his pocket +from his uncle bidding him to come to the city without delay; he pushed +through the crowd to find Marjorie, "it would be fun to see how sorry she +would look," but her father had hurried her out and lifted her into the +sleigh, and he saw the gray hat in the moonlight close to her father's +shoulder. + +As he was driving to the train the next afternoon, he jumped out and ran +up to the door to say good-bye to her. + +Marjorie opened the door, arrayed in a blue checked apron with fingers +stained with peeling apples. + +"Good-bye, I'm off," he shouted, resisting the impulse to catch her in +his arms and kiss her. + +"Good-bye, I'm so glad, and so sorry," she exclaimed with a shadowed +face. + +"I wish I had something to give you to remember me by," he said suddenly. + +"I think you _have_ given me lots of things." + +"Come, Hol, don't stand there all day," expostulated his brother from the +sleigh. + +"Good-bye, then," said Hollis. + +"Good-bye," said Marjorie. And then he was off and the bells were +jingling down the road and she had not even cautioned him "Be a good +boy." She wished she had had something to give him to remember _her_ by; +she had never done one thing to help him remember her and when he came +back in years and years they would both be grown up and not know each +other. + +"Marjie, you are taking too thick peels," remonstrated her mother. For +the next half hour she conscientiously refrained from thinking of any +thing but the apples. + +"Oh, Marjie," exclaimed Linnet, "peel one whole, be careful and don't +break it, and throw it over your right shoulder and see what letter +comes." + +"Why?" asked Magorie, selecting a large, fair apple to peel. + +"I'll tell you when it comes," answered Linnet, seriously. + +With an intent face, and slow, careful fingers, Marjorie peeled the +handsome apple without breaking the coils of the skin, then poised her +hand and gave the shining, green rings a toss over her shoulder to the +oilcloth. + +"_S! S!_ Oh! what a handsome _S!_" screamed Linnet. + +"Well, what does it mean?" inquired Marjorie, interestedly. + +"Oh, nothing, only you will marry a man whose name begins with _S_," said +Linnet, seriously. + +"I don't believe I will!" returned Marjorie, contentedly. "Do you believe +I will, mother?" + +Mrs. West was lifting a deliciously browned pumpkin pie from the oven, +she set it carefully on the table beside Marjorie's yellow dish of +quartered apples and then turned to the oven for its mate. + +"Now cut one for me," urged Linnet gleefully. + +"But I don't believe it," persisted Marjorie, picking among the apples in +the basket at her feet; "you don't believe it yourself." + +"I never _knew_ it to come true," admitted Linnet, sagely, "but _S_ is a +common letter. There are more Smiths in the world than any one else. A +woman went to an auction and bought a brass door plate with _Smith_ on it +because she had six daughters and was sure one of them would marry a +Smith." + +"And _did_ one?" asked Maijorie, in her innocent voice. Linnet was sure +her lungs were made of leather else she would have burst them every day +laughing at foolish little Marjorie. + +"The story ended there," said Linnet. + +"Stories always leave off at interesting places," said Marjorie, guarding +Linnet's future with slow-moving fingers. "I hope mine won't." + +"It will if you die in the middle of it," returned Linnet + +Linnet was washing the baking dishes at the sink. + +"No, it wouldn't, it would go on and be more interesting," said Marjorie, +in her decided way; "but I do want to finish it all." + +"Be careful, don't break mine," continued Linnet, as Marjorie gave the +apple rings a toss. "There! you have!" she cried disappointedly. "You've +spoiled my fortune, Marjie." + +"Linnet! Linnet!" rebuked her mother, shutting the oven door, "I thought +you were only playing. I wouldn't have let you go on if I had thought you +would have taken it in earnest." + +"I don't really," returned Linnet, with a vexed laugh, "but I did want to +see what letter it would be." + +"It's _O_," said Marjorie, turning to look over her shoulder. + +"Rather a crooked one," conceded Linnet, "but it will have to do." + +"Suppose you try a dozen times and they all come different," suggested +practical Marjorie. + +"That proves it's all nonsense," answered her mother. + +"And suppose you don't marry anybody," Marjorie continued, spoiling +Linnet's romance, "some letter, or something _like_ a letter has to come, +and then what of it?" + +"Oh, it's only fun," explained Linnet. + +"I don't want to know about my _S_" confessed Marjorie. "I'd rather wait +and find out. I want my life to be like a story-book and have surprises +in the next chapter." + +"It's sure to have that," said her mother. "We mustn't _try_ to find out +what is hidden. We mustn't meddle with our lives, either. Hurry +providence, as somebody says in a book." + +"And we can't ask anybody but God," said Marjorie, "because nobody else +knows. He could make any letter come that he wanted to." + +"He will not tell us anything that way," returned her mother. + +"I don't want him to," said Marjorie. + +"Mother, I was in fun and you are making _serious_," cried Linnet with a +distressed face. + +"Not making it dreadful, only serious," smiled her mother. + +"I don't see why the letter has to be about your husband," argued +Marjorie, "lots of things will happen to us first" + +"But that is exciting," said Linnet, "and it is the most of things in +story-books." + +"I don't see why," continued Marjorie, unconvinced, turning an apple +around in her fingers, "isn't the other part of the story worth +anything?" + +"Worth anything!" repeated Linnet, puzzled. + +"Doesn't God care for the other part?" questioned the child. "I've got to +have a good deal of the other part." + +"So have all unmarried people," said her mother, smiling at the quaint +gravity of Marjorie's eyes. + +"Then I don't see why--" said Marjorie. + +"Perhaps you will by and by," her mother replied, laughing, for Marjorie +was looking as wise as an owl; "and now, please hurry with the apples, +for they must bake before tea. Mr. Woodfern says he never ate baked apple +sauce anywhere else." + +Marjorie hoped he would not stay a whole week, as he proposed, if she had +to cut the apples. And then, with a shock and revulsion at herself, she +remembered that her father had read at worship that morning something +about giving even a cup of cold water to a disciple for Christ's sake. + +Linnet laughed again as she stooped to pick up the doubtful _O_ and +crooked _S_ from the oilcloth. + +But the letters had given Marjorie something to think about. + +I had decided to hasten over the story of Marjorie's childhood and bring +her into her joyous and promising girlhood, but the child's own words +about the "other part" that she must have a "good deal" of have changed +my mind. Surely God does care for the "other part," too. + +And I wonder what it is in you (do you know?) that inclines you to hurry +along and skip a little now and then, that you may discover whether +Marjorie ever married Hollis? Why can't you wait and take her life as +patiently as she did? + +That same Saturday evening Marjorie's mother said to Marjorie's father, +with a look of perplexity upon her face, + +"Father, I don't know what to make of our Marjorie." + +He was half dozing over the _Agriculturist_; he raised his head and asked +sharply, "Why? What has she done now?" + +Everybody knew that Marjorie was the apple of her father's eye. + +"Nothing new! Only everything she does _is_ new. She is two Marjories, +and that's what I can't make out. She is silent and she is talkative; +she is shy, very shy, and she is as bold as a little lion; sometimes she +won't tell you anything, and sometimes she tells you everything; +sometimes I think she doesn't love me, and again she loves me to death; +sometimes I think she isn't as bright as other girls, and then again I'm +sure she is a genius. Now Linnet is always the same; I always know what +she will do and say; but there's no telling about Marjorie. I don't know +what to make of her," she sighed. + +"Then I wouldn't try, wife," said Marjorie's father, with his shrewd +smile. "I'd let somebody that knows." + +After a while, Marjorie's mother spoke again: + +"I don't know that you help me any." + +"I don't know that I can; girls are mysteries--you were a mystery once +yourself. Marjorie can respond, but she will not respond, unless she has +some one to respond _to_, or some _thing_ to respond to. Towards myself I +never find but one Marjorie!" + +"That means that you always give her something to respond to!" + +"Well, yes, something like it," he returned in one of Marjorie's +contented tones. + +"She'll have a good many heart aches before she's through, then," decided +Mrs. West, with some sharpness. + +"Probably," said Marjorie's father with the shadow of a smile on his thin +lips. + + + + +III. + +WHAT "DESULTORY" MEANS. + +"A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded." + + +"Miss Prudence! O, Miss Prudence!" + +It was summer time and Marjorie was almost fourteen years old. Her soul +was looking out of troubled eyes to-day. Just now life was all one +unanswered question. + +"Marjorie! O, Marjorie!" mimicked Miss Prudence. + +"I don't know what _desultory_ means," said Marjorie. + +"And you don't know where to find a dictionary?" + +"Mustn't I ask you questions when I can find the answer myself?" asked +Marjorie, straightforwardly. + +"I think it's rather impertinent, don't you?" + +"Yes," considered Marjorie, "rather." + +Miss Prudence was a fair vision in Marjorie's eyes and Marjorie was a +radiant vision in Miss Prudence's eyes. The radiant vision was not +clothed in gorgeous apparel; the radiance was in the face and voice and +in every motion; the apparel was simply a stiffly starched blue muslin, +that had once belonged to Linnet and had been "let down" for Marjorie, +and her head was crowned with a broad-brimmed straw hat, around the crown +of which was tied a somewhat faded blue ribbon, also a relic of Linnet's +summer days; her linen collar was fastened with an old-fashioned pin of +her mother's; her boots were new and neatly fitting, her father had made +them especially for herself. + +Her sense of the fitness of things was sometimes outraged; one of the +reasons why she longed to grow up was that she might have things of her +own; things bought for her and made for her as they always were for +Linnet. But Linnet was pretty and good and was going away to school! + +The fair vision was clothed in white, a soft white, that fell in folds +and had no kinship with starch. Marjorie had never seen this kind of +white dress before; it was a part of Miss Prudence's loveliness. The face +was oval and delicate, with little color in the lips and less in the +cheeks, smooth black hair was brushed away from the thoughtful forehead +and underneath the heavily pencilled black brows large, believing, gray +eyes looked unquestioningly out upon the world. Unlike Marjorie, Miss +Prudence's questions had been answered. She would have told Marjorie that +it was because she had asked her questions of One who knew how to answer. +She was swinging in her hammock on the back porch; this back porch looked +over towards the sea, a grass plat touched the edge of the porch and then +came the garden; it was a kitchen garden, and stretched down to the flat +rocks, and beyond the flat rocks were the sand and the sea. + +Marjorie had walked two miles and a half this hot afternoon to spend two +or three hours with her friend, Miss Prudence. Miss Prudence was boarding +at Marjorie's grandfather's; this was the second summer that she had been +at this farmhouse by the sea. She was the lady of whom Marjorie had +caught a glimpse so long ago in church, and called her Mercy. Throwing +aside her hat, Marjorie dropped down on the floor of the porch, so near +the gently swaying hammock that she might touch the soft, white drapery, +and in a position to watch Miss Prudence's face. + +"I don't see the use of learning somethings," Marjorie began; that is, if +she could be said to begin anything with Miss Prudence, the beginning of +all her questions had been so long ago. So long ago to Marjorie; long ago +to Miss Prudence was before Marjorie was born. + +There were no books or papers in the hammock. Miss Prudence had settled +herself comfortably, so comfortably that she was not conscious of +inhabiting her body when Marjorie had unlatched the gate. + +"Which one of the things, for instance?" + +In the interested voice there was not one trace of the delicious reverie +she had been lost in. + +"Punctuation," said Marjorie, promptly; "and Mr. Holmes says we must be +thorough in it. I can't see the use of anything beside periods, and, of +course, a comma once in a while." + +A gleam of fun flashed into the gray eyes. Miss Prudence was a born +pedagogue. + +"I'll show you something I learned when I was a little girl; and, after +this, if you don't confess that punctuation has its work in the world, I +have nothing more to say about it." + +Marjorie had been fanning herself with her broad brim, she let it fall in +her eagerness and her eyes were two convincing arguments against the +truth of her own theory, for they were two emphasized exclamation points; +sometimes when she was very eager she doubled herself up and made an +interrogation point of herself. + +"Up in my room on the table you will find paper and pencil; please bring +them to me." + +Marjorie flew away and Miss Prudence gave herself up to her interrupted +reverie. To-day was one of Miss Prudence's hard-working days; that is, it +was followed by the effect of a hard-working day; the days in which she +felt too weak to do anything beside pray she counted the successful days +of her life. She said they were the only days in her life in which she +accomplished anything. + +Marjorie was at home in every part of her grandfather's queer old house; +Miss Prudence's room was her especial delight. It was a low-studded +chamber, with three windows looking out to the sea, the wide fireplace +was open, filled with boughs of fragrant hemlock; the smooth yellow +floor with its coolness and sweet cleanliness invited you to enter; there +were round braided mats spread before the bureau and rude washstand, and +more pretentious ones in size and beauty were laid in front of the red, +high-posted bedstead and over the brick hearth. There were, beside, in +the apartment, two tables, an easy-chair with arms, its cushions covered +with red calico, a camp stool, three rush-bottomed chairs, a Saratoga +trunk, intruding itself with ugly modernness, also, hanging upon hooks, +several articles of clothing, conspicuously among them a gray flannel +bathing suit. The windows were draperied in dotted swiss, fastened back +with green cord; her grandmother would never have been guilty of those +curtains. Marjorie was sure they had intimate connection with the +Saratoga trunk. Sunshine, the salt-breath of the sea and the odor of pine +woods as well! + +There were rollicking voices outside the window, Marjorie looked out and +spied her five little cousins playing in the sand. Three of them held in +their hands, half-eaten, the inevitable doughnut; morning, noon, and +night those children were to be found with doughnuts in their hands. + +She laughed and turned again to the contemplation of the room; on the +high mantel was a yellow pitcher, that her grandmother knew was a hundred +years old, and in the centre of the mantel were arranged a sugar bowl and +a vinegar cruet that Miss Prudence had coaxed away from the old lady; her +city friends would rave over them, she said. The old lady had laughed, +remarking that "city folks" had ways of their own. + +"I've given away a whole set of dishes to folks that come in the yachts," +she said. "I should think you would rather have new dishes." + +Miss Prudence never dusted her old possessions; she told Marjorie that +she had not the heart to disturb the dust of ages. + +Marjorie was tempted to linger and linger; in winter this room was closed +and seemed always bare and cold when she peeped into it; there was no +temptation to stay one moment; and now she had to tear herself away. It +must be Miss Prudence's spirit that brooded over it and gave it sweetness +and sunshine. This was the way Marjorie put the thought to herself. The +child was very poetical when she lived alone with herself. Miss +Prudence's wicker work-basket with its dainty lining of rose-tinted silk, +its shining scissors and gold thimble, with its spools and sea-green silk +needlebook was a whole poem to the child; she thought the possession of +one could make any kind of sewing, even darning stockings, very +delightful work. "Stitch, stitch, stitch," would not seem dreadful, at +all. + +How mysterious and charming it was to board by the seashore with +somebody's grandfather! And then, in winter, to go back to some +bewildering sort of a fairyland! To some kind of a world where people did +not talk all the time about "getting along" and "saving" and "doing +without" and "making both ends meet." How Marjorie's soul rebelled +against the constant repetition of those expressions! How she thought she +would never _let_ her little girls know what one of them meant! If she +and her little girls had to be saving and do without, how brave they +would be about it, and laugh over it, and never ding it into anybody's +ears! And she would never constantly be asking what things cost! Miss +Prudence never asked such questions. But she would like to know if that +gold pen cost so very much, and that glass inkstand shaped like a +pyramid, and all that cream note-paper with maple tassels and autumn +leaves and butterflies and ever so many cunning things painted in its +left corners. And there was a pile of foolscap on the table, and some +long, yellow envelopes, and some old books and some new books and an +ivory paper-cutter; all something apart from the commonplace world she +inhabited. Not apart from the world her thoughts and desires revelled +in; not her hopes, for she had not gotten so far as to hope to live in a +magical world like Miss Prudence. And yet when Miss Prudence did not wear +white she was robed in deep mourning; there was sorrow in Miss Prudence's +magical world. + +It was some few moments before the roving eyes could settle themselves +upon the paper and pencil she had been sent for; she would have liked to +choose a sheet of the thick cream-paper with the autumn leaves painted on +it, but that was not for study, and Miss Prudence certainly intended +study, although there was fun in her eyes. She selected carefully a sheet +of foolscap and from among the pen oils a nicely sharpened Faber number +three. With the breath of the room about her, and the beauty and +restfulness of it making a glory in her eyes, she ran down to the broad, +airy hall. + +Glancing into the sitting-room as she passed its partly opened door she +discovered her grandfather asleep in his arm-chair and her grandmother +sitting near him busy in slicing apples to be strung and hung up in the +kitchen to dry! With a shiver of foreboding the child passed the door on +tiptoe; suppose her grandmother _should_ call her in to string those +apples! The other children never strung them to suit her and she +"admired" Marjorie's way of doing them. Marjorie said once that she hated +apple blossoms because they turned into dried apples. But that was when +she had stuck the darning needle into her thumb. + +I'm afraid you will think now that Marjorie is not as sweet as she used +to be. + +She presented the paper, congratulating herself upon her escape, and Miss +Prudence lifted herself in the hammock and took the pencil, holding it in +her fingers while she meditated. What a little girl she was when her +whiteheaded old teacher had bidden her write this sentence on the +blackboard. She wrote it carefully, Marjorie's attentive eyes following +each movement of the pencil. + +"The persons inside the coach were Mr Miller a clergyman his son a lawyer +Mr Angelo a foreigner his lady and a little child" In the entire sentence +there was not one punctuation mark. + +"Read it, please." + +Marjorie began to read, then stopped and laughed. + +"I can't." + +"You wouldn't enjoy a book very much written in that style, would you?" + +"I couldn't enjoy it at all. I wouldn't read it" + +"Well, if you can't read it, explain it to me. How many persons are in +the coach?" + +"That's easy enough! There's Mr. Miller, that's one; there's the +clergyman, that's two!" + +"Perhaps that is only one; Mr. Miller may be a clergyman." + +"So he may. But how can I tell?" asked Marjorie, perplexed. "Well, then, +his son makes two." + +"Whose son?" + +"Why, Mr. Miller's!" + +"Perhaps he was the clergyman's son," returned Miss Prudence seriously. + +"Well, then," declared Marjorie, "I guess there were eight people! Mr. +Miller, the clergyman, the son, the lawyer, Mr. Angelo, a foreigner, a +lady, and a child!" + +"Placing a comma after each there are eight persons," said Miss Prudence +making the commas. + +"Yes," assented Marjorie, watching her. + +Beneath it Miss Prudence wrote the sentence again, punctuating thus: + +"The persons inside the conch were Mr. Miller, a clergyman; his son, a +lawyer; Mr. Angelo, a foreigner, his lady; and a little child." + +"Now how many persons are there inside this coach?" + +"Three gentlemen, a lady and child," laughed Marjorie--"five instead of +eight. Those little marks have caused three people to vanish." + +"And to change occupations." + +"Yes, for Mr. Miller is a clergyman, his son a lawyer, and Mr. Angelo has +become a foreigner." + +The pencil was moving again and the amused, attentive eyes were +steadfastly following. + +"The persons inside the coach were Mr. Miller; a clergyman, his son; a +lawyer, Mr. Angelo; a foreigner, his lady, and a little child." + +Marjorie uttered an exclamation; it was so funny! + +"Now, Mr. Miller's son is a clergyman instead of himself, Mr. Angelo is a +lawyer, and nobody knows whether he is a foreigner or not, and we don't +know the foreigner's name, and he has a wife and child." + +Miss Prudence smiled over the young eagerness, and rewrote the sentence +once again causing Mr. Angelo to cease to be a lawyer and giving the +foreigner a wife but no little child. + +"O, Miss Prudence, you've made the little thing an orphan all alone in a +stage-coach all through the change of a comma to be a semi-colon!" +exclaimed Marjorie in comical earnestness. "I think punctuation means +ever so much; it isn't dry one bit," she added, enthusiastically. + +"You couldn't enjoy Mrs. Browning very well without it," smiled Miss +Prudence. + +"I never would know what the 'Cry of the Children' meant, or anything +about Cowper's grave, would I? And if I punctuated it myself, I might +not get all _she_ meant. I might make a meaning of my own, and that would +be sad." + +"I think you do," said Miss Prudence; "when I read it to you and the +children, there were tears in your eyes, but the others said all they +liked was my voice." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "but if somebody had stumbled over every line I +shouldn't have felt it so. I know the good there is in studying +elocution. When Mr. Woodfern was here and read 'O, Absalom, my son! My +son, Absalom!' everybody had tears in their eyes, and I had never seen +tears about it before. And now I know the good of punctuation. I guess +punctuation helps elocution, too." + +"I shouldn't wonder," replied Miss Prudence, smiling at Marjorie's air of +having discovered something. "Now, I'll give you something to do while I +close my eyes and think awhile." + +"Am I interrupting you?" inquired Marjorie in consternation. "I didn't +know how I could any more than I can interrupt--" + +"God" was in her thought, but she did not give it utterance. + +"I shall not allow you," returned Miss Prudence, quietly. "You will work +awhile, and I will think and when I open my eyes you may talk to me about +anything you please. You are a great rest to me, child." + +"Thank you," said the child, simply. + +"You may take the paper and change the number of people, or relationship, +or professions again. I know it may be done." + +"I don't see how." + +"Then it will give you really something to do." + +Seating herself again on the yellow floor of the porch, within range of +Miss Prudence's vision, but not near enough to disturb her, Marjorie bit +the unsharpened end of her pencil and looked long at the puzzling +sentences on the foolscap. With the attitude of attentiveness she was not +always attentive; Mr. Holmes told her that she lacked concentration and +that she could not succeed without it. Marjorie was very anxious to +"succeed." She scribbled awhile, making a comma and a dash, a +parenthesis, an interrogation point, an asterisk and a line of asterisks! +But the sense was not changed; there was nobody new in the stage-coach +and nobody did anything new. Then she rewrote it again, giving the little +child to the foreigner and lady; she wanted the child to have a father +and mother, even if the father were a foreigner and did not speak +English; she called the foreigner Mr. Angelo, and imagined him to be a +brother of the celebrated Michael Angelo; making a dive into the shallow +depths of her knowledge of Italian nomenclature she selected a name for +the child, a little girl, of course--Corrinne would do, or it might be a +boy and named for his uncle Michael. In what age of the world had Michael +Angelo lived? At the same time with Petrarch and Galileo, and Tasso +and--did she know about any other Italians? Oh, yes. Silvio +Pellico,--wasn't he in prison and didn't he write about it? And was not +the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy? Was that one of the Seven Wonders of +the World? And weren't there Seven Wise Men of Greece? And wasn't there a +story about the Seven Sleepers? But weren't they in Asia? And weren't the +churches in Revelation in Asia? And wasn't the one at Laodicea lukewarm? +And did people mix bread with lukewarm water in summer as well as winter? +And wasn't it queer--why how had she got there? But it _was_ queer for +the oriental king to refuse to believe and say it wasn't so--that water +couldn't become hard enough for people to walk on it! And it was funny +for the East Indian servant to be alarmed because the butter was +"spoiled," just because when they were up in the mountains it became hard +and was not like oil as it was down in Calcutta! And that was where Henry +Martyn went, and he dressed all in white, and his face was so lovely and +pure, like an angel's; and angels _were_ like young men, for at the +resurrection didn't it say they were young men! Or was it some other +time? And how do you spell _resurrection_? Was that the word that had one +_s_ and two _r's_ in it? And how would you write two _r's?_ Would +punctuation teach you that? Was _B_ a word and could you spell it? + +"Well, Marjorie?" + +"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Marjorie. "I've been away off! I always do go +away off! I don't remember what the last thing I thought of was. I never +shall be concentrated," she sighed. "I believe I could go right on and +think of fifty other things. One thing always reminds me of some thing +else." + +"And some day," rebuked Miss Prudence, "when you must concentrate your +thoughts you will find that you have spoiled yourself." + +"I have found it out now," acknowledged Marjorie humbly. + +"I have to be very severe with myself." + +"I ought to be," Marjorie confessed with a rueful face, "for it spoils my +prayers so often. I wouldn't dare tell you all the things I find myself +thinking of. Why, last night--you know at the missionary meeting they +asked us to pray for China and so I thought I'd begin last night, and I +had hardly begun when it flashed into my mind--suppose somebody should +make me Empress of China, and give me supreme power, of course. And I +began to make plans as to how I should make them all Christians. I +thought I wouldn't _force_ them or destroy their temples, but I'd have +all my officers real Christians; Americans, of course; and I thought I +_would_ compel them to send the children to Christian schools. I'd have +such grand schools. I had you as principal for the grandest one. And I'd +have the Bible and all our best books, and all our best Sunday School +books translated into Chinese and I _would_ make the Sabbath a holy day +all over the land. I didn't know what I would do about that room in every +large house called the Hall of Ancestors. You know they worship their +grandparents and great-great-grandparents there. I think I should have to +let them read the old books. Isn't it queer that one of the proverbs +should be like the Bible? 'God hates the proud and is kind to the +humble.' Do you know all about Buddha?" + +"Is that as far as you got in your prayer?" asked Miss Prudence, gravely. + +"About as far. And then I was so contrite that I began to pray for myself +as hard as I could, and forgot all about China." + +"Do you wander off in reading the Bible, too?" + +"Oh, no; I can keep my attention on that. I read Genesis and Exodus last +Sunday. It is the loveliest story-book I know. I've begun to read it +through. Uncle James said once, that when he was a sea-captain, he +brought a passenger from Germany and he used to sit up all night and read +the Bible. He told me last Sunday because he thought I read so long. I +told him I didn't wonder. Miss Prudence," fixing her innocent, +questioning eyes upon Miss Prudence's face, "why did a lady tell mother +once that she didn't want her little girl to read the Bible through until +she was grown up? It was Mrs. Grey,--and she told mother she ought not to +let me begin and read right through." + +"What did your mother say?" + +"She said she was glad I wanted to do it." + +"I think Mrs. Grey meant that you might learn about some of the sin there +is in the world. But if you live in the world, you will be kept from the +evil, because Christ prayed that his disciples might be thus kept; but +you must know the sin exists. And I would rather my little girl would +learn about the sins that God hates direct from his lips than from any +other source. As soon as you learn what sin is, you will learn to hate +it, and that is not sure if you learn it in any other way. I read the +Bible through when I was about your age, and I think there are some forms +of sin I never should have hated so intensely if I had not learned about +them in the way God thinks best to teach us his abhorrence of them. I +never read any book in which a sin was fully delineated that I did not +feel some of the excitement of the sin--some extenuation, perhaps, some +glossing over, some excuse for the sinner,--but in the record God gives I +always intensely hate the sin and feel how abominable it is in his sight. +The first book I ever cried over was the Bible and it was somebody's sin +that brought the tears. I would like to talk to Mrs. Grey!" cried Miss +Prudence, her eyes kindling with indignation. "To think that God does not +know what is good for his children." + +"I wish you would," said Marjorie with enthusiasm, "for I don't know how +to say it. Mother knows a lady who will not read Esther on Sunday because +God isn't in it" + +"The name of God, you mean," said Miss Prudence smiling. "I think Esther +and Mordecai and all the Jews thought God was in it." + +"I will try not to build castles," promised Marjorie often a silent half +minute. "I've done it so much to please Linnet. After we go to bed at +night she says, 'Shut your eyes, Marjie, and tell me what you see,' Then +I shut my eyes and see things for us both. I see ourselves grown up and +having a splendid home and a real splendid husband, and we each have +three children. She has two boys and one girl, and I have two girls and +one boy. And we educate them and dress them so nice, and they do lovely +things. We travel all around the world with them, and I tell Linnet all +we see in Europe and Asia. Our husbands stay home and send us money. They +have to stay home and earn it, you know," Marjorie explained with a +shrewd little smile. "Would you give that all up?" she asked +disappointedly. + +"Yes, I am sure I would. You are making a disappointment for yourself; +your life may not be at all like that. You may never marry, in the first +place, and you may marry a man who cannot send you to Europe, and I think +you are rather selfish to spend his money and not stay home and be a good +wife to him," said Miss Prudence, smiling. + +"Oh. I write him splendid long letters!" said Marjorie quickly. "They are +so splendid that he thinks of making a book of them." + +"I'm afraid they wouldn't take," returned Miss Prudence seriously, "books +of travel are too common nowadays." + +"Is it wrong to build castles for any other reason than for making +disappointments?" Marjorie asked anxiously. + +"Yes, you dwell only on pleasant things and thus you do not prepare +yourself, or rather un-prepare yourself for bearing trial. And why should +a little girl live in a woman's world?" + +"Oh, because it's so nice!" cried Marjorie. + +"And are you willing to lose your precious childhood and girlhood?" + +"Why no," acknowledged the child, looking startled. + +"I think you lose a part of it when you love best to look forward to +womanhood; I should think every day would be full enough for you to live +in." + +"To-day is full enough; but some days nothing happens at all." + +"Now is your study time; now is the time for you to be a perfect little +daughter and sister, a perfect friend, a perfect helper in every way that +a child may help. And when womanhood comes you will be ready to enjoy it +and to do its work. It would be very sad to look back upon a lost or +blighted or unsatisfying childhood." + +"Yes," assented Marjorie, gravely. + +"Perhaps you and Linnet have been reading story-books that were not +written for children." + +"We read all the books in the school library." + +"Does your mother look over them?" + +"No, not always." + +"They may harm you only in this way that I see. You are thinking of +things before the time. It would be a pity to spoil May by bringing +September into it." + +"All the girls like the grown-up stories best" excused Marjorie. + +"Perhaps they have not read books written purely for children. Think of +the histories and travels and biographies and poems piled up for you to +read!" + +"I wish I had them. I read all I could get." + +"I am sure you do. O, Marjorie, I don't want you to lose one of your +precious days. I lost so many of mine by growing up too soon. There are +years and years to be a woman, but there are so few years to be a child +and a girl." + +Marjorie scribbled awhile thinking of nothing to say. Had she been +"spoiling" Linnet, too? But Linnet was two years older, almost old enough +to think about growing up. + +"Marjorie, look at me!" + +Marjorie raised her eyes and fixed them upon the glowing eyes that were +reading her own. Miss Prudence's lips were white and tremulous. + +"I have had some very hard things in my life and I fully believe I +brought many of them upon myself. I spoiled my childhood and early +girlhood by light reading and castle-building; I preferred to live among +scenes of my own imagining, than in my own common life, and oh, the +things I left up done! The precious girlhood I lost and the hard +womanhood I made for myself." + +The child's eyes were as full of tears as the woman's. + +"Please tell me what to do," Marjorie entreated. "I don't want to lose +anything. I suppose it is as good to be a girl as a woman." + +"Get all the sweetness out of every day; _live_ in to-day, don't plan or +hope about womanhood; God has all that in his safe hands. Read the kind +of books I have spoken of and when you read grown-up stories let some one +older and wiser choose them for you. By and by your taste will be so +formed and cultivated that you will choose only the best for yourself. I +hope the Bible will spoil some other books for you." + +"I _devour_ everything I can borrow or find anywhere." + +"You don't eat everything you can borrow or find anywhere. If you choose +for your body, how much more ought you to choose for your mind." + +"I do get discontented sometimes and want things to happen as they do in +books; something happens in every chapter in a book," acknowledged +Marjorie. + +"There's nothing said about the dull, uneventful days that come between; +if the author should write only about the dull days no one would read the +book." + +"It wouldn't be like life, either," said Marjorie, quickly, "for +something does happen, sometimes nothing has happened yet to me, though. +But I suppose something will, some day." + +"Then if I should write about your thirteen years the charm would have to +be all in the telling." + +"Like Hector in the Garden," said Marjorie, brightly. "How I do love +that. And he was only nine years old." + +"But how far we've gotten away from punctuation!" + +Next to prayer children were Miss Prudence's most perfect rest. They were +so utterly unconscious of what she was going through. It seemed to Miss +Prudence as if she were always going through and never getting through. + +"Are you fully satisfied that punctuation has its work in the world?" + +"Yes, ever so fully. I should never get along in the Bible without it." + +"That reminds me; run upstairs and bring me my Bible and I'll show you +something. + +"And, then, after that will you show me the good of remembering _dates_. +They are so hard to remember. And I can't see the good. Do you suppose +you _could_ make it as interesting as punctuation?" + +"I might try. The idea of a little girl who finds punctuation so +interesting having to resort to castle-building to make life worth +living," laughed Miss Prudence. + +"Mother said to-day that she was afraid I was growing deaf, for she spoke +three times before I answered; I was away off somewhere imagining I had a +hundred dollars to spend, so she went down cellar for the butter +herself." + +Marjorie walked away with a self-rebuked air; she did dread to pass that +open sitting-room door; Uncle James had come in in his shirt sleeves, +wiping his bald head with his handkerchief and was telling her +grandfather that the hay was poor this year; Aunt Miranda was brushing +Nettie's hair and scolding her for having such greasy fingers; and her +grandmother had a pile, _such_ a pile of sliced apple all ready to be +strung. Her head was turning, yes, she would see her and then she could +not know about dates or have a lesson in reading poetry! Tiptoing more +softly still and holding the skirt of her starched muslin in both hands +to keep it from rustling, she at last passed the ordeal and breathed +freely as she gained Miss Prudence's chamber. The spirit of handling +things seemed to possess her this afternoon, for, after finding the +Bible, she went to the mantel and took into her hands every article +placed upon it; the bird's nest with the three tiny eggs, the bunch of +feathers that she had gathered for Miss Prudence with their many shades +of brown, the old pieces of crockery, handling these latter very +carefully until she seized the yellow pitcher; Miss Prudence had paid her +grandmother quite a sum for the pitcher, having purchased it for a +friend; Marjorie turned it around and around in her hands, then, +suddenly, being startled by a heavy, slow step on the stairs which +she recognized as her grandmother's, and having in fear those apples to +be strung, in attempting to lift it to the high mantel, it fell short of +the mantel edge and dropped with a crash to the hearth. + +For an instant Marjorie was paralyzed with horror; then she stifled a +shriek and stood still gazing down through quick tears upon the yellow +fragments. Fortunately her grandmother, being very deaf, had passed the +door and heard no sound. What would have happened to her if her +grandmother had looked in! + +How disappointed Miss Prudence would be! It belonged to her friend and +how could she remedy the loss? + +Stooping, with eyes so blinded with tears that she could scarcely see the +pieces she took into her hand, she picked up each bit, and then on the +spur of the moment hid them among the thick branches of hemlock. Now what +was she to do next? Could she earn money to buy another hundred-years-old +yellow pitcher? And if she could earn the money, where could she find the +pitcher? She would not confess to Miss Prudence until she found some way +of doing something for her. Oh, dear! This was not the kind of thing that +she had been wishing would happen! And how could she go down with such a +face to hear the rest about punctuation? + +"Marjorie! Marjorie!" shouted Uncle James from below, "here's Cap'n Rheid +at the gate, and if you want to catch a ride you'd better go a ways with +him." + +The opportunity to run away was better than the ride; hastening down to +the hammock she laid the Bible in Miss Prudence's lap. + +"I have to go, you see," she exclaimed, hurriedly, averting her face. + +"Then our desultory conversation must be finished another time." + +"If that's what it means, it means delightful!" said Marjorie. "Thank +you, and good-bye." + +The blue muslin vanished between the rows of currant bushes. She was +hardly a radiant vision as she flew down to the gate; in those few +minutes what could have happened to the child? + + + + +IV. + +A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE. + +"Children always turn toward the light" + + +"Well, Mousie!" + +The old voice and the old pet name; no one thought of calling her +"Mousie" but Hollis Rheid. + +Her mother said she was noisier than she used to be; perhaps he would not +call her Mousie now if he could hear her sing about the house and run up +and down stairs and shout when she played games at school. That time when +she was so quiet and afraid of everybody seemed ages ago; ages ago before +Hollis went to New York. He had returned home once since, but she had +been at her grandfather's and had not seen him. Springing to the ground, +he caught her in his arms, this tall, strange boy, who had changed so +much, and yet who had not changed at all, and lifted her into the back of +the open wagon. + +"Will you squeeze in between us--there's but one seat you see, and +father's a big man, or shall I make a place for you in the bottom among +the bags?" + +"I'd rather sit with the bags," said Marjorie, her timidity coming back. +She had always been afraid of Hollis' father; his eyes were the color of +steel, and his voice was not encouraging. He thought he was born to +command. People said old Captain Rheid acted as if he were always on +shipboard. His wife said once in the bitterness of her spirit that he +always marched the quarter-deck and kept his boys in the forecastle. + +"You don't weigh more than that bag of flour yourself, not as much, and +that weighs one hundred pounds." + +"I weigh ninety pounds," said Marjorie. + +"And how old are you?" + +"Almost fourteen," she answered proudly. + +"Four years younger than I am! Now, are you comfortable? Are you afraid +of spoiling your dress? I didn't think of that?" + +"Oh, no; I wish I was," laughed Marjorie, glancing shyly at him from +under her broad brim. + +It was her own bright face, yet, he decided, with an older look in it, +her eyelashes were suspiciously moist and her cheeks were reddened with +something more than being lifted into the wagon. + +Marjorie settled herself among the bags, feeling somewhat strange and +thinking she would much rather have walked; Hollis sprang in beside his +father, not inclined to make conversation with him, and restrained, by +his presence, from turning around to talk to Marjorie. + +Oh, how people misunderstand each other! How Captain Rheid misunderstood +his boys and how his boys misunderstood him! The boys said that Hollis +was the Joseph among them, his father's favorite; but Hollis and his +father had never opened their hearts to each other. Captain Rheid often +declared that there was no knowing what his boys would do if they were +not kept in; perhaps they had him to thank that they were not all in +state-prison. There was a whisper among the country folks that the old +man himself had been in prison in some foreign country, but no one had +ever proved it; in his many "yarns" at the village store, he had not even +hinted at such a strait. If Marjorie had not stood quite so much in fear +of him she would have enjoyed his adventures; as it was she did enjoy +with a feverish enjoyment the story of thirteen days in an open boat on +the ocean. His boys were fully aware that he had run away from home when +he was fourteen, and had not returned for fourteen years, but they were +not in the least inclined to follow his example. Hollis' brothers had all +left home with the excuse that they could "better" themselves elsewhere; +two were second mates on board large ships, Will and Harold, Sam was +learning a trade in the nearest town, he was next to Hollis in age, and +the eldest, Herbert, had married and was farming on shares within ten +miles of his father's farm. But Captain Rheid held up his head, declaring +that his boys were good boys, and had always obeyed him; if they had left +him to farm his hundred and fifty acres alone, it was only because their +tastes differed from his. In her lonely old age, how his wife sighed for +a daughter!--a daughter that would stay at home and share her labors, and +talk to her, and read to her on stormy Sundays, and see that her collar +was on straight, and that her caps were made nice. Some mothers had +daughters, but she had never had much pleasure in her life! + +"Like to come over to your grandfather's, eh?" remarked Captain Rheid, +looking around at the broad-brimmed hat among the full bags. + +"Yes, sir," said Marjorie, denting one of the full bags with her +forefinger and wondering what he would do to her if she should make a +hole in the bag, and let the contents out. + +She rarely got beyond monosyllables with Hollis' father. + +"Your uncle James isn't going to stay much longer, he tells me," + +"No, sir," said Marjorie, obediently. + +"Wife and children going back to Boston, too?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Her forefinger was still making dents. + +"Just come to board awhile, I suppose?" + +"I thought they _visited_" said Marjorie. + +"Visited? Humph! _Visit_ his poor old father with a wife and five +children!" + +Marjorie wanted to say that her grandfather wasn't poor. + +"Your grandfather's place don't bring in much, I reckon." + +"I don't know," Marjorie answered. + +"How many acres? Not more'n fifty, and some of that _made_ land. I +remember when some of your grandfather's land was water! I don't see what +your uncle James had to settle down to business in Boston for--_that's_ +what comes of marrying a city girl! Why didn't he stay home and take care +of his old father?" + +Marjorie had nothing to say. Hollis flushed uncomfortably. + +"And your mother had to get married, too. I'm glad I haven't a daughter +to run away and get married?" + +"She didn't run away," Marjorie found voice to answer indignantly. + +"O, no, the Connecticut schoolmaster had to come and make a home for +her." + +Marjorie wondered what right he had to be so disagreeable to her, and why +should he find fault with her mother and her uncle, and what right had he +to say that her grandfather was poor and that some of his land had once +been water? + +"Hollis shan't grow up and marry a city girl if I can help it," he +growled, half good-naturedly. + +Hollis laughed; he thought he was already grown up, and he did admire +"city girls" with their pretty finished manners and little ready +speeches. + +Marjorie wished Hollis would begin to talk about something pleasant; +there were two miles further to ride, and would Captain Rheid talk all +the way? + +If she could only have an errand somewhere and make an excuse to get out! +But the Captain's next words relieved her perplexity; "I can't take you +all the way, Sis, I have to branch off another road to see a man about +helping me with the hay. I would have let Hollis go to mill, but I +couldn't trust him with these horses." + +Hollis fidgeted on his seat; he had asked his father when they set out to +let him take the lines, but he had replied ungraciously that as long as +he had hands he preferred to hold the reins. + +Hollis had laughed and retorted: "I believe that, father." + +"Shall I get out now?" asked Marjorie, eagerly. "I like to walk. I +expected to walk home." + +"No; wait till we come to the turn." + +The horses were walking slowly up the hill; Marjorie made dents in the +bag of flour, in the bag of indian meal, and in the bag of wheat bran, +and studied Hollis' back. The new navy-blue suit was handsome and +stylish, and the back of his brown head with its thick waves of brownish +hair was handsome also--handsome and familiar; but the navy-blue suit was +not familiar, and the eyes that just then turned and looked at her were +not familiar either. Marjorie could get on delightfully with _souls_, but +bodies were something that came between her soul and their soul; the +flesh, like a veil, hid herself and hid the other soul that she wanted to +be at home with. She could have written to the Hollis she remembered many +things that she could not utter to the Hollis that she saw today. +Marjorie could not define this shrinking, of course. + +"Hollis has to go back in a day or two," Captain Rheid announced; "he +spent part of his vacation in the country with Uncle Jack before he came +home. Boys nowadays don't think of their fathers and mothers." + +Hollis wondered if _he_ thought of his mother and father when he ran away +from them those fourteen years: he wished that his father had never +revealed that episode in his early life. He did not miss it that he did +not love his father, but he would have given more than a little if he +might respect him. He knew Marjorie would not believe that he did not +think about his mother. + +"I wonder if your father will work at his trade next winter," continued +Captain Rheid. + +"I don't know," said Marjorie, hoping the "turn" was not far off. + +"I'd advise him to--summers, too, for that matter. These little places +don't pay. Wants to sell, he tells me." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Real estate's too low; 'tisn't a good time to sell. But it's a good time +to buy; and I'll buy your place and give it to Hollis if he'll settle +down and work it." + +"It would take more than _that_ farm to keep me here," said Hollis, +quickly; "but, thank you all the same, father; Herbert would jump at the +chance." + +"Herbert shan't have it; I don't like his wife; she isn't respectful to +Herbert's father. He wants to exchange it for city property, so he can go +into business, he tells me." + +"Oh, does he?" exclaimed Marjorie. "I didn't know that." + +"Girls are rattlebrains and chatterboxes; they can't be told everything," +he replied shortly. + +"I wonder what makes you tell me, then," said Marjorie, demurely, in the +fun of the repartee forgetting for the first time the bits of yellow ware +secreted among the hemlock boughs. + +Throwing back his head Captain Rheid laughed heartily, he touched the +horses with the whip, laughing still. + +"I wouldn't mind having a little girl like you," he said, reining in the +horses at the turn of the road; "come over and see marm some day." + +"Thank you," Marjorie said, rising. + +Giving the reins to Hollis, Captain Rheid climbed out of the wagon that +he might lift the child out himself. + +"Jump," he commanded, placing her hands on his shoulders. + +Marjorie jumped with another "thank you." + +"I haven't kissed a little girl for twenty years--not since my little +girl died--but I guess I'll kiss you." + +Marjorie would not withdraw her lips for the sake of the little girl that +died twenty years ago. + +"Good-bye, Mousie, if I don't see you again," said Hollis. + +"Good-bye," said Marjorie. + +She stood still till the horses' heads were turned and the chains had +rattled off in the distance, then, very slowly, she walked on in the +dusty road, forgetting how soft and green the grass was at the wayside. + +"She's a proper nice little thing," observed Hollis' father; "her father +wouldn't sell her for gold. I'll exchange my place for his if he'll throw +her in to boot. Marm is dreadful lonesome." + +"Why don't she adopt a little girl?" asked Hollis. + +"I declare! That _is_ an idea! Hollis, you've hit the nail on the head +this time. But I'd want her willing and loving, with no ugly ways. And +good blood, too. I'd want to know what her father had been before her." + +"Are your boys like _you_, father?" asked Hollis. + +"God forbid!" answered the old man huskily. "Hollis, I want you to be a +better man than your father. I pray every night that my boys may be +Christians; but my time is past, I'm afraid. Hollis, do you pray and read +your Bible, regular?" + +Hollis gave an embarrassed cough. "No, sir," he returned. + +"Then I'd see to it that I did it. That little girl joined the Church +last Sunday and I declare it almost took my breath away. I got the Bible +down last Sunday night and read a chapter in the New Testament. If you +haven't got a Bible, I'll give you money to buy one." + +"Oh, I have one," said Hollis uneasily. + +"Git up, there!" shouted Captain Rheid to his horses, and spoke not +another word all the way home. + +After taking a few slow steps Marjorie quickened her pace, remembering +that Linnet did not like to milk alone; Marjorie did not like to milk at +all; at thirteen there were not many things that she liked to do very +much, except to read and think. + +"I'm afraid she's indolent," sighed her mother; "there's Linnet now, +she's as spry as a cricket" + +But Linnet was not conscious of very many things to think about and +Marjorie every day discovered some new thought to revel in. At this +moment, if it had not been for that unfortunate pitcher, she would have +been reviewing her conversation with Miss Prudence. It _was_ wonderful +about punctuation; how many times a day life was "wonderful" to the +growing child! + +Along this road the farmhouses were scattered at long distances, there +was one in sight with the gable end to the road, but the next one was +fully quarter of a mile away; she noted the fact, not that she was afraid +or lonely, but it gave her something to think of; she was too thoroughly +acquainted with the road to be afraid of anything by night or by day; she +had walked to her grandfather's more times than she could remember ever +since she was seven years old. She tried to guess how far the next house +was, how many feet, yards or rods; she tried to guess how many quarts of +blueberries had grown in the field beyond; she even wondered if anybody +could count the blades of grass all along the way if they should try! But +the remembrance of the broken pitcher persisted in bringing itself +uppermost, pushing through the blades of grass and the quarts of +blueberries; she might as well begin to plan how she was to earn another +pitcher! Or, her birthday was coming--in a month she would be fourteen; +her father would certainly give her a silver dollar because he was glad +that he had had her fourteen years. A quick, panting breath behind her, +and the sound of hurrying feet, caused her to turn her head; she fully +expected to meet the gaze of some big dog, but instead a man was close +upon her, dusty, travel-stained, his straw hat pushed back from a +perspiring face and a hand stretched out to detain her. + +On one arm he carried a long, uncovered basket in which were arranged +rows and piles of small bottles; a glance at the basket reassured her, +every one knew Crazy Dale, the peddler of essences, cough-drops and quack +medicines. + +"It's lonesome walking alone; I've been running to overtake you; I tried +to be in time to catch a ride; but no matter, I will walk with you, if +you will kindly permit." + +She looked up into his pleasant countenance; he might have been handsome +years ago. + +"Well," she assented, walking on. + +"You don't know where I could get a girl to work for me," he asked in a +cracked voice. + +"No sir." + +"And you don't want a bottle of my celebrated mixture to teach you how to +discern between the true and the false! Rub your head with it every +morning, and you'll never believe a lie." + +"I don't now," replied Marjorie, taking very quick steps. + +"How do you know you don't?" he asked keeping step with her. "Tell me how +to tell the difference between a lie and the truth!" + +"Rub your head with your mixture," she said, laughing. + +But he was not disconcerted, he returned in a simple tone. + +"Oh, _that's_ my receipt, I want yours. Yours may be better than mine." + +"I think it is." + +"Tell me, then, quick." + +"Don't you want to go into that house and sell something?" she asked, +pointing to the house ahead of them. + +"When I get there; and you must wait for me, outside, or I won't go in." + +"Don't you know the way yourself?" she evaded. + +"I've travelled it ever since the year 1, I ought to know it," he +replied, contemptuously. "But you've got to wait for me." + +"Oh, dear," sighed Marjorie, frightened at his insistence; then a quick +thought came to her: "Perhaps they will keep you all night." + +"They won't, they always refuse. They don't believe I'm an angel +unawares. That's in the Bible." + +"I'd ask them, if I were you," said Marjorie, in a coaxing, tremulous +voice; "they're nice, kind people." + +"Well, then, I will," he said, hurrying on. + +She lingered, breathing more freely; he would certainly overtake her +again before she could reach the next house and if she did not agree +with everything he proposed he might become angry with her. Oh, dear! how +queerly this day was ending! She did not really want anything to happen; +the quiet days were the happiest, after all. He strode on before her, +turning once in a while, to learn if she were following. + +"That's right; walk slow," he shouted in a conciliatory voice. + +By the wayside, near the fence opposite the gate he was to enter, there +grew a dense clump of blackberry vines; as the gate swung behind him, she +ran towards the fence, and, while he stood with his back towards her in +the path talking excitedly to a little boy who had come to meet him, she +squeezed herself in between the vines and the fence, bending her head and +gathering the skirt of her dress in both hands. + +He became angry as he talked, vociferating and gesticulating; every +instant she the more congratulated herself upon her escape; some of the +girls were afraid of him, but she had always been too sorry for him to be +much afraid; still, she would prefer to hide and keep hidden half the +night rather than be compelled to walk a long, lonely mile with him. Her +father or mother had always been within the sound of her voice when he +had talked with her; she had never before had to be a protection to +herself. Peering through the leaves, she watched him, as he turned again +towards the gate, with her heart beating altogether too rapidly for +comfort: he opened the gate, strode out to the road and stood looking +back. + +He stood a long, long time, uttering no exclamation, then hurried on, +leaving a half-frightened and very thankful little girl trembling among +the leaves of the blackberry vines. But, would he keep looking back? And +how could she ever pass the next house? Might he not stop there and be +somewhere on the watch for her? If some one would pass by, or some +carriage would only drive along! The houses were closer together a mile +further on, but how dared she pass that mile? He would not hurt her, he +would only look at her out of his wild eyes and talk to her. Answering +Captain Rheid's questions was better than this! Staying at her +grandfather's and confessing about the pitcher was better than this! + +Suddenly--or had she heard it before, a whistle burst out upon the air, a +sweet and clear succession of notes, the air of a familiar song: "Be it +ever so humble, there's no place like home." + +Some one was at hand, she sprang through the vines, the briers catching +the old blue muslin, extricating herself in time to run almost against +the navy-blue figure that she had not yet become familiar with. + +The whistle stopped short--"Well, Mousie! Here you are!" + +"O, Hollis," with a sobbing breath, "I'm so glad!" + +"So am I. I jumped off and ran after you. Why, did I frighten you? Your +eyes are as big as moons." + +"No," she laughed, "I wasn't frightened." + +"You look terribly like it." + +"Perhaps some things are _like_--" she began, almost dancing along by his +side, so relieved that she could have poured out a song for joy. + +"What do you do nowadays?" he asked presently. "You are more of a _live_ +mouse than you used to be! I can't call you Mousie any more, only for the +sake of old times." + +"I like it," said Marjorie. + +"But what do you do nowadays?" + +"I read all the time--when I can, and I work, different kinds of work. +Tell me about the little city girls." + +"I only know my cousins and one or two others, their friends." + +"What do they look like?" + +"Like girls! Don't you know how girls look?" + +"Not city girls." + +"They are pretty, most of them, and they dress older than you and have a +_manner;_ they always know how to reply and they are not awkward and too +shy; they know how to address people, and introduce people, and sometimes +to entertain them, they seem to know what to talk about, and they are +bright and wide-awake. They play and sing and study the languages and +mathematics. The girls I know are all little ladies." + +Marjorie was silent; her cheeks were burning and her eyes downcast. She +never could be like that; she never could be a "little lady," if a little +lady meant all those unattainable things. + +"Do they talk differently from us--from country girls?" she asked after a +long pause. + +"Yes, I think they do. Mira Crane--I'll tell you how the country girls +talk--says 'we am,' and 'fust rate,' and she speaks rudely and abruptly +and doesn't look directly at a person when she speaks, she says 'good +morning' and 'yes' and 'no' without 'sir' or 'ma'am' or the person's +name, and answers 'I'm very well' without adding 'thank you.'" + +"Yes," said Marjorie, taking mental note of each expression. + +"And Josie Grey--you see I've been studying the difference in the girls +since I came home--" + +Had he been studying _her_? + +"Is there so much difference?" she asked a little proudly. + +"Yes. The difference struck me. It is not city or country that makes the +difference, it is the _homes_ and the _schools_ and every educating +influence. Josie Grey has all sorts of exclamations like some old +grandmother, and she says 'I tell you,' and 'I declare,' and she hunches +all up when she sits or puts her feet out into the middle of the room." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, again, intently. + +"And Nettie Trevor colors and stammers and talks as if she were afraid of +you. My little ladies see so many people that they become accustomed to +forgetting themselves and thinking of others. They see people to admire +and imitate, too." + +"So do I," said Marjorie, spiritedly. "I see Miss Prudence and I see Mrs. +Proudfit, our new minister's wife, and I see--several other people." + +"I suppose I notice these things more than some boys would. When I left +home gentleness was a new language to me; I had never heard it spoken +excepting away from home. I was surprised at first that a master could +command with gentleness and that those under authority could obey with +gentleness." + +Marjorie listened with awe; this was not like Hollis; her old Hollis was +gone, a new, wise Hollis had come instead. She sighed a little for the +old Hollis who was not quite so wise. + +"I soon found how much I lacked. I set myself to reading and studying. +From the first of October all through the winter I attend evening school +and I have subscribed to the Mercantile Library and have my choice among +thousands of books. Uncle Jack says I shall be a literary business man." + +A "literary business man" sounded very grand to Marjorie. Would she stay +home and be ignorant and never be or do anything? At that instant a +resolve was born in her heart; the resolve to become a scholar and a +lady. But she did not speak, if possible she became more quiet. Hollis +should not be ashamed of being her friend. + +"Mousie! Why don't you talk to me?" he asked, at last. + +"Which of your cousins do you like best?" + +"Helen," he said unhesitatingly. + +"How old is she?" she asked with a sinking at her heart. + +"Seventeen. _She's_ a lady, so gentle and bright, she never rustles or +makes a noise, she never says anything to hurt any one's feelings: and +how she plays and sings. She never once laughed at me, she helps me in +everything; she wanted me to go to evening school and she told me about +the Mercantile Library. She's a Christian, too. She teaches in a mission +school and goes around among poor people with Aunt Helen. She paints and +draws and can walk six miles a day. I go everywhere with her, to lectures +and concerts and to church and Sunday school." + +How Marjorie's eyes brightened! She had found her ideal; she would give +herself no rest until she had become like Helen Rheid. But Helen Rheid +had everything to push her on, every one to help her. For the first time +in her life Marjorie was disheartened. But, with a reassuring conviction, +flashed the thought--there were years before _she_ would be seventeen. + +"Wouldn't you like to see her, Mousie?" + +"Indeed, I would," said Marjorie, enthusiastically. + +"I brought her photograph to mother--how she looked at me when 'marm' +slipped out one day. The boys always used to say 'Marm,'" he said +laughing. + +Marjorie remembered that she had been taught to say "grandmarm," but as +she grew older she had softened it to "grandma." + +"I'll bring you her photograph when I come to-morrow to say good-bye. +Now, tell me what you've been looking sad about." + +Is it possible that she was forgetting? + +"Oh, perhaps you can help me!" + +"Help you! Of course I will." + +"How did you know I was troubled?" she asked seriously, looking up into +his eyes. + +"Have I eyes?" he answered as seriously. "Father happened to think that +mother had an errand for him to do on this road, so I jumped off and ran +after you." + +"No, you ran after your mother's errand," she answered, jealously. + +"Well, then, I found you, my precise little maiden, and now you must tell +me what you were crying about." + +"Not spilt milk, but only a broken milk pitcher! _Do_ you think you can +find me a yellow pitcher, with yellow figures--a man, or a lion, or +something, a hundred or two hundred years old?" + +"In New York? I'm rather doubtful. Oh, I know--mother has some old ware, +it belonged to her grandmother, perhaps I can beg a piece of it for you. +Will it do if it isn't a pitcher?" + +"I'd rather have a pitcher, a yellow pitcher. The one I broke belongs to +a friend of Miss Prudence." + +"Prudence! Is she a Puritan maiden?" he asked. + +Marjorie felt very ignorant, she colored and was silent. She supposed +Helen Rheid would know what a Puritan maiden was. + +"I won't tease you," he said penitently. "I'll find you something to make +the loss good, perhaps I'll find something she'll like a great deal +better." + +"Mr. Onderdonk has a plate that came from Holland, it's over two hundred +years old he told Miss Prudence; oh, if you _could_ get that!" cried +Marjorie, clasping her hands in her eagerness. + +"Mr. Onderdonk? Oh, the shoemaker, near the schoolhouse. Well, Mousie, +you shall have some old thing if I have to go back a century to get it. +Helen will be interested to know all about it; I've told her about you." + +"There's nothing to tell about me," returned Marjorie. + +"Then I must have imagined it; you used to be such a cunning little +thing." + +"_Used to be!_" repeated sensitive Marjorie, to herself. She was sure +Hollis was disappointed in her. And she thought he was so tall and wise +and handsome and grand! She could never be disappointed in him. + +How surprised she would have been had she known that Helen's eyes had +filled with tears when Hollis told her how his little friend had risen +all alone in that full church! Helen thought she could never be like +Marjorie. + +"I wish you had a picture of how you used to look for me to show Helen." + +Not how she looked to-day! Her lips quivered and she kept her eyes on her +dusty shoes. + +"I suppose you want the pitcher immediately." + +Two years ago Hollis would have said "right away." + +After that Marjorie never forgot to say "immediately." + +"Yes, I would," she said, slowly. "I've hidden the pieces away and nobody +knows it is broken." + +"That isn't like you," Hollis returned, disappointedly. + +"Oh, I didn't do it to deceive; I couldn't. I didn't want her to be sorry +about it until I could see what I could do to replace it" + +"That sounds better." + +Marjorie felt very much as if he had been finding fault with her. + +"Will you have to pay for it?" + +"Not if mother gives it to me, but perhaps I shall exact some return from +you." + +She met his grave eyes fully before she spoke. "Well, I'll give you all I +can earn. I have only seventy-three cents; father gives me one tenth of +the eggs for hunting them and feeding the chickens, and I take them to +the store. That's the only way I can earn money," she said in her sweet +half-abashed voice. + +A picture of Helen taking eggs to "the store" flashed upon Hollis' +vision; he smiled and looked down upon his little companion with +benignant eyes. + +"I could give you all I have and send you the rest. Couldn't I?" she +asked. + +"Yes, that would do. But you must let me set my own price," he returned +in a business like tone. + +"Oh I will. I'd do anything to get Miss Prudence a pitcher," she said +eagerly. + +The faded muslin brushed against him; and how odd and old-fashioned her +hat was! He would not have cared to go on a picnic with Marjorie in this +attire; suppose he had taken her into the crowd of girls among which his +cousin Helen was so noticeable last week, how they would have looked at +her! They would think he had found her at some mission school. Was her +father so poor, or was this old dress and broad hat her mother's taste? +Anyway, there was a guileless and bright face underneath the flapping +hat and her voice was as sweet as Helen's even it there was such an +old-fashioned tone about it. One word seemed to sum up her dress and +herself--old-fashioned. She talked like some little old grandmother. +She was more than quaint--she was antiquated. That is, she was antiquated +beside Helen. But she did not seem out of place here in the country; he +was thinking of her on a city pavement, in a city parlor, or among a +group of fluttering, prettily dressed city girls, with their modulated +voices, animated gestures and laughing, bright replies. There was light +and fire about them and Marjorie was such a demure little mouse. + +"Don't fret about it any more," he said, kindly, with his grown-up air, +patting her shoulder with a light, caressing touch. "I will take it into +my hands and you need not think of it again." + +"Oh, thank you! thank you!" she cried, her eyes brimming over. + +It was the old Hollis, after all; he could do anything and everything she +wanted. + +Forgetting her shyness, after that home-like touch upon her shoulder, she +chatted all the way home. And he did not once think that she was a quiet +little mouse. + +He did not like "quiet" people; perhaps because his own spirit was so +quiet that it required some effort for him to be noisy. Hollis admired +most characteristics unlike his own; he did not know, but he _felt_ that +Marjorie was very much like himself. She was more like him than he was +like her. They were two people who would be very apt to be drawn together +under all circumstances, but without special and peculiar training could +never satisfy each other. This was true of them even now, and, if +possible with the enlarged vision of experience, became truer as they +grew older. If they kept together they might grow together; but, the +question is, whether of themselves they would ever have been drawn very +close together. They were close enough together now, as Marjorie chatted +and Hollis listened; he had many questions to ask about the boys and +girls of the village and Marjorie had many stories to relate. + +"So George Harris and Nell True are really married!" he said. "So young, +too!" + +"Yes, mother did not like it. She said they were too young. He always +liked her best at school, you know. And when she joined the Church she +was so anxious for him to join, too, and she wrote him a note about it +and he answered it and they kept on writing and then they were married." + +"Did he join the Church?" asked Hollis, + +"He hasn't yet." + +"It is easier for girls to be good than for boys," rejoined Hollis in an +argumentative tone, + +"Is it? I don't see how." + +"Of course you don't. We are in the world where the temptations are; what +temptations do _you_ have?" + +"I have enough. But I don't want to go out in the world where more +temptations are. Don't you know--" She colored and stopped, + +"Know what?" + +"About Christ praying that his disciples might be kept from the evil that +was in the world, not that they might be taken out of the world. They +have _got_ to be in the world." + +"Yes." + +"And," she added sagely, "anybody can be good where no temptations are." + +"Is that why girls are good?" + +"I don't think girls are good." + +"The girls I know are." + +"You know city girls," she said archly. "We country girls have the world +in our own hearts." + +There was nothing of "the world" in the sweet face that he looked down +into, nothing of the world in the frank, true voice. He had been wronging +her; how much there was in her, this wise, old, sweet little Marjorie! + +"Have you forgotten your errand?" she asked, after a moment. + +"No, it is at Mr. Howard's, the house beyond yours." + +"I'm glad you had the errand." + +"So am I. I should have gone home and not known anything about you." + +"And I should have stayed tangled in the black berry vines ever so long," +she laughed. + +"You haven't told me why you were there." + +"Because I was silly," she said emphatically. + +"Do silly people always hide in blackberry vines?" he questioned, +laughing. + +"Silly people like me," she said. + +At that moment they stopped in front of the gate of Marjorie's home; +through the lilac-bushes--the old fence was overgrown with lilacs--Hollis +discerned some bright thing glimmering on the piazza. The bright thing +possessed a quick step and a laugh, for it floated towards them and when +it appeared at the gate Hollis found that it was only Linnet. + +There was nothing of the mouse about Linnet. + +"Why, Marjie, mother said you might stay till dark." + +Linnet was seventeen, but she was not too grown up for "mother said" to +be often on her lips. + +"I didn't want to," said Marjorie. "Good-bye, Hollis. I'm going to hunt +eggs." + +"I'd go with you, it's rare fun to hunt eggs, only I haven't seen +Linnet--yet." + +"And you must see Linnet--yet," laughed Linnet, "Hollis, what a big boy +you've grown to be!" she exclaimed regarding him critically; the new +suit, the black onyx watch-chain, the blonde moustache, the full height, +and last of all the friendly brown eyes with the merry light in them. + +"What a big girl you've grown to be, Linnet," he retorted surveying her +critically and admiringly. + +There was fun and fire and changing lights, sauciness and defiance, with +a pretty little air of deference, about Linnet. She was not unlike his +city girl friends; even her dress was more modern and tasteful than +Marjorie's. + +"Marjorie is so little and doesn't care," she often pleaded with their +mother when there was not money enough for both. And Marjorie looked on +and held her peace. + +Self-sacrifice was an instinct with Marjorie. + +"I am older and must have the first chance," Linnet said. + +So Marjorie held back and let Linnet have the chances. + +Linnet was to have the "first chance" at going to school in September. +Marjorie stayed one moment looking at the two as they talked, proud of +Linnet and thinking that Hollis must think she, at least, was something +like his cousin Helen, and then she hurried away hoping to return with +her basket of eggs before Hollis was gone. Hollis was almost like some +one in a story-book to her. I doubt if she ever saw any one as other +people saw them; she always saw so much. She needed only an initial; it +was easy enough to fill out the word. She hurried across the yard, opened +the large barn-yard gate, skipped across the barn-yard, and with a little +leap was in the barn floor. Last night she had forgotten to look in the +mow; she would find a double quantity hidden away there to-night. She +wondered if old Queen Bess were still persisting in sitting on nothing in +the mow's far dark corner; tossing away her hindering hat and catching up +an old basket, she ran lightly up the ladder to the mow. She never +remembered that she ran up the ladder. + +An hour later--Linnet knew that it was an hour later--Marjorie found +herself moving slowly towards the kitchen door. She wanted to see her +mother. Lifting the latch she staggered in. + +She was greeted with a scream from Linnet and with a terrified +exclamation from her mother. + +"Marjorie, what _is_ the matter?" cried her mother catching her in her +arms. + +"Nothing," said Marjorie, wondering. + +"Nothing! You are purple as a ghost!" exclaimed Linnet, "and there's a +lump on your forehead as big as an egg." + +"Is there?" asked Marjorie, in a trembling voice. + +"Did you fall? Where did you fall?" asked her mother shaking her gently. +"Can't you speak, child?" + +"I--didn't--fall," muttered Marjorie, slowly. + +"Yes, you did," said Linnet. "You went after eggs." + +"Eggs," repeated Marjorie in a bewildered voice. + +"Linnet, help me quick to get her on to the sitting-room lounge! Then get +pillows and a comforter, and then run for your father to go for the +doctor." + +"There's nothing the matter," persisted the child, smiling weakly. "I can +walk, mother. Nothing hurts me." + +"Doesn't your head ache?" asked Linnet, guiding her steps as her head +rested against her mother's breast. + +"No." + +"Don't you ache _anywhere?_" questioned her mother, as they led her to +the lounge. + +"No, ma'am. Why should I? I didn't fall." + +Linnet brought the pillow and comforter, and then ran out through the +back yard calling, "Father! Father!" + +Down the road Hollis heard the agonized cry, and turning hastened back to +the house. + +"Oh, go for the doctor quick!" cried Linnet, catching him by the arm; +"something dreadful has happened to Marjorie, and she doesn't know what +it is." + +"Is there a horse in the stable?" + +"Oh, no, I forgot. And mother forgot Father has gone to town." + +"I'll get a horse then--somewhere on the road--don't be so frightened. +Dr. Peck will be here in twenty minutes after I find him." + +Linnet flew back to satisfy her mother that the doctor had been sent for, +and found Marjorie reiterating to her mother's repeated inquiries: + +"I don't ache anywhere; I'm not hurt at all." + +"Where were you, child." + +"I wasn't--anywhere," she was about to say, then smiled, for she knew she +must have been somewhere. + +"What happened after you said good-bye to Hollis?" questioned Linnet, +falling on her knees beside her little sister, and almost taking her into +her arms. + +"Nothing." + +"Oh, dear, you're crazy!" sobbed Linnet. + +Marjorie smiled faintly and lifted her hand to stroke Linnet's cheeks. + +"I won't hurt _you_," she comforted tenderly. + +"I know what I'll do!" exclaimed Mrs. West suddenly and emphatically, "I +can put hot water on that bump; I've heard that's good." + +Marjorie closed her eyes and lay still; she was tired of talking about +something that had not happened at all. She remembered afterward that the +doctor came and opened a vein in her arm, and that he kept the blood +flowing until she answered "Yes, sir," to his question, "Does your head +hurt you _now_?" She remembered all their faces--how Linnet cried and +sobbed, how Hollis whispered, "I'll get a pitcher, Mousie, if I have to +go to China for it," and how her father knelt by the lounge when he came +home and learned that it had happened and was all over, how he knelt and +thanked God for giving her back to them all out of her great danger. That +night her mother sat by her bedside all night long, and she remembered +saying to her: + +"If I had been killed, I should have waked up in Heaven without knowing +that I had died. It would have been like going to Heaven without dying." + + + + +V. + +TWO PROMISES. + +"He who promiseth runs in debt." + + +Hollis held a mysterious looking package in his hand when he came in the +next day; it was neatly done up in light tissue paper and tied with +yellow cord. It looked round and flat, not one bit like a pitcher, unless +some pitchers a hundred years ago _were_ flat. + +Marjorie lay in delicious repose upon the parlor sofa, with the green +blinds half closed, the drowsiness and fragrance of clover in the air +soothed her, rather, quieted her, for she was not given to nervousness; +a feeling of safety enwrapped her, she was _here_ and not very much hurt, +and she was loved and petted to her heart's content. And that is saying a +great deal for Marjorie, for _her_ heart's content was a very large +content. Linnet came in softly once in a while to look at her with +anxious eyes and to ask, "How do you feel now?" Her mother wandered in +and out as if she could rest in nothing but in looking at her, and her +father had given her one of his glad kisses before he went away to the +mowing field. Several village people having heard of the accident through +Hollis and the doctor had stopped at the door to inquire with a +sympathetic modulation of voice if she were any better. But the safe +feeling was the most blessed of all. Towards noon she lay still with her +white kitten cuddled up in her arms, wondering who would come next; +Hollis had not come, nor Miss Prudence, nor the new minister, nor +grandma, nor Josie Grey; she was wishing they would all come to-day when +she heard a quick step on the piazza and a voice calling out to somebody. + +"I won't stay five minutes, father." + +The next instant the handsome, cheery face was looking in at the parlor +door and the boisterous "vacation" voice was greeting her with, + +"Well, Miss Mousie! How about the tumble down now?" + +But her eyes saw nothing excepting the mysterious, flat, round parcel in +his hand. + +"Oh, Hollis, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed, raising herself upon one elbow. + +The stiff blue muslin was rather crumpled by this time, and in place of +the linen collar and old-fashioned pin her mother had tied a narrow scarf +of white lace about her throat; her hair was brushed back and braided in +two heavy braids and her forehead was bandaged in white. + +"Well, Marjorie, you _are_ a picture, I must say," he cried, bounding in. +"Why don't you jump up and take another climb?" + +"I want to. I want to see the swallow's nest again; I meant to have fed +the swallows last night" + +"Where are they?" + +"Oh, up in the eaves. Linnet and I have climbed up and fed them." + +As he dropped on his knees on the carpet beside the sofa she fell back on +her pillow. + +"Father is waiting for me to go to town with him and I can't stay. You +will soon be climbing up to see the swallows again and hunting eggs and +everything as usual." + +"Oh, yes, indeed," said Marjorie, hopefully. + +Watching her face he laid the parcel in her hand. "Don't open it till I'm +gone. I had something of a time to get it. The old fellow was as +obstinate as a mule when he saw that my heart was set on it. Mother +hadn't a thing old enough--I ransacked everywhere--if I'd had time to go +to grandmother's I might have done better. She's ninety-three, you know, +and has some of her grandmother's things. This thing isn't a beauty to +look at, but it's old, and that's the chief consideration. Extreme old +age will compensate for its ugliness; which is an extenuation that I +haven't for mine. I'm going to-morrow." + +"Oh, I want to see it," she exclaimed, not regarding his last remark. + +"That's all you care," he said, disappointedly. "I thought you would be +sorry that I'm going." + +"You know I am," she returned penitently, picking at the yellow cord. + +"Perhaps when I am two hundred years old you'll be as anxious to look at +me as you are to look at that!" + +"Oh, Hollis, I do thank you so." + +"But you must promise me two things or you can't have it!" + +"I'll promise twenty." + +"Two will do until next time. First, will you go and see my mother as +soon as you get well, and go often?" + +"That's too easy; I want to do something _hard_ for you," she answered +earnestly. + +"Perhaps you will some day, who knows? There are hard enough things to do +for people, I'm finding out. But, have you promised?" + +"Yes, I have promised." + +"And I know you keep your promises. I'm sure you won't forget. Poor +mother isn't happy; she's troubled." + +"About you?" + +"No, about herself, because she isn't a Christian." + +"That's enough to trouble anybody," said Marjorie, wisely. + +"Now, one more promise in payment. Will you write to me every two weeks?" + +"Oh, I couldn't," pleaded Marjorie. + +"Now you've found something too hard to do for me," he said, +reproachfully. + +"Oh, I'll do it, of course; but I'm afraid." + +"You'll soon get over that. You see mother doesn't write often, and +father never does, and I'm often anxious about them, and if you write and +tell me about them twice a month I shall be happier. You see you are +doing something for me." + +"Yes, thank you. I'll do the best I can. But I can't write like your +cousin Helen," she added, jealously. + +"No matter. You'll do; and you will be growing older and constantly +improving and I shall begin to travel for the house by and by and my +letters will be as entertaining as a book of travels." + +"Will you write to me? I didn't think of that." + +"Goosie!" he laughed, giving her Linnet's pet name. "Certainly I will +write as often as you do, and you mustn't stop writing until your last +letter has not been answered for a month." + +"I'll remember," said Marjorie, seriously. "But I wish I could do +something else. Did you have to pay money for it?" + +Marjorie was accustomed to "bartering" and that is the reason that she +used the expression "pay money." + +"Well, yes, something," he replied, pressing his lips together. + +He was angry with the shoemaker about that bargain yet. + +"How much? I want to pay you." + +"Ladies never ask a gentleman such a question when they make them a +present," he said, laughing as he arose. "Imagine Helen asking me how +much I paid for the set of books I gave her on her birthday." + +The tears sprang to Marjorie's eyes. Had she done a dreadful thing that +Helen would not think of doing? + +Long afterward she learned that he gave for the plate the ten dollars +that his father gave him for a "vacation present." + +"Good-bye, Goosie, keep both promises and don't run up a ladder again +until you learn how to run down." + +But she could not speak yet for the choking in her throat. + +"You have paid me twice over with those promises," he said. "I am glad +you broke the old yellow pitcher." + +So was she even while her heart was aching. Her fingers held the parcel +tightly; what a hearts-ease it was! It had brought her peace of mind that +was worth more hard promises than she could think of making. + +"He said his father's great-grandfather had eaten out of that plate over +in Holland and he had but one more left to bequeath to his little +grandson." + +"I'm glad the great-grandfather didn't break it," said Marjorie. + +Hollis would not disturb her serenity by remarking that the shoemaker +_might_ have added a century to the age of his possession; it looked two +hundred years old, anyway. + +"Good-bye, again, if you don't get killed next time you fall you may live +to see me again. I'll wear a linen coat and smell of cheese and smoke a +pipe too long for me to light myself by that time--when I come home from +Germany." + +"Oh, don't," she exclaimed, in a startled voice. + +"Which? The coat or the cheese or the pipe." + +"I don't care about the cheese or the coat--" + +"You needn't be afraid about the pipe; I promised mother to-day that I +would never smoke or drink or play cards." + +"That's good," said Marjorie, contentedly. + +"And so she feels safe about me; safer than I feel about myself, I +reckon. But it _is_ good-bye this time. I'll tell Helen what a little +mouse and goose you are!" + +"Hollis! _Hollis!_" shouted a gruff voice, impatiently. + +"Aye, aye, sir," Hollis returned. "But I must say good-bye to your mother +and Linnet." + +Instead of giving him a last look she was giving her first look to her +treasure. The first look was doubtful. It was not half as pretty as the +pitcher. It was not very large and there were innumerable tiny cracks +interlacing each other, there were little raised figures on the broad rim +and a figure in the centre, the colors were buff and blue. But it was a +treasure, twofold more a treasure than the yellow pitcher, for it was +twice as old and had come from Holland. The yellow pitcher had only come +from England. Miss Prudence would be satisfied that she had not hidden +the pitcher to escape detection, and perhaps her friend might like this +ancient plate a great deal better and be glad of what had befallen the +pitcher. But suppose Miss Prudence did believe all this time that she had +hidden the broken pieces and meant, never to tell! At that, she could not +forbear squeezing her face into the pillow and dropping a few very +sorrowful tears. Still she was glad, even with a little contradictory +faint-heartedness, for Hollis would write to her and she would never lose +him again. And she could _do_ something _for_ him, something hard. + +Her mother, stepping in again, before the tears were dried upon her +cheek, listened to the somewhat incoherent story of the naughty thing she +had done and the splendid thing Hollis had done, and of how she had paid +him with two promises. + +Mrs. West examined the plate critically. "It's old, there's no sham about +it. I've seen a few old things and I know. I shouldn't wonder if he gave +five dollars for it" + +"Five dollars!" repeated Marjorie in affright "Oh, I hope not." + +"Well, perhaps not, but it is worth it and more, too, to Miss Prudence's +friend." + +"And I'll keep my promises," said Marjorie's steadfast voice. + +"H'm," ejaculated her mother. "I rather think Hollis has the best of it." + +"That depends upon me," said wise little Marjorie. + + + + +VI. + +MARJORIE ASLEEP AND AWAKE. + +"She was made for happy thoughts."--_Mary Howlet._ + + +I wonder if there is anything, any little thing I should have said, that +tries a woman more than the changes in her own face, a woman that has +just attained two score and--an unmarried woman. Prudence Pomeroy was +discovering these changes in her own face and, it may be undignified, it +may be unchristian even, but she was tried. It was upon the morning of +her fortieth birthday, that, with considerable shrinking, she set out +upon a voyage of discovery upon the unknown sea of her own countenance. +It was unknown, for she had not cared to look upon herself for some +years, but she bolted her chamber door and set herself about it with grim +determination this birthday morning. It was a weakness, it may be, but we +all have hours of weakness within our bolted chamber doors. + +She had a hard early morning all by herself; but the battle with herself +did not commence until she shoved that bolt, pushed back the white +curtains, and stationed herself in the full glare of the sun light with +her hand-glass held before her resolute face. It was something to go +through; it was something to go through to read the record of a score of +birthdays past: but she had done that before the breakfast bell rang, +locked the old leathern bound volume in her trunk and arranged herself +for breakfast, and then had run down with her usual tripping step and +kept them all amused with her stories during breakfast time. But that was +before the door was bolted. She gazed long at the reflection of the face +that Time had been at work upon for forty years; there were the tiniest +creases in her forehead, they were something like the cracks in the plate +two hundred years old that Marjorie had sent to her last night, there +were unmistakable lines under her eyes, the pale tint of her cheek did +not erase them nor the soft plumpness render them invisible, they stared +at her with the story of relentless years; at the corners of her lips the +artistic fingers of Time had chiselled lines, delicate, it is true, but +clearly defined--a line that did not dent the cheeks of early maidenhood, +a line that had found no place near her own lips ten years ago; and above +her eyes--she had not discerned that, at first--there was a lack of +fullness, you could not name it hollowness; that was new, at least new to +her, others with keener eyes may have noticed it months ago, and there +was a yellowness--she might as well give it boldly its right name--at the +temple, decrease of fairness, she might call it, but that it was a +positive shade of that yellowness she had noticed in others no older than +herself; and, then, to return to her cheeks, or rather her chin, there +was a laxity about the muscles at the sides of her mouth that gave her +chin an elderly outline! No, it was not only the absence of youth, it was +the presence of age--her full forty years. And her hair! It was certainly +not as abundant as it used to be, it had wearied her, once, to brush out +its thick glossy length; it was becoming unmistakably thinner; she was +certainly slightly bald about the temples, and white hairs were +straggling in one after another, not attempting to conceal themselves. A +year ago she had selected them from the mass of black and cut them short, +but now they were appearing too fast for the scissors. It was a sad face, +almost a gloomy one, that she was gazing into: for the knowledge that her +forty years had done their work in her face as surely, and perhaps not as +sweetly as in her life had come to her with a shock. She was certainly +growing older and the signs of it were in her face, nothing could hide +it, even her increasing seriousness made it more apparent; not only +growing older, but growing old, the girls would say. Twenty years ago, +when she first began to write that birthday record, she had laughed at +forty and called it "old" herself. As she laid the hand-glass aside with +a half-checked sigh, her eyes fell upon her hand and wrist; it was +certainly losing its shapeliness; the fingers were as tapering as ever +and the palm as pink, but--there was a something that reminded her of +that plate of old china. She might be like a bit of old china, but she +was not ready to be laid upon the shelf, not even to be paid a price for +and be admired! She was in the full rush of her working days. Awhile ago +her friends had all addressed her as "Prudence," but now, she was not +aware when it began or how, she was "Miss Prudence" to every one who was +not within the nearest circle of intimacy. Not "Prudie" or "Prue" any +more. She had not been "Prudie" since her father and mother died, and not +"Prue" since she had lost that friend twenty years ago. + +In ten short years she would be fifty years old, and fifty was half a +century: old enough to be somebody's grandmother. Was she not the bosom +friend of somebody's grandmother to-day? Laura Harrowgate, her friend +and schoolmate, not one year her senior, was the grandmother of +three-months-old Laura. Was it possible that she herself did not belong +to "the present generation," but to a generation passed away? She had no +daughter to give place to, as Laura had, no husband to laugh at her +wrinkles and gray hairs, as Laura had, and to say, "We're growing old +together." If it were only "together" there would be no sadness in it. +But would she want it to be such a "together" as certain of her friends +shared? + +Laura Harrowgate was a grandmother, but still she would gush over that +plate from Holland two centuries old, buy a bracket for it and exhibit it +to her friends. A hand-glass did not make _her_ dolorous. A few years +since she would have rebelled against what the hand-glass revealed; but, +to-day, she could not rebel against God's will; assuredly it _was_ his +will for histories to be written in faces. Would she live a woman's life +and adorn herself with a baby's face? Had not her face been moulded by +her life? Had she stopped thinking and working ten years ago she might, +to-day, have looked at the face she looked at ten years ago. No, she +demurred, not a baby's face, but--then she laughed aloud at herself--was +not her fate the common fate of all? Who, among her friends, at forty +years of age, was ever taken, or mistaken, for twenty-five or thirty? And +if _she_ were, what then? Would her work be worth more to the world? +Would the angels encamp about her more faithfully or more lovingly? And, +then, was there not a face "marred"? Did he live his life upon the earth +with no sign of it in his face? Was it not a part of his human nature to +grow older? Could she be human and not grow old? If she lived she must +grow old; to grow old or to die, that was the question, and then she +laughed again, this time more merrily. Had she made the changes herself +by fretting and worrying; had she taken life too hard? Yes; she had taken +life hard. Another glance into the glass revealed another fact: her neck +was not as full and round and white as it once was: there was a +suggestion of old china about that, too. She would discard linen collars +and wear softening white ruffles; it would not be deceitful to hide +Time's naughty little tracery. She smiled this time; she _was_ coming to +a hard place in her life. She had believed--oh, how much in vain!--that +she had come to all the hard places and waded through them, but here +there was looming up another, fully as hard, perhaps harder, because it +was not so tangible and, therefore, harder to face and fight. The +acknowledging that she had come to this hard place was something. She +remembered the remark of an old lady, who was friendless and poor: "The +hardest time of my life was between forty and forty-five; I had to accept +several bitter facts that after became easier to bear." Prudence Pomeroy +looked at herself, then looked up to God and accepted, submissively, even +cheerfully, his fact that she had begun to grow old, and then, she +dressed herself for a walk and with her sun-umbrella and a volume of +poems started out for her tramp along the road and through the fields to +find her little friend Marjorie. The china plate and pathetic note last +night had moved her strangely. Marjorie was in the beginning of things. +What was her life worth if not to help such as Marjorie live a worthier +life than her own two score years had been? + +A face flushed with the long walk looked in at the window upon Marjorie +asleep. The child was sitting near the open window in a wooden rocker +with padded arms and back and covered with calico with a green ground +sprinkled over with butterflies and yellow daisies; her head was thrown +back against the knitted tidy of white cotton, and her hands were resting +in her lap; the blue muslin was rather more crumpled than when she had +seen it last, and instead of the linen collar the lace was knotted about +her throat. The bandage had been removed from her forehead, the swelling +had abated but the discolored spot was plainly visible; her lips were +slightly parted, her cheeks were rosy; if this were the "beginning of +things" it was a very sweet and peaceful beginning. + +Entering the parlor with a soft tread Miss Prudence divested herself of +hat, gloves, duster and umbrella, and, taking a large palm leaf fan from +the table, seated herself near the sleeper, gently waving the fan to and +fro as a fly lighted on Marjorie's hands or face. On the window seat were +placed a goblet half filled with lemonade, a small Bible, a book that had +the outward appearance of being a Sunday-school library book, and a copy +in blue and gold of the poems of Mrs. Hemans. Miss Prudence remembered +her own time of loving Mrs. Hemans and had given this copy to Marjorie; +later, she had laid her aside for Longfellow, as Marjorie would do by and +by, and, in his turn, she had given up Longfellow for Tennyson and Mrs. +Browning, as, perhaps, Marjorie would never do. She had brought Jean +Ingelow with her this morning to try "Brothers and a Sermon" and the +"Songs of Seven" with Marjorie. Marjorie was a natural elocutionist; Miss +Prudence was afraid of spoiling her by unwise criticism. The child must +thoroughly appreciate a poem, forget herself, and then her rendering +would be more than Miss Prudence with all her training could perfectly +imitate. + +"Don't teach her too much; she'll want to be an actress," remonstrated +Marjorie's father after listening to Marjorie's reading one day. + +Miss Prudence laughed and Marjorie looked perplexed. + +"Marjorie is to comfort with her reading as some do by singing," she +replied. "Wait till you are old and she reads the Bible to you!" + +"She reads to me now," he said. "She read 'The Children of the Lord's +Supper' to me last night." + +Miss Prudence moved the fan backward and forward and studied the +sleeping, innocent face. I had almost written "sweet" again; I can +scarcely think of her face, as it was then, without writing sweet. It +would be long, Miss Prudence mused, before lines and creases intruded +here and there in that smooth forehead, and in the tinted cheeks that +dimpled at the least provocation; but life would bring them in time, and +they would add beauty if there were no bitterness nor hardness in them. +If the Holy Spirit dwelt in the temple of the body were not the lines +upon the face his handwriting? She knew more than one old face that +was growing more attractive with each year of life. + +The door was pushed open and Mrs. West's broad shoulders and motherly +face appeared. Miss Prudence smiled and laid her finger on her lips and, +smiling, too, the mother moved away. Linnet, in her kitchen apron, and +with the marks of the morning's baking on her fingers, next looked in, +nodded and ran away. After awhile, the sleeping eyelids quivered and +lifted themselves; a quick flush, a joyous exclamation and Marjorie +sprang into her friend's arms. + +"I _felt_ as if I were not alone! How long have you been here? Oh, why +_didn't_ you speak to me or touch me?" + +"I wanted to have the pleasure all on my side. I never saw you asleep +before." + +"I hope I didn't keep my mouth open and snore." + +"Oh, no, your lips were gently apart and you breathed regularly as they +would say in books!" + +Marjorie laughed, released Miss Prudence from the tight clasp and went +back to her chair. + +"You received my note and the plate," she said anxiously. + +"Both in perfect preservation. There was not one extra crack in the +plate, it was several hours older than when it left your hands, but that +only increases its value." + +"And did you think I was dreadful not to confess before?" asked Marjorie, +tremulously. + +"I thought you were dreadful to run away from me instead of _to_ me." + +"I was so sorry; I wanted to get something else before you knew about it. +Did you miss it?" + +"I missed something in the room, I could not decide what it was." + +"Will the plate do, do you think? Is it handsome enough?" + +"It is old enough, that is all the question. Do you know all about +Holland when that plate first came into existence?" + +"No; I only know there _was_ a Holland." + +"That plate will be a good point to begin with. You and I will study up +Holland some day. I wonder what you know about it now." + +"Is that why your friend wants the plate, because she knows about Holland +two hundred years ago?" + +"No; I'm afraid not. I don't believe she knows more than you do about it. +But she will delight in the plate. Which reminds me, your uncle has +promised to put the unfortunate pitcher together for me. And in its +mended condition it will appear more ancient than ever. I cannot say that +George Washington broke it with his little hatchet; but I can have a +legend about you connected with it, and tell it to your grandchildren +when I show it to them fifty years hence. Unto them I will discover--not +a swan's nest among the reeds, as Mrs. Browning has it, but an old yellow +pitcher that their lovely grandmother was in trouble about fifty years +ago." + +"It will be a hundred and fifty years old then," returned Marjorie, +seriously, "and I think," she added rebukingly, "that _you_ were building +castles then." + +"I had you and the pitcher for the foundation," said Miss Prudence, in a +tone of mock humility. + +"Don't you think--" Marjorie's face had a world of suggestion in +it--"that 'The Swan's Nest' is bad influence for girls? Little Ellie sits +alone and builds castles about her lover, even his horse is 'shod in +silver, housed in azure' and a thousand serfs do call him master, and he +says 'O, Love, I love but thee.'" + +"But all she looks forward to is showing him the swan's nest among the +reeds! And when she goes home, around a mile, as she did daily, lo, the +wild swan had deserted and a rat had gnawed the reeds. That was the end +of her fine castle!" + +"'If she found the lover, ever, + Sooth, I know not, but I know +She could never show him, never, + That swan's nest among the reeds,'" + +quoted Marjorie. "So it did all come to nothing." + +"As air-castles almost always do. But we'll hope she found something +better." + +"Do people?" questioned Marjorie. + +"Hasn't God things laid up for us better than we can ask or think or +build castles about?" + +"I _hope_ so," said Marjorie; "but Hollis Rheid's mother told mother +yesterday that her life was one long disappointment." + +"What did your mother say?" + +"She said 'Oh, Mrs. Rheid, it won't be if you get to Heaven, at last.'" + +"I think not." + +"But she doesn't expect to go to Heaven, she says. Mother says she's +almost in 'despair' and she pities her so!" + +"Poor woman! I don't see how she can live through despair. The old +proverb 'If it were not for hope, the heart would break,' is most +certainly true." + +"Why didn't you come before?" asked Marjorie, caressing the hand that +still played with the fan. + +"Perhaps you never lived on a farm and cannot understand. I could not +come in the ox-cart because the oxen were in the field, and every day +since I heard of your accident your uncle has had to drive your aunt to +Portland on some business. And I did not feel strong enough to walk until +this morning." + +"How good you are to walk!" + +"As good as you are to walk to see me." + +"Oh, but I am young and strong, and I wanted to see you so, and ask you +questions so." + +"I believe the latter," said Miss Prudence smiling. + +"Well, I'm happy now," Marjorie sighed, with the burden of her trouble +still upon her. "Suppose I had been killed when I fell and had not told +you about the pitcher nor made amends for it." + +"I don't believe any of us could be taken away without one moment to make +ready and not leave many things undone--many tangled threads and rough +edges to be taken care of. We are very happy if we have no sin to +confess, no wrong to make right." + +"I think Hollis would have taken care of the plate for me," said +Marjorie, simply; "but I wanted to tell you myself. Mother wants to go +home as suddenly as that would have been for me, she says. I shouldn't +wonder if she prays about it--she prays about everything. Do people have +_that_ kind of a prayer answered?" + +"I have known more than one instance--and I read about a gentleman who +had desired to be taken suddenly and he was killed by lightning while +sitting on his own piazza." + +"Oh!" said Marjorie. + +"That was all he could have wished. And the mother of my pastor at home, +who was over ninety, was found dead on her knees at her bedside, and she +had always wished to be summoned suddenly." + +"When she was speaking to him, too," murmured Marjorie. "I like old +people, don't you? Hollis' grandmother is at his house and Mrs. Rheid +wants me to go to see her; she is ninety-three and blind, and she loves +to tell stories about herself, and I am to stay all day and listen to her +and take up her stitches when she drops them in her knitting work and +read the Bible to her. She won't listen to anything but the Bible; she +says she's too old to hear other books read." + +"What a treat you will have!" + +"Isn't it lovely? I never had _that_ day in my air-castles, either. Nor +you coming to stay all day with me, nor writing to Hollis. I had a letter +from him last night, the funniest letter! I laughed all the time I was +reading it. He begins: 'Poor little Mousie,' and ends, 'ours, till next +time.' I'll show it to you. He doesn't say much about Helen. I shall tell +him if I write about his mother he must write about Helen. I'm sorry to +tell him what his mother said yesterday about herself but I promised and +I must be faithful." + +"I hope you will have happy news to write soon." + +"I don't know; she says the minister doesn't do her any good, nor reading +the Bible nor praying. Now what can help her?" + +"God," was the solemn reply. "She has had to learn that the minister and +Bible reading and prayer are not God. When she is sure that God will do +all the helping and saving, she will be helped and saved. Perhaps she has +gone to the minister and the Bible instead of to God, and she may have +thought her prayers could save her instead of God." + +"She said she was in despair because they did not help her and she did +not know where to turn next," said Marjorie, who had listened with +sympathetic eyes and aching heart. + +"Don't worry about her, dear, God is teaching her to turn to himself." + +"I told her about the plate, but she did not seem to care much. What +different things people _do_ care about!" exclaimed Marjorie, her eyes +alight with the newness of her thought. + +"Mrs. Harrowgate will never be perfectly satisfied until she has a +memorial of Pompeii. I've promised when I explore underground I'll find +her a treasure. Your Holland plate is something for her small collection; +she has but eighty-seven pieces of china, while a friend of hers has +gathered together two hundred." + +"What do _you_ care for most, Miss Prudence? + +"In the way of collections? I haven't shown you my penny buried in the +lava of Mt. Vesuvius; I told my friend that savored of Pompeii, the only +difference is one is above ground and the other underneath, but I +couldn't persuade her to believe it." + +"I don't mean collecting coins or things; I mean what do you care for +_most_?" + +"If you haven't discovered, I cannot care very much for what I care for +most." + +Marjorie laughed at this way of putting it, then she answered gravely: "I +do know. I think you care most--" she paused, choosing her phrase +carefully--"to help people make something out of themselves." + +"Thank you. That's fine. I never put it so excellently to myself." + +"I haven't found out what I care most for." + +"I think I know. You care most to make something out of yourself." + +"Do I? Isn't that selfish? But I don't know how to help any one else, not +even Linnet." + +"Making the best of ourselves is the foundation for making something out +of others." + +"But I didn't say _that_" persisted Marjorie. "You help people to do it +for themselves." + +"I wonder if that is my work in the world," rejoined Miss Prudence, +musingly. "I could not choose anything to fit me better--I had no thought +that I have ever succeeded; I never put it to myself in that way." + +"Perhaps I'll begin some day. Helen Rheid helps Hollis. He isn't the same +boy; he studies and buys books and notices things to be admired in +people, and when he is full of fun he isn't rough. I don't believe I ever +helped anybody." + +"You have some work to do upon yourself first. And I am sure you have +helped educate your mother and father." + +Marjorie pulled to pieces the green leaf that had floated in upon her lap +and as she kept her eyes on the leaf she pondered. + +Her companion was "talking over her head" purposely to-day; she had a +plan for Marjorie and as she admitted to herself she was "trying the +child to see what she was made of." + +She congratulated herself upon success thus far. + +"That children do educate their mothers is the only satisfactory reason I +have found when I have questioned why God does give children to _some_ +mothers." + +"Then what becomes of the children?" asked Marjorie, alarmed. + +"The Giver does not forget them; he can be a mother himself, you know." + +Marjorie did not know; she had always had her mother. Had she lost +something, therefore, in not thus finding out God? Perhaps, in after life +she would find his tenderness by losing--or not having--some one else. It +was not too bad, for it would be a great pity if there were not such +interruptions, but at this instant Linnet's housewifely face was pushed +in at the door, and her voice announced: "Dinner in three minutes and a +half! Chicken-pie for the first course and some new and delicious thing +for dessert." + +"Oh, splendid!" cried Marjorie, hopping up. "And we'll finish everything +after dinner, Miss Prudence." + +"As the lady said to the famous traveller at a dinner party: 'We have +five minutes before dinner, please tell me all about your travels,'" said +Miss Prudence, rising and laughing. + +"You remember you haven't told me what you sent me for the Bible to show +me that unhappy--no, happy time--I broke the picture," reminded Marjorie, +leading the way to the dining-room. + + + + +VII. + +UNDER THE APPLE-TREE. + +"Never the little seed stops in its growing."--_Mrs. Osgood._ + + +Linnet moved hither and thither, after the dinner dishes were done, all +through the house, up stairs and down, to see that everything was in +perfect order before she might dress and enjoy the afternoon. Linnet was +pre-eminently a housekeeper, to her mother's great delight, for her +younger daughter was not developing according to her mind in housewifely +arts. + +"That will come in time," encouraged Marjorie's father when her mother +spoke faultfindingly of some delinquency in the kitchen. + +"I should like to know _what_ time!" was the sharp reply. + +It was queer about Marjorie's mother, she was as sharp as she was +good-humored. + +"Linnet has no decided tastes about anything but housekeeping and +fancy-work, and Marjorie has some other things to be growing in," said +her father. + +"I wish she would grow to some purpose then," was the energetic reply. + +"As the farmer said about his seed before it was time for it to sprout," +laughed the children's father. + +This father and mother could not talk confidentially together five +minutes without bringing the "children" in. + +Their own future was every day; but the children had not begun to live in +theirs yet; their golden future, which was to be all the more golden +because of their parents' experiences. + +This mother was so very old-fashioned that she believed that there was no +career open to a girl beside marriage; the dreadful alternative was +solitary old-maidenhood. She was a good mother, in many respects a wise +mother; but she would not have slept that night had she believed that +either of her daughters would attain to thirty years unmarried. This may +have been owing to a defect of education, or it may have been that she +was so happily married to a husband six years her junior--whom she could +manage. And she was nearly thirty when she was married herself and had +really begun to believe that she should never be married at all. She +believed marriage to be so honorable in all, that the absence of it, as +in Miss Prudence's case, was nearly dishonorable. She was almost a Jewish +mother in her reverence for marriage and joyfulness for the blessing of +children. This may have been the result of her absorbed study of the Old +Testament Scriptures. Marjorie had wondered why her mother in addressing +the Lord had cried, "O, Lord God of Israel," and instead of any other +name nearer New Testament Christians, she would speak of him as "The Holy +One of Israel." Sometimes I have thought that Marjorie's mother began her +religious life as a Jew, and that instead of being a Gentile Christian +she was in reality a converted Jew, something like what Elizabeth would +have been if she had been more like Marjorie's mother and Graham West's +wife. This type of womanhood is rare in this nineteenth century; for +aught I know, she is not a representative woman, at all; she is the only +one I ever knew, and perhaps you never saw any one like her. She has no +heresies, she can prove every assertion from the Bible, her principles +are as firm as adamant and her heart as tender as a mother's. Still, +marriage and motherhood have been her education; if the Connecticut, +school-teacher had not realized her worth, she might have become what she +dreaded her own daughters becoming--an old maid with uncheerful views of +life. In planning their future she looked into her own heart instead of +into theirs. + +The children were lovely blossomings of the seed in the hearts of both +parents; of seeds, that in them had not borne abundant fruitage. + +"How did two such cranky old things ever have such happy children!" she +exclaimed one day to her husband. + +"Perhaps they will become what we stopped short of being," he replied. + +Graham West was something of a philosopher; rather too much of a +philosopher for his wife's peace of mind. To her sorrow she had learned +that he had no "business tact," he could not even scrape a comfortable +living off his scrubby little farm. + +But I began with Linnet and fell to discoursing about her mother; it was +Linnet, as she appeared in her grayish brown dress with a knot of crimson +at her throat, running down the stairway, that suggested her mother's +thought to me. + +"Linnet is almost growing up," she had said to herself as she removed her +cap for her customary afternoon nap. This afternoon nap refreshed her +countenance and kept her from looking six years older than her husband. +Mrs. West was not a worldly woman, but she did not like to look six years +older than her husband. + +Linnet searched through parlor and hall, then out on the piazza, then +looked through the front yard, and, finally, having explored the garden, +found Marjorie and her friend in camp-chairs on the soft green turf under +the low hanging boughs of an apple-tree behind the house. There were two +or three books in Marjorie's lap, and Miss Prudence was turning the +leaves of Marjorie's Bible. She was answering one of Marjorie's questions +Linnet supposed and wondered if Marjorie would be satisfied with the +answer; she was not always satisfied, as the elder sister knew to her +grievance. For instance: Marjorie had said to her yesterday, with that +serious look in her eyes: "Linnet, father says when Christ was on earth +people didn't have wheat ground into fine flour as we do;--now when it is +so much nicer, why do you suppose he didn't tell them about grinding it +fine?" + +"Perhaps he didn't think of it," she replied, giving the first thought +that occurred to her. + +"That isn't the reason," returned Marjorie, "for he could think of +everything he wanted to." + +"Then--for the same reason why didn't he tell them about chloroform and +printing and telegraphing and a thousand other inventions?" questioned +Linnet in her turn. + +"That's what I want to know," said Marjorie. + +Linnet settled herself on the turf and drew her work from her pocket; she +was making a collar of tatting for her mother's birthday and working at +it at every spare moment. It was the clover leaf pattern, that she had +learned but a few weeks ago; the thread was very fine and she was doing +it exquisitely. She had shown it to Hollis because he was in the lace +business, and he had said it was a fine specimen of "real lace." To make +real lace was one of Linnet's ambitions. The lace around Marjorie's neck +was a piece that their mother had made towards her own wedding outfit. +Marjorie's mother sighed and feared that Marjorie would never care to +make lace for her wedding outfit. + +Linnet frowned over her clover leaf and Marjorie watched Miss Prudence as +she turned the leaves. Marjorie did not care for the clover leaf, only as +she was interested in everything that Linnet's fingers touched, but +Linnet did care for the answer to Marjorie's question. She thought +perhaps it was about the wheat. + +The Bible leaves were still, after a second Miss Prudence read: + +"'For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even +weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.'" + +_That_ was not the answer, Linnet thought. + +"What does that mean to you, Marjorie?" asked Miss Prudence. + +"Why--it can't mean anything different from what it says. Paul was so +sorry about the people he was writing about that he wept as he told +them--he was so sorry they were enemies of the cross of Christ." + +"Yes, he told them even weeping. But I knew an old gentleman who read the +Bible unceasingly--I saw one New Testament that he had read through +fifteen times--and he told me once that some people were so grieved +because they were the enemies of the cross of Christ that they were +enemies even weeping. I asked 'Why did they continue enemies, then?' and +he said most ingenuously that he supposed they could not help it. Then I +remembered this passage, and found it, and read it to him as I read it to +you just now. He was simply astounded. He put on his spectacles and read +it for himself. And then he said nothing. He had simply put the comma in +the wrong place. He had read it in this way: 'For many walk, of whom I +have told you often and now tell you, even weeping that they are the +enemies of the cross of Christ.'" + +"Oh," cried Marjorie, drawing an astonished long breath, "what a +difference it does make." + +"Now I know, it's punctuation you're talking about," exclaimed Linnet. +"Marjorie told me all about the people in the stage-coach. O, Miss +Prudence, I don't love to study; I want to go away to school, of course, +but I can't see the _use_ of so many studies. Marjorie _loves_ to study +and I don't; perhaps I would if I could see some use beside 'being like +other people.' Being like other people doesn't seem to me to be a _real_ +enough reason." + +Linnet had forgotten her clover leaf, she was looking at Miss Prudence +with eyes as grave and earnest as Marjorie's ever were. She did not love +to study and it was one of the wrong doings that she had confessed in her +prayers many a time. + +"Well, don't you see the reason now for studying punctuation?" + +"Yes, I do," she answered heartily. "But we don't like dates, either of +us." + +"Did you ever hear about Pompeii, the city buried long ago underground?" + +Linnet thought that had nothing to do with her question. + +"Oh, yes," said Marjorie, "we have read about it. 'The Last Days of +Pompeii' is in the school library. I read it, but Linnet didn't care for +it." + +"Do you know _when_ it was buried?" + +"No," said Linnet, brightening. + +"Have you any idea?" + +"A thousand years ago?" guessed Marjorie. + +"Then you do not know how long after the Crucifixion?" + +"No," they replied together. + +"You know when the Crucifixion was, of course?" + +"Why--yes," admitted Linnet, hesitatingly. + +"Christ was thirty-three years old," said Marjorie, "so it must have been +in the year 33, or the beginning of 34." + +"Of course I know _Anno Domini_," said Linnet; "but I don't always know +what happened before and after." + +"Suppose we were walking in one of the excavated streets of Pompeii and I +should say, 'O, girls! Look at that wall!' and you should see a rude +cross carved on it, what would you think?" + +"I should think they knew about Christ," answered Linnet. + +The clover leaf tatting had fallen into her lap and the shuttle was on +the grass. + +"Yes, and is that all?" + +"Why, yes," she acknowledged. + +"Pompeii wasn't so far, so very far from Jerusalem and--they could hear," +said Marjorie. + +"And you two would pass on to a grand house with a wonderful mosaic floor +and think no more about the cross." + +"I suppose we would," said Linnet "Wouldn't you?" + +"But I should think about the cross. I should think that the city was +destroyed in 79 and be rejoiced that the inhabitants had heard of the +Cross and knew its story before swift destruction overtook them. It was +destroyed about forty-five years after the Crucifixion." + +"I _like_ to know that," said Marjorie. "Perhaps some of the people in it +had seen St. Paul and heard him tell about the Cross." + +"I see some use in that date," said Linnet, picking up her shuttle. + +"Suppose I should tell you that once on a time a laborer would have to +work fifteen years to earn enough to buy a Bible and then the Bible must +be in Latin, wouldn't you like to know when it was." + +"I don't know when the Bible was printed in English," confessed Marjorie. + +"If you did know and knew several other things that happened about that +time you would be greatly interested. Suppose I should tell you about +something that happened in England, you would care very much more if you +knew about something that was linked with it in France, and in Germany. +If I say 1517 I do not arouse your enthusiasm; you don't know what was +happening in Germany then; and 1492 doesn't remind you of anything--" + +"Yes, it does," laughed Marjorie, "and so does 1620." + +"Down the bay on an island stand the ruins of a church, and an old lady +told me it was built in 1604. I did not contradict her, but I laughed +all to myself." + +"I know enough to laugh at that," said Linnet. + +"But I have seen in America the spot where Jamestown stood and that dates +almost as far back. Suppose I tell you that Martin Luther read _Pilgrims +Progress_ with great delight, do you know whether I am making fun or not? +If I say that Queen Elizabeth wrote a letter to Cleopatra, do you know +whether I mean it or not? And if I say that Richard the Third was +baptized by St. Augustine, can you contradict it? And Hannah More wrote a +sympathetic letter to Joan of Arc, and Marie Antoinette danced with +Charlemagne, and George Washington was congratulated on becoming +President by Mary Queen of Scots." + +The girls could laugh at this for they had an idea that the Queen of +Scots died some time before the first president of the United States was +born; but over the other names and incidents they looked at each other +gravely. + +"Life is a kind of conglomeration without dates," said Linnet. + +"I wonder if you know how long ago the flood was!" suggested Miss +Prudence, "or if Mahomet lived before the flood or after," she added, +seriously. + +Marjorie smiled, but Linnet was serious. + +"You confuse me so," said Linnet. "I believe I don't know when anything +_was_. I don't know how long since Adam was made. Do you, Marjorie?" + +"No," in the tone of one dreadfully ashamed. + +"And now I'll tell you a lovely thought out of the Bible that came +through dates. I did not discover it myself, of course." + +"I don't see why 'of course,'" Marjorie said in a resentful tone. "You +_do_ discover things." + +"I discover little girls once in a while," returned Miss Prudence with a +rare softening of lips and eyes. + +If it had not been for a few such discoveries the lines about Miss +Prudence's lips might have been hard lines. + +"Of course you both remember the story of faithful old Abraham, how he +longed and longed for a son and hoped against hope, and, after waiting +so long, Isaac was born at last. He had the sure promise of God that in +his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Do you know +how many nations Abraham knew about? Did he know about France and England +and America, the Empire of Russia and populous China?" + +Linnet looked puzzled; Marjorie was very grave. + +"Did he know that the North American Indians would be blessed in him? Did +he know they would learn that the Great Spirit had a Son, Jesus Christ? +And that Jesus Christ was descended from him?" + +"I--don't--know," said Marjorie, doubtfully. "I get all mixed up." + +"It was because all the world would be blessed that he was so anxious to +have a son. And, then, after Isaac was born and married for years and +years the promise did not seem to come true, for he had no child. Must +the faithful, hopeful old father die with his hope deferred? We read that +Abraham died in a good old age, an old man, full of years, and Isaac and +Ishmael buried him, and farther on in the same chapter we find that the +twin boys are born, Jacob and Esau. But their old grandfather was dead. +He knew now how true God is to his promises, because he was in Heaven, +but we can't help wishing he had seen those two strong boys from one of +whom the Saviour of the whole world was to descend. But if we look at +Abraham's age when he died, and comparing it with Isaac's when the twins +were born, we find that the old man, truly, had to wait twenty years +before they were born, but that he really lived to see them seventeen or +eighteen years of age. He lived to tell them with his own lips about that +wonderful promise of God." + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Marjorie, enthusiastically. + +"He had another long time to wait, too," said Linnet. + +"Yes, he had hard times all along," almost sighed Miss Prudence. + +Forty years old did not mean to her that her hard times were all over. + +"But he had such a good time with the boys," said Marjorie, who never +could see the dark side of anything. "Just to think of _dates_ telling us +such a beautiful thing." + +"That's all you hate, dates and punctuation," Linnet declared; "but I +can't see the use of ever so many other things." + +"If God thought it worth while to make the earth and people it and +furnish it and govern it with laws, don't you think it worth your poor +little while to learn what he has done?" queried Miss Prudence, gently. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Linnet, "is _that_ it?" + +"Just it," said Miss Prudence, smiling, "and some day I will go over with +you each study by itself and show you how it will educate you and help +you the better to do something he asks you to do." + +"Oh, how splendid!" cried Linnet. "Before I go to school, so the books +won't seem hard and dry?" + +"Yes, any day that you will come to me. Marjorie may come too, even +though she loves to study." + +"I wonder if you can find any good in Natural Philosophy," muttered +Linnet, "and in doing the examples in it. And in remembering the signs +of the Zodiac! Mr. Holmes makes us learn everything; he won't let us +skip." + +"He is a fine teacher, and you might have had, if you had been so minded, +a good preparation for your city school." + +"I haven't," said Linnet. "If it were not for seeing the girls and +learning how to be like city girls, I would rather stay home." + +"Perhaps that knowledge would not improve you. What then?" + +"Why, Miss Prudence!" exclaimed Marjorie, "don't you think we country +girls are away behind the age?" + +"In the matter of dates! But you need not be. With such a teacher as you +have you ought to do as well as any city girl of your age. And there's +always a course of reading by yourself." + +"It isn't always," laughed Linnet, "it is only for the studiously +disposed." + +"I was a country girl, and when I went to the city to school I did not +fail in my examination." + +"Oh, _you_!" cried Linnet. + +"I see no reason why you, in your happy, refined, Christian home, with +all the sweet influences of your healthful, hardy lives, should not be as +perfectly the lady as any girl I know." + +Marjorie clapped her hands. Oh, if Hollis might only hear this! And Miss +Prudence _knew_. + +"I thought I had to go to a city school, else I couldn't be refined and +lady-like," said Linnet. + +"That does not follow. All city girls are not refined and lady-like; they +may have a style that you haven't, but that style is not always to their +advantage. It is true that I do not find many young ladies in your little +village that I wish you to take as models, but the fault is in them, as +well as in some of their surroundings. You have music, you have books, +you have perfection of beauty in shore and sea, you have the Holy Spirit, +the Educator of mankind." + +The girls were awed and silent. + +"I have been shocked at the rudeness of city girls, and I have been +charmed with the tact and courtesy of more than one country maiden. +Nowadays education and the truest culture may be had everywhere." + +"Even in Middlefield," laughed Marjorie her heart brimming over with the +thought that, after all, she might be as truly a lady as Helen Rheid. + +If Linnet had been as excited as Marjorie was, at that moment, she would +have given a bound into the grass and danced all around. But Marjorie +only sat still trembling with a flush in eyes and cheeks. + +"I think I'll keep a list of the books I read," decided Marjorie after a +quiet moment. + +"That's a good plan. I'll show you a list I made in my girlhood, some +day. But you mustn't read as many as an Englishman read,--Thomas Henry +Buckle,--his library comprised twenty-two thousand." + +"He didn't read them _all,_" cried Linnet. + +"He read parts of all, and some attentively, I dare say. He was a rapid +reader and had the rare faculty of being able to seize on what he needed +to use. He often read three volumes a day. But I don't advise you to copy +him. I want you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. He could +absorb, but, we'll take it for granted that you must plod on steadily, +step by step. He read through Johnson's Dictionary to enlarge his +vocabulary." + +"Vocabulary!" repeated Linnet. + +"His stock of words," exclaimed Marjorie. "Miss Prudence!" with a new +energy in her voice, "I'm going to read Webster through." + +"Well," smiled Miss Prudence. + +"Don't you believe I _can?_" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Then I will. I'll be like Buckle in one thing. I'll plan to read so many +pages a day. We've got a splendid one; mother got it by getting +subscriptions to some paper. Mother will do _anything_ to help us on, +Miss Prudence." + +"I have learned that. I have a plan to propose to her by and by." + +"Oh, can't you tell us?" entreated Linnet, forgetting her work. + +"Not yet." + +"Does it concern _us?_" asked Marjorie. + +"Yes, both of you." + +Two hours since it had "concerned" only Marjorie, but in this hour under +the apple-tree Miss Prudence had been moved to include Linnet, also. +Linnet was not Marjorie, she had mentally reasoned, but she was Linnet +and had her own niche in the world. Was she not also one of her little +sisters that were in the world and not of it? + +"When may we know?" questioned Linnet + +"That depends. Before I leave your grandfather's, I hope." + +"I know it is something good and wonderful, because you thought of it," +said Marjorie. "Perhaps it is as good as one of our day-dreams coming +true." + +"It may be something very like one of them, but the time may not be yet. +It will not do you any harm to know there's something pleasant ahead, +if it can be arranged." + +"I do like to know things that are going to happen to us," Linnet +confessed. "I used to wish I could dream and have the dreams come true." + +"Like the wicked ancients who used to wrap themselves in skins of beasts +and stay among the graves and monuments to sleep and dream--and in the +temples of the idols, thinking the departed or the idols would foretell +to them in dreams. Isaiah reproves the Jews for doing this. And Sir +Walter Scott, in his notes to 'The Lady of the Lake,' tells us something +about a similar superstition among the Scotch." + +"I like to know about superstitions," said Linnet, "but I'd be afraid to +do that." + +"Miss Prudence, I haven't read 'The Lady of the Lake'!" exclaimed +Marjorie. + +"No, imitator of Buckle, you haven't. But I'll send it to you when I go +home." + +"What did Buckle _do_ with all his learning?" inquired Marjorie. + +"I haven't told you about half of his learning. He wrote a work of great +learning, that startled the world somewhat, called 'The History of +Civilization,' in which he attempted to prove that the differences +between nations and peoples were almost solely to be attributed to +physical causes that food had more to do with the character of a +nation than faith." + +"Didn't the Israelites live on the same food that the Philistines did?" +asked Marjorie, "and didn't--" + +"Are you getting ready to refute him? The Jews could not eat pork, you +remember." + +"And because they didn't eat pork they believed in one true God!" +exclaimed Marjorie, indignantly. "I don't like his book, Miss Prudence." + +"Neither do I. And we need not read it, even if he did study twenty-two +thousand books and Johnson's Dictionary to help him write it." + +"Why didn't he study Webster?" asked Linnet. + +"Can't you think and tell me?" + +"No." + +"Can you not, Marjorie?" + +"Because he was English, I suppose, and Johnson wrote the English +Dictionary and Webster the American." + +"An Irish lady told me the other day that Webster was no authority. I +wish I could tell you all about Johnson; I love him, admire him, and pity +him." + +Marjorie laughed and squeezed Miss Prudence's hand. "Don't you wish you +could tell us about every _body_ and every _thing_, Miss Prudence?" + +"And then help you use the knowledge. I am glad of your question, +Marjorie, 'What did Mr. Buckle _do_ with his knowledge?' If I should +learn a new thing this week and not use it next week I should feel +guilty." + +"I don't know how to use knowledge," said Linnet. + +"You are putting your knowledge of tatting to very good service." + +"Miss Prudence, will you use your things on me?" inquired Marjorie, +soberly. + +"That is just what I am hoping to do." + +"Hillo! Hillo! Hillo!" sounded a voice behind the woodshed. After a +moment a tall figure emerged around a corner, arrayed in coarse working +clothes, with a saw over his shoulders. + +"Hillo! gals, I can't find your father. Tell him I left my saw here for +him to file." + +"I will," Linnet called back. + +"That's African John," explained Linnet as the figure disappeared around +the corner of the woodshed. "I wish I had asked him to stay and tell you +some of his adventures." + +"_African_ John. He is not an African;" said Miss Prudence. + +"No, oh no; he's Captain Rheid's cousin. People call him that because he +was three years in Africa. He was left on the coast. It happened this +way. He was only a sailor and he went ashore with another sailor and they +got lost in a jungle or something like it and when they came back to the +shore they saw the sails of their ship in the distance and knew it had +gone off and left them. The man with him fell down dead on the sand and +he had to stay three years before a ship came. He's an old man now and +that happened years and years ago. Captain Rheid can't tell anything more +frightful than that. Mother had a brother lost at sea, they supposed so, +for he never came back; if I ever have anybody go and not come back I'll +never, never, _never_ give him up." + +"Never, never, never give him up," echoed Miss Prudence in her heart. + +"They thought Will Rheid was lost once, but he came back! Linnet didn't +give him up, and his father and mother almost did." + +"I'd never give him up," said Linnet again, emphatically. + +"Will Rheid," teased Marjorie, "or anybody?" + +"Anybody," replied Linnet, but she twitched at her work and broke her +thread. + +"Now, girls, I'm going in to talk to your mother awhile, and then perhaps +Linnet will walk part of the way home with me," said Miss Prudence. + +"To talk about _that_," cried Marjorie. + +"I'll tell you by and by." + + + + +VIII. + +BISCUITS AND OTHER THINGS. + +"I am rather made for giving than taking."--_Mrs. Browning._ + + +Mrs. West had been awakened from her nap with an uncomfortable feeling +that something disagreeable had happened or was about to happen; she felt +"impressed" she would have told you. Pushing the light quilt away from +her face she arose with a decided vigor, determined to "work it off" if +it were merely physical; she brushed her iron gray hair with steady +strokes and already began to feel as if her presentiment were groundless; +she bathed her cheeks in cool water, she dressed herself carefully in her +worn black and white barège, put on her afternoon cap, a bit of black +lace with bows of narrow black ribbon, fastened the linen collar Linnet +had worked with button-hole stitch with the round gold and black +enamelled pin that contained locks of the light hair of her two lost +babes, and then felt herself ready for the afternoon, even ready for the +minister and his stylish wife, if they should chance to call. But she was +not ready without her afternoon work; she would feel fidgety unless she +had something to keep her fingers moving; the afternoon work happened to +be a long white wool stocking for Linnet's winter wear. Linnet must have +new ones, she decided; she would have no time to darn old ones, and +Marjorie might make the old ones do another winter; it was high time for +Marjorie to learn to mend. + +The four shining knitting needles were clicking in the doorway of the +broad little entry that opened out to the green front yard when Miss +Prudence found her way around to the front of the house. The ample figure +and contented face made a picture worth looking at, and Miss Prudence +looked at it a moment before she announced her presence by speaking. + +"Mrs. West, I want to come to see you a little while--may I?" + +Miss Prudence had a pretty, appealing way of speaking, oftentimes, that +caused people to feel as if she were not quite grown up. There was +something akin to childlikeness in her voice and words and manner, +to-day. She had never felt so humble in her life, as to-day when her +whole life loomed up before her--one great disappointment. + +"I was just thinking that I would go and find you after I had turned the +heel; I haven't had a talk with you yet." + +"I want it," returned the younger lady, seating herself on the upper step +and leaning back against the door post. "I've been wanting to be +_mothered_ all day. I have felt as if the sunshine were taking me into +its arms, and as if the soft warm grass were my mother's lap." + +"Dear child, you have had trouble in your life, haven't you?" replied the +motherly voice. + +Miss Prudence was not impulsive, at least she believed that she had +outgrown yielding to a sudden rush of feeling, but at these words she +burst into weeping, and drawing nearer dropped her head in the broad lap. + +"There, there, deary! Cry, if it makes you feel any better," hushed the +voice that had rocked babies to sleep. + +After several moments of self-contained sobbing Miss Prudence raised her +head. "I've never told any one, but I feel as if I wanted to tell you. It +is so long that it makes me feel old to speak of it. It is twenty years +ago since it happened. I had a friend that I love as girls love the man +they have chosen to marry; father admired him, and said he was glad to +leave me with such a protector. Mother had been dead about a year and +father was dying with consumption; they had no one to leave me with +excepting this friend; he was older than I, years older, but I admired +him all the more for that. Father had perfect trust in him. I think +the trouble hastened father's death. He had a position of trust--a great +deal of money passed through his hands. Like every girl I liked diamonds +and he satisfied me with them; father used to look grave and say: +'Prudie, your mother didn't care for such things.' But I cared for mine. +I had more jewels than any of my friends; and he used to promise that I +should have everything I asked for. But I did not want anything if I +might have him. My wedding dress was made--our wedding tour was all +planned: we were to come home to his beautiful house and father was to be +with us. Father and I were so contented over our plans; he seemed just +like himself that last evening that we laughed and talked. But he--my +friend was troubled and left early; when he went away he caught me in his +arms and held me. 'God bless you, bless you' he said, and then he said, +'May he forgive me!' I could not sleep that night, the words sounded in +my ears. In the morning I unburdened myself to father, I always told him +everything, and he was as frightened as I. Before two days we knew all. +He had taken--money--that was not his own, thousands of dollars, and he +was tried and sentenced. I sent them all my diamonds and everything that +would bring money, but that was only a little of the whole. They sent +him--to state-prison, to hard labor, for a term of five years. Father +died soon after and I had not any one nearer than an aunt or cousin. I +thought my heart broke with the shame and dishonor. I have lived in many +places since. I have money enough to do as I like--because I do not like +to do very much, perhaps. But I can't forget. I can't forget the shame. +And I trusted him so! I believed in him. He had buried a young wife years +ago, and was old and wise and good! When I see diamonds they burn into me +like live coals. I would have given up my property and worked for my +living, but father made me bind myself with a solemn promise that I would +not do it. But I have sought out many that he wronged, and given them all +my interest but the sum I compelled myself to live on. I have educated +two or three orphans, and I help every month several widows and one or +two helpless people who suffered through him. Father would be glad of +that, if he knew how comfortably I can live on a limited income. I have +made my will, remembering a number of people, and if they die before I +do, I shall keep trace of their children. I do all I can; I would, rather +give all my money up, but it is my father's money until I die." + +Mrs. West removed a knitting needle from between her lips and knit it +into the heel she had "turned." + +"Where is he--now?" she asked. + +"I never saw him after that night--he never wrote to me; I went to him in +prison but he refused to see me. I have heard of him many times through +his brother; he fled to Europe as soon as he was released, and has never +returned home--to my knowledge. I think his brother has not heard from +him for some years. When I said I had not a friend, I did not mention +this brother; he was young when it happened, too young to have any pity +for his brother; he was very kind to me, they all were. This brother was +a half-brother--there were two mothers--and much younger." + +"What was his name?" + +Mrs. West did not mean to be inquisitive, but she did want to know and +not simply for the sake of knowing. + +"Excuse me--but I must keep the secret for his brother's sake. He's the +only one left." + +"I may not know the name of the bank then?" + +"If you knew that you would know all. But _I_ know that your husband lost +his small patrimony in it--twenty-five hundred dollars--" + +"H'm," escaped Mrs. West's closely pressed lips. + +"And that is one strong reason why I want to educate your two daughters." + +The knitting dropped from the unsteady fingers. + +"And I've fretted and fretted about that money, and asked the Lord how my +girls ever were to be educated." + +"You know now," said Miss Prudence. "I had to tell you, for I feared that +you would not listen to my plan. You may guess how I felt when your +sister-in-law, Mrs. Easton, told me that she was to take Linnet for a +year or two and let her go to school. At first I could not see my way +clear, my money is all spent for a year to come--I only thought of taking +Marjorie home with me--but, I have arranged it so that I can spare a +little; I have been often applied to to take music pupils, and if I do +that I can take one of the girls home with me and send her to school; +next year I will take all the expense upon myself, wardrobe and all. +There is a cheap way of living in large cities as well as an expensive +one. If Linnet goes to Boston with her aunt, she will be kept busy out of +school hours. Mrs. Easton is very kindhearted but she considers no one +where her children are concerned. If I wore diamonds that Linnet's money +purchased, aren't you willing she shall eat bread and butter my money +purchases?" + +"But you gave the diamonds up?" + +"I wore them, though." + +"That diamond plea has done duty a good many times, I guess," said Mrs. +West, smiling down upon the head in her lap. + +"No, it hasn't. His brother has done many things for me; people are ready +enough to take money from his brother, and the widows are my friends. It +has not been difficult. It would have been without him." + +"The nights I've laid awake and made plans. My little boys died in +babyhood. I imagine their father and I would have mortgaged the farm, and +I would have taken in washing, and he would have gone back to his trade +to send those boys through college. But the girls don't need a college +education. The boys might have been ministers--one of them, at least. But +I would like the girls to have a piano, they both play so well on the +melodeon! I would like them to be--well, like you, Miss Prudence, and not +like their rough, hardworking old mother. I've shed tears enough about +their education, and told the Lord about it times enough. If the Boston +plan didn't suit, we had another, Graham and I--he always listens and +depends upon my judgment. I'm afraid, sometimes, I depend upon my own +judgment more than upon the Lord's wisdom. But this plan was--" the +knitting needle was being pushed vigorously through her back hair now, +"to exchange the farm for a house and lot in town--Middlefield is quite a +town, you know--and he was to go back to his trade, and I was to take +boarders, and the girls were to take turns in schooling and +accomplishments. I am not over young myself, and he isn't over strong, +but we had decided on that. I shed some tears over it, and he looked pale +and couldn't sleep, for we've counted on this place as the home of our +old age which isn't so far off as it was when he put that twenty-five +hundred dollars into that bank. But I do breathe freer if I think we may +have this place to live and die on, small as it is and the poor living it +gives us. Father's place isn't much to speak of, and James will come in +for his share of that, so we haven't much to count on anywhere. I don't +know, though," the knitting needle was doing duty in the stocking again, +"about taking _your_ money. You were not his wife, you hadn't spent it or +connived at his knavery." + +"I felt myself to be his wife--I am happier in making all the reparation +in my power. All I could do for one old lady was to place her in The Old +Ladies' Home. I know very few of the instances; I would not harrow my +soul with hearing of those I could not help. I have done very little, but +that little has been my exceeding comfort." + +"I guess so," said Mrs. West, in a husky voice. "I'll tell father what +you say, we'll talk it over and see. I know you love my girls--especially +Marjorie." + +"I love them both," was the quick reply. + +"Linnet is older, she ought to have the first chance." + +Miss Prudence thought, but did not say, "As Laban said about Leah," she +only said, "I do not object to that. We do Marjorie no injustice. This is +Linnet's schooltime. There does seem to be a justice in giving the first +chance to the firstborn, although God chose Jacob instead of the elder +Esau, and Joseph instead of his older brethren, and there was little +David anointed when his brothers were refused." + +Miss Prudence's tone was most serious, but her eyes were full of fun. She +was turning the partial mother's weapons against herself. + +"But David and Jacob and Joseph were different from the others," returned +the mother, gravely, "and in this case, the elder is as good as the +younger." + +It almost slipped off Miss Prudence's tongue, "But she will not take the +education Marjorie will," but she wisely checked herself and replied that +both the girls were as precious as precious could be. + +"And now don't you go home to-night, stay all night and I'll talk to +father," planned Mrs. West, briskly; "as Marjorie would say, Giant +Despair will get Diffidence his wife to bed and they will talk +the matter over. She doesn't read _Pilgrim's Progress_ as much as she +used to, but she calls you Mercy yet. And you are a mercy to us." + +With the tears rolling down her cheeks the mother stooped over and kissed +the lover of her girls. + +"Mr. Holmes is coming to see Marjorie to-night, he hasn't called since +her accident, and to talk to father, he likes to argue with him, and it +will be pleasanter to have you here. And Will Rheid is home from a +voyage, and he'll be running in. It must be lonesome for you over there +on the Point. It used to be for me when I was a girl." + +"But I'm not a girl," smiled Miss Prudence. + +"You'll pass for one any day. And you can play and make it lively. I am +not urging you with disinterested motives." + +"I can see through you; and I _am_ anxious to know how Mr. West will +receive my proposal." + +"He will see through my eyes in the end, but he always likes to argue a +while first. I want you to taste Linnet's cream biscuit, too. She made +them on purpose for you. There's father, now, coming with African John, +and there _is_ Will Rheid coming across lots. Well, I'm glad Linnet did +make the biscuits." + +Miss Prudence arose with a happy face, she did not go back to the girls +at once, there was a nook to be quiet in at the foot of the kitchen +garden, and she felt as if she must be alone awhile. Mrs. West, with her +heart in a tremor that it had not known since Marjorie was born, tucked +away her knitting behind the school-books on the dining-room table, tied +on her blue checked apron, and went out to the kitchen to kindle the fire +for tea, singing in her mellow voice, "Thus far the Lord hath led me on," +suddenly stopping short as she crammed the stove with shavings to +exclaim, "His name _was_ Holmes! And that's the school-master's name. And +that's why he's in such a fume when the boys cheat at marbles. Well, did +I _ever_!" + +Linnet ran in to exchange her afternoon dress for a short, dark calico, +and to put on her old shoes before she went into the barnyard to milk +Bess and Brindle and Beauty. Will Rheid found her in time to persuade +her to let him milk Brindle, for he was really afraid he would get his +hand out, and it would never do to let his wife do all the milking +when his father bequeathed him a fifth of his acres and two of his +hardest-to-be-milked cows. Linnet laughed, gave him one of her pails, +and found an other milking stool for him. + +Marjorie wandered around disconsolate until she discovered Miss Prudence +in the garden. + +She was perplexed over a new difficulty which vented itself in the +question propounded between tasting currants. + +"Ought I--do you think I ought--talk to people--about--like the +minister--about--" + +"No, child!" and Miss Prudence laughed merrily. "You ought to talk to +people like Marjorie West! Like a child and not like a minister." + + + + +IX. + +JOHN HOLMES. + +"Courage to endure and to obey."--_Tennyson._ + + +It was vacation-time and yet John Holmes was at work. No one knew him to +take a vacation, he had attempted to do it more than once and at the end +of his stipulated time had found himself at work harder than ever. The +last lazy, luxurious vacation that he remembered was his last college +vacation. What a boyish, good-for-nothing, aimless fellow he was in those +days! How his brother used to snap him up and ask if he had nothing +better to do than to dawdle around into Maple Street and swing Prudence +under the maples in that old garden, or to write rhymes with her and +correct her German exercises! How he used to tease her about having by +and by to color her hair white and put on spectacles, or else she would +have to call her husband "papa." And she would dart after him and box his +ears and laugh her happy laugh and look as proud as a queen over every +teasing word. He had told her that she grew prettier every hour as her +day of fate drew nearer, and then had audaciously kissed her as he bade +her good-by, for, in one week would she not be his sister, the only +sister he had ever had? He stood at the gate watching her as she tripped +up to her father's arm-chair on the piazza, and saw her bend her head +down to his, and then he had gone off whistling and thinking that his +brother certainly had a share of all of earth's good things position, a +good name, money, and now this sweet woman for a wife. Well, the world +was all before _him_ where to choose, and he would have money and a +position some day and the very happiest home in the land. + +The next time he saw Prudence she looked like one just risen out of a +grave: pallid, with purple, speechless lips, and eyes whose anguish rent +his soul. Her father had been suddenly prostrated with hemorrhage and he +stayed through the night with her, and afterward he made arrangements for +the funeral, and his mother and himself stood at the grave with her. And +then there was a prison, and after that a delirious fever for himself, +when for days he had not known his mother's face or Prudence's voice. + +The other boys had gone back to college, but his spirit was crushed, he +could not hold up his head among men. He had lost his "ambition," people +said. Since that time he had taught in country schools and written +articles for the papers and magazines; he had done one thing beside, he +had purchased books and studied them. In the desk in his chamber there +were laid away to-day four returned manuscripts, he was only waiting +for leisure to exchange their addressee and send them forth into the +world again to seek their fortunes. A rejection daunted him no more than +a poor recitation in the schoolroom; where would be the zest in life if +one had not the chance of trying again? + +John Holmes was a hermit, but he was a hermit who loved boys; girls were +too much like delicate bits of china, he was afraid of handling for fear +of breaking. Girls grown up were not quite so much like bits of china, +but he had no friend save one among womankind, his sister that was to +have been, Prudence Pomeroy. He had not addressed her with the name his +brother had given her since that last day in the garden; she was gravely +Prudence to him, in her plain attire, her smooth hair and little +unworldly ways, almost a veritable Puritan maiden. + +As to her marrying--again (he always thought "again"), he had no more +thought of it than she had. He had given to her every letter he had +received from his brother, but they always avoided speaking his name; +indeed Prudence, in her young reverence for his age and wisdom, had +seldom named his Christian name to others or to himself, he was "Mr. +Holmes" to her. + +John Holmes was her junior by three years, yet he had constituted himself +friend, brother, guardian, and sometimes, he told her, she treated him as +though he were her father, beside. + +"It's good to have all in one," she once replied, "for I can have you all +with me at one time." + +After being a year at Middlefield he had written to her about the +secluded homestead and fine salt bathing at the "Point," urging her to +spend her summer there. Marjorie had seen her face at church one day in +early spring as she had stopped over the Sabbath at the small hotel in +the town on her way on a journey farther north. + +This afternoon, while Prudence had been under the apple-tree and in the +front entry, he had bent over the desk in his chamber, writing. This +chamber was a low, wide room, carpeted with matting, with neither shades +nor curtains at the many-paned windows, containing only furniture that +served a purpose--a washstand, with a small, gilt-framed glass hanging +over it, one rush-bottomed chair beside the chair at the desk, that +boasted arms and a leather cushion, a bureau, with two large brass rings +to open each drawer, and a narrow cot covered with a white counterpane +that his hostess had woven as a part of her wedding outfit before he was +born, and books! There were books everywhere--in the long pine chest, on +the high mantel, in the bookcase, under the bed, on the bureau, and on +the carpet wherever it was not absolutely necessary for him to tread. + +Prudence and Marjorie had climbed the narrow stairway once this summer to +take a peep at his books, and Prudence had inquired if he intended +to take them all out West when he accepted the presidency of the college +that was waiting for him out there. + +"I should have to come back to my den, I couldn't write anywhere else." + +"And when somebody asks me if you are dead, as some king asked about the +author of Butler's 'Analogy' once, I'll reply, as somebody replied: 'Not +dead, but buried.'" + +"That is what I want to be," he had replied. "Don't you want a copy of my +little pocket dictionary? It just fits the vest pocket, you see. You +don't know how proud I was when I saw a young man on the train take one +from his pocket one day!" + +He opened his desk and handed her a copy; Marjorie looked at it and at +him in open-eyed wonder. And dared she recite to a teacher who had made a +book? + +"When is your Speller coming out?" + +"In the fall. I'm busy on my Reader now." + +Prudence stepped to his desk and examined the sheets of upright +penmanship; it could be read as easily as print. + +"And the Arithmetic?" + +"Oh, I haven't tackled that yet. That is for winter evenings, when my +fire burns on the hearth and the wind blows and nobody in the world cares +for me." + +"Then it won't be _this_ winter," said Marjorie, lifting her eyes from +the binding of the dictionary. + +"Why not?" he questioned. + +"Because somebody cares for you," she answered gravely. + +He laughed and shoved his manuscript into the desk. He was thinking of +her as he raised his head from the desk this afternoon and found the sun +gone down; he thought of her and remembered that he had promised to call +to see her to-night. Was it to take tea? He dreaded tea-parties, when +everybody talked and nobody said anything. A dim remembrance of being +summoned to supper a while ago flashed through his mind; but it hardly +mattered--Mrs. Devoe would take her cup of tea alone and leave his fruit +and bread and milk standing on the tea-table; it was better so, she would +not pester him with questions while he was eating, ask him why he did not +take more exercise, and if his room were not suffocating this hot day, +and if he did not think a cup of good, strong tea would not be better for +him than that bowl of milk! + +Mrs. Devoe, a widow of sixty-five, and her cat, Dolly, aged nineteen, +kept house and boarded the school-master. Her house was two miles nearer +the shore than the school-building, but he preferred the walk in all +weathers and he liked the view of the water. Mrs. Devoe had never kept a +boarder before, her small income being amply sufficient for her small +wants, but she liked the master, he split her wood and his own, locked +the house up at night, made no trouble, paid his board, two dollars per +week, regularly in advance, never went out at night, often read to her in +the evening after her own eyes had given out, and would have been perfect +if he had allowed her to pile away his books and sweep his chamber every +Friday. + +"But no man is perfect," she had sighed to Mrs. Rheid, "even my poor +husband would keep dinner waiting." + +After a long, absent-minded look over the meadows towards the sea, where +the waves were darkening in the twilight, he arose in haste, threw off +his wrapper, a gray merino affair, trimmed with quilted crimson silk, +that Prudence had given him on a birthday three years ago, and went to +the wash-stand to bathe his face and brush back that mass of black hair. +He did not study his features as Prudence had studied hers that morning; +he knew so little about his own face that he could scarcely distinguish a +good portrait of himself from a poor one; but Prudence knew it by heart. +It was a thin, delicate face, marred with much thought, the features not +large, and finely cut, with deep set eyes as black as midnight, and, when +they were neither grave nor stern, as soft as a dove's eyes; cheeks and +chin were closely shaven; his hair, a heavy black mass, was pushed back +from a brow already lined with thought or care, and worn somewhat long +behind the ears; there was no hardness in any line of the face, because +there was no hardness in the heart, there was sin and sorrow in the +world, but he believed that God is good. + +The slight figure was not above medium height; he had a stoop in the +shoulders that added to his general appearance of delicacy; he was +scholarly from the crown of his black head to the very tip of his worn, +velvet slipper; his slender hands, with their perfectly kept nails, and +even the stain of ink on the forefinger of his right hand, had an air of +scholarship about them. His black summer suit was a perfect fit, his +boots were shining, the knot of his narrow black neck tie was a little +towards one side, but that was the only evidence that he was careless +about his personal appearance. + +"I want my boys to be neat," he had said once apologetically to Mrs. +Devoe, when requesting her to give away his old school suit preparatory +to buying another. + +All he needed to be perfect was congenial social life, Prudence believed, +but that, alas, seemed never to enter his conception. He knew it never +had since that long ago day when he had congratulated his brother upon +his perfect share of this world's happiness. And, queerly enough, +Prudence stood too greatly in awe of him to suggest that his life was too +one-sided and solitary. + +"Some people wonder if you were ever married," Mrs. Devoe said to him +that afternoon when he went down to his late supper. Mrs. Devoe never +stood in awe of anybody. + +"Yes, I was married twenty years ago--to my work," he replied, gravely; +"there isn't any John Holmes, there is only my work." + +"There is something that is John Holmes to me," said the widow in her +quick voice, "and there's a John Holmes to the boys and girls, and I +guess the Lord thinks something of you beside your 'work,' as you call +it." + +Meditatively he walked along the grassy wayside towards the brown +farmhouse: + +"Perhaps there _is_ a John Holmes that I forget about," he said to +himself. + + + + +X. + +LINNET. + +"Use me to serve and honor thee, +And let the rest be as thou wilt"--_E.L.E._ + + +Marjorie's laugh was refreshing to the schoolmaster after his hard day's +work. She was standing behind her father, leaning over his shoulder, +and looking at them both as they talked; some word had reminded Mr. +Holmes of the subject of his writing that day and he had given them +something of what he had been reading and writing on Egyptian slavery. +Mr. Holmes was always "writing up" something, and one of Mr. West's +usual questions was: "What have you to tell us about now?" + +The subject was intensely interesting to Marjorie, she had but lately +read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and her tears and indignation were ready to +burst forth at any suggestion of injustice or cruelty. But the thing that +she was laughing at was a quotation from one of the older versions of the +Bible, Roger's Version Mr. Holmes told them when he quoted the passage: +"And the Lord was with Joseph and he was a luckie felowe." She lifted her +head from her father's shoulder and ran out into the little front yard to +find her mother and the others that she might tell them about Joseph and +ask Miss Prudence what "Roger's Version" meant. But her mother was busy +in the milkroom and Linnet was coming towards the house walking slowly +with her eyes on the ground. Will Rheid was walking as slowly toward his +home as Linnet was toward hers. + +Miss Prudence made a picture all by herself in her plain black dress, +with no color or ornament save the red rose in her black crape scarf, as +she sat upright in the rush-bottomed, straight-backed chair in the entry +before the wide-open door. Her eyes were towards the two who had parted +so reluctantly on the bridge over the brook. Marjorie danced away to find +her mother, suddenly remembering to ask if she might share the spare +chamber with Miss Prudence, that is--if Linnet did not want to very much. + +Marjorie never wanted to do anything that Linnet wanted to very much. + +Opening the gate Linnet came in slowly, with her eyes still on the +ground, shut the gate, and stood looking off into space; then becoming +aware of the still figure on the piazza hurried toward it. + +Linnet's eyes were stirred with a deeper emotion than had ever moved her +before; Miss Prudence did not remember her own face twenty years ago, but +she remembered her own heart. + +Will Rheid was a good young fellow, honest and true; Miss Prudence +stifled her sigh and said, "Well, dear" as the young girl came and stood +beside her chair. + +"I was wishing--I was saying to Will, just now, that I wished there was a +list of things in the Bible to pray about, and then we might be sure that +we were asking right." + +"And what did he say?" + +"He said he'd ask anyhow, and if it came, it was all right, and if it +didn't, he supposed that was all right, too." + +"That was faith, certainly." + +"Oh, he has faith," returned Linnet, earnestly. "Don't you know--oh, +you don't remember--when the Evangelist--that always reminds me of +Marjorie"--Linnet was a somewhat fragmentary talker like her mother--"but +when Mr. Woodfern was here four of the Rheid boys joined the Church, +all but Hollis, he was in New York, he went about that time. Mr. Woodfern +was so interested in them all; I shall never forget how he used to pray +at family worship: 'Lord, go through that Rheid family.' He prayed it +every day, I really believe. And they all joined the Church at the first +communion time, and every one of them spoke and prayed in the prayer +meetings. They used to speak just as they did about anything, and people +enjoyed it so; it was so genuine and hearty. I remember at a prayer +meeting here that winter Will arose to speak 'I was talking to a man in +town today and he said there was nothing _in_ religion. But, oh, my! I +told him there was nothing _out_ of it.' I told him about that to-night +and he said he hadn't found anything outside of it yet." + +"He's a fine young fellow," said Miss Prudence. "Mr. Holmes says he has +the 'right stuff' in him, and he means a great deal by that." + +A pleasant thought curved Linnet's lips. + +"But, Miss Prudence," sitting down on the step of the piazza, "I do wish +for a list of things. I want to know if I may pray that mother may +never look grave and anxious as she did at the supper table, and father +may not always have a cough in winter time, and Will may never have +another long voyage and frighten us all, and that Marjorie may have a +chance to go to school, too, and--why, _ever_ so many things!" + +A laugh from the disputants in the parlor brought the quick color to Miss +Prudence's cheeks. No mere earthly thing quickened her pulses like John +Holmes' laugh. And I do not think that was a mere earthly thing; there +was so much grace in it. + +"Doesn't St. Paul's 'everything' include your '_ever_ so many things?'" +questioned Miss Prudence, as the laugh died away. + +"I don't know," hesitatingly. "I thought it meant about people becoming +Christians, and faith and patience and such good things." + +"Perhaps your requests are good things, too. But I have thought of +something that will do for a list of things; it is included in this +promise: 'Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye +receive them and ye shall have them.' Desire _when_ ye pray! That's the +point." + +"Does the time when we desire make any difference?" asked Linnet, +interestedly. + +There were some kind of questions that Linnet liked to ask. + +"Does it not make all the difference? Suppose we think of something we +want while we are ease-loving, forgetful of duty, selfish, unforgiving, +neither loving God or our neighbor, when we feel far from him, instead of +near him, can we believe that we shall have such a heart's desire as that +would be? Would your desire be according to his will, his unselfish, +loving, forgiving will?" + +"No, oh, no," said Linnet, earnestly. "But I do think about father and +mother and Marjorie going to school and--when I am praying." + +"Then ask for everything you desire while you are praying; don't be +afraid." + +"_Is_ mother troubled about something?" + +"Not troubled, really; only perplexed a little over something we have +been planning about; and she is very glad, too." + +"I don't like to have her troubled, because her heart hurts her when she +worries. Marjorie don't know that, but she told me. That's one reason--my +strongest reason--for being sorry about going to Boston." + +"But your father is with her and he will watch over her." + +"But she depends on _me_," pleaded Linnet. + +"Marjorie is growing up," said Miss Prudence, hopefully. + +"Marjorie! It doesn't seem to me that she will ever grow up; she is such +a little puss, always absent-minded, with a book in her hand. And she +can't mend or sew or even make cake or clear up a room neatly. We spoil +her, mother and I, as much as she spoils her kitten, Pusheen. Did you +know that _pusheen_ is Irish for puss? Mr. Holmes told us. I do believe +he knows everything." + +"He comes nearer universal knowledge than the rest of us," said Miss +Prudence, smiling at the girl's eagerness. + +"But he's a book himself, a small volume, in fine print, printed in a +language that none of us can read," said Linnet. + +"To most people he is," granted Miss Prudence; "but when he was seven I +was ten, I was a backward child and he used to read to me, so he is not +a dead language to me." + +Linnet pulled at the fringe of her white shawl; Will Rheid had brought +that shawl from Ireland a year ago. + +"Miss Prudence, _do_ we have right desires, desires for things God likes, +while we are praying?" + +"If we feel his presence, if we feel as near to him as Mary sitting at +the feet of Christ, if we thank him for his unbounded goodness, and ask +his forgiveness for our sins with a grateful, purified, and forgiving +heart, how can we desire anything selfish--for our own good only and not +to honor him, anything unholy, anything that it would hurt him to grant; +if our heart is ever one with his heart, our will ever one with his will, +is it not when we are nearest to him, nearest in obeying, or nearest in +praying? Isn't there some new impulse toward the things he loves to give +us every time we go near to him?" + +Linnet assented with a slight movement of her head. She understood many +things that she could not translate into words. + +"Yesterday I saw in the paper the death of an old friend." They had been +silent for several minutes; Miss Prudence spoke in a musing voice. "She +was a friend in the sense that I had tried to befriend her. She was +unfortunate in her home surroundings, she was something of an invalid and +very deaf beside. She had lost money and was partly dependent upon +relatives. A few of us, Mr. Holmes was one of them, paid her board. She +was not what you girls call 'real bright,' but she was bright enough to +have a heartache every day. Reading her name among the deaths made me +glad of a kindness I grudged her once." + +"I don't believe you grudged it," interrupted Marjorie, who had come in +time to lean over the tall back of the chair and rest her hand on Miss +Prudence's shoulder while she listened to what promised to be a "story." + +"I did, notwithstanding. One busy morning I opened one of her long, +complaining, badly-written letters; I could scarcely decipher it; she was +so near-sighted, too, poor child, and would not put on glasses. Her +letters were something of a trial to me. I read, almost to my +consternation, 'I have been praying for a letter from you for three +weeks.' Slipping the unsightly sheet back into the envelope, hastily, +rather too hastily, I'm afraid, I said to myself: 'Well, I don't see how +you will get it.' I was busy every hour in those days, I did not have to +rest as often as I do now, and how could I spare the hour her prayer was +demanding? I could find the time in a week or ten days, but she had +prayed for it yesterday and would expect it to-day, would pray for it +to-day and expect it to-morrow. 'Why could she not pray about it without +telling me?' I argued as I dipped my pen in the ink, not to write to her +but to answer a letter that must be answered that morning. I argued about +it to myself as I turned from one thing to another, working in nervous +haste; for I did more in those days than God required me to do, I served +myself instead of serving him. I was about to take up a book to look over +a poem that I was to read at our literary circle when words from +somewhere arrested me: 'Do you like to have the answer to a prayer of +yours put off and off in this way?' and I answered aloud, 'No, I +_don't_.' 'Then answer this as you like to have God answer you.' And I +sighed, you will hardly believe it, but I _did_ sigh. The enticing poem +went down and two sheets of paper came up and I wrote the letter for +which the poor thing a hundred miles away had been praying three weeks. I +tried to make it cordial, spirited and sympathetic, for that was the kind +she was praying for. And it went to the mail four hours after I had +received her letter." + +"I'm so glad," said sympathetic Linnet. "How glad she must have been!" + +"Not as glad as I was when I saw her death in the paper yesterday." + +"You do write to so many people," said Marjorie. + +"I counted my list yesterday as I wrote on it the fifty-third name." + +"Oh, dear," exclaimed Linnet, who "hated" to write letters. "What do you +do it for?" + +"Perhaps because they need letters, perhaps because I need to write them. +My friends have a way of sending me the names of any friendless child, or +girl, or woman, who would be cheered by a letter, and I haven't the heart +to refuse, especially as some of them pray for letters and give thanks +for them. Instead of giving my time to 'society' I give it to letter +writing. And the letters I have in return! Nothing in story books equals +the pathos and romance of some of them." + +"I like that kind of good works," said Marjorie, "because I'm too bashful +to talk to people and I can _write_ anything." + +How little the child knew that some day she would write anything and +everything because she was "too bashful to talk." How little any of us +know what we are being made ready to do. And how we would stop to moan +and weep in very self-pity if we did know, and thus hinder the work of +preparation from going on. + +Linnet played with the fringe of her shawl and looked as if something +hard to speak were hovering over her lips. + +"Did mother tell you about Will?" she asked, abruptly, interrupting one +of Miss Prudence's stories to Marjorie of which she had not heeded one +word. + +"About Will!" repeated Marjorie. "What has happened to him?" + +Linnet looked up with arch, demure eyes. "He told mother and me while we +were getting supper; he likes to come out in the kitchen. The first mate +died and he was made first mate on the trip home, and the captain wrote a +letter to his father about him, and his father is as proud as he can be +and says he'll give him the command of the bark that is being built in +Portland, and he mustn't go away again until that is done. Captain Rheid +is the largest owner, he and African John, so they have the right to +appoint the master. Will thinks it grand to be captain at twenty-four." + +"But doesn't Harold feel badly not to have a ship, too?" asked Marjorie, +who was always thinking of the one left out. + +"But he's younger and his chance will come next. He doesn't feel sure +enough of himself either. Will has studied navigation more than he has. +Will went to school to an old sea-captain to study it, but Harold didn't, +he said it would get knocked into him, somehow. He's mate on a ship he +likes and has higher wages than Will will get, at first, but Will likes +the honor. It's so wonderful for his father to trust him that he can +scarcely believe it; he says his father must think he is some one else's +son. But that letter from the old shipmaster that Captain Rheid used to +know has been the means of it." + +"Is the bark named yet?" asked Marjorie. "Captain Rheid told father he +was going to let Mrs. Rheid name it." + +"Yes," said Linnet, dropping her eyes to hide the smile in them, "she is +named LINNET." + +"Oh, how nice! How splendid," exclaimed Marjorie, "Won't it look grand in +the _Argus_--'Bark LINNET, William Rheid, Master, ten days from +Portland'?" + +"Ten days to where?" laughed Linnet. + +"Oh, to anywhere. Siberia or the West Indies. I _wish_ he'd ask us to go +aboard, Linnet. _Don't_ you think he might?" + +"We might go and see her launched! Perhaps we all have an invitation; +suppose you run and ask mother," replied Linnet, with the demure smile +about her lips. + +Marjorie flew away, Linnet arose slowly, gathering her shawl about her, +and passed through the entry up to her own chamber. + +Miss Prudence did not mean to sigh, she did not mean to be so ungrateful, +there was work enough in her life, why should she long for a holiday +time? Girls must all have their story and the story must run on into +womanhood as hers had, there was no end till it was all lived through. + +"When thou passest _through_ the waters I will be with thee." + +Miss Prudence dropped her head in her hands; she was going through yet. + +Will Rheid was a manly young fellow, just six feet one, with a fine, +frank face, a big, explosive voice, and a half-bashful, half-bold manner +that savored of land and sea. He was as fresh and frolicsome as a sea +breeze itself, as shrewd as his father, and as simple as Linnet. + +But--Miss Prudence came back from her dreaming over the past,--would +Linnet go home with her and go to school? Perhaps John Holmes would take +Marjorie under his special tutelage for awhile, until she might come to +her, and--how queer it was for her to be planning about other people's +homes--why might he not take up his abode with the Wests, pay good board, +and not that meagre two dollars a week, take Linnet's seat at the table, +become a pleasant companion for Mr. West through the winter, and, above +all, fit Marjorie for college? And did not he need the social life? He +was left too much to his own devices at old Mrs. Devoe's. Marjorie, her +father with his ready talk, her mother, with a face that held remembrance +of all the happy events of her life, would certainly be a pleasant +exchange for Mrs. Devoe, and Dolly, her aged cat. She would go home to +her own snuggery, with Linnet to share it, with a relieved mind if John +Holmes might be taken into a family. And it was Linnet, after all, who +was to make the changes and she had only been thinking of Marjorie. + +When Linnet came to her to kiss her good night, Miss Prudence looked down +into her smiling eyes and quoted: + +"'Keep happy, sweetheart, and grow wise.'" + +The low murmur of voices reached Miss Prudence in her chamber long after +midnight, she smiled as she thought of Giant Despair and his wife +Diffidence. And then she prayed for the wanderer over the seas, that he +might go to his Father, as the prodigal did, and that, if it were not +wrong or selfish to wish it, she might hear from him once more before she +died. + +And then the voices were quiet and the whole house was still. + + + + +XI. + +GRANDMOTHER. + +"Even trouble may be made a little sweet"--_Mrs. Platt._ + + +"Here she is, grandmarm!" called out the Captain. "Run right in, Midget." + +His wife was _marm_ and his mother _grandmarm_. + +Marjorie ran in at the kitchen door and greeted the two occupants of the +roomy kitchen. Captain Rheid had planned his house and was determined +he said that the "women folks" should have room enough to move around in +and be comfortable; he believed in having the "galley" as good a place to +live in as the "cabin." + +It was a handsome kitchen, with several windows, a fine stove, a +well-arranged sink, a large cupboard, a long white pine table, three +broad shelves displaying rows of shining tinware, a high mantel with +three brass candlesticks at one end, and a small stone jar of fall +flowers at the other, the yellow floor of narrow boards was glowing with +its Saturday afternoon mopping, and the general air of freshness and +cleanliness was as refreshing as the breath of the sea, or the odor of +the fields. + +Marm and grandmarm liked it better. + +"Deary me!" ejaculated grandma, "it's an age since you were here." + +"A whole week," declared Marjorie, standing on tiptoe to hang up her sack +and hat on a hook near the shelves. + +"Nobody much comes in and it seems longer," complained the old lady. + +"I think she's very good to come once a week," said Hollis' sad-faced +mother. + +"Oh, I like to come," said Marjorie, pushing one of the wooden-bottomed +chairs to grandmother's side. + +"It seems to me, things have happened to your house all of a sudden," +said Mrs. Rheid, as she gave a final rub to the pump handle and hung up +one of the tin washbasins over the sink. + +"So it seems to us," replied Marjorie; "mother and I hardly feel at +home yet. It seems so queer at the table with Linnet gone and two +strangers--well, Mr. Holmes isn't a stranger, but he's a stranger at +breakfast time." + +"Don't you know how it all came about?" inquired grandmother, who +"admired" to get down to the roots of things. + +"No, I guess--I think," she hastily corrected, "that nobody does. We all +did it together. Linnet wanted to go with Miss Prudence and we all +wanted her to go; Mr. Holmes wanted to come and we all wanted him to +come; and then Mr. Holmes knew about Morris Kemlo, and father wanted a +boy to do the chores for winter and Morris wanted to come, because he's +been in a drug store and wasn't real strong, and his mother thought farm +work and sea air together would be good for him." + +"And you don't go to school?" said Mrs. Rheid, bringing her work, +several yards of crash to cut up into kitchen towels and to hem. Her +chair was also a hard kitchen chair; Hollis' mother had never "humored" +herself, she often said, there was not a rocking chair in her house until +all her boys were big boys; she had thumped them all to sleep in a +straight-backed, high, wooden chair. But with this her thumping had +ceased; she was known to be as lax in her government as the father was +strict in his. + +She was a little woman, with large, soft black eyes, with a dumb look of +endurance about the lips and a drawl in her subdued voice. She had not +made herself, her loving, rough boys, and her stern, faultfinding +husband, had moulded not only her features, but her character. She was +afraid of God because she was afraid of her husband, but she loved God +because she knew he must love her, else her boys would not love her. + +"Is Linnet homesick?" she questioned as her sharp shears cut through the +crash. + +"Yes, but not very much. She likes new places. She likes the school, and +the girls, so far, and she likes Miss Prudence's piano. Hollis has been +to see her, and Helen Rheid has called to see her, and invited her and +Miss Prudence to come to tea some time. Miss Prudence wrote me about +Helen, and she's _lovely_, Mrs. Rheid." + +"So Hollis said. Have you brought her picture back?" + +"Yes'm." + +Marjorie slowly drew a large envelope from her pocket, and taking the +imperial from it gazed at it long. There was a strange fascination to her +in the round face, with its dark eyes and mass of dark hair piled high on +the head. It was a vignette and the head seemed to be rising from folds +of black lace, the only ornament was a tiny gold chain on which was +placed a small gold cross. + +To Marjorie this picture was the embodiment of every good and beautiful +thing. It was somebody that she might be like when she had read all the +master's books, and learned all pretty, gentle ways. She never saw Helen +Rheid, notwithstanding Helen Rheid's life was one of the moulds in which +some of her influences were formed. Helen Rheid was as much to her as +Mrs. Browning was to Miss Prudence. After another long look she slipped +the picture back into the envelope and laid it on the table behind her. + +"You are going with Miss Prudence when Linnet is through, I suppose?" +asked Mrs. Rheid. + +"So mother says. It seems a long time to wait, but I am studying at home. +Mother cannot spare me to go to school, now, and Mr. Holmes says he would +rather hear me recite than not. So I am learning to sew and do housework +as well." + +"You need that as much as schooling," returned Mrs. Rheid, decidedly. "I +wish one of my boys could have gone to college, there's money enough to +spare, but their father said he had got his learning knocking around the +world and they could get theirs the same way." + +"Hollis studies--he's studying French now." + +"Did you bring a letter from him?" inquired his mother, eagerly. + +"Yes," said Marjorie, disappointedly, "but I wanted to keep it until the +last thing. I wanted you to have the best last." + +"If I ever do get the best it will be last!" said the subdued, sad voice. + +"Then you shall have this first," returned the bright, childish voice. + +But her watchful eyes had detected a stitch dropped in grandmother's work +and that must be attended to first. The old lady gave up her work +willingly and laid her head back to rest while Marjorie knit once around. +And then the short letter was twice read aloud and every sentence +discussed. + +"If I ever wrote to him I suppose he'd write to me oftener," said his +mother, "but I can't get my hands into shape for fine sewing or for +writing. I'd rather do a week's washing than write a letter." + +Marjorie laughed and said she could write letters all day. + +"I think Miss Prudence is very kind to you girls," said Mrs. Rheid. "Is +she a relation?" + +"Not a _real_ one," admitted Marjorie, reluctantly. + +"There must be some reason for her taking to you and for your mother +letting you go. Your mother has the real New England grit and she's proud +enough. Depend upon it, there's a reason." + +"Miss Prudence likes us, that's the reason, and we like her." + +"But that doesn't repay _money_." + +"She thinks it does. And so do we." + +"How much board does the master pay?" inquired grandmother. + +"I don't know; I didn't ask. He has brought all his books and the spare +chamber is full. He let me help him pile them up. But he says I must not +read one without asking him." + +"I don't see what you want to read them for," said the old lady sharply. +"Can't your mother find enough for you to do. In my day--" + +"But your day was a long time ago," interrupted her daughter-in-law. + +"Yes, yes, most a hundred, and girls want everything they can get now. +Perhaps the master hears your lessons to pay his board." + +"Perhaps," assented Marjorie. + +"They say bees pay their board and work for you beside," said Mrs. Rheid. +"I guess he's like a bee. I expect the Widow Devoe can't help wishing he +had stayed to her house." + +"He proposed to come himself," said Marjorie, with a proud flash of her +eyes, "and he proposed to teach me himself." + +"Oh, yes, to be sure, but she and the cat will miss him all the same." + +"It's all sudden." + +"[missing text] happen sudden, nowadays. I keep my eyes shut and things +keep whirling around." + +Grandmother was seated in an armchair with her feet resting on a +home-made foot stool, clad in a dark calico, with a little piece of gray +shawl pinned closely around her neck, every lock of hair was concealed +beneath a black, borderless silk cap, with narrow black silk strings tied +under her trembling chin, her lips were sunken and seamed, her eyelids +partly dropped over her sightless eyes, her withered, bony fingers were +laboriously pushing the needles in and out through a soft gray wool sock, +every few moments Marjorie took the work from her to pick up a dropped +stitch or two and to knit once around. The old eyes never once suspected +that the work grew faster than her own fingers moved. Once she remarked +plaintively: "Seems to me it takes you a long time to pick up one +stitch." + +"There were three this time," returned Marjorie, seriously. + +"What does the master learn you about?" asked Mrs. Rheid. + +"Oh, the school studies! And I read the dictionary by myself." + +"I thought you had some new words." + +"I want some good words," said Marjorie. + +"Now don't you go and get talking like a book," said grandmother, +sharply, "if you do you can't come and talk to me." + +"But you can talk to me," returned Marjorie, smiling, "and that is what I +want. Hollis wrote me that I mustn't say 'guess' and I do forget so +often." + +"Hollis is getting ideas," said Hollis' mother; "well, let him, I want +him to learn all he can." + +Marjorie was wondering where her own letter to Hollis would come in; +she had stowed away in the storehouse of her memory messages enough +from mother and grandmother to fill one sheet, both given with many +explanations, and before she went home Captain Rheid would come in +and add his word to Hollis. And if she should write two sheets this +time would her mother think it foolish? It was one of Mrs. West's +old-fashioned ways to ask Marjorie to let her read every letter that +she wrote. + +With her reserve Marjorie could open her heart more fully to Miss +Prudence than she could to one nearer her; it was easier to tell Miss +Prudence that she loved her than to tell her mother that she loved her, +and there were some things that she could say to Mr. Holmes that she +could not say to her father. It may be a strange kind of reserve, but it +is like many of us. Therefore, under this surveillance, Marjorie's +letters were not what her heart prompted them to be. + +If, in her own young days, her mother had ever felt thus she had +forgotten it. + +But for this Marjorie's letters would have been one unalloyed pleasure. +One day it occurred to her to send her letter to the mail before her +mother was aware that she had written, but she instantly checked the +suggestion as high treason. + +Josie Grey declared that Marjorie was "simple" about some things. A taint +of deceit would have caused her as deep remorse as her heart was capable +of suffering. + +"Grandma, please tell me something that happened when you were little," +coaxed Marjorie, as she placed the knitting back in the old fingers. +How pink and plump the young fingers looked as they touched the old +hands. + +"You haven't told me about the new boy yet," said the old lady. "How old +is he? Where did he come from? and what does he look like?" + +"_We_ want another boy," said Mrs. Rheid, "but boys don't like to stay +here. Father says I spoil them." + +"Our 'boy,'--Morris Kemlo,--don't you think it's a pretty name? It's real +funny, but he and I are twins, we were born on the same day, we were +both fourteen this summer. He is taller than I am, of course, with light +hair, blue eyes, and a perfect gentleman, mother says. He is behind in +his studies, but Mr. Holmes says he'll soon catch up, especially if he +studies with me evenings. We are to have an Academy at our house. His +mother is poor, and has other children, his father lost money in a bank, +years ago, and died afterward. It was real dreadful about it--he sold his +farm and deposited all his money in this bank, he thought it was so sure! +And he was going into business with the money, very soon. But it was lost +and he died just after Morris was born. That is, it was before Morris was +born that he lost the money, but Morris talks about it as if he knew all +about it. Mr. Holmes and Miss Prudence know his mother, and Miss Prudence +knew father wanted a boy this winter. He is crazy to go to sea, and says +he wants to go in the _Linnet_. And that's all I know about him, +grandma." + +"Is he a _good_ boy?" asked Mrs. Rheid. + +"Oh, yes," said Marjorie, "he brings his Bible downstairs and reads every +night. I like everything but doing his mending, and mother says I must +learn to do that. Now, grandma, please go on." + +"Well, Marjorie, now I've heard all the news, and Hollis' letter, if +you'll stay with grandmarm I'll run over and see Cynthy! I want to see if +her pickles are as green as mine, and I don't like to leave grandmarm +alone. You must be sure to stay to supper." + +"Thank you; I like to stay with grandma." + +"But I want hasty pudding to-night, and you won't be home in time to make +it, Hepsie," pleaded the old lady in a tone of real distress. + +"Oh, yes, I will, Marjorie will have the kettle boiling and she'll stir +it while I get supper." + +Mrs. Rheid stooped to pick up the threads that had fallen on her clean +floor, rolled up her work, took her gingham sun-bonnet from its hook, and +stepped out into the sunshine almost as lightly as Marjorie would have +done. + +"Cynthy" was African John's wife, a woman of deep Christian experience, +and Mrs. Rheid's burdened heart was longing to pour itself out to her. + +Household matters, the present and future of their children, the news of +the homes around them, and Christian experience, were the sole topics +that these simply country women touched upon. + +"Well, deary, what shall I tell you about? I must keep on knitting, for +Hollis must have these stockings at Christmas, so he can tell folks in +New York that his old grandmarm most a hundred knit them for him all +herself. Nobody helped her, she did it all herself. She did it with her +own old fingers and her own blind eyes. I'll drop too many stitches while +I talk, so I'll let you hold it for me. It seems as if it never will get +done," she sighed, dropping it from her fingers. + +"Oh, yes," said Marjorie, cheerily, "it's like your life, you know; that +has been long, but it's 'most done.'" + +"Yes, I'm most through," sighed the old lady with a long, resigned +breath, "and there's nobody to pick up the stitches I've dropped all +along." + +"Won't God?" suggested Marjorie, timidly. + +"I don't know, I don't know about things. I've never been good enough to +join the Church. I've been afraid." + +"Do you have to be _good_ enough?" asked the little church member in +affright. "I thought God was so good he let us join the Church just as he +lets us go into Heaven--and he makes us good and we try all we can, too." + +"That's an easy way to do, to let him make you good. But when the +minister talks to me I tell him I'm afraid." + +"I wouldn't be afraid," said Marjorie; "because you want to do as Christ +commands, don't you? And he says we must remember him by taking the +bread and wine for his sake, to remember that he died for us, don't you +know?" + +"I never did it, not once, and I'm most a hundred!" + +"Aren't you sorry, don't you want to?" pleaded Marjorie, laying her warm +fingers on the hard old hand. + +"I'm afraid," whispered the trembling voice. "I never was good enough." + +"Oh, dear," sighed Marjorie, her eyes brimming over, "I don't know how to +tell you about it. But won't you listen to the minister, he talks so +plainly, and he'll tell you not to be afraid." + +"They don't go to communion, my son nor his wife; they don't ask me to." + +"But they want you to; I know they want you to--before you die," +persuaded Marjorie. "You are so old now." + +"Yes, I'm old. And you shall read to me out of the Testament before you +go. Hepsie reads to me, but she gets to crying before she's half through; +she can't find 'peace,' she says." + +"I wish she could," said Marjorie, almost despairingly. + +"Now I'll tell you a story," began the old voice in a livelier tone. "I +have to talk about more than fifty years ago--I forget about other +things, but I remember when I was young. I'm glad things happened then, +for I can remember them." + +"Didn't things happen afterward?" asked Marjorie, laughing. + +"Not that I remember." + +This afternoon was a pleasant change to Marjorie from housework and +study, and she remembered more than once that she was doing something to +help pay Hollis for the Holland plate. + +"Where shall I begin?" began the dreamy, cracked voice, "as far back as I +can remember?" + +"As far back as you can," said Marjorie, eagerly. "I like old stories +best." + +"Maybe I'll get things mixed up with my mother and grandmother and not +know which is me." + +"Rip Van Winkle thought his son was himself," laughed Marjorie, "but you +will think you are your grandmother." + +"I think over the old times so, sitting here in the dark. Hepsie is no +hand to talk much, and Dennis, he's out most of the time, but bedtime +comes soon and I can go to sleep. I like to have Dennis come in, he never +snaps up his old mother as he does Hepsie and other folks. I don't like +to be in the dark and have it so still, a dog yapping is better than no +noise, at all. I say, 'Now I lay me' ever so many times a day to keep me +company." + +"You ought to live at our house, we have noisy times; mother and I sing, +and father is always humming about his work. Mr. Holmes is quiet, but +Morris is so happy he sings and shouts all day." + +"It used to be noisy enough once, too noisy, when the boys were all +making a racket together, and Will made noise enough this time he was +home. He used to read to me and sing songs. I don't wonder Hepsie is +still and mournful, like. It's a changed home to her with the boys away. +My father's house had noise enough in it; he had six wives." + +"Not all at once," cried Marjorie alarmed, confounding a hundred years +ago with the partriarchal age. + +But the old story-teller never heeded interruptions. + +"And my marm was the last wife but one. My father was a hundred years and +one day when he died. I've outlived all the children, I guess, for I +never hear from none of them--I most forget who's dead. Some of them was +married before I was born. I was the youngest, and I never remember my +own mother, but I had a good mother, all the same." + +"You had four step-mothers before you were born," said Marjorie +seriously, "and one own mother and then another step-mother. Girls don't +have so many step-mothers nowadays." + +"And our house was one story--a long house, with the eaves most touching +the ground and big chimneys at both ends. It was full of folks." + +"I should _think_ so," interposed Marjorie. + +"And Sunday nights we used to sing 'God of my childhood and my youth.' +Can you sing that? I wish you'd sing it to me. I forget what comes next." + +"I never heard of it before; I wish you _could_ remember it all, it's so +pretty." + +"Amzi used to sit next to me and sing--he was my twin brother--as loud +and clear as a bell. And when he died they put this on his tombstone: + +"'Come see ye place where I do lie +As you are now so once was I: +As I be now so you will be, +Prepare for death and follow me.'" + +"Oh," shivered Marjorie, "I don't like it. I like a Bible verse better." + +"Isn't that in the Bible?" she asked, angrily. + +"I don't believe it is." + +"'Prepare to meet thy God' is." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "that was the text last Sunday." + +"And on father's tombstone mother put this verse: + +'O, my dear wife, do think of me + Although we've from each other parted, + O, do prepare to follow me + Where we shall love forever.' + +"I wish I could remember some more." + +"I wish you could," said Marjorie. "Didn't you have all the things we +have? You didn't have sewing machines." + +"Sewing machines!" returned the old lady, indignantly, "we had our +fingers and pins and needles. But sometimes we couldn't have pins +and had to pin things together with thorns. How would you like that?" + +"I'd rather be born now," said Marjorie. "I wouldn't want to have so many +step-mothers as you had, and I'd rather be named Marjorie than +_Experience_." + +"Experience is a good name, and I'd have earned it by this time if my +mother hadn't given it to me," and the sunken lips puckered themselves +into a smile. "I could tell you some _dreadful_ things, too, but Hepsie +won't like it if I do. I'll tell you one, though. I don't like to think +about the dreadful things myself. I used to tell them to my boys and +they'd coax me to tell them again, about being murdered and such things. +A girl I knew found out after she was married that her husband had killed +a peddler, to steal his money to marry her with, and people found it out +and he was hanged and she was left a widow!" + +"Oh, dear, _dear_," exclaimed Marjorie, "have dreadful things been always +happening? Did she die with a broken heart?" + +"No, indeed, she was married afterward and had a good husband. She got +through, as people do usually, and then something good happened." + +"I'll remember that," said Marjorie, her hazel eyes full of light; "but +it was dreadful." + +"And there were robbers in those days." + +"Were there giants, too?" + +"I never saw a giant, but I saw robbers once. The women folks were alone, +not even a boy with us, and six robbers came for something to eat and +they ransacked the house from garret to cellar; they didn't hurt us at +all, but we _were_ scared, no mistake. And after they were gone we found +out that the baby was gone, Susannah's little black baby, it had died the +day before and mother laid it on a table in the parlor and covered it +with a sheet and they had caught it up and ran away with it." + +"Oh, _dear_," ejaculated Marjorie. + +"Father got men out and they hunted, but they never found the robbers or +the baby. If Susannah didn't cry nobody ever did! She had six other +children but this baby was so cunning! We used to feed it and play with +it and had cried our eyes sore the day it died. But we never found it." + +"It wasn't so bad as if it had been alive," comforted Marjorie, "they +couldn't hurt it. And it was in Heaven before they ran away with the +body. But I don't wonder the poor mother was half frantic." + +"Poor Susannah, she used to talk about it as long as she lived." + +"Was she a slave?" + +"Of course, but we were good to her and took care of her till she died. +My father gave her to me when I was married. That was years and years and +_years_ before we came to this state. I was fifteen when I was married--" + +"_Fifteen_," Marjorie almost shouted. That was queerer than having so +many step-mothers. + +"And my husband had four children, and Lucilla was just my age, the +oldest, she was in my class at school. But we got on together and kept +house together till she married and went away. Yes, I've had things +happen to me. People called it our golden wedding when we'd been married +fifty years, and then he died, the next year, and I've lived with my +children since. I've had my ups and downs as you'll have if you live to +be most a hundred." + +"You've had some _ups_ as well as downs," said Marjorie. + +"Yes, I've had some good times, but not many, not many." + +Marjorie answered indignantly: "I think you have good times now, you have +a good home and everybody is kind to you." + +"Yes, but I can't see and Hepsie don't talk much." + +"This afternoon as I was coming along I saw an old hunch-backed woman +raking sticks together to make a bonfire in a field, don't you think she +had a hard time?" + +"Perhaps she liked to; I don't believe anybody made her, and she could +_see_ the bonfire." + +Marjorie's eyes were pitiful; it must be hard to be blind. + +"Shall I read to you now?" she asked hurriedly. + +"How is the fire? Isn't it most time to put the kettle on? I shan't sleep +a wink if I don't have hasty pudding to-night and I don't like it _raw_, +either." + +"It shan't be raw," laughed Marjorie, springing up. "I'll see to the fire +and fill the kettle and then I'll read to you." + +The old lady fumbled at her work till Marjorie came back to her with the +family Bible in her hands. + +She laid the Bible on the table and moved her chair to the table. + +"Where shall I read?" + +"About Jacob and all his children and all his troubles, I never get tired +of that. He said few and evil had been his days and he was more than most +a hundred." + +"Well," said Marjorie, lingering over the word and slowly turning back to +Genesis. She had opened to John, she wanted to read to the grumbling old +heart that was "afraid" some of the comforting words of Jesus: "Let not +your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." + +"Begin about Jacob and read right on." + +With a voice that could not entirely conceal her disappointment, she +"began about Jacob and read right on" until Mrs. Rheid's light step +touched the plank at the kitchen door. There was a quiet joyfulness in +her face, but she did not say one word; she bent over to kiss Marjorie as +she passed her, hung up her gingham sun-bonnet, and as the tea kettle was +singing, poured the boiling water into an iron pot, scattered a handful +of salt in it and went to the cupboard for the Indian meal. + +"I'll stir," said Marjorie, looking around at the old lady and +discovering her head dropped towards one side and the knitting aslant in +her fingers. + +"The pudding stick is on the shelf next to the tin porringer," explained +Mrs. Rheid. + +Marjorie moved to the stove and stood a moment holding the wooden pudding +stick in her hand. + +"You may tell Hollis," said Hollis' mother, slowly dropping the meal into +the boiling water, "that I have found peace, at last." + +Majorie's eyes gave a quick leap. + +"Peace in _believing_--there is no peace anywhere else," she added. + + + + +XII. + +A BUDGET OF LETTERS. + +"The flowers have with the swallows fled, + And silent is the cricket; +The red leaf rustles overhead, + The brown leaves fill the thicket + +"With frost and storm comes slowly on + The year's long wintry night time."--_J. T. Trowbridge_ + + +"_New York, Nov_. 21, 18--. + +"MY DARLING MARJORIE: + +"You know I hate to write letters, and I do not believe I should have +begun this this evening if Miss Prudence had not made me. She looks at +me with her eyes and then I am _made_. I am to be two weeks writing this, +so it is a journal. To think I have been at school two years and am +beginning a third year. And to think I am really nineteen years old. And +you are sixteen, aren't you? Almost as old as I was when I first came. +But your turn is coming, poor dear! Miss Prudence says I may go home and +be married next summer, if I can't find anything better to do, and Will +says I can't. And I shouldn't wonder if we go to Europe on our wedding +tour. That sounds grand, doesn't it? But it only means that Captain +Will Rheid will take his wife with him if the owners' do not object too +strongly, and if they do, the captain says he will let the _Linnet_ find +another master; but I don't believe he will, or that anybody will object. +That little cabin is just large enough for two of us to turn around in, +or we would take you. Just wait till Will has command of a big East +Indiaman and you shall go all around the world with us. We are in our +snuggery this evening, as usual. I think you must know it as well as I do +by this time. The lovely white bed in the alcove, the three windows with +lace curtains dropping to the floor, the grate with its soft, bright +fire, the round table under the chandelier, with Miss Prudence writing +letters and I always writing, studying, or mending. Sometimes we do not +speak for an hour. Now my study hours are over and I've eaten three +Graham wafers to sustain my sinking spirits while I try to fill this +sheet. Somehow I can think of enough to say--how I would talk to you if +you were in that little rocker over in the corner. But I think you would +move it nearer, and you would want to do some of the talking yourself. I +haven't distinguished myself in anything, I have not taken one prize, my +composition has never once been marked T. B. R, _to be read_; to be read +aloud, that is; and I have never done anything but to try to be perfect +in every recitation and to be ladylike in deportment. I am always asked +to sing, but any bird can sing. I was discouraged last night and had a +crying time down here on the rug before the grate. Miss Prudence had gone +to hear Wendell Phillips, with one of the boarders, so I had a good long +time to cry my cry out all by myself. But it was not all out when she +came, I was still floating around in my own briny drops, so, of course, +she would know the cause of the small rain storm I was drenched in, and I +had to stammer out that--I--hadn't--improved--my time and--I knew she was +ashamed of me--and sorry she--had tried to--make anything out of me. And +then she laughed. You never heard her laugh like that--nor any one else. +I began to laugh as hard as I had been crying. And, after that, we talked +till midnight. She said lovely things. I wish I knew how to write them, +but if you want to hear them just have a crying time and she will say +them all to you. Only you can never get discouraged. She began by asking +somewhat severely: 'Whose life do you want to live?' And I was frightened +and said, 'My own, of course,' that I wouldn't be anybody else for +anything, not even Helen Rheid, or you. And she said that my training had +been the best thing for my own life, that I had fulfilled all her +expectations (not gone beyond them), and she knew just what I could do +and could not do when she brought me here. She had educated me to be a +good wife to Will, and an influence for good in my little sphere in my +down-east home; she knew I would not be anything wonderful, but she had +tried to help me make the most of myself and she was satisfied that I had +done it. I had education enough to know that I am an ignorant thing (she +didn't say _thing_, however), and I had common sense and a loving heart. +I was not to go out into the world as a bread-winner or 'on a mission,' +but I was to stay home and make a home for a good man, and to make it +such a sweet, lovely home that it was to be like a little heaven. (And +then I had to put my head down and cry again.) So it ended, and I felt +better and got up early to write it all to Will.--There's a knock at the +door and a message for Miss Prudence. + +"Later. The message was that Helen Rheid is very sick and wants her to +come to sit up with her to-night. Hollis brought the word but would not +come upstairs. And now I must read my chapter in the Bible and prepare to +retire. Poor Helen! She was here last week one evening with Hollis, +as beautiful as a picture and so full of life. She was full of plans. She +and Miss Prudence are always doing something together. + +"23d. Miss Prudence has not come home yet and I'm as lonesome as can be. +Coming home from school to-day I stopped to inquire about Helen and saw +nobody but the servant who opened the door; there were three doctors +upstairs then, she said, so I came away without hearing any more; that +tells the whole story. I wish Hollis would come and tell me. I've learned +my lessons and read my chapters in history and biography, and now I am +tired and stupid and want to see you all. I do not like it here, in this +stiff house, without Miss Prudence. Most of the boarders are gentlemen or +young married ladies full of talk among themselves. Miss Prudence says +she is going back to her Maple Street home when she takes you, and you +and she and her old Deborah are to live alone together. She is tired of +boarding and so I am, heartily tired. I am tired of school, to-night, and +everything. Your letter did not come to-day, and Will's was a short, +hurried one, and I'm homesick and good-for-nothing. + +"27th. I've been studying hard to keep up in geometry and astronomy and +have not felt a bit like writing. Will has sailed for Liverpool and I +shall not see him till next spring or later, for he may cross the +Mediterranean, and then back to England, and nobody knows where else, +before he comes home. It all depends upon "freights." As if freight were +everything. Hollis called an hour ago and stayed awhile. Helen is no +better. She scarcely speaks, but lies patient and still. He looked in at +her this morning, but she did not lift her eyes. Oh, she is so young to +die! And she has so much to _do_. She has not even begun to do yet. She +has so much of herself to do with, she is not an ignoramus like me. Her +life has been one strong, pure influence Hollis said to-night. He is sure +she will get well. He says her father and mother pray for her night and +day. And his Aunt Helen said such a beautiful thing yesterday. She was +talking to Hollis, for she knows he loves her so much. She said +something like this: (the tears were in his eyes when he told me) 'I was +thinking last night, as I stood looking at her, about that blood on the +lintel--the blood of the lamb that was to keep the first-born safe among +the children of Israel. She is our first-born and the blood of Jesus +Christ is in all our thoughts while we plead for her life--for his +sake--for the sake of his blood.' Hollis broke down and had to go away +without another word. Her life has done him good. I wish she could talk +to him before she goes away, because he is not a Christian. But he is so +good and thoughtful that he will _think_ now more than he ever did +before. Miss Prudence stays all the time. Helen notices when she is not +there and Mrs. Rheid says she can rest while Miss Prudence is in the +room. + +"I am such a poor stick myself, and Helen could do so much in the world; +and here I am, as strong and well as can be, and she is almost dying. But +I do not want to take her place. I have so much to live for--so many, I +ought to say. I thought of writing a long journal letter, but I have not +the heart to think of anything but Helen. + +"Hollis is to start next week on his first trip as a 'commercial +traveller,' and he is in agony at the thought of going and not knowing +whether Helen will live or die. I'll finish this in the morning, because +I know you are anxious to hear from us. + +"In the morning. I am all ready for school, with everything on but my +gloves. I don't half know my geometry and I shall have to copy my +composition in school. It is as stupid as it can be; it is about the +reign of Queen Anne. There isn't any heart in it, because all I care +about is the present--and the future. I'll send it to you as soon as it +is returned corrected. You will laugh at the mistakes and think, if you +are too modest to say so, that you can do better. I pity you if you +can't. I shall stop on the way to inquire about Helen, and I am afraid +to, too. + +"School, Noon Recess. I met Hollis on the walk as I stood in front of +Helen's--there was no need to ask. Black and white ribbon was streaming +from the bell handle. I have permission to go home. I have cried all the +morning. I hope I shall find Miss Prudence there. She must be so tired +and worn out. Hollis looked like a ghost and his voice shook so he could +scarcely speak. + +"With ever so much love to all, + +"YOUR SISTER LINNET. + +"P. S. Hollis said he would not write this week and wants you to tell his +mother all about it." + + * * * * * + +The next letter is dated in the early part of the following month. + +"_In my Den, Dec_. 10, 18--, + +"MY FRIEND PRUDENCE: + +"My heart was with you, as you well know, all those days and nights in +that sick chamber that proved to be the entrance to Heaven. She smiled +and spoke, lay quiet for awhile with her eyes closed, and awoke in the +presence of the Lord. May you and I depart as easily, as fearlessly. I +cannot grieve as you do; how much she is saved! To-night I have been +thinking over your life, and a woman's lot seems hard. To love so much, +to suffer so much. You see I am desponding; I am often desponding. You +must write to me and cheer me up. I am disappointed in myself. Oh how +different this monotonous life from the life I planned! I dig and +delve and my joy comes in my work. If it did not, where would it come in, +pray? I am a joyless fellow at best. There! I will not write another +word until I can give you a word of cheer. Why don't you toss me +overboard? Your life is full of cheer and hard work; but I cannot be like +you. Marjorie and Morris were busy at the dining-room table when I left +them, with their heads together over my old Euclid. We are giving them a +lift up into the sunshine and that is something. What do you want to send +Marjorie to school for? What can school do for her when I give her up to +you? Give yourself to her and keep her out of school. The child is not +always happy. Last communion Sunday she sat next to me; she was crying +softly all the time. You could have said something, but, manlike, I held +my peace. I wonder whether I don't know what to say, or don't know how to +say it. I seem to know what to say to you, but, truly Prudence, I don't +know how to say it. I have been wanting to tell you something, fourteen, +yes, fourteen years, and have not dared and do not dare to night. +Sometimes I am sure I have a right, a precious right, a sacred right, and +then something bids me forbear, and I forbear. I am forbearing now as I +sit up here in my chamber alone, crowded in among my books and the wind +is wild upon the water. I am gloomy to-night and discouraged. My book, +the book I have lost myself in so long, has been refused the fourth time. +Had it not been for your hand upon my arm awhile ago it would be now +shrivelled and curling among the ashes on my hearth. + +"Who was it that stood on London Bridge and did not throw his manuscript +over? Listen! Do you hear that grand child of yours asking who it was +that sat by his hearth and did not toss his manuscript into the fire? +Didn't somebody in the Bible toss a roll into the fire on the hearth? I +want you to come to talk to me. I want some one not wise or learned, +except learned and wise in such fashion as you are, to sit here beside +me, and look into the fire with me, and listen to the wind with me, and +talk to me or be silent with me. If my book had been accepted, and all +the world were wagging their tongues about it, I should want that unwise, +unlearned somebody. That friend of mine over the water, sitting in his +lonely bungalow tonight studying Hindoostanee wants somebody, too. Why +did you not go with him, Prudence? Shall you never go with any one; shall +you and I, so near to each other, with so much to keep us together, go +always uncomforted. But you _are_ comforted. You loved Helen, you love +Linnet and Marjorie and a host of others; you do not need me to bid you +be brave. You are a brave woman. I am not a brave man. I am not brave +to-night, with that four-times-rejected manuscript within reach of my +hand. Shall I publish it myself? I want some one to think well enough of +it to take the risk. + +"Prudence, I have asked God for something, but he gives me an answer that +I cannot understand. Write to me and tell me how that is. + +"Yours to-day and to-morrow." + +"J. H." + + * * * * * + +"_New York, Dec_. 20, 18--. + +"MY DEAR JOHN: + +"I have time but for one word to-night, and even that cannot be at +length. Linnet and I are just in from a lecture on Miss Mitford! There +were tears running down over my heart all the time that I was listening. +You call me brave; she was brave. Think of her pillowed up in bed writing +her last book, none to be kind to her except those to whom she paid +money. Linnet was delighted and intends to 'write a composition' about +her. Just let me keep my hand on your arm (will you?) when evil impulses +are about. You do not quite know how to interpret the circumstances that +seem to be in answer to your prayer? It is as if you spoke to God in +English and the answer comes in Sanscrit. I think I have received such +answers myself. And if we were brutes, with no capacity of increasing our +understanding, I should think it very queer. Sometimes it is hard work to +pray until we get an answer and then it is harder still to find out its +meaning. I imagine that Linnet and Marjorie, even Will Rheid, would not +understand that; but you and I are not led along in the easiest way. It +must be because the answer is worth the hard work: his Word and Spirit +can interpret all his involved and mystical answers. Think with a clear +head, not with any pre-formed judgment, with a heart emptied of all but a +willingness to read his meaning aright, be that meaning to shatter your +hopes or to give bountifully your desire--with a sincere and abiding +determination to take it, come what may, and you will understand as +plainly as you are understanding me. Try it and see. I have tried and I +know. There may be a wound for you somewhere, but oh, the joy of the +touch of his healing hand. And after that comes obedience. Do you +remember one a long time ago who had half an answer, only a glimmer of +light on a dark way? He took the answer and went on as far as he +understood, not daring to disobey, but he went on--something like you, +too--in 'bitterness,' in the heat of his spirit, he says; he went on as +far as he could and stayed there. That was obedience. He stayed there +'astonished' seven days. Perhaps you are in his frame of mind. Nothing +happened until the end of the seven days, then he had another word. So I +would advise you to stay astonished and wait for the end of your seven +days. In our bitterness and the heat of our spirit we are apt to think +that God is rather slow about our business. Ezekiel could have been busy +all that seven days instead of doing nothing at all, but it was the time +for him to do nothing and the time for God to be busy within him. You +have inquired of the Lord, that was your busy time, now keep still and +let God answer as slowly as he will, this is his busy time. Now Linnet +and I must eat a cracker and then say good-night to all the world, +yourself, dear John, included. + +"Yours, + +"PRUDENCE" + + * * * * * + + +"_Washington, Dec._ 21, 18--. + +"DEAR MARJORIE: + +"Aunt Helen sent me your letter; it came an hour ago. I am full of +business that I like. I have no time for sight-seeing. I wish I had! +Washington is the place for Young America to come to. But Young America +has to come on business this time. Perhaps I will come here on my wedding +trip, when there is no business to interfere. I am not ashamed to say +that if I had been a girl I would have cried over your letter. Helen was +_something_ to everybody; she used to laugh and then look grave when she +read your letters about her and the good she was to you. There will never +be another Helen. There is one who has a heartache about her and no one +knows it except himself and me. She refused him a few days before +she was taken ill. He stood a long time and looked at her in her coffin, +as if he forgot that any one was looking at him. I told him it was of no +use to ask her, but he persisted. She had told me several times that he +was disagreeable to her. Her mother wonders who will take her place to us +all, and we all say no one ever can. I thank God that she lived so long +for my sake. You and she are like sisters to me. You do me good, too. I +should miss your letters very much, for I hear from home so seldom. You +are my good little friend, and I am grateful to you. Give my best love to +every one at home and tell mother I like my business. Mother's photograph +and yours and Helen's are in my breast pocket. If I should die to-night +would I be as safe as Helen is? + +"Your true friend, + +"HOLLIS RHEID." + + * * * * * + +"_The Homestead, Jan_. 4, 18--. + +"DEAR FRIEND HOLLIS: + +"Thank you for your letter from Washington. I took it over to your mother +and read it to her and your father, all excepting about the young man who +stood and looked at Helen in her coffin. I thought, perhaps, that was in +confidence. Your father said: 'Tell Hollis when he is tired of tramping +around to come home and settle down near the old folks,' and your mother +followed me to the door and whispered: 'Tell him I cannot feel that he is +safe until I know that he has repented and been forgiven.' And now, being +through all this part, my conscience is eased and I can tell you +everything else I want to. + +"Look in and see us in a snow-storm. Mother is reading for the one +hundred and twenty-second and a half time somebody's complete works on +the New Testament, and father and Mr. Holmes are talking about--let me +see if I know--ah, yes, Mr. Holmes is saying, 'Diversity of origin,' so +you know all about it. + +"Sometimes I listen instead of studying. I would listen to this if your +letter were not due for the mail to-morrow. Father sits and smiles, and +Mr. Holmes walks up and down with his arms behind him as he used to do +during recitation in school. Perhaps he does it now, only you and I are +not there to see. I wish you were here to listen to him; father speaks +now and then, but the dialogue soon develops into a monologue and the +master entertains and instructs us all. If you do not receive this letter +on time know that it is because I am learning about the Jew; how he is +everywhere proving the truth of prophecy by becoming a resident of every +country. And yet while he is a Jew he has faces of all colors. In the +plains of the Ganges, he is black; in Syria, lighter and yet dusky; in +Poland his complexion is ruddy and his hair as light as yours. There was +a little Jewess boarding around here last summer as olive as I imagine +Rebekah and Sarah, and another as fair and rosy as a Dane. But have you +enough of this? Don't you care for what Livingstone says or Humboldt? +Don't you want to know the four proofs in support of unity of origin? +I do, and if I write them I shall remember them; 1. Bodily Structure. 2. +Language. 3. Tradition. 4. Mental Endowment. Now he is telling about the +bodily structure and I do want to listen.--And I _have_ listened and the +minute hand of the clock has been travelling on and my pen has been +still. But don't you want to know the ten conclusions that have been +established--I know you do. And if I forget, I'll nudge Morris and ask +him. Oh, I see (by looking over his shoulder) he has copied them all in +one of his exercise books. + +"You may skip them if you want to, but I know you want to see if your +experience in your extensive travels correspond with the master's +authority. Now observe and see if the people in Washington--all have the +same number of teeth, and of additional bones in their body. As that may +take some time, and seriously interfere with your 'business' and theirs, +perhaps you had better not try it. And, secondly, they all shed their +teeth in the same way (that will take time also, so, perhaps, you may +better defer it until your wedding trip, when you have nothing else to +do); and, thirdly, they all have the upright position, they walk and +look upward; and, fourthly, their head is set in every variety in the +same way; fifthly, they all have two hands; sixthly, they all have smooth +bodies with hair on the head; seventhly, every muscle and every nerve in +every variety are the same; eighthly, they all speak and laugh; ninthly, +they eat different kind of food, and live in all climates; and, _lastly_, +they are more helpless and grow more slowly than other animals. Now don't +you like to know that? And now he has begun to talk about language and I +_must_ listen, even if this letter is never finished, because language is +one of my hobbies. The longer the study of language is pursued the more +strongly the Bible is confirmed, he is saying. You ought to see Morris +listen. His face is all soul when he is learning a new thing. I believe +he has the most expressive face in the world. He has decided to be a +sailor missionary. He says he will take the Gospel to every port in the +whole world. Will takes Bibles and tracts always. Morris reads every word +of _The Sailors Magazine_ and finds delightful things in it. I have +almost caught his enthusiasm. But if I were a man I would be professor of +languages somewhere and teach that every word has a soul, and a history +because it has a soul. Wouldn't you like to know how many languages there +are? It is _wonderful_. Somebody says--Adelung (I don't know who he +is)--three thousand and sixty-four distinct languages, Balbi (Mr. Holmes +always remembers names) eight hundred languages and five thousand +dialects, and Max Müller says there are nine hundred known languages. Mr. +Holmes can write a letter in five languages and I reverence him, but what +is that where there are, according to Max Müller, eight hundred and +ninety-five that he does not know a word of? Mr. Holmes stands still and +puts his hands in front of him (where they were meant to be), and says he +will tell us about Tradition to-morrow night, as he must go up to his +den and write letters. But he does say Pandora's box is the story of the +temptation and the fall. You know she opened her box out of curiosity, +and diseases and wars leaped out to curse mankind. That is a Greek story. +The Greek myths all seem to mean something. Father says: 'Thank you for +a pleasant evening,' as Mr. Holmes takes his lamp to leave us, and _he_ +says: 'You forget what I have to thank you all for.' + +"My heart _bursts_ with gratitude to him, sometimes; I have his books and +I have him; he is always ready so gently and wisely to teach and explain +and never thinks my questions silly, and Morris says he has been and is +his continual inspiration. And we are only two out of the many whom he +stimulates. He says we are his recreation. Dull scholars are his hard +work. Morris is never dull, but I can't do anything with geometry; he +outstripped me long ago. He teaches me and I do the best I can. He has +written on his slate, 'Will you play crambo?' Crambo was known in the +time of Addison, so you must know that it is a very distinguished game. +Just as I am about to say 'I will as soon as this page is finished,' +father yawns and looks up at the clock. Mother remarks: 'It is time +for worship, one of the children will read, father.' So while father goes +to the door to look out to see what kind of a night it is and predict +to-morrow and while mother closes her book with a lingering, loving sigh, +and Morris pushes his books away and opens the Bible, I'll finish my last +page. And, lo, it is finished and you are glad that stupidity and +dullness do sometime come to an abrupt end. + +"FRIEND MARJORIE." + + * * * * * + +"_In the Schoolroom, Jan_. 23, 18--. + +"MY BLESSED MOTHER: + +"Your last note is in my breast pocket with all the other best things +from you. What would boys do without a breast pocket, I wonder. There is +a feeling of study in the very air, the algebra class are 'up' and doing +finely. The boy in my seat is writing a note to a girl just across from +us, and the next thing he will put it in a book and ask, with an +unconcerned face, 'Mr. Holmes, may I hand my arithmetic to somebody?' And +Mr. Holmes, having been a fifteen-year-old boy himself, will wink at any +previous knowledge of such connivings, and say 'Yes,' as innocently! It +isn't against the rules to do it, for Mr. Holmes, never, for a moment, +supposes such a rule a necessity. But I never do it. Because Marjorie +doesn't come to school. And a pencil is slow for all I want to say to +her. She is my talisman. I am a big, awkward fellow, and she is a zephyr +that is content to blow about me out of sheer good will to all human +kind. But, in school, I write notes to another girl, to my mother. And I +write them when I have nothing to say but that I am well and strong and +happy, content with the present, hopeful for the future, looking forward +to the day when you will see me captain of as fine a ship as ever sailed +the seas. And won't I bring you good things from every country in the +world, just because you are such a blessed mother to + +"Your unworthy boy, + +"M.K." + + * * * * * + +"_New York, Jan. 30, 18--._ + +"MY MARJORIE: + +"Your long letter has been read and re-read, and then read aloud to +Linnet. She laughed over it, and brushed her eyes over it; and then it +was laid away in my archives for future reference. It is a perfect +afternoon, the sun is shining, and the pavements are as dry as in May. +Linnet endeavored to coax me out, as it is her holiday afternoon, and +Broadway will be alive with handsome dresses and handsome faces, and +there are some new paintings to be seen. But I was proof against her +coaxing as this unwritten letter pressed on my heart, so she has +contented herself with Helen's younger sister, Nannie, and they will have +a good time together and bring their good time home to me, for Nannie is +to come home to dinner with her. Linnet looked like a veritable linnet in +her brown suit with the crimson plume in her brown hat; I believe the +girl affects grays and brown with a dash of crimson, because they remind +her of a linnet, and she _is_ like a linnet in her low, sweet voice, not +strong, but clear. She will be a lovely, symmetrical woman when she comes +out of the fire purified. How do I know she will ever be put in any +furnace? Because all God's children must suffer at some times, and then +they know they are his children. And she loves Will so vehemently, so +idolatrously, that I fear the sorrow may be sent through him; not in any +withdrawing of his love, he is too thoroughly true for that, not in any +great wickedness he may commit, he is too humble and too reliant upon the +keeping power of God to be allowed to fall into that, but--she may not +have him always, and then, I fear, her heart would really break. + +"She reminds me of my own young vehemence and trust. But the taking away +will be the least sorrow of all. Why! How sorrowfully I am writing +to-day: no, how truly I am writing of life to-day: of the life you and +she are entering--are already entered upon. But God is good, God is good, +hold to that, whatever happens. Some day, when you are quite an old woman +and I am really an old woman, I will tell you about my young days. + +"Your letter was full of questions; do not expect me to answer them all +at once. First, about reading the Bible. You poor dear child! Do you +think God keeps a book up in Heaven to put down every time you fail to +read the Bible through in a year? Because you have read it three times in +course, so many chapters a weekday, and so many a Sunday, do you think +you must keep on so or God will keep it laid up against you? + +"Well, be a law keeper if you must, but keep the whole law, and keep it +perfectly, in spirit and in letter, or you will fail! And if you fail in +one single instance, in spirit or in letter, you fail in all, and must +bear the curse. You must continue in _all things_ written in the law to +do them. Are you ready to try that? Christ could do it, and he did do it, +but can you? And, if not, what? You must choose between keeping the law +and trusting in Christ who has kept it for you. You cannot serve two +masters: the Law and Christ. Now, I know I cannot keep the law and so I +have given up; all I can do is to trust in Christ to save me, in Christ +who is able to obey all God's law for me, and so I trust him and love +him, and obey him with the strength he gives me. If we love him, we will +keep his commandments, he says. 'I can do all things through Christ +strengthening me'--even keep his commandments, which are not grievous. If +you must be a law keeper in your own strength, give up Christ and cling +to the law to save you, or else give up keeping the law for your +salvation and cling to Christ. Keep his commandments because you love +him, and not keep the old law to save your soul by your own obedience. +Read the Bible because you love it, every word. Read till you are full of +some message he gives you, and then shut it up; don't keep on, because +you must read so many chapters a day. + +"My plan is--and I tell you because it has been blessed to me--to ask him +to feed me with his truth, feed me _full_, and then I open the Book and +read. One day I was filled full with one clause: '_Because they +fainted_.' I closed it, I could read no more. At another time I read a +whole Epistle before I had all I was hungry for. One evening I read a +part of Romans and was so excited that I could not sleep for some time +that night. Don't you like that better than reading on and on because +you have set yourself to do it, and ending with a feeling of relief +because it is _done_, at last? These human hearts are naughty things and +need more grace continually. Just try my way--not my way but God's way +for me,--and see how full you will be fed with your daily reading. + +"I just bethought myself of a page in an old journal; I'll copy it for +you. It has notes of my daily reading. I wish I had kept the references, +but all I have is the thought I gathered. I'll give it to you just as I +have it. + +"'April 24, 18--. Preparation is needed to receive the truth. + +"'25. Ezekiel saw the glory before he heard the Voice. + +"'26. He permits long waiting. + +"'27. It is blessed to hear his voice, even if it be to declare +punishment. + +"'28. The word of God comes through the lips of men. + +"'29. God works with us when we work with him. + +"'30. God's work, and not man's word, is the power, + +"'May 1. Man fails us, _then_ we trust in God. + +"'2. Death is wages, Life is a gift. + +"'3. Paul must witness at Jerusalem before going to Rome. + +"'4. When God wills, it is not _to be_, it _is_. + +"'5. To man is given great power, but it is not his own power. + +"'6. Even his great love Christ _commends_ to us. + +"'7. To seek and find God all beside must be put away. + +"'11. The day of the Lord is darkness to those who do not seek him. + +"'12. For all there were so many yet was not the net broken. + +"'13. Even after Aaron's sin the Lord made him High Priest. + +"'14. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities--for Christ's sake. + +"'15. It is _spirit_ and not letter that God looks at. + +"'16. His choices rule all things. + +"'17. That which is not forbidden may be inquired about. + +"'18. Captivity is turned upon repentance and obedience. + +"'19. Rejoicing comes after understanding his words. + +"'20. A way of escape is made for sin. + +"'21. Faith waits as long as God asks it to wait. + +"'22. He strengthens our hearts through waiting to wait longer. + +"'23. Anything not contrary to the revealed will of God we may ask in +prayer.' + +"These lessons I took to my heart each day. Another might have drawn +other lessons from the same words, but these were what I needed then. +The page is written in pencil, and some words were almost erased. But I +am glad I kept them all this time; I did not know I was keeping them +for you, little girl. I have so fully consecrated myself to God that +sometimes I think he does not let any of me be lost; even my sins and +mistakes I have used to warn others, and through them I have been led to +thank him most fervently that he has not left me to greater mistakes, +greater sins. Some day your heart will almost break with thankfulness. + +"And now, childie, about your praying. You say you are _tired out_ when +your prayer is finished. I should think you would be, poor child, if you +desire each petition with all your intense nature. Often one petition +uses all my strength and I can plead no more--in words. You seem to think +that every time you kneel you must pray about every thing that can be +prayed about, the church, the world, all your friends, all your wants, +and everything that everybody wants. + +"What do you think of my short prayers? This morning all I could +ejaculate was: 'Lord, this is thy day, every minute of it.' I have had +some blessed minutes. When the sinner prayed, 'Lord, be merciful to me a +sinner,' he did not add, 'and bless my father and mother, brothers and +sisters, and all the sick and sinful and sorrowing, and send missionaries +to all parts of the world, and hasten thy kingdom in every heart.' And +when Peter was sinking he cried: 'Lord, save me, I perish,' and did not +add, 'strengthen my faith for this time and all time, and remember those +who are in the ship looking on, and wondering what will be the end of +this; teach them to profit by my example, and to learn the lesson thou +art intending to teach by this failure of mine.' And when the ship was +almost overwhelmed and the frightened disciples came to him--but why +should I go on? Child, _pour_ out your heart to him, and when, through +physical weariness, mental exhaustion, or spiritual intensity of feeling, +the heart refuses to be longer poured out, _stop_, don't pump and pump +and _pump_ at an exhausted well for water that has been all used up. +We are not heard for much speaking or long praying. Study the prayer he +gave us to pray, study his own prayer. He continued all night in prayer +but he was not hard upon his weak disciples, who through weariness and +sorrow fell asleep while he had strength to keep on praying. Your master +is not a hard master. We pray when we do not utter one word. Let the +Spirit pray in you and don't try to do it all yourself. Don't make +crosses for yourself. Before you begin to pray think of the loving, +lovely Saviour and pitiful Father you are praying to and ask the Spirit +to help you pray, and then pray and be joyful. Pray the first petition +that comes out of your heart, and then the second and the third, and +thank him for everything. + +"But here come the girls laughing upstairs and I must listen to the story +of their afternoon. Linnet will tell you about the pictures. + +"More than ever your sympathizing friend, + +"P. P." + + * * * * * + +"_Feb_. 2, 18--. + +"DEAR HOLLIS: + +"Your mother asked me to write to you while I am here, in your home, so +that it may seem like a letter from her. It is evening and I am writing +at the kitchen table with the light of one candle. How did I come to be +here at night? I came over this afternoon to see poor grandma and found +your mother alone with her; grandma had been in bed three days and the +doctor said she was dying of old age. She did not appear to suffer, she +lay very still, recognizing us, but not speaking even when we spoke to +her. + +"How I did want to say something to help her, for I was afraid she might +be troubled, she was always so 'afraid' when she thought about joining +the Church. But as I stood alone, looking down at her, I did not dare +speak. I did not like to awaken her if she were comfortably asleep. Then +I thought how wicked I was to withhold a word when she might hear it and +be comforted and her fear taken away, so I stooped over and said close +to her ear, 'Grandma,' and all she answered was, in her old way, 'Most a +hundred;' and then I said, '"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all +sin, even the sins of most a hundred years;"' and she understood, for she +moaned, 'I've been very wicked;' and all I could do was to say again, +'"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin."' She made no reply +and we think she did not speak again, for your mother's cousin, Cynthy, +was with her at the last and says she bent over her and found that she +did not breathe, and all the time she was with her she did not once +speak. + +"The house is so still, they all move around so softly and speak in +whispers. Your mother thinks you may be in Philadelphia or Baltimore when +this reaches New York, and that you will not hear in time to come to the +funeral. I hope you can come; she does _so_ want to see you. She says +once a year is so seldom to see her youngest boy. I believe I haven't +seen you since the day you brought me the plate so long, so long ago. +I've been away both times since when you were home. I have kept my +promise, I think; I do not think I have missed one letter day in writing +to you. I have come to see your mother as often as I could. Grandma will +not be buried till the fifth; they have decided upon that day hoping you +can get here by that time. Morris was to come for me if I did not get +home before dark and there's the sound of sleigh bells now. Here comes +your mother with her message. She says: 'Tell Hollis to come if he _any +way_ can; I shall look for him.' So I know you will. + +"That _is_ Morris, he is stamping the snow off his feet at the door. Why +do you write such short letters to me? Are mine too long? O, Hollis, I +want you to be a Christian; I pray for you every day. + +"Your friend, + +"MARJORIE" + + * * * * * + +"Feb 15, 18--. + +"MY DARLING LINNET: + +"Now I am settled down for a long letter to you, up here in the master's +chamber, where no one will dare interrupt me. I am sitting on the rug +before the fire with my old atlas on my lap; his desk with piles of +foolscap is so near that when my own sheet gives out, and my thoughts +and incidents are still unexhausted, all I have to do is to raise the +cover of his desk, take a fresh sheet and begin again. I want this to be +the kind of a three-volumed letter that you like; I have inspiration +enough--for I am surrounded by books containing the wisdom of all +the past. No story books, and I know you want a story letter. This room +is as cozy as the inside of an egg shell, with only the fire, the clock, +the books and myself. There is nothing but snow, snow, snow, out the +window, and promise of more in the threatening sky. I am all alone +to-day, too, and I may be alone to-night. I rather like the adventure of +staying alone; perhaps something will happen that never happened to any +one before, and I may live to tell the tale to my grandchildren. It is +early in the morning, that is, early to be writing a letter, but I shall +not have much dinner to get for myself and I want to write letters all +day. _That_ is an adventure that never happened to me before. How do you +think it happens that I am alone? Of course Morris and the master have +taken their dinners and gone to school; mother has been in Portland four +days, and father is to go for her to-day and bring her home to-morrow; +Morris is to go skating to-night and to stay in Middlefield with some of +the boys; and I told Mr. Holmes that he might go to the lecture on Turkey +and stay in Middlefield, too, if he would give my note to Josie Grey and +ask her to come down after school and stay with me. He said he would come +home unless she promised to come to stay with me, so I don't suppose I +shall have my adventurous night alone, after all. + +"I don't believe father has gone yet, I heard his step down-stairs, I'll +run down to say good-bye again and see if he wants anything, and go down +cellar and get me some apples to munch on to keep me from being lonesome. +Father will take the horses and they will not need to be fed, and I told +Morris I could feed the two cows and the hens myself, so he need not come +home just for that. But father is calling me. + +"Afternoon. Is it years and _years_ since I began this letter? My hair +has not turned white and I am not an old woman; the ink and paper look +fresh, too, fresher than the old bit of yellow paper that mother keeps so +preciously, that has written on it the invitation to her mother's wedding +that somebody returned to her. How slowly I am coming to it! But I want +to keep you in suspense. I am up in the master's chamber again, sitting +on the hearth before a snapping fire, and I haven't written one word +since I wrote you that father was calling me. + +"He did call me, and I ran down and found that he wanted an extra +shawl for mother; for it might be colder to-morrow, or it might be a +snow-storm. I stood at the window and saw him pass and listened to the +jingling of his bells until they were out of hearing, and then I lighted +a bit of a candle (ah, me, that it was not longer) and went down cellar +for my apples. I opened one barrel and then another until I found the +ones I wanted, the tender green ones that you used to like; I filled my +basket and, just then hearing the back door open and a step in the entry +over my head, I turned quickly and pushed my candlestick over, and, of +course, that wee bit of light sputtered out. I was frightened, for fear a +spark might have fallen among the straw somewhere, and spent some time +feeling around to find the candlestick and to wait to see if a spark +_had_ lighted the straw; and then, before I could cry out, I heard the +footsteps pass the door and give it a pull and turn the key! Father +always does that, but this was not father. I believe it was Captain +Rheid, father left a message for him and expected him to call, and I +suppose, out of habit, as he passed the door he shut it and locked it. I +could not shout in time, he was so quick about it, and then he went out +and shut the outside door hard. + +"I think I turned to stone for awhile, or fainted away, but when I came +to myself there I stood, with the candlestick in my hand, all in the +dark. I could not think what to do. I could not find the outside doors, +they are trap doors, you know, and have to be pushed up, and in winter +the steps are taken down, and I don't know where they are put. I had the +candle, it is true, but I had no match. I don't know what I did do. My +first thought was to prowl around and find the steps and push up one of +the doors, and I prowled and prowled and prowled till I was worn out. The +windows--small windows, too,--are filled up with straw or something in +winter, so that it was as dark as a dungeon; it _was_ a dungeon and +I was a prisoner. + +"If I hadn't wanted the apples, or if the light hadn't gone out, or if +Captain Rheid hadn't come, or if he hadn't locked the door! Would I have +to stay till Josie came? And if I pounded and screamed wouldn't she be +frightened and run away? + +"After prowling around and hitting myself and knocking myself I stood +still again and wondered what to do! I wanted to scream and cry, but that +wouldn't have done any good and I should have felt more alone than ever +afterward. Nobody could come there to hurt me, that was certain, and I +could stamp the rats away, and there were apples and potatoes and turnips +to eat? But suppose it had to last all night! I was too frightened to +waste any tears, and too weak to stand up, by this time, so I found a +seat on the stairs and huddled myself together to keep warm, and prayed +as hard as I ever did in my life. + +"I thought about Peter in prison; I thought about everything I could +think of. I could hear the clock strike and that would help me bear it, I +should know when night came and when morning came. The cows would suffer, +too, unless father had thrown down hay enough for them; and the fires +would go out, and what would father and mother think when they came home +to-morrow? Would I frighten them by screaming and pounding? Would I add +to my cold, and have quinsy sore throat again? Would I faint away and +never 'come to'? When I wrote 'adventure' upstairs by the master's fire I +did not mean a dreadful thing like this! Staying alone all night was +nothing compared to this. I had never been through anything compared to +this. I tried to comfort myself by thinking that I might be lost or +locked up in a worse place; it was not so damp or cold as it might have +been, and there was really nothing to be afraid of. I had nothing to do +and I was in the dark. I began to think of all the stories I knew about +people who had been imprisoned and what they had done. I couldn't write +a Pilgrim's Progress, I couldn't even make a few rhymes, it was too +lonesome; I couldn't sing, my voice stopped in my throat. I thought about +somebody who was in a dark, solitary prison, and he had one pin that he +used to throw about and lose and then crawl around and find it in the +dark and then lose it again and crawl around again and find it. I had +prowled around enough for the steps; that amusement had lost its +attraction for me. And then the clock struck. I counted eleven, but had I +missed one stroke? Or counted too many? It was not nine when I lighted +that candle. Well, that gave me something to reason about, and something +new to look forward to. How many things could I do in an hour? How many +could I count? How many Bible verses could I repeat? Suppose I began +with A and repeated all I could think of, and then went on to B. 'Ask, +and ye shall receive.' How I did ask God to let me out in some way, to +bring somebody to help me? To _send_ somebody. Would not Captain Rheid +come back again? Would not Morris change his mind and come home to +dinner? or at night? And would Mr. Holmes certainly go to hear that +lecture? Wasn't there anybody to come? I thought about you and how sorry +you would be, and, I must confess it, I did think that I would have +something to write to you and Hollis about. (Please let him see this +letter; I don't want to write all this over again.) + +"So I shivered and huddled myself up in a heap and tried to comfort +myself and amuse myself as best I could. I said all the Bible verses +I could think, and then I went back to my apples and brought the basket +with me to the stairs. I would not eat one potato or turnip until the +apples had given out. You think I can laugh now; so could you, after you +had got out. But the clock didn't strike, and nobody came, and I was sure +it must be nearly morning I was so faint with hunger and so dizzy from +want of sleep. And then it occurred to me to stumble up the stairs and +try to burst the door open! That lock was loose, it turned very easily! +In an instant I was up the stairs and trying the door. And, lo, and +behold, it opened easily, it was not locked at all! I had only imagined I +heard the click of the lock. And I was free, and the sun was shining, +and I was neither hungry nor dizzy. + +"I don't know whether I laughed or cried or mingled both in a state of +ecstasy. But I was too much shaken to go on with my letter, I had to find +a story book and a piece of apple pie to quiet my nerves. The fires were +not out and the clock had only struck ten. But when you ask me how long I +stayed in that cellar I shall tell you one hundred years! Now, isn't that +adventure enough for the first volume? + +"Vol. II. Evening. I waited and waited downstairs for somebody to come, +but nobody came except Josie Grey's brother, to say that her mother was +taken ill suddenly and Josie could not come. I suppose Mr. Holmes +expected her to come and so he has gone to Middlefield, and Morris +thought so, too; and so I am left out in the cold, or rather in by the +fire. Mr. Holmes' chamber is the snuggest room in the house, so full of +books that you can't be lonely in it, and then the fire on the hearth +is company. It began to snow before sun down and now the wind howls and +the snow seems to rush about as if it were in a fury. You ask what I have +read this winter. Books that you will not like: Thomson's 'Seasons,' +Cowper's 'Task,' Pollok's 'Course of Time,' Milton's 'Paradise Regained,' +Strickland's 'Queens of England,' 'Nelson on Infidelity,' 'Lady +Huntington and her Friends,' 'Lady of the Lake,' several of the +'Bridgewater Treatises,' Paley's 'Natural Theology,' 'Trench on +Miracles,' several dozens of the best story books I could find to make +sandwiches with the others, somebody's 'Travels in Iceland,' and +somebody's 'Winter in Russia,' and 'Rasselas,' and 'Boswell's Johnson,' +and I cannot remember others at this moment. Morris says I do not think +anything dry, but go right through everything. Because I have the master +to help me, and I did give 'Paradise Lost' up in despair. Mother says I +shall never make three quilts for you if I read so much, but I do get on +with the patch work and she already has one quilt joined, and Mrs. Rheid +is coming to help her quilt it next week. There is a pile of blocks on +the master's desk now and I intend to sit here in his arm chair and +sew until I am sleepy. I wonder if you will do as much for me when my +Prince comes. Mine is to be as handsome as Hollis, as good as Morris, +as learned as the master, and as devoted as your splendid Will. And if I +cannot find all these in one I will--make patch work for other brides and +live alone with Miss Prudence. And I'll begin now to make the patch work. +Oh, dear, I wish you and Miss Prudence were here. Hark! there's somebody +pounding on the outside kitchen door! Shall I go down or let them pound? +I don't believe it is Robin Hood or any of his merry men, do you? I'll +screw my courage up and go. + +"Vol. III. Next Day. I won't keep you in suspense, you dear, sympathetic +Linnet. I went down with some inward quaking but much outward boldness +as the pounding increased, and did not even ask 'Who's there?' before I +opened the door. But I _was_ relieved to find Morris, covered with snow, +looking like a storm king. He said he had heard through Frank Grey that +Josie couldn't come and he would not let me stay alone in a storm. I was +so glad, if I had been you I should have danced around him, but as it was +I and not you I only said how glad I was, and made him a cup of +steaming coffee and gave him a piece of mince pie for being so good. +To-day it snows harder than ever, so that we do not expect father and +mother; and Mr. Holmes has not come out in the storm, because Morris saw +him and told him that he was on the way home. Not a sleigh has passed, +we have not seen a single human being to-day. I could not have got out to +the stable, and I don't know what the cows and hens would have done +without Morris. He has thrown down more hay for the cows, and put corn +where the hens may find it for to-morrow, in case he cannot get out to +them. The storm has not lessened in any degree; I never knew anything +like it, but I am not the 'oldest inhabitant.' Wouldn't I have been +dreary here alone? + +"This does seem to be a kind of adventure, but nothing happens. Father is +not strong enough to face any kind of a storm, and I am sure they will +not attempt to start. Morris says we are playing at housekeeping and he +helps me do everything, and when I sit down to sew on your patch work he +reads to me. I let him read this letter to you, forgetting what I had +said about my Prince, but he only laughed and said he was glad that he +was _good_ enough for me, even if he were not handsome enough, or learned +enough, or devoted enough, and said he would become devoted forthwith, +but he could not ever expect to attain to the rest. He teases me and says +that I meant that the others were not good enough. He has had a letter +from Will promising to take him before the mast next voyage and he is +hilarious over it. His mother tries to be satisfied, but she is afraid of +the water. When so many that we know have lost father or brother or +husband on the sea it does seem strange that we can so fearlessly send +another out. Mrs. Rheid told me about a sea captain that she met when she +was on a voyage with Captain Rheid. He had been given up for lost when he +was young and when he came back he found his wife married to another man, +but she gave up the second husband and went back to the first. She was +dead when Mrs. Rheid met him; she said he was a very sad man. His ship +was wrecked on some coast, I've forgotten where, and he was made to work +in a mine until he was rescued. I think I would have remained dead to her +if she had forgotten me like that. But isn't this a long letter? Morris +has made me promise to write regularly to him; I told him he had never +given me a Holland plate two hundred years old, but he says he will go to +Holland and buy me one and that is better. + +"I am glad Hollis wrote such a long letter to his mother if he could not +come home. I wish he would write to her oftener; I do not think she is +quite satisfied to have him write to me instead. I will write to him +to-morrow, but I haven't anything to say, I have told you everything. O, +Linnet, how happy I shall be when your school days are over. Miss +Prudence shall have the next letter; I have something to ask her, as +usual. + +"The end of my story in three volumes isn't very startling. But this +snow-storm is. If we hadn't everything under cover we would have to do +without some things. + +"Yours, + +"MARJORIE" + + + + +XIII. + +A WEDDING DAY. + +"A world-without-end bargain."--_Shakespeare._ + + +A young girl stood in the doorway, shading her eyes with her hand as +she gazed down the dusty road; she was not tall or slight, but a plump, +well-proportioned little creature, with frank, steadfast eyes, a low, +smooth forehead with brown hair rippling away from it, a thoughtful mouth +that matched well with the eyes; an energetic maiden, despite the air of +study that somehow surrounded her; you were sure her voice would be +sweet, and as sure that it would be sprightly, and you were equally sure +that a wealth of strength was hidden behind the sweetness. She was only +eighteen, eighteen to-day, but during the last two years she had rapidly +developed into womanhood. The master told Miss Prudence this morning that +she was trustworthy and guileless, and as sweet and bright as she was +good; still, he believed, as of old, that she did not quite know how to +take her own part; but, as a woman, with a man to fight for her, what +need had she of fighting? He would not have been at all surprised had he +known that she had chosen, that morning, a motto, not only for her new +year, but, as she told Morris, for her lifetime: "The Lord shall fight +for you, and ye shall hold your peace." And he had said: "May I fight for +you, too, Marjorie?" But she had only laughed and answered: "We don't +live in the time of the Crusades." + +Although it was Linnet's wedding day Marjorie, the bridesmaid, was +attired in a gingham, a pretty pink and white French gingham; but there +were white roses at her throat and one nestled in her hair. The roses +were the gift of the groomsman, Hollis, and she had fastened them in +under the protest of Morris' eyes. Will and Linnet had both desired +Hollis to "stand up" with Marjorie; the bridesmaid had been very shy +about it, at first; Hollis was almost a stranger, she had seen him but +once since she was fourteen, and their letters were becoming more and +more distant. He was not as shy as Marjorie, but he was not easy and at +home with her, and never once dared to address the maiden who had so +suddenly sprung into a lovely woman with the old names, Mousie, or +Goosie. Indeed, he had nearly forgotten them, he could more readily have +said: "Miss Marjorie." + +He had grown very tall; he was the handsomest among the brothers, with an +air of refinement and courtesy that somewhat perplexed them and set him +apart from them. Marjorie still prayed for him every day, that is, for +the Hollis she knew, but this Hollis came to her to-day a stranger; her +school-boy friend was a dream, the friend she had written to so long was +only her ideal, and this tall man, with the golden-red moustache, dark, +soft eyes and deep voice, was a fascinating stranger from the outside +world. She could never write to him again; she would never have the +courage. + +And his heart quickened in its beating as he stood beside the white-robed +figure and looked down into the familiar, strange face, and he wondered +how his last letter could have been so jaunty and off-hand. How could he +ever write "Dear Marjorie" again, with this face in his memory? She was +as much a lady as Helen had been, he would be proud to take her among his +friends and say: "This is my old school friend." + +But he was busy bringing chairs across the field at this moment and +Marjorie stood alone in the doorway looking down the dusty road. This +doorway was a fitting frame for such a rustic picture as a girl in a +gingham dress, and the small house itself a fitting background. + +The house was a story and a half, with a low, projecting roof, a small +entry in the centre, and square, low-studded rooms on both sides, a +kitchen and woodshed stretched out from the back and a small barn stood +in the rear; the house was dazzling in the sun, with its fresh coat of +white paint, and the green blinds gave a cooling effect to the whole; +the door yard was simply a carpet of green with lilac bushes in one +corner and a tall pine standing near the gate; the fence rivalled the +house in its glossy whiteness, and even the barn in the rear had a new +coat of brown to boast of. Every room inside the small house was in +perfect order, every room was furnished with comfort and good taste, +but plainly as it became the house of the captain of the barque _Linnet_ +to be. It was all ready for housekeeping, but, instead of taking instant +possession, at the last moment Linnet had decided to go with her husband +to Genoa. + +"It is nonsense," Captain Rheid growled, "when the house is all ready." +But Will's mother pleaded for him and gained an ungracious consent. + +"You never run around after me so," he said. + +"Go to sea to-day and see what I will do," she answered, and he kissed +her for the first time in so many years that she blushed like a girl and +hurried away to see if the tea-kettle were boiling. + +Linnet's mother was disappointed, for she wanted to see Linnet begin her +pretty housekeeping; but Marjorie declared that it was as it should be +and quite according to the Old Testament law of the husband cheering up +his wife. + +But Marjorie did not stay very long to make a picture of herself, she ran +back to see if Morris had counted right in setting the plates on the long +dining table that was covered with a heavy cloth of grandma's own making. +There was a silk quilt of grandma's making on the bed in the "spare +room" beside. As soon as the ceremony was performed she had run away with +"the boys" to prepare the surprise for Linnet, a lunch in her own +house. The turkeys and tongue and ham had been cooked at Mrs. Rheid's, +and Linnet had seen only the cake and biscuits prepared at home, the +fruit had come with Hollis from New York at Miss Prudence's order, and +the flowers had arrived this morning by train from Portland. Cake and +sandwiches, lemonade and coffee, would do very well, Linnet said, who had +no thought of feasting, and the dining room at home was the only +banqueting hall she had permitted herself to dream of. + +Marjorie counted the chairs as Hollis brought them across the field from +home, and then her eyes filled as he drew from his pocket, to show her, +the deed of the house and ten acres of land, the wedding present from his +father to the bride. + +"Oh, he's too good," she cried. "Linnet will break down, I know she +will." + +"I asked him if he would be as good to my wife," answered Hollis, "and he +said he would, if I would please him as well as Will had done." + +"There's only one Linnet," said Marjorie. + +"But bride's have sisters," said Morris. "Marjorie, where shall I put all +this jelly? And I haven't missed one plate with a bouquet, have I? Now +count everybody up again and see if we are all right." + +"Marjorie and I," began Hollis, audaciously, pushing a chair into its +place. + +"Two," counted Morris, but his blue eyes flashed and his lip trembled. + +"And Will and Linnet, four," began Marjorie, in needless haste, and +father and mother, six, and Will's father and mother, eight, and the +minister and his wife, ten, and Herbert and his wife, twelve, and Mr. +Holmes and Miss Prudence, fourteen, and Sam and Harold, sixteen, and +Morris, seventeen. That is all. Oh, and grandfather and grandmother, +nineteen." + +"Seventeen plates! You and I are to be waiters, Marjorie," said Morris. + +"I'll be a waiter, too," said Hollis. "That will be best fun of all. I'm +glad you didn't hire anybody, Marjorie." + +"I wouldn't; I wanted to be primitive and do it all ourselves; I knew +Morris would be grand help, but I was not so sure of you." + +"Are you sure of me, now?" he laughed, like the old Hollis who used to go +to school. + +After that Marjorie would not have been surprised if he had called her +"Mousie." + +"Morris, what do you want to be a sailor for?" inquired Hollis, arranging +the white rose in his button-hole anew. + +"To sail," answered Morris seriously. "What do you want to be a salesman +for?" + +"To sell," said Hollis, as seriously, "Marjorie, what do you want to be +yourself for?" + +"To help you to be yourself," she answered promptly, and flew to the +front door where there was a sound of shouting and laughter. They were +all there, every one of the little home-made company; and the waiters +ushered them into the kitchen, where the feast was spread, with great +ceremony. + +If Linnet had not been somebody's wife she would have danced around and +clapped her hands with delight; as it was she nearly forgot her dignity, +and exclaimed with surprise and pleasure sufficient to satisfy those who +were in the secret of the feast. + +Linnet was in her gray travelling suit, but the dash of crimson this time +was in both cheeks; there was a haziness in her eyes that subdued the +brightness of her face and touched them all. The bridegroom was handsome +and proud, his own merry self, not a trifle abashed before them all on +his wedding day, everything that he said seemed to be thought worth +laughing at, and there was not a shadow on any face, except the flitting +of a shadow ever and anon across Morris Kemlo's blue eyes. + +The feast was ended, prayer offered by the pastor and the new home +dedicated to him who is the Father in every home where his children +dwell, and then kisses and congratulations and thanks mingled with the +tears that the mothers must need shed out of their joy and natural +regret. The mothers were both exultantly proud and sure that _her_ child +would not be the one to make the other unhappy. The carriages rolled +away, Will and Linnet to take the train to Portland, for if the wind +were fair the _Linnet_ would sail the next day for New York and thence to +Genoa. Linnet had promised to bring Marjorie some of the plastering of +the chamber in which Christopher Columbus was born, and if they went down +to Naples she would surely climb Mt. Vesuvius and bring her a branch of +mulberry. + +The mothers remained to wash the dishes and pack things away, to lock up +the house, and brush the last flake of dust from any of Linnet's new +possessions; Captain Rheid called to Hollis and asked him to walk over +the farm with him and see where everything was planted. Hollis was to +remain over night, but Morris was to take a late train to join the +_Linnet's_ crew, it being his first voyage as second mate. + +The mothers took off their kitchen aprons, washed their hands at Linnet's +new sink, and gave Morris the key of the front door to hang up in an +out-of-the-way corner of the wood shed. + +"It may better be here," said Mrs. Rheid, "and then any of us can get in +at any time to see how things are without troubling anybody to find the +key. The captain will see that every door and window is safe and as we +have the silver I don't believe anybody will think of troubling the +house." + +"Oh, dear no," replied Mrs. West. "I always leave my clothes out on the +line and we never think of locking a door at night." + +"Our kitchen windows look over this way and I shall always be looking +over. Now come home with me and see that quilt I haven't got finished +yet for them. I told your husband to come to our house for you, for you +would surely be there. I suppose Marjorie and Morris will walk back; we +wouldn't have minded it, either, on our eighteenth birthday." + +"Come, Marjorie, come see where I hang the key," said Morris. + +Marjorie followed him down the kitchen steps, across the shed to a corner +at the farther end; he found a nail and slipped it on and then asked her +to reach it. + +Even standing on tip toe her upstretched hand could not touch it. + +"See how I put the key of my heart out of your reach," he said, +seriously. + +"And see how I stretch after it," she returned, demurely. + +"I will come with you and reach it for you." + +"How can you when you are demolishing plaster in Christopher Columbus' +house or falling into the crater of Mt. Vesuvius? I may want to come +here that very day." + +"True; I will put it lower for you. Shall I put it under this stone so +that you will have to stoop for it?" + +"Mrs. Rheid said hang it over the window, that has been its place for +generations. They lived here when they were first married, before they +built their own house; the house doesn't look like it, does it? It is all +made over new. I am glad he gave it to Will." + +"He can build a house for Hollis," said he, watching her as he spoke. + +"Let me see you put the key there," she returned, unconcernedly. + +He hung the key on the nail over the small window and inquired if it were +done to her satisfaction. + +"Yes," she said. "I wonder how Linnet feels about going away from us all +so far." + +"She is with her husband," answered Morris. "Aren't you woman enough to +understand that?" + +"Possibly I am as much of a woman as you are." + +"You are years ahead of me; a girl at eighteen is a woman; but a boy at +eighteen is a boy. Will you tell me something out here among the wood? +This wood pile that the old captain sawed and split ten years ago shall +be our witness. Why do you suppose he gets up in winter before daylight +and splits wood--when he has a pile that was piled up twenty years ago?" + +"That is a question worthy the time and place and the wood pile shall be +our witness." + +"Oh, that isn't the question," he returned with some embarrassment, +stooping to pick up a chip and toss it from him as he lifted himself. +"Marjorie, _do_ you like Hollis better than you like me?" + +"You are only a boy, you know," she answered, roguishly. + +"I know it; but do you like me better than Hollis?" + +His eyes were on the chips at his feet, Marjorie's serious eyes were upon +him. + +"It doesn't matter; suppose I don't know; as the question never occurred +to me before I shall have to consider." + +"Marjorie, you are cruel," he exclaimed raising his eyes with a flash in +them; he was "only a boy" but his lips were as white as a man's would +have been. + +"I am sorry; I didn't know you were in such earnest," she said, +penitently. "I like Hollis, of course, I cannot remember when I did not +like him, but I am not acquainted with him." + +"Are you acquainted with me?" he asked in a tone that held a shade of +relief. + +"Oh, you!" she laughed lightly, "I know what you think before you can +speak your thought." + +"Then you know what I am thinking now." + +"Not all of it," she returned, but she colored, notwithstanding, and +stepped backward toward the kitchen. + +"Marjorie," he caught her hand and held it, "I am going away and I want +to tell you something. I am going far away this time, and I must tell +you. Do you remember the day I came? You were such a little thing, you +stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes, with your sleeves rolled back +and a big apron up to your neck, and you stopped in your work and looked +at me and your eyes were so soft and sorry. And I have loved you better +than anybody every day since. Every day I have thought: 'I will study +like Marjorie. I will be good like Marjorie. I will help everybody like +Marjorie.'" + +She looked up into his eyes, her own filled with tears. + +"I am so glad I have helped you so." + +"And will you help me further by saying that you like me better than +Hollis." + +"Oh, I do, you know I do," she cried, impulsively. "I am not acquainted +with him, and I know every thought you think." + +"Now I am satisfied," he cried, exultantly, taking both her hands in his +and kissing her lips. "I am not afraid to go away now." + +"Marjorie,"--the kitchen door was opened suddenly,--"I'm going to take +your mother home with me. Is the key in the right place." + +"Everything is all right, Mrs. Rheid," replied Morris. "You bolt that +door and we will go out this way." + +The door was closed as suddenly and the boy and girl stood silent, +looking at each other. + +"Your Morris Kemlo is a fine young man," observed Mrs. Rheid as she +pushed the bolt into its place. + +"He is a heartease to his mother," replied Mrs. West, who was sometimes +poetical. + +"Does Marjorie like him pretty well?" + +"Why, yes, we all do. He is like our own flesh and blood. But why did you +ask?" + +"Oh, nothing. I just thought of it." + +"I thought you meant something, but you couldn't when you know how Hollis +has been writing to her these four years." + +"Oh!" ejaculated Hollis' mother. + +She did not make plans for her children as the other mother did. + +The two old ladies crossed the field toward the substantial white +farmhouse that overlooked the little cottage, and the children, whose +birthday it was, walked hand in hand through the yard to the footpath +along the road. + +"Must you keep on writing to Hollis?" he asked. + +"I suppose so. Why not? It is my turn to write now." + +"That's all nonsense." + +"What is? Writing in one's turn?" + +"I don't see why you need write at all." + +"Don't you remember I promised before you came?" + +"But I've come now," he replied in a tone intended to be very convincing. + +"His mother would miss it, if I didn't write; she thinks she can't write +letters. And I like his letters," she added frankly. + +"I suppose you do. I suppose you like them better than mine," with an +assertion hardly a question in his voice. + +"They are so different. His life is so different from yours. But he is +shy, as shy as a girl, and does not tell me all the things you do. Your +letters are more interesting, but _he_ is more interesting--as a study. +You are a lesson that I have learned, but I have scarcely begun to learn +him." + +"That is very cold blooded when you are talking about human beings." + +"My brain was talking then." + +"Suppose you let your heart speak." + +"My heart hasn't anything to say; it is not developed yet." + +"I don't believe it," he answered angrily. + +"Then you must find it out for yourself. Morris, I don't want to be _in +love_ with anybody, if that's what you mean. I love you dearly, but I am +not in love with you or with anybody." + +"You don't know the difference," he said quickly. + +"How do you know the difference? Did you learn it before I was born?" + +"I love my mother, but I am in love with you; that's the difference." + +"Then I don't know the difference--and I do. I love my dear father and +Mr. Holmes and you,--not all alike, but I need you all at different +times--" + +"And Hollis," he persisted. + +"I do not know him," she insisted. "I have nothing to say about that. +Morris, I want to go with Miss Prudence and study; I don't want to be +a housekeeper and have a husband, like Linnet! I have so much to learn; I +am eager for everything. You see you _are_ older than I am." + +"Yes," he said, disappointedly, "you are only a little girl yet. Or you +are growing up to be a Woman's Rights Woman, and to think a 'career' is +better than a home and a man who is no better than other men to love you +and protect you and provide for you." + +"You know that is not true," she answered quietly; "but I have been +looking forward so long to going to school." + +"And living with Miss Prudence and becoming like her!" + +"Don't you want me to be like her?" + +"No," he burst out. "I want you to be like Linnet, and to think that +little house and house-keeping, and a good husband, good enough for you. +What is the good of studying if it doesn't make you more a perfect woman? +What is the good of anything a girl does if it doesn't help her to be a +woman?" + +"Miss Prudence is a perfect woman." + +Marjorie's tone was quiet and reasonable, but there was a fire in her +eyes that shone only when she was angry. + +"She would be more perfect if she stayed at home in Maple Street and made +a home for somebody than she is now, going hither and thither finding +people to be kind to and to help. She is too restless and she is not +satisfied. Look at Linnet; she is happier to-day with her husband that +reads only the newspapers, the nautical books, and his Bible, than Miss +Prudence with all her lectures and concerts and buying books and knowing +literary people! She couldn't make a Miss Prudence out of Linnet, but she +will make a Miss Prudence twice over out of you." + +"Linnet is happy because she loves Will, and she doesn't care for books +and people, as we do; but we haven't any Will, poor Miss Prudence and +poor Marjorie, we have to substitute people and books." + +"You might have, both of you!" he went on, excitedly; "but you want +something better, both of you,--_higher_, I suppose you think! There's +Mr. Holmes eating his heart out with being only a friend to Miss +Prudence, and you want me to go poking along and spoiling my life as he +does, because you like books and study better!" + +Marjorie laughed; the fire in Morris' blue eyes was something to see, and +the tears in his voice would have overcome her had she not laughed +instead. And he was going far away, too. + +"Morris, I didn't know you were quite such a volcano. I don't believe Mr. +Holmes stays here and _pokes_ because of Miss Prudence. I know he is +melancholy, sometimes, but he writes so much and thinks so much he can't +be light-hearted like young things like us. And who does as much good as +Miss Prudence? Isn't she another mother to Linnet and me? And if she +doesn't find somebody to love as Linnet does Will, I don't see how she +can help it." + +"It isn't in her heart or she would have found somebody; it is what is in +peoples' hearts that makes the difference! But when they keep the brain +at work and forget they have any heart, as you two do--" + +"It isn't Miss Prudence's brain that does her beautiful work. You ought +to read some of the letters that she lets me read, and then you would +see how much heart she has!" + +"And you want to be just like her," he sighed, but the sigh was almost a +groan. + +Certainly, in some experiences he had outstripped Marjorie. + +"Yes, I want to be like her," she answered deliberately. + +"And study and go around and do good and never be married?" he +questioned. + +"I don't see the need of deciding that question to-day." + +"I suppose not. You will when Hollis Rheid asks you to." + +"Morris, you are not like yourself to-day, you are quarrelling with me, +and we never quarrelled before." + +"Because you are so unreasonable; you will not answer me anything." + +"I have answered you truly; I have no other answer to give." + +"Will you think and answer me when I come home?" + +"I have answered you now." + +"Perhaps you will have another answer then." + +"Well, if I have I will give it to you. Are you satisfied?" + +"No," he said; but he turned her face up to his and looked down into her +innocent earnest eyes. + +"You are a goosie, as Linnet says; you will never grow up, little +Marjorie." + +"Then, if I am only eight, you must not talk to me as if I were eighty." + +"Or eighteen," he said. "How far on the voyage of life do you suppose +Linnet and Captain Will are." + +"Not far enough on to quarrel, I hope." + +"They will never be far enough for that, Will is too generous and Linnet +will never find anything to differ about; do you know, Marjorie, that +girl has no idea how Will loves her?" + +Marjorie stopped and faced him with the utmost gravity. + +"Do you know, Morris, that man has no idea how Linnet loves him?" + +And then the two burst into a laugh that restored them both to the +perfect understanding of themselves and each other and all the world. And +after an early supper he shook hands with them all--excepting "Mother +West," whom he kissed, and Marjorie, whom he asked to walk as far as +"Linnet's" with him on his way to the train--and before ten o'clock was +on board the _Linnet_, and congratulating again the bridegroom, who was +still radiant, and the bride, who was not looking in the least bit +homesick. + +"Will," said Linnet with the weight of tone of one giving announcement to +a mighty truth, "I wouldn't be any one beside myself for _anything_." + +"And I wouldn't have you any one beside yourself for _anything_," he +laughed, in the big, explosive voice that charmed Linnet every time +afresh. + + + + +XIV. + +A TALK AND ANOTHER TALK. + +"Life's great results are something slow."--Howells. + + +Morris had said good-bye with a look that brought sorrow enough in +Marjorie's eyes to satisfy him--almost, and had walked rapidly on, not +once turning to discover if Marjorie were standing still or moving toward +home; Mr. Holmes and Miss Prudence had promised to start out to meet her, +so that her walk homeward in the starlight would not be lonely. + +But they were not in sight yet to Marjorie's vision, and she stood +leaning over the gate looking at the windows with their white shades +dropped and already feeling that the little, new home was solitary. She +did not turn until a footstep paused behind her; she was so lost in +dreams of Linnet and Morris that she had not noticed the brisk, hurried +tread. The white rose had fallen from her hair and the one at her throat +had lost several petals; in her hand was a bunch of daisies that Morris +had picked along the way and laughingly asked her to try the childish +trick of finding out if he loved her, and she had said she was afraid +the daisies were too wise and would not ask them. + +"Haven't you been home all this time?" asked Hollis, startling her out of +her dream. + +"Oh, yes, and come back again." + +"Do you find the cottage so charming?" + +"I find it charming, but I could have waited another day to come and see +it. I came to walk part of the way with Morris." + +She colored, because when she was embarrassed she colored at everything, +and could not think of another word to say. + +Among those who understood him, rather, among those he understood, Hollis +was a ready talker; but, seemingly, he too could not think of another +word to say. + +Marjorie picked her daisies to pieces and they went on in the narrow foot +path, as she and Morris had done in the afternoon; Hollis walking on the +grass and giving her the path as her other companion had done. She could +think of everything to say to Morris, and Morris could think of +everything to say to her; but Morris was only a boy, and this tall +stranger was a gentleman, a gentleman whom she had never seen before. + +"If it were good sleighing I might take you on my sled," he remarked, +when all the daisies were pulled to pieces. + +"Is Flyaway in existence still?" she asked brightly, relieved that she +might speak at last. + +"'Stowed away,' as father says, in the barn, somewhere. Mr. Holmes is not +as strict as he used to be, is he?" + +"No, he never was after that. I think he needed to give a lesson to +himself." + +"He looks haggard and old." + +"I suppose he is old; I don't know how old he is, over forty." + +"That _is_ antiquated. You will be forty yourself, if you live long +enough." + +"Twenty-two years," she answered seriously; "that is time enough to do a +good many things in." + +"I intend to do a good many things," he answered with a proud humility in +his voice that struck Marjorie. + +"What--for example?" + +"Travel, for one thing, make money, for another." + +"What do you want money for?" she questioned. + +"What does any man want it for? I want it to give me influence, and I +want a luxurious old age." + +"That doesn't strike me as being the highest motives." + +"Probably not, but perhaps the highest motives, as you call them, do not +rule my life." + +And she had been praying for him so long. + +"Your mother seems to be a happy woman," was her reply, coming out of a +thought that she did not speak. + +"She is," he said, emphatically. "I wish poor old father were as happy." + +"Do you find many happy people?" she asked. + +"I find you and my mother," he returned smiling. + +"And yourself?" + +"Not always. I am happy enough today. Not as jubilant as old Will, +though. Will has a prize." + +"To be sure he has," said Marjorie. + +"What are you going to do next?" + +"Go to that pleasant home in Maple Street with Miss Prudence and go to +school." She was jubilant, too, today, or she would have been if Morris +had not gone away with such a look in his eyes. + +"You ought to be graduated by this time, you are old enough. Helen was +not as old as you." + +"But I haven't been at school at all, yet," she hastened to say. "And +Helen was so bright." + +"Aren't you bright?" he asked, laughing. + +"Mr. Holmes doesn't tell me that I am." + +"What will your mother do?" + +"Oh, dear," she sighed, "that is what I ask myself every day. But she +insists that I shall go, Linnet has had her 'chance' she says, and now it +is my turn. Miss Prudence is always finding somebody that needs a home, +and she has found a girl to help mother, a girl about my age, that hasn't +any friends, so it isn't the work that will trouble me; it is leaving +mother without any daughter at all." + +"She is willing to let Linnet go, she ought to be as willing to let you." + +"Oh, she is, and father is, too. I know I don't deserve such good times, +but I do want to go. I love Miss Prudence as much as I do mother, I +believe, and I am only forty miles from home. Mr. Holmes is about +leaving, too. How father will miss _him_! And Morris gone! Mother sighs +over the changes and then says changes must needs come if boys and girls +will grow up." + +"Where is Mr. Holmes going?" + +"To California. The doctor says he must go somewhere to cure his cough. +And he says he will rest and write another book. Have you read his book?" + +"No, it is too dry for me." + +"We don't think it is dry; Morris and I know it by heart." + +"That is because you know the author." + +"Perhaps it is. The book is everything but a story book. Miss Prudence +has a copy in Turkey morocco. Do you see many people that write books?" + +"No," he said, smiling at her simplicity. "New York isn't full of them." + +"Miss Prudence sees them," replied Marjorie with dignity. + +"She is a bird of their feather. I do not fly, I walk on the ground--with +my eyes on it, perhaps." + +"Like the man with the muck rake," said Marjorie, quoting from her old +love, _Pilgrims Progress_, "don't you know there was a crown held above +his head, and his eyes were on the ground and he could not see it." + +"No, I do not know it, but I perceive that you are talking an allegory at +me." + +"Not at you, _to_ you," she corrected. + +"You write very short letters to me, nowadays." + +"Your letters are not suggestive enough," she said, archly. + +"Like my conversation. As poor a talker as I am, I am a better talker +than writer. And you--you write a dozen times better than you talk." + +"I'm sorry I'm so unentertaining to-night. When Linnet writes she says: +"'I wish I could _talk_ to you,' and when I talk I think: 'I wish I could +write it all to you.'" + +"As some one said of some one who could write better than he talked, 'He +has plenty of bank notes, but he carries no small change, in his +pocket.'" + +"It is so apt to be too small," she answered, somewhat severely. + +"I see you are above talking the nonsense that some girls talk. What do +you do to get rested from your thoughts?" + +How Marjorie laughed! + +"Hollis, do talk to me instead of writing. And I'll write to you instead +of talking." + +"That is, you wish me near to you and yourself far away from me. That is +the only way that we can satisfy each other. Isn't that Miss Prudence +coming?" + +"And the master. They did not know I would have an escort home. But do +come all the way, father will like to hear you talk about the places +you have visited." + +"I travel, I don't visit places. I expect to go to London and Paris by +and by. Our buyer has been getting married and that doesn't please the +firm; he wanted to take his wife with him, but they vetoed that. They say +a married man will not attend strictly to business; see what a premium +is paid to bachelorhood. I shall understand laces well enough soon: I can +pick a piece of imitation out of a hundred real pieces now. Did Linnet +like the handkerchief and scarf?" + +"You should have seen her! Hasn't she spoken of them?" + +"No, she was too full of other things." + +"Marriage isn't all in getting ready, to Linnet," said Marjorie, +seriously, "I found her crying one day because she was so happy and +didn't deserve to be." + +"Will is a good fellow," said Hollis. "I wish I were half as good. But I +am so contradictory, so unsatisfied and so unsatisfying. I understand +myself better than I want to, and yet I do not understand myself at all." + +"That is because you are _growing_," said Marjorie, with her wise air. "I +haven't settled down into a real Marjorie yet. I shouldn't know my own +picture unless I painted it myself." + +"We are two rather dangerous people, aren't we?" laughed Hollis. "We will +steer clear of each other, as Will would say, until we can come to an +understanding." + +"Unless we can help each other," Marjorie answered. "But I don't believe +you need to be pulled apart, but only to be let alone to grow--that is, +if the germ is perfect." + +"A perfect germ!" he repeated. Hollis liked to talk about himself to any +one who would help him to self-analysis. + +But the slowly moving figures were approaching, the black figure with +bent shoulders and a slouched hat, the tall slight figure at his side in +light gray with a shawl of white wool across her shoulders and drawn up +over her hair, the fleecy whiteness softening the lines of a face that +were already softened. + +"O, Prudence, how far ahead we are of those two," exclaimed the +school-master, "and they are wiser than we, perhaps, because they do not +know so much." + +"They do not know so much of each other, surely," she replied with a low +laugh. That very day Mr. Holmes had quoted to her, giving it a personal +application: "What she suffered she shook off in the sunshine." + +He had been arguing within himself all day whether or not to destroy that +letter in his pocket or to show it to her. Would it give her something +else to shake off in the sunshine? + +Hollis was wondering if this Marjorie, with her sweet, bright face, her +graceful step and air of ladyhood, with modest and quick replies, not at +all intruding herself, but giving herself, unconsciously, could be the +same half-bashful little girl that he had walked with on a country road +four years before; the little girl who fell so far behind his ideal, the +little girl so different from city girls; and now, who among his small +circle of girlhood at home could surpass her? And she was dressed so +plainly, and there were marks of toil upon her fingers, and even freckles +hidden beneath the fresh bloom of her cheek! She would hunt eggs tomorrow +and milk the cows, she might not only weed in the garden, but when the +potatoes were dug she might pick them up, and even assist her father in +assorting them. Had he not said that Marjorie was his "boy" as well as +her mother's girl? Had she not taken the place of Morris in all things +that a girl could, and had she not taken his place with the master and +gone on with Virgil where Morris left off? + +"Marjorie, I don't see the _need_ of your going to school?" he was saying +when they joined the others. + +"Hollis, you are right," repeated the master, emphatically, "that is only +a whim, but she will graduate the first year, so it doesn't matter." + +"You see he is proud of his work," said Marjorie, "he will not give any +school the credit of me." + +"I will give you into Miss Prudence's keeping for a term of years, to +round you off, to make you more of a woman and less of a student--like +herself." + +Marjorie's eyes kindled, "I wish Morris might hear that! He has been +scolding me,--but that would satisfy him." + +After several moments of light talk, if the master ever could be said to +encourage light talk, he touched Miss Prudence, detaining her with him, +and Marjorie and Hollis walked on together. + +Marjorie and Hollis were not silent, nor altogether grave, for now and +then her laugh would ripple forth and he would join, with a ringing, +boyish laugh that made her forget that he had grown up since that day he +brought her the plate. + +But the two behind them were altogether grave; Miss Prudence was +speaking, for Mr. Holmes had asked her what kind of a day she had had. + +"To-morrow is to be one of our anniversaries, you know," she replied; +"twenty-four years ago--to-morrow--was to have been to me what to-day +is to Linnet. I wonder if I _were_ as light hearted as Linnet." + +"You were as blithe a maiden as ever trod on air," he returned smiling +sadly. "Don't I remember how you used to chase me around that old garden. +When we go back let us try another chase, shall we?" + +"We will let Marjorie run and imagine it is I." + +"Prudence, if I regain my strength out there, I am coming home to tell +you something, may I?" + +"I want you to regain your strength, but I am trembling when I think of +anything to be told. Is it anything--about--" + +"Jerome? Yes, it is about him and about my self. It is about our last +interview when we spoke of you. Do you still believe that he is living?" + +"Yes, we are living, why should he not be alive?" + +"Do yon know how old he would be?" + +"He was just twenty years older than I." + +"Then he must be sixty-four. That is not young, Prudence, and he had +grown old when I said goodbye to him on the steamer--no, it was not a +steamer, he avoided the publicity, he went in a merchant ship, there was +not even one passenger beside himself. He had a fine constitution and he +knew how to take care of himself; it was the--worry that made him look +old. He was very warm-hearted and lovable." + +"Yes," escaped Miss Prudence's lips. + +"But he was weak and lead astray--it seems strange that your silver +wedding day might be almost at hand, and that tall boy and girl in front +of you my brother's children to call me Uncle John." + +"John," she sobbed, catching her breath. + +"Poor child! Now I've brought the tears. I was determined to get that +dead look out of your eyes that was beginning to come to-night. It shall +go away to-night and you shall not awake with it in the morning. Do you +know what you want? Do you want to tell me what you pray about on your +wedding day?" + +"Yes, and you can pray with me to-morrow. I always ask repentance and +remission of sins for him and for myself that I may see him once more +and make him believe that I have forgiven him." + +"Did you ever wish that you had been his wife and might have shared his +exile?" + +"Not at first; I was too indignant; I did not forgive him, at first; but +since I have wished it; I know he has needed me." + +"But he threw you off." + +"No, he would not let me share his disgrace." + +"He did not love you well enough to keep the disgrace from you, it +seems," said John Holmes, bitterly. + +"No, I could not keep him from sin. The love of a woman is not the love +of God. I failed as many a woman has failed. But I did not desert him; I +went--but he would not see me." + +"He was sorry afterward, he tried to write to you, but he always broke +down and could not go on; you were so young and he had been a shame to +you." + +"You never told me this before." + +"Because I hated him, I hated my brother, for disgracing you and +disgracing my mother and myself; I have grown forgiving since, since God +has forgiven me. He said that last day that you must not forget him." + +"He knew I would not forget," said Miss Prudence, proudly. + +"Did you ever hate him?" + +"Yes, I think I did. I believed he hastened poor father's death; I knew +he had spoiled all my life; yes, I hated him until my heart was softened +by many sorrows--John, I loved that man who went away--so far, without +me, but I held myself bound, I thought your brother would come back and +claim [missing text] was while Jerome was in--before he went to Europe-- +and I said the shame and horror was too great, I could not become +anybody's happy wife with that man who was so nearly my husband in such a +place." + +"Have you regretted that decision since?" he questioned in a dry hard +tone. + +"Yes." + +How quiet her voice was! "I was sorry--when I read of his sudden death +two years ago--and I almost hated your brother again for keeping so much +from me--it is so hard not to hate with a bitter hatred when we have been +so wronged. How I have prayed for a forgiving heart," she sighed. + +"Have you had any comfort to-day?" + +"Yes, I found it in my reading this morning. Linnet was up and singing +early and I was sitting at my window over her head and I learned a lesson +of how God waits before he comforts in these words that were given new to +me. 'And the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen +clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.'" + +"I cannot see any comfort in that." + +There was a broken sound in the master's voice that Miss Prudence had +never heard before, a hopelessness that was something deeper than his old +melancholy. Had any confession that she had made touched him anew? Was he +troubled at that acknowledged hardness towards his brother? Or was it +sorrow afresh at the mention of her disappointments? Or was it sympathy +for the friend who had given her up and gone away without her? + +Would Miss Prudence have been burdened as she never had been burdened +before could she have known that he had lost a long-cherished hope for +himself? that he had lived his lonely life year after year waiting until +he should no longer be bound by the promise made to his brother at their +parting? The promise was this; that he should not ask Prudence, "Prue" +his brother had said, to marry him until he himself should be dead; in +pity for the brother who had educated him and had in every way been so +generous, and who now pleaded brokenly for this last mercy, he had given +the promise, rather it had been wrung out of him, and for a little time +he had not repented. And then when he forgot his brother and remembered +himself, his heart died within him and there was nothing but hard work +left to live for; this only for a time, he found God afterward and worked +hard for him. + +He had written to his brother and begged release, but no word of release +had come, and he was growing old and his health had failed under the +stress of work and the agony of his self-control, "the constant anguish +of patience." + +But the letter in his pocket was of no avail now, Prudence had loved him +only as a brother all these long years of his suspense and hope and +waiting; that friend whose sudden death had moved her so had been in her +thoughts, and he was only her dear friend and--Jerome's brother. + +It is no wonder that the bent shoulders drooped lower and that the +slouched hat was drawn over a face that fain would have hidden itself. +Prudence, his sister Prudence, was speaking to him and he had not heard a +word. How that young fellow in front was rattling on and laughing as +though hearts never ached or broke with aching, and now he was daring +Marjorie to a race, and the fleet-footed girl was in full chase, and the +two who had run their race nearly a quarter of a century before walked on +slowly and seriously with more to think about and bear than they could +find words for. + +"I found comfort in that. Shall I tell you?" she asked. + +"Yes," he said, "if you can make me understand." + +"I think you will understand, but I shall not make you; I shall speak +slowly, for I want to tell you all I thought. The Lord was dead; he +had been crucified and laid away within the sepulchre three days since, +and they who had so loved him and so trusted in his promises were +broken-hearted because of his death. Our Christ has never been dead to +us, John; think what it must have been to them to know him _dead_. 'Let +not your heart be troubled' he said; but their hearts were troubled, and +he knew it; he knew how John's heart was rent, and how he was sorrowing +with the mother he had taken into his own home; he knew how Peter had +wept his bitter tears, how Martha and Mary and Lazarus were grieving for +him, how all were watching, waiting, hoping and yet hardly daring to +hope,--oh, how little our griefs seem to us beside such grief as theirs! +And the third day since he had been taken from them. Did they expect +again to hear his footfall or his voice? He could see, all this time, the +hands outstretched in prayer, he could hear their cries, he could feel +the beating of every heart, and yet how slowly he was going forth to meet +them. How could he stay his feet? Were not Peter and John running towards +him? Was not Mary on her way to him? And yet he did not hasten; something +must first be done, such little things; the linen clothes must be laid +aside and the napkin that had been about his head must be wrapped +together in a place by itself. Such a little thing to think of, such a +little thing to do, before he could go forth to meet them! Was it +necessary that the napkin should be wrapped together in a place by +itself? As necessary as that their terrible suspense should be ended? As +necessary as that Peter and John and Martha and Mary and his mother +should be comforted one little instant sooner? Could you or I wait to +fold a napkin and lay it away if we might fly to a friend who was +wearying for us? Suppose God says: 'Fold that napkin and lay it away,' do +we do it cheerfully and submissively, choosing to do it rather than to +hasten to our friend? If a leper had stood in the way, beseeching him, if +the dead son of a widow were being carried out, we could understand the +instant's delay, if only a little child were waiting to speak to the +Lord, but to keep so many waiting just to lay the linen clothes aside, +and, most of all, to wrap together that napkin and lay it by itself. Only +the knowing that the doing this was doing the will of God reconciles me +to the waiting that one instant longer, that his mother need not have +waited but for that. So, John, perhaps you and I are waiting to do some +little thing, some little thing that we do not know the meaning of, +before God's will can be perfect concerning us. It may be as near to us +as was the napkin about the head of the Lord. I was forgetting that, +after he died for us, there was any of the Father's will left for him to +do. And I suppose he folded that napkin as willingly as he gave himself +up to the cross. John, that does help me--I am so impatient at +interruptions to what I call my 'work,' and I am so impatient for the +Lord to work for me." + +"Yes," he answered slowly, "it is hard to realize that we _must_ stop to +do every little thing. But I do not stop, I pass the small things by. +Prudence, I am burning up with impatience to-night." + +"Are you? I am very quiet." + +"If you knew something about Jerome that I do not know, and it would +disturb me to know it, would you tell me?" + +"If I should judge you by myself I should tell you. How can one person +know how a truth may affect another? Tell me what you know; I am +ready." + +But she trembled exceedingly and staggered as she walked. + +"Take my arm," he said, quietly. + +She obeyed and leaned against him as they moved on slowly; it was too +dark for them to see each other's faces clearly, a storm was gathering, +the outlines of the house they were approaching, were scarcely +distinguishable. + +"We are almost home," she said. + +"Yes, there! Our light is flashing out. Marjorie is lighting the parlor +lamp. I have in my pocket a letter from Jerome; I have had it a week; you +seemed so quiet and happy I had not the heart to disturb you. It was sent +to the old address, I told him some one there would always find me. He +has not written because he thought we did not care to hear. He has the +name of an honest man there, he says." + +"Is that all?" she questioned, her heart beating with a rapid pulsation. +How long she had waited for this. + +"He is not in Europe now, he is in California. His wife is dead and he +has a little girl ten years old. He refers to a letter written twelve +years ago--a letter that I never received; but it would have made no +difference if I had received it. I wrote to him once begging him to +release me from a promise that I made rashly out of great pity for him, +it was cruel and selfish in him to force me to it, but I was not sure of +myself then, and it was all that I could do for him. But, as I said, he +released me when he chose to do it, and it does not matter. Perhaps it is +better that I had the promise to bind me; you are happier for it, I +think, and I have not been selfish in any demand upon you." + +"John, I don't know what you mean," she said, perplexed. + +"I don't mean anything that I can tell you." + +"I hope he did not deceive her--his wife, that he told her all about +himself." + +"She died nine years ago, he writes, and now he is very ill himself and +wishes to leave his little daughter in safe hands; her mother was an +orphan, it seems, and the child has no relatives that he cares to leave +her with; her mother was an English girl, he was married in England. He +wishes me to come to him and take charge of the child." + +"That is why you so suddenly chose California instead of Minnesota for +your winter?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you written to him?" + +"Yes." + +"Is he very ill?" + +"Yes; he may never receive my letter." + +"I would like to write to him," said Miss Prudence. + +"Would you like to see the letter?" + +"No; I would rather not. You have told me all?" with a slight quiver in +the firm voice. + +"All excepting his message to you." + +After a moment she asked: "What is it?" + +"He wants you to take the guardianship of his child with me. I have not +told you all--he thinks we are married." + +The brave voice trembled in spite of his stern self-control. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Prudence, and then: "Why should he think that?" in a low, +hesitating voice. + +"Because he knew me so well. Having only each other, it was natural, was +it not?" + +"Perhaps so. Then that is all he says." + +"Isn't that enough?" + +"No, I want to know if he has repented, if he is another man. I am glad I +may write to him; I want to tell him many things. We will take care of +the little girl, John." + +"If I am West and you are East--" + +"Do you want to keep her with you?" + +"What could I do with her? She will be a white elephant to me. I am not +her father; I do not think I understand girls--or boys, or men. I hardly +understand you, Prudence." + +"Then I am afraid you never will. Isn't it queer how I always have a +little girl provided for me? Marjorie is growing up and now I have this +child, your niece, John, to be my little girl for a long time. I wonder +what her name is." + +"He did tell me that! I may have passed over something else; you might +better see the letter." + +"No; handwriting is like a voice, or a perfume to me--I could not bear it +to-night. John, I feel as if it would _kill_ me. It is so long ago--I +thought I was stronger--O, John," she leaned her head upon his arm and +sobbed convulsively like a little child. + +He laid his hand upon her head as if she were indeed the little child, +and for a long time no words were spoken. + +"Prudence, there is something else, there is the photograph of the little +girl--her mother named her Jeroma." + +"I will take that," she said, lifting her head, "and I will write to her +to-night." + +That night before she slept she wrote a long letter to the child with the +brown eyes and sunny curls, describing the home in Maple Street, and +promising to take her into her heart and keep her there always, to adopt +her for her very own little daughter for her own sake and for her +father's sake, whom she knew long ago, ending it thus: + +"You cannot come to me too soon, for I am waiting for you with a hungry +heart. I knew there was something good coming to me, and I know you +will be my blessing. + +"Your Loving Aunt Prue." + + + + +XV. + +JEROMA. + +"Whom hast them pitied? And whom forgiven I"--_Wills_. + + +The child had risen early that she might have a good time looking at the +sea lions; the huge creatures covered the rocks two hundred yards away +from her, crawling and squirming, or lying still as if as dead as the +rock itself, their pointed heads and shining bodies giving her a +delightful shiver of affright, their howling and groaning causing her to +run every now and then back to her father's chair on the veranda, and +then she would dance back again and stand and watch them--the horrible, +misshapen monsters--as they quarrelled, or suckled their young, or +furious and wild as they tumbled about and rolled off the craggy cliffs +into the sea. She left her chamber early every morning to watch them and +never grew weary of the familiar, strange Bight. Not that this sight had +been so long familiar, for her father was ever seeking new places along +the coast to rest in, or grow strong in. Nurse had told her that morning +that there was not any place for her papa to get well in. + +He had breakfasted, as usual, upon the veranda, and, the last time that +she had brought her gaze from the fascinating monsters to look back at +him, he was leaning against the cushions of his rolling chair, with his +eyes fixed upon the sea. He often sat for hours and hours looking out +upon the sea. + +Jeroma had played upon the beach every day last winter, growing ruddy and +strong, but the air had revived him only for a little time, he soon sank +back into weakness and apathy. He had dismissed her with a kiss awhile +ago, and had seemed to suffer instead of respond to her caresses. + +"Papa gets tired of loving me," she had said to Nurse last night with a +quivering of the lip. + +"Papa is very sick," Nurse had answered guardedly, "and he had letters +to-day that were too much for him." + +"Then he shouldn't have letters," said the child, decidedly. "I'll tell +him so to-morrow." + +As she danced about, her white dress and sunny curls gleaming in and out +among the heliotrope and scarlet geranium that one of the flower-loving +boarders was cultivating, her father called her name; it was a queer +name, and she did not like it. She liked her second name, Prudence, +better. But Nurse had said, when she complained to her, that the girls +would call her "Prudy" for short, and "Jerrie" was certainly a prettier +name than that. + +"Jerrie," her father called. + +The sound was so weak and broken by a cough that she did not turn her +head or answer until he had called more than twice. But she flew to him +when she was sure that he had called her, and kissed his flabby cheek and +smoothed back the thin locks of white hair. His black eyes were burning +like two fires beneath his white brows, his lips were ashy, and his +breath hot and hurried. Two letters were trembling in his hand, two open +letters, and one of them was in several fluttering sheets; this +handwriting was a lady's, Jeroma recognized that, although she could not +read even her own name in script. + +"O, papa, those are the letters that made you sick! I'll throw them away +to the lions," she cried, trying to snatch them. But he kept them in his +fingers and tried to speak. + +"I'll be rested in a moment, eat those strawberries--and then I +have--something to talk to you about." + +She surveyed the table critically, bread and fruit and milk; there was +nothing beside. + +"I've had my breakfast! O, papa, I've forgotten your flowers! Mrs. Heath +said you might have them every morning." + +"Run and get them then, and never wait for me to call you--it tires me +too much." + +"Poor papa! And I can howl almost as loud as the lions themselves." + +"Don't howl at me then, for I might want to roll off into the sea," he +said, smiling as she danced away. + +The child seemed never to walk, she was always frisking about, one hardly +knew if her feet touched the ground. + +"Poor child! happy child," he groaned, rather than murmured, as she +disappeared around the corner of the veranda. She was a chubby, +roundfaced child, with great brown eyes and curls like yellow floss; from +her childishness and ignorance of what children at ten years of age are +usually taught, she was supposed by strangers to be no more than eight +years of age; she was an imperious little lady, impetuous, untrained, +self-reliant, and, from much intercourse with strangers, not at all shy, +looking out upon the world with confiding eyes, and knowing nothing to be +afraid of or ashamed of. Nurse had been her only teacher; she could +barely read a chapter in the New Testament, and when her father gave her +ten cents and then five more she could not tell him how many cents she +held in her hand. + +"No matter, I don't want you to count money," he said. + +Before he recovered his breath and self-possession she was at his side +with the flowers she had hastily plucked--scarlet geranium, heliotrope, +sweet alyssum, the gorgeous yellow and orange poppy, and the lovely blue +and white lupine. He received them with a listless smile and laid them +upon his knee; as he bade her again to eat the strawberries she brought +them to his side, now and then coaxing a "particularly splendid" one into +his mouth, pressing them between his lips with her stained fingers. + +"Papa, your eyes shine to-day! You are almost well. Nurse doesn't know." + +"What does Nurse say?" + +"That you will die soon; and then where shall I go?" + +"Would you like to know where you will go?" + +"I don't want to go anywhere; I want to stay here with you." + +"But that is impossible, Jerrie." + +"Why! Who says so?" she questioned, fixing her wondering eyes on his. + +"God," he answered solemnly. + +"Does he know all about it?" + +"Yes." + +"Has it _got_ to be so, then?" she asked, awed. + +"Yes." + +"Well, what is the rest, then?" + +"Sit down and I'll tell you." + +"I'd rather stand, please. I never like to sit down." + +"Stand still then, dear, and lean on the arm of my chair and not on me; +you take my breath away," + +"Poor papa! Am I so big? As big as a sea lion?" + +Not heeding her--more than half the time he heard her voice without +heeding her words--he turned the sheets in his fingers, lifted them as if +to read them and then dropped his hand. + +"Jerrie, what have I told you about Uncle John who lives near the other +ocean?" + +Jerrie thought a moment: "That he is good and will love me dearly, and be +ever so kind to me and teach me things?" + +"And Prue, Aunt Prue; what do you know about her?" + +"I know I have some of her name, not all, for her name is Pomeroy; and +she is as beautiful as a queen and as good; and she will love me more +than Uncle John will, and teach me how to be a lovely lady, too." + +"Yes, that is all true; one of these letters is from her, written to +you--" + +"Oh, to me! to _me_." + +"I will read it to you presently." + +"I know which is hers, the thin paper and the writing that runs along." + +"And the other is from Uncle John." + +"To me?" she queried. + +"No, this is mine, but I will read it to you. First I want to tell you +about Aunt Prue's home." + +"Is it like this? near the sea? and can I play on the beach and see the +lions?" + +"It is near the sea, but it is not like this; her home is in a city by +the sea. The house is a large house. It was painted dark brown, years +ago, with red about the window frames, and the yard in front was full of +flowers that Aunt Prue had the care of, and the yard at the back was deep +and wide with maples in it and a swing that she used to love to swing in; +she was almost like a little girl then herself." + +"She isn't like a little girl now, is she?" + +"No, she is grown up like that lady on the beach with the children; but +she describes herself to you and promises to send her picture!" + +"Oh, good!" exclaimed the child, dancing around the chair, and coming +back to stand quietly at her father's side. + +"What is the house like inside? Like this house?" + +"No, not at all. There is a wide, old-fashioned hall, with a dark carpet +in it and a table and several chairs, and engravings on the walls, and +a broad staircase that leads to large, pleasant rooms above; and there is +a small room on the top of the house where you can go up and see vessels +entering the harbor. Down-stairs the long parlor is the room that I know +best; that had a dark carpet and dark paper on the walls and many +windows, windows in front and back and two on the side, there were +portraits over the mantel of her father and mother, and other pictures +around everywhere, and a piano that she loved to play for her father on, +and books in book cases, and, in winter, plants; it was not like any one +else's parlor, for her father liked to sit there and she brought in +everything that would please him. Her father was old like me, and sick, +and she was a dear daughter like you." + +"Did he die?" she asked. + +"Yes, he died. He died sooner than he would have died because some one he +thought a great deal of did something very wicked and almost killed his +daughter with grief. How would I feel if some one should make you so +unhappy and I could not defend you and had to die and leave you alone." + +"Would you want to kill him--the man that hurt me?" + +But his eyes were on the water and not on her face; his countenance +became ashy, he gasped and hurried his handkerchief to his lips. Jeroma +was not afraid of the bright spots that he sought to conceal by crumpling +the handkerchief in his hand, she had known a long time that when her +father was excited those red spots came on his handkerchief. She knew, +too, that the physician had said that when he began to cough he would +die, but she had never heard him cough very much, and could not believe +that he must ever die. + +"Papa, what became of the man that hurt Aunt Prue and made her father +die?" + +"He lived and was the unhappiest wretch in existence. But Aunt Prue tried +to forgive him, and she used to pray for him as she always had done +before. Jerrie, when you go to Aunt Prue I want you to take her name, +your own name, Prudence, and I will begin to-day to call you 'Prue,' so +that you may get used to it." + +"Oh, will you?" she cried in her happy voice. "I don't like to be +'Jerrie,' like the boy that takes care of the horses. When Mr. Pierce +calls so loud 'Jerry!' I'm always afraid he means me; but Nurse says that +Jerry has a _y_ in it and mine is _ie_, but it sounds like my name all +the time. But Prue is soft like Pussy and I like it. What made you ever +call me Jerrie, papa?" + +"Because your mamma named you after my name, Jerome. We used to call you +Roma, but that was long for a baby, so we began to call you Jerrie." + +"I like it, papa, because it is your name, and I could tell the girls at +Aunt Prue's that it is my father's name, and then I would be proud and +not ashamed." + +"No, dear, always write it Prudence Holmes--forget that you had any other +name. It is so uncommon that people would ask how you came by it and then +they would know immediately who your father was." + +"But I like to tell them who my father was. Do people know you in Aunt +Prue's city?" + +"Yes, they knew me once and they are not likely to forget. Promise me, +Jerrie--Prue, that you will give up your first name." + +"I don't like to, now I must, but I will, papa, and I'll tell Aunt Prue +you liked her name best, shall I?" + +"Yes, tell her all I've been telling you--always tell her +everything--never do anything that you cannot tell her--and be sure to +tell her if any one speaks to you about your father, and she will talk +to you about it." + +"Yes, papa," promised the child in an uncomprehending tone. + +"Does Nurse teach you a Bible verse every night as I asked her to do?" + +"Oh, yes, and I like some of them. The one last night was about a name! +Perhaps it meant Prue was a good name." + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"'A good name--a good name--'" she repeated, with her eyes on the floor +of the veranda, "and then something about riches, great riches, but I do +forget so. Shall I run and ask her, papa?" + +"No, I learned it when I was a boy: 'A good name is rather to be chosen +than great riches.' Is that it?" + +"Yes, that's it: 'A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.' +I shan't forget next time; I'll think about your name, Jerome, papa; that +is a good name, but I don't see how it is better than _great_ riches, do +you?" + +The handkerchief was nervously at his lips again, and the child waited +for him to speak. + +"Jerrie, I have no money to leave you, it will all be gone by the time +you and Nurse are safe at Aunt Prue's. Everything you have will come from +her; you must always thank her very much for doing so much for you, and +thank Uncle John and be very obedient to him." + +"Will he make me do what I don't want to?" she asked, her lips pouting +and her eyes moistening. + +"Not unless it is best, and now you must promise me never to disobey him +or Aunt Prue. Promise, Jerrie." + +But Jerrie did not like to promise. She moved her feet uneasily, she +scratched on the arm of his chair with a pin that she had picked up on +the floor of the veranda; she would not lift her eyes nor speak. She did +not love to be obedient; she loved to be queen in her own little realm of +Self. + +"Papa is dying--he will soon go away, and his little daughter will not +promise the last thing he asks of her?" + +Instantly, in a flood of penitent tears, her arms were flung about his +neck and she was promising over and over, "I will, I will," and sobbing +on his shoulder. + +He suffered the embrace for a few moments and then pushed her gently +aside. + +"Papa is tired now, dear. I want to teach you a Bible verse, that you +must never, never forget: 'The way of the transgressor is hard.' Say it +after me." + +The child brushed her tears away and stood upright. + +"The way of the transgressor is hard," she repeated in a sobbing voice. + +"Repeat it three times." + +She repeated it three times slowly. + +"Tell Uncle John and Aunt Prue that that was the last thing I taught you, +will you?" + +"Yes, papa," catching her breath with a little sob. + +"And now run away and come back in a hour and I will read the letters to +you. Ask Nurse to tell you when it is an hour." + +The child skipped away, and before many minutes he heard her laughing +with the children on the beach. With the letters in his hand, and the +crumpled handkerchief with the moist red spots tucked away behind him in +the chair, he leaned back and closed his eyes. His breath came easily +after a little time and he dozed and dreamed. He was a boy again and it +was a moonlight night, snow was on the ground, and he was walking home +from town besides his oxen; he had sold the load of wood that he had +started with before daylight; he had eaten his two lunches of bread and +salt beef and doughnuts, and now, cold and tired and sleepy, he was +walking back home at the side of his oxen. The stars were shining, the +ground was as hard as stone beneath his tread, the oxen labored on +slowly, it seemed as if he would never get home. His mother would have a +hot supper for him, and the boys would ask what the news was, and what +he had seen, and his little sister would ask if he had bought that piece +of ginger bread for her. He stirred and the papers rustled in his fingers +and there was a harsh sound somewhere as of a bolt grating, and his cell +was small and the bed so narrow, so narrow and so hard, and he was +suffocating and could not get out. + +"Papa! papa! It's an hour," whispered a voice in his ear. The eyelids +quivered, the eyes looked straight at her but did not see her. + +"Ah Sing! Ah Sing! Get me to bed!" he groaned. + +Frightened at the expression of his face the child ran to call Nurse and +her father's man, Ah Sing. Nurse kept her out of her father's chamber all +that day, but she begged for her letter and Nurse gave it to her. She +carried it in her hand that day and the next, at night keeping it under +her pillow. + +Before many days the strange uncle came and he led her in to her father +and let her kiss his hand, and afterward he read Aunt Prue's soiled +letter to her and told her that she and Nurse were going to Aunt Prue's +home next week. + +"Won't you go, too?" she asked, clinging to him as no one had ever clung +to him before. + +"No, I must stay here all winter--I shall come to you some time." + +She sobbed herself to sleep in his arms, with the letter held fast in her +hand; he laid her on her bed, pressing his lips to her warm, wet face, +and then went down and out on the beach, pacing up and down until the +dawn was in the sky. + + + + +XVI. + +MAPLE STREET. + +"Work for some good, be it ever so slowly."--_Mrs. Osgood_. + + +The long room with its dark carpet and dark walls was in twilight, in +twilight and in firelight, for without the rain was falling steadily, and +in the old house fires were needed early in the season. In the time of +which little Jeroma had heard, there had been a fire on the hearth in the +front parlor, but to-night, when that old time was among the legends, the +fire glowed in a large grate; in the back parlor the heat came up through +the register. Miss Prudence had a way of designating the long apartment +as two rooms, for there was an arch in the centre, and there were two +mantels and two fireplaces. Prue's father would have said to-night that +the old room was unchanged--nothing had been taken out and nothing new +brought in since that last night that he had seen the old man pacing up +and down, and the old man's daughter whirling around on the piano stool, +as full of hope and trust and enthusiasm as ever a girl could be. + +But to-night there was a solitary figure before the fire, with no +memories and no traditions to disturb her dreaming, with no memories of +other people's past that is, for there was a sad memory or a foreboding +in the very droop of her shoulders and in her listless hands. The small, +plump figure was arrayed in school attire of dark brown, with linen +collar and cuffs, buttoned boots resting on the fender, and a black silk +apron with pockets; there were books and a slate upon the rug, and a +slate pencil and lead pencil in one of the apron pockets; a sheet of note +paper had slipped from her lap down to the rug, on the sheet of paper was +a half-finished letter beginning: "Dear Morris." There was nothing in the +letter worth jotting down, she wondered why she had ever begun it. She +was nestling down now with her head on the soft arm of the chair, her +eyes were closed, but she was not asleep, for the moisture beneath the +tremulous eyelids had formed itself into two large drops and was slowly +rolling, unheeded, down her cheeks. + +The rain was beating noisily upon the window panes, and the wind was +rising higher and higher; as it lulled for a moment there was the sound +of a footfall on the carpet somewhere and the door was pushed open from +the lighted hall. + +"Don't you want to be lighted up yet, Miss Marjorie?" + +"No, Deborah, thank you! I'll light the lamps myself." + +"Young things like to sit in the dark, I guess," muttered old Deborah, +closing the door softly; adding to herself: "Miss Prudence used to, once +on a time, and this girl is coming to it." + +After that for a little time there was no sound, save the sound of the +rain, and, now and then, the soft sigh that escaped Marjorie's lips. + +How strange it was, she reasoned with herself, for her to care at all! +What if Hollis did not want to answer that last letter of hers, written +more than two months ago, just after Linnet's wedding day? That had been +a long letter; perhaps too long. But she had been so lonesome, missing +everybody. Linnet, and Morris, and Mr. Holmes, and Miss Prudence had gone +to her grandfather's for the sea bathing, and the girl had come to help +her mother, and she had walked over to his mother's and talked about +everything to her and then written that long letter to him, that long +letter that had been unanswered so long. When his letter was due she had +expected it, as usual, and had walked to the post-office, the two miles +and a half, for the sake of the letter and having something to do. She +could not believe it when the postmaster handed her only her father's +weekly paper, she stood a moment, and then asked, "Is that all?" And the +next week came, and the next, and the next, and no letter from him; and +then she had ceased, with a dull sense of loss and disappointment, to +expect any answer at all. Her mother inquired briskly every day if her +letter had come and urged her to write a note asking if he had received +it, for he might be waiting for it all this time, but shyness and pride +forbade that, and afterward his mother called and spoke of something +that he must have read in that letter. She felt how she must have +colored, and was glad that her father called her, at that moment, to help +him shell corn for the chickens. + +When she returned to the house, brightened up and laughing, her mother +told her that Mrs. Rheid had said that Hollis had begun to write to her +regularly and she was so proud of it. "She says it is because you are +going away and he wants her to hear directly from him; I guess, too, it's +because he's being exercised in his mind and thinks he ought to have +written oftener before; she says her hand is out of practice and the +Cap'n hates to write letters and only writes business letters when it's a +force put. I guess she will miss you, Marjorie." + +Marjorie thought to herself that she would. + +But Marjorie's mother did not repeat all the conversation; she did not +say that she had followed her visitor to the gate and after glancing +around to be sure that Marjorie was not near had lowered her voice and +said: + +"But I do think it is a shame, Mis' Rheid, for your Hollis to treat my +Marjorie so! After writing to her four years to give her the slip like +this! And the girl takes on about it, I can see it by her looks, although +she's too proud to say a word." + +"I'm sure I'm sorry," said Mrs. Rheid. "Hollis wouldn't do a mean thing." + +"I don't know what you call this, then," Marjorie's mother had replied +spiritedly as she turned towards the house. + +Mrs. Rheid pondered night and day before she wrote to Hollis what +Marjorie's mother had said; but he never answered that part of the +letter, and his mother never knew whether she had done harm or good. Poor +little Marjorie could have told her, with an indignation that she would +have been frightened at; but Marjorie never knew. I'm afraid she would +not have felt like kissing her mother good-night if she had known it. + +Her father looked grave and anxious that night when her mother told him, +as in duty bound she was to tell him everything, how she was arranging +things for Marjorie's comfort. + +"That was wrong, Sarah, that was wrong," he said. + +"How wrong? I don't see how it was wrong?" she had answered sharply. + +"Then I cannot explain to you, Marjorie isn't hurt any; I don't believe +she cares half as much as you do?" + +"You don't know; you don't see her all the time." + +"She misses Linnet and Morris, and perhaps she grieves about going away. +You remind me of some one in the Bible--a judge. He had thirty sons and +thirty daughters and he got them all married! It's well for your peace of +mind that you have but two." + +"It's no laughing matter," she rejoined. + +"No, it is not," he sighed, for he understood Marjorie. + +How the tears would have burned dry on Marjorie's indignant cheeks had +she surmised one tithe of her mother's remonstrance and defence; it is +true she missed his letters, and she missed writing her long letters to +him, but she did not miss him as she would have missed Morris had some +misunderstanding come between them. She was full of her home and her +studies, and she felt herself too young to think grown-up thoughts and +have grown-up experiences; she felt herself to be so much younger +than Linnet. But her pride was touched, simple-hearted as she was she +wanted Hollis to care a little for her letters. She had tried to please +him and to be thoughtful about his mother and grandmother; and this was +not a pleasant ending. Her mother had watched her, she was well aware, +and she was glad to come away with Miss Prudence to escape her mother's +keen eyes. Her father had kissed her tenderly more than once, as though +he were seeking to comfort her for something. It was _such_ a relief--and +she drew a long breath as she thought of it--to be away from both, and to +be with Miss Prudence, who never saw anything, or thought anything, or +asked any questions. A few tears dropped slowly as she cuddled in the +chair with her head on its arm, she hardly knew why; because she was +alone, perhaps, and Linnet was so far off, and it rained, and Miss +Prudence and her little girl might not come home to-night, and, it might +be, because Miss Prudence had another little girl to love. + +Miss Prudence had gone to New York, a week ago, to meet the child and to +visit the Rheids. The nurse had relatives in the city and preferred to +remain with them, but Prue would be ready to come home with Miss +Prudence, and it was possible that they might come to-night. + +The house had been so lonely with old Deborah it was no wonder that she +began to cry! And, it was foolish to remember that Holland plate in Mrs. +Harrowgate's parlor that she had seen to-day when she had stopped after +school on an errand for Miss Prudence. What a difference it had made to +her that it was that plate on the bracket and not that yellow pitcher. +The yellow pitcher was in fragments now up in the garret; she must show +it to Prue some rainy day and tell her about what a naughty little girl +she had been that day. + +That resolution helped to shake off her depression, she roused herself, +went to the window and looked out into darkness, and then sauntered as +far as the piano and seated herself to play the march that Hollis liked; +Napoleon crossing the Alps. But scarcely had she touched the keys before +she heard voices out in the rain and feet upon the piazza. + +Deborah's old ears had caught an earlier sound, and before Marjorie could +rush out the street door was opened and the travellers were in the hall. + +Exclamations and warm embraces, and then Marjorie drew the little one +into the parlor and before the fire. The child stood with her grave eyes +searching out the room, and when the light from the bronze lamp on the +centre table flashed out upon everything she walked up and down the +length of the apartment, stopping now and then to look curiously at +something. + +Marjorie smiled and thought to herself that she was a strange little +creature. + +"It's just as papa said," she remarked, coming to the rug, her survey +being ended. The childishness and sweet gravity of her tone were +striking. + +Marjorie removed the white hood that she had travelled from California +in, and, brushing back the curls that shone in the light like threads of +gold, kissed her forehead and cheeks and rosy lips. + +"I am your Cousin Marjorie, and you are my little cousin." + +"I like you, Cousin Marjorie," the child said. + +"Of course you do, and I love you. Are you Prue, or Jeroma?" + +"I'm Prue," she replied with dignity. "Don't you _ever_ call me Jeroma +again, ever; papa said so." + +Marjorie laughed and kissed her again. + +"I never, never will," she promised. + +"Aunt Prue says 'Prue' every time." + +Marjorie unbuttoned the gray cloak and drew off the gray gloves; Prue +threw off the cloak and then lifted her foot for the rubber to be pulled +off. + +"I had no rubbers; Aunt Prue bought these in New York." + +"Aunt Prue is very kind," said Marjorie, as the second little foot was +lifted. + +"Does she buy you things, too?" asked Prue. + +"Yes, ever and ever so many things." + +"Does she buy _everybody_ things?" questioned Prue, curiously. + +"Yes," laughed Marjorie; "she's everybody's aunt." + +"No, I don't buy everybody things. I buy things for you and Marjorie +because you are both my little girls." + +Turning suddenly Marjorie put both arms about Miss Prudence's neck: "I've +missed you, dreadfully, Miss Prudence; I almost cried to-night." + +"So that is the story I find in your eyes. But you haven't asked me the +news." + +"You haven't seen mother, or Linnet, or Morris,--they keep my news for +me." But she flushed as she spoke, reproaching herself for not being +quite sincere. + +Prue stood on the hearth rug, looking up at the portrait of the lady over +the mantel. + +"Don't pretend that you don't want to hear that Nannie Rheid has put +herself through," began Miss Prudence in a lively voice, "crammed to the +last degree, and has been graduated a year in advance of time that she +may be married this month. Her father was inexorable, she must be +graduated first, and she has done it at seventeen, so he has had to +redeem his promise and allow her to be married. Her 'composition'--that +is the old-fashioned name--was published in one of the literary weeklies, +and they all congratulate themselves and each other over her success. But +her eyes are big, and she looks as delicate as a wax lily; she is all +nerves, and she laughs and talks as though she could not stop herself. +What do you think of her as a school girl triumph?" + +"It isn't tempting. I like myself better. I want to be _slow_. Miss +Prudence, I don't want to hurry anything." + +"I approve of you, Marjorie. Now what is this little girl thinking +about?" + +"Is that your mamma up there?" + +"Yes." + +"She looks like you." + +"Yes, I am like her; but there is no white in her hair. It is all black, +Prue." + +"I like white in hair for old ladies." + +Marjorie laughed and Miss Prudence smiled. She was glad that being called +"an old lady" could strike somebody as comical. + +"Was papa in this room a good many times?" + +"Yes, many times." + +Miss Prudence could speak to his child without any sigh in her voice. + +"Do you remember the last time he was here?" + +"Yes," very gently. + +"He said I would like your house and I do." + +"Nannie is to marry one of Helen's friends, Marjorie; her mother thought +he used to care for Helen, but Nannie is like her." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "I remember. Hollis told me." + +"And my best news is about Hollis. He united with the Church a week or +two ago; Mrs. Rheid says he is the happiest Christian she ever saw. He +says he has not been _safe_ since Helen died--he has been thinking ever +since." + +Tears were so near to Marjorie's eyes that they brimmed over; could she +ever thank God enough for this? others may have been praying for him, +but she knew her years of prayers were being answered. She would never +feel sorrowful or disappointed about any little thing again, for what +had she so longed for as this? How rejoiced his mother must be! Oh, that +she might write to him and tell him how glad she was! But she could not +do that. She could tell God how glad she was, and if Hollis never knew it +would not matter. + +"In the spring he is to go to Europe for the firm." + +"He will like that," said Marjorie, finding her voice. + +"He is somebody to be depended on. But there is the tea-bell, and my +little traveller is hungry, for she would not eat on the train and I +tempted her with fruit and crackers." + +"Aunt Prue, I _like_ it here. May I see up stairs, too?" + +"You must see the supper table first. And then Marjorie may show you +everything while I write to Uncle John, to tell him that our little bird +has found her nest." + +Marjorie gave up her place that night in the wide, old-fashioned mahogany +bedstead beside Miss Prudence and betook herself to the room that opened +out of Miss Prudence's, a room with handsome furniture in ash, the +prevailing tint of the pretty things being her favorite shade of light +blue. + +"That is a maiden's room," Miss Prudence had said; "and when Prue has a +maiden's room it shall be in rose." + +Marjorie was not jealous, as she had feared she might be, of the little +creature who nestled close to Miss Prudence; she felt that Miss Prudence +was being comforted in the child. She was too happy to sleep that night. +In the years afterward she did not leave Hollis out of her prayers, but +she never once thought to pray that he might be brought back again to be +her friend. Her prayer for him had been answered and with that she was +well content. + + + + +XVII. + +MORRIS. + +"What I aspired to be comforts me."--_Browning_. + + +It was late one evening in November; Prue had kissed them both good-night +and ran laughing up the broad staircase to bed; Miss Prudence had +finished her evening's work and evening's pleasure, and was now sitting +opposite Marjorie, near the register in the back parlor. A round table +had been rolled up between them upon which the shaded, bronze lamp was +burning, gas not having yet been introduced into old-fashioned Maple +Street. The table was somewhat littered and in confusion, Prue's +stereoscope was there with the new views of the Yosemite at which she had +been looking that evening and asking Aunt Prue numerous questions, among +which was "Shall we go and see them some day? Shall we go everywhere some +day?" Aunt Prue had satisfied her with "Perhaps so, darling," and then +had fallen silently to wondering why she and Prue might not travel some +day, a year in Europe had always been one of her postponed intentions, +and, by and by, how her child would enjoy it. Marjorie's books and +writing desk were on the table also, for she had studied mental +philosophy and chemistry after she had copied her composition and +written a long letter to her mother. Short letters were as truly an +impossibility to Marjorie as short addresses are to some public speeches; +still Marjorie always stopped when she found she had nothing to say. To +her mother, school and Miss Prudence and Prue's sayings and doings were +an endless theme of delight. Not only did she take Marjoire's letters to +her old father and mother, but she more than a few times carried them in +her pocket when she visited Mrs. Rheid, that she might read them aloud to +her. Miss Prudence's work was also on the table, pretty sewing for Prue +and her writing materials, for it was the night for her weekly letter to +John Holmes. Mr. Holmes did not parade his letters before the neighbors, +but none the less did he pore over them and ponder them. For whom had he +in all the world to love save little Prue and Aunt Prue? + +Marjorie had closed the chemistry with a sigh, reserving astronomy for +the fresher hour of the morning. With the burden of the unlearned lesson +on her mind she opened her Bible for her usual evening reading, shrinking +from it with a distaste that she had felt several times of late and that +she had fought against and prayed about. Last evening she had compelled +herself to read an extra chapter to see if she might not read herself +into a comfortable frame of mind, and then she had closed the book with a +sigh of relief, feeling that this last task of the day was done. To-night +she fixed her eyes upon the page awhile and then dropped the book into +her lap with a weary gesture that was not unnoticed by the eyes that +never lost anything where Marjorie was concerned. It was something new to +see a fretful or fretted expression upon Marjorie's lips, but it was +certainly there to-night and Miss Prudence saw it; it might be also in +her eyes, but, if it were, the uneasy eyelids were at this moment +concealing it. "The child is very weary to-night," Miss Prudence thought, +and wondered if she were allowing her, in her ambition, to take too much +upon herself. Music, with the two hours a day practicing that she +resolutely never omitted, all the school lessons, reading and letters, +and the conscientious preparation of her lesson for Bible class, was most +assuredly sufficient to tax her mental and physical strength, and there +was the daily walk of a mile to and from school, and other things +numberless to push themselves in for her comfort and Prue's. But her step +was elastic, her color as pretty as when she worked in the kitchen at +home, and when she came in from school she was always ready for a romp +with Prue before she sat down to practice. + +When summer came the garden and trips to the islands would be good for +both her children. Miss Prudence advocated the higher education for +girls, but if Marjorie's color had faded or her spirits flagged she would +have taken her out of school and set her to household tasks and to walks +and drives. Had she not taken Linnet home after her three years course +with the country color fresh in her cheeks and her step as light upon the +stair as when she left home? + +The weariness had crept into Marjorie's face since she closed her books; +it was not when she opened the Bible. Was the child enduring any +spiritual conflicts again? Linnet had never had spiritual conflicts; what +should she do with this too introspective Marjorie? Would Prue grow up to +ask questions and need just such comforting, too? Miss Prudence's own +evening's work had begun with her Bible reading, she read and meditated +all the hour and a quarter that Marjorie was writing her letter (they had +supper so early that their evenings began at half-past six), she had read +with eagerness and a sense of deep enjoyment and appreciation. + +"It is so good," she had exclaimed as she laid the Bible aside, and +Marjorie had raised her head at the exclamation and asked what was so +good. "Peter's two letters to the Church and to me." + +Without replying Marjorie had dipped her pen again and written: "Miss +Prudence is more and more of a saint every day." + +"Marjorie, it's a snow storm." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, not opening her eyes. + +Miss Prudence looked at the bronze clock on the mantel; it was ten +o'clock. Marjorie should have been asleep an hour ago. + +Miss Prudence's fur-trimmed slippers touched the toe of Marjorie's +buttoned boot, they were both resting on the register. + +"Marjorie, I don't know what I am thinking of to let you sit up so late; +I shall have to send you upstairs with Prue after this. Linnet's hour was +nine o'clock when she was studying, and look at her and Nannie Rheid." + +"But I'm not getting through to be married, as Linnet was." + +"How do you know?" asked Miss Prudence. + +"Not intentionally, then," smiled Marjorie, opening her eyes this time. + +"I'm not the old maid that eschews matrimony; all I want is to choose for +you and Prue." + +"Not yet, please," said Marjorie, lifting her hands in protest. + +"What is it that tires you so to-night? School? + +"No," answered Marjorie, sitting upright; "school sits as lightly on my +shoulders as that black lace scarf you gave me yesterday; it is because I +grow more and more wicked every night. I am worse than I was last night. +I tried to read in the Bible just now and I did not care for it one bit, +or understand it one bit; I began to think I never should find anything +to do me good in Malachi, or in any of the old prophets." + +"Suppose you read to me awhile--not in the Bible, but in your +Sunday-school book. You told Prue that it was fascinating. 'History of +the Reformation,' isn't it?" + +"To-night? O, Aunt Prue, I'm too tired." + +"Well, then, a chapter of Walter Scott, that will rest you." + +"No, it won't; I wouldn't understand a word." + +"'The Minister's Wooing' then; you admire Mrs. Stowe so greatly." + +"I don't admire her to-night, I'm afraid. Aunt Prue, even a startling +ring at the door bell will not wake me up." + +"Suppose I play for you," suggested Miss Prudence, gravely. + +"I thought you wanted me to go to bed," said Marjorie, suppressing her +annoyance as well as she could. + +"Just see, child; you are too worn out for all and any of these things +that you usually take pleasure in, and yet you take up the Bible and +expect to feel devotional and be greatly edified, even to find that +Malachi has a special message for you. And you berate yourself for +hardheartedness and coldheartedness. When you are so weary, don't you see +that your brain refuses to think?" + +"Do you mean that I ought to read only one verse and think that enough? +Oh, if I might." + +"Have you taken more time than that would require for other things +to-day?" + +"Why, yes," said Marjorie, looking surprised. + +"Then why should you give God's book just half a minute, or not so long, +and Wayland and Legendre and every body else just as much time as the +length of your lesson claims? Could you make anything of your astronomy +now?" + +"No, I knew I could not, and that is why I am leaving it till morning." + +"Suppose you do not study it at all and tell Mr. McCosh that you were too +tired to-night." + +"He would not accept such an excuse. He would ask why I deferred it so +long. He would think I was making fun of him to give him such an excuse. +I wouldn't dare." + +"But you go to God and offer him your evening sacrifice with eyes so +blind that they cannot see his words, and brain so tired that it can find +no meaning in them. Will he accept an excuse that you are ashamed to give +your teacher?" + +"No," said Marjorie, looking startled. "I will read, and perhaps I can +think now." + +But Miss Prudence was bending towards her and taking the Bible from her +lap. + +"Let me find something for you in Malachi." + +"And help me understand," said Marjorie. + +After a moment Miss Prudence read aloud: + +"'And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if ye +offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor; +will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of +hosts.'" + +Closing the book she returned it to Marjorie's lap. + +"You mean that God will not accept my excuse for not feeling like reading +to-night?" + +"You said that Mr. McCosh would not accept such an excuse for your +astronomy." + +"Miss Prudence!" Marjorie was wide awake now. "You mean that I should +read early in the evening as you do! Is _that_ why you always read before +you do anything else in the evening?" + +"It certainly is. I tried to give my blind, tired hours to God and found +that he did not accept--for I had no blessing in reading; I excused +myself on your plea, I was too weary, and then I learned to give him my +best and freshest time." + +There was no weariness or frettedness in Marjorie's face now; the heart +rest was giving her physical rest. "I will begin to-morrow night--I can't +begin to-night--and read the first thing as you do. I am almost through +the Old Testament; how I shall enjoy beginning the New! Miss Prudence, +is it so about praying, too?" + +"What do you think?" + +"I know it is. And that is why my prayers do not comfort me, sometimes. I +mean, the short prayers do; but I do want to pray about so many things, +and I am really too tired when I go to bed, sometimes I fall asleep when +I am not half through. Mother used to tell Linnet and me that we oughtn't +to talk after we said our prayers, so we used to talk first and put our +prayers off until the last thing, and sometimes we were so sleepy we +hardly knew what we were saying." + +"This plan of early reading and praying does not interfere with prayer at +bedtime, you know; as soon as my head touches the pillow I begin to pray, +I think I always fall asleep praying, and my first thought in the morning +is prayer. My dear, our best and freshest, not our lame and blind, belong +to God." + +"Yes," assented Marjorie in a full tone. "Aunt Prue, O, Aunt Prue what +would I do without you to help me." + +"God would find you somebody else; but I'm very glad he found me for +you." + +"I'm more than glad," said Marjorie, enthusiastically. + +"It's a real snow storm," Miss Prudence went to the window, pushed the +curtain aside, and looked out. + +"It isn't as bad as the night that Morris came to me when I was alone. +Mr. Holmes did not come for two days and it was longer than that before +father and mother could come. What a grand time we had housekeeping! It +is time for the _Linnet_ to be in. I know Morris will come to see us as +soon as he can get leave. Linnet will be glad to go to her pretty little +home; the boy on the farm is to be there nights, mother said, and Linnet +will not mind through the day. Mother Rheid, as Linnet says, will run +over every day, and Father Rheid, too, I suspect. They _love_ Linnet." + +"Marjorie, if I hadn't had you I believe I should have been content with +Linnet, she is so loving." + +"And if you hadn't Prue you would be content with me!" laughed Marjorie, +and just then a strong pull at the bell sent it ringing through the +house, Marjorie sprang to her feet and Miss Prudence moved towards the +door. + +"I feel in my bones that it's somebody," cried Marjorie, following her +into the hall. + +"I don't believe a ghost could give a pull like that," answered Miss +Prudence, turning the big key. + +And a ghost certainly never had such laughing blue eyes or such light +curls sprinkled with snow and surmounted by a jaunty navy-blue sailor +cap, and a ghost never could give such a spring and catch Marjorie in its +arms and rub its cold cheeks against her warm ones. + +"O, Morris," Marjorie cried, "it's like that other night when you came in +the snow! Only I'm not frightened and alone now. This is such a surprise! +Such a splendid surprise." + +Marjorie was never shy with Morris, her "twin-brother" as she used to +call him. + +But the next instant she was escaping out of his arms and fleeing back to +the fire. Miss Prudence and Morris followed more decorously. + +"Now tell us all about it," Marjorie cried, stepping about upon the rug +and on the carpet. "And where is Linnet? And when did you get in? And +where's Will? And why didn't Linnet come with you?" + +"Because I didn't want to be overshadowed; I wanted a welcome all my own. +And Linnet is at home under her mother's sheltering wing--as I ought to +be under my mother's, instead of being here under yours. Will is on board +the _Linnet_, another place where I ought to be this minute; and we +arrived day before yesterday in New York, where we expect to load for +Liverpool, I took the captain's wife home, and then got away from Mother +West on the plea that I must see my own mother as soon as time and tide +permitted; but to my consternation I found every train stopped at the +foot of Maple Street, so I had to stop, instead of going through as I +wanted to." + +"That is a pity," said Marjorie; "but we'll send you off to your mother +to-morrow. Now begin at the beginning and tell me everything that you and +Linnet didn't write about." + +"But, first--a moment, Marjorie. Has our traveller had his supper?" +interposed Miss Prudence. + +"Yes, thank you, I had supper, a very early one, with Linnet and Mother +West; Father West had gone to mill, and didn't we turn the house upside +down when he came into the kitchen and found us. Mother West kept wiping +her eyes and Linnet put her arms around her father's neck and really +cried! She said she knew she wasn't behaving 'marriedly,' but she was so +glad she couldn't help it." + +"Dear old Linnet," ejaculated Marjorie. "When is she coming to see us?" + +"As soon as Mother West and Mother Rheid let her! I imagine the scene at +Captain Rheid's tomorrow! Linnet is 'wild,' as you girls say, to see her +house, and I don't know as she can tear herself away from that kitchen +and new tinware, and she's fairly longing for washday to come that she +may hang her new clothes on her new clothes line." + +"Oh, I wish I could go and help her!" cried Marjorie. "Miss Prudence, +that little house does almost make me want to go to housekeeping! Just +think of getting dinner with all her new things, and setting the table +with those pretty white dishes." + +"Now, Marjorie, I've caught you," laughed Morris. "That is a concession +from the girl that cared only for school books." + +"I do care for school books, but that house is the temptation." + +"I suppose another one wouldn't be." + +"There isn't another one like that--outside of a book." + +"Oh, if you find such things, in books, I won't veto the books; but, Miss +Prudence, I'm dreadfully afraid of our Marjorie losing herself in a Blue +Stocking." + +"She never will, don't fear!" reassured Miss Prudence. "She coaxes me to +let her sew for Prue, and I found her in the kitchen making cake last +Saturday afternoon." + +Miss Prudence was moving around easily, giving a touch to something here +and there, and after closing the piano slipped away; and, before they +knew it, they were alone, standing on the hearth rug looking gravely and +almost questioningly into each others' eyes. Marjorie smiled, remembering +the quarrel of that last night; would he think now that she had become +too much like Miss Prudence,--Miss Prudence, with her love of literature, +her ready sympathy and neat, housewifely ways, Prue did not know which +she liked better, Aunt Prue's puddings or her music. + +The color rose in Morris' face, Marjorie's lip trembled slightly. She +seated herself in the chair she had been occupying and asked Morris to +make himself at home in Miss Prudence's chair directly opposite. He +dropped into it, threw his head back and allowed his eyes to rove over +everything in the room, excepting that flushed, half-averted face so near +to him. She was becoming like Miss Prudence, he had decided the matter in +the study of these few moments, that attitude when standing was Miss +Prudence's, and her position at this moment, the head a little drooping, +the hands laid together in her lap, was exactly Miss Prudence's; Miss +Prudence's when she was meditating as Marjorie was meditating now. There +was a poise of the head like the elder lady's, and now and then a +stateliness and dignity that were not Marjorie's own when she was his +little friend and companion in work and study at home. In these first +moments he could discern changes better than to-morrow; to-morrow he +would be accustomed to her again; to-morrow he would find the unchanged +little Marjorie that hunted eggs and went after the cows. He could not +explain to himself why he liked that Marjorie better; he could not +explain to himself that he feared Miss Prudence's Marjorie would hold +herself above the second mate of the barque _Linnet_; a second mate whose +highest ambition to become master. Linnet had not held her self above +Captain Will, but Linnet had never loved books as Marjorie did. Morris +was provoked at himself. Did not he love books, and why then should he +quarrel with Marjorie? It was not for loving books, but for loving books +better than--anything! Had Mrs. Browning loved books better than +anything, or Mary Somerville, or Fredrika Bremer?--yes, Fredrika Bremer +had refused to be married, but there was Marjorie's favorite-- + +"Tell me all about Linnet," said Marjorie, breaking the uncomfortable +silence. + +"I have--and she has written." + +"But you never can write all. Did she bring me the branch of mulberry +from Mt. Vesuvius?" + +"Yes, and will bring it to you next week. She said she would come to you +because she was sure you would not want to leave school; and she wants to +see Miss Prudence. I told her she would wish herself a girl again, and it +was dangerous for her to come, but she only laughed. I have brought you +something, too, Marjorie," he said unsteadily. + +But Marjorie ignored it and asked questions about Linnet and her home on +shipboard. + +"Have I changed, Marjorie?" + +"No," she said. "You cannot change for the better, so why should you +change at all?" + +"I don't like that," he returned seriously; "it is rather hard to attain +to perfection before one is twenty-one. I shall have nothing to strive +for. Don't you know the artist who did kill himself, or wanted to, +because he had done his best?" + +"You are perfect as a boy--I mean, there is all manhood left to you," she +answered very gravely. + +He colored again and his blue eyes grew as cold as steel. Had he come to +her to-night in the storm to have his youth thrown up at him? + +"Marjorie, if that is all you have to say to me, I think I might better +go." + +"O, Morris, don't be angry, don't be angry!" she pleaded. "How can I look +up to somebody who was born on my birthday," she added merrily. + +"I don't want you to look up to me; but that is different from looking +down. You want me to tarry at Jericho, I suppose," he said, rubbing his +smooth chin. + +"I want you not to be nonsensical," she replied energetically. + +How that tiny box burned in his pocket! Should he toss it away, that +circlet of gold with _Semper fidelis_ engraved within it? How he used to +write on his slate: "Morris Kemlo, _Semper fidelis_" and she had never +once scorned it, but had written her own name with the same motto beneath +it. But she had given it a higher significance than he had given it; she +had never once thought of it in connection with any human love. + +"How often do you write to Hollis?" he inquired at last. + +"I do not write to him at all," she answered. + +"Why not? Has something happened?" he said, eagerly. + +"I suppose so." + +"Don't you want to tell me? Does it trouble you?" + +"Yes, I want to tell you, I do not think that it troubles me now. He has +never--answered my last letter." + +"Did you quarrel with him?" + +"Oh, no. I may have displeased him, but I have no idea how I did it." + +She spoke very easily, not flushing at all, meeting his eyes frankly; she +was concealing nothing, there was nothing to be concealed. Marjorie was +a little girl still. Was he glad or sorry? Would he find her grown up +when he came back next time? + +"Do you like school as well as you thought you would?" he asked, with a +change of tone. + +He would not be "nonsensical" any longer. + +"Better! A great deal better," she said, enthusiastically. + +"What are you getting ready for?" + +"_Semper fiddelis_. Don't you remember our motto? I am getting ready to +be always faithful. There's so much to be faithful in, Morris. I am +learning new things every day." + +He had no reply at hand. How that innocent ring burned in his pocket! And +he had thought she would accept that motto from him. + +"I am not the first fellow that has gone through this," he comforted +himself grimly. "I will not throw it overboard; she will listen next +time." + +Next time? Ah, poor Morris, if you had known about next time, would you +have spoken to-night? + +"Marjorie, I have something for you, but I would rather not give it to +you to-night," he said with some confusion. + +"Well," she said, quietly, "I can wait." + +"Do you _want_ to wait." + +"Yes. I think I do," she answered deliberately. + +Miss Prudence's step was at the front parlor door. + +"You young folks are not observing the clock, I see. Marjorie must study +astronomy by starlight to-morrow morning, and I am going to send you +upstairs, Morris. But first, shall we have family worship, together? I +like to have a priest in my house when I can." + +She laid Marjorie's Bible in his hand as she spoke. He read a short +Psalm, and then they knelt together. He had grown; Marjorie felt it in +every word of the simple heartfelt prayer. He prayed like one at home +with God. One petition she long remembered: "Lord, when thou takest +anything away from us, fill us the more with thyself." + + + + +XVIII. + +ONE DAY. + +"Education is the apprenticeship of life."--_Willmott._ + + +Marjorie did not study astronomy by starlight, but she awoke very early +and tripped with bare feet over the carpet into Miss Prudence's chamber. +Deborah kindled the wood fire early in Miss Prudence's chamber that Prue +might have a warm room to dress in. It was rarely that Marjorie studied +in the morning, the morning hours were reserved for practicing and for +fun with Prue. She said if she had guessed how delightful it was to have +a little sister she should have been all her life mourning for one. She +almost envied Linnet because she had had Marjorie. + +The fire was glowing in the airtight when she ran into the chamber, there +was a faint light in the east, but the room was so dark that she just +discerned Prue's curls close to the dark head on the pillow and the +little hand that was touching Miss Prudence's cheek. + +"This is the law of compensation," she thought as she busied herself in +dressing; "one has found a mother and the other a little girl! It isn't +quite like the old lady who said that when she had nothing to eat she had +no appetite! I wonder if Miss Prudence has _all_ her compensations!" + +She stepped noiselessly over the stairs, opened the back parlor door, and +by the dim light found a match and lighted the lamp on the centre table. + +Last night had come again. The face of the clock was the only reminder +she had left the room, the face of the clock and a certain alertness +within herself. As she settled herself near the register and took the +astronomy from the pile her eye fell on her Bible, it was on the table +where Morris had laid it last night. Miss Prudence's words came to her, +warningly. Must she also give the fresh hour of her morning to God? The +tempting astronomy was open in her hand at the chapter _Via Lactea._ +She glanced at it and read half a page, then dropped it suddenly and +reached forward for the Bible. She was afraid her thoughts would wander +to the unlearned lesson: in such a frame of mind, would it be an +acceptable offering? But who was accountable for her frame of mind? She +wavered no longer, with a little prayer that she might understand and +enjoy she opened to Malachi, and, reverently and thoughtfully, with no +feeling of being hurried, read the first and second chapters. She thought +awhile about the "blind for sacrifice," and in the second chapter found +words that meant something to her: "My covenant was with him of life and +peace." Life and peace! Peace! Had she ever known anything that was not +peace? + +Before she had taken the astronomy into her hands again the door opened, +as if under protest of some kind, and Morris stood on the threshold, +looking at her with hesitation in his attitude. + +"Come in," she invited, smiling at his attitude. + +"But you don't want to talk." + +"No; I have to study awhile. But you will not disturb; we have studied +often enough together for you to know how I study." + +"I know! Not a word in edgewise." + +Nevertheless he came to the arm-chair he had occupied last night and sat +down. + +"Did you know the master gave me leave to take as many of his books as I +wanted? He says a literary sailor is a novelty." + +"All his books are in boxes in the trunk room on the second floor." + +"I know it. I am going up to look at them. I wish you could read his +letters. He urges me to live among men, not among books; to live out in +the world and mix with men and women; to live a man's life, and not a +hermit's!" + +"Is he a hermit?" + +"Rather. Will, Captain Will, is a man out among men; no hermit or student +about him; but he has read 'Captain Cook's Voyages' with zest and asked +me for something else, so I gave him 'Mutineers of the Bounty' and he did +have a good time over that. Captain Will will miss me when I'm promoted +to be captain." + +"That will not be this voyage." + +"Don't laugh at me. I have planned it all. Will is to have a big New York +ship, an East Indiaman, and I'm to be content with the little _Linnet_." + +"Does he like that?" + +"Of course. He says he is to take Linnet around the world. Now study, +please. _Via Lactea_" he exclaimed, bending forward and taking the book +out of her hand. "What do you know about the Milky Way?" + +"I never shall know anything unless you give me the book." + +"As saucy as ever. You won't dare, some day." + +Marjorie studied, Morris kept his eyes on a book that he did not read; +neither spoke for fully three quarters of an hour. Marjorie studied with +no pretence: Master McCosh had said that Miss West studied in fifteen +minutes to more purpose than any other of her class did in an hour. She +did not study, she was absorbed; she had no existence excepting in the +lesson; just now there had been no other world for her than the wondrous +Milky Way. + +"I shall have Miss West for a teacher," he had told Miss Prudence. +Marjorie wondered if he ever would. Mrs. Browning has told us: + +"Girls would fain know the end of everything." + +And Marjorie would fain have known the end of herself. She would not be +quite satisfied with Miss Prudence's lovely life, even with this +"compensation" of Prue; there was a perfection of symmetry in Miss +Prudence's character that she was aiming at, her character made her +story, but what Marjorie would be satisfied to become she did not fully +define even to Marjorie West. + +"Now, I'm through," she exclaimed, closing the book as an exclamation +point; "but I won't bother you with what I have learned. Master McCosh +knows the face of the sky as well as I know the alphabet. You should have +heard him and seen him one night, pointing here and there and everywhere: +That's Orion, that's Job's coffin, that's Cassiopeia! As fast as he could +speak. That's the Dipper, that's the North Star!" + +"I know them all," said Morris. + +"Why! when did you see them?" + +"In my watches I've plenty of time to look at the stars! I've plenty of +time for thinking!" + +"Have you seen an iceberg?" + +"Yes, one floated down pretty near us going out--the air was chillier and +we found her glittering majesty was the cause of it." + +"Have you seen a whale?" + +"I've seen black fish; they spout like whales." + +"And a nautilus." + +"Yes." + +"And Mother Carey's chickens?" + +"Yes." + +"Morris, I won't tease you with nonsense! What troubles you this +morning?" + +"My mother," he said concisely. + +"Is she ill? Miss Prudence wrote to her last week" + +"Does she ever reply?" + +"I think so. Miss Prudence has not shown me her letters." + +"Poor mother. I suppose so. I'm glad she writes at all. You don't know +what it is to believe that God does not love you; to pray and have no +answer; to be in despair." + +"Oh, dear, no," exclaimed Marjorie, sympathetically. + +"She is sure God has not forgiven her, she weeps and prays and takes no +interest in anything." + +"I should not think she would. I couldn't." + +"She is with Delia now; the girls toss her back one to the other, and +Clara wants to put her into the Old Lady's Home. She is a shadow on the +house--they have no patience with her. They are not Christians, and their +husbands are not--they do not understand; Delia's husband contends that +she is crazy; but she is not, she is only in despair. They say she is no +help, only a hindrance, and they want to get rid of her. She will not +work about the house, she will not sew or help in anything, she says she +cannot read the Bible--" + +"How long since she has felt so?" + +"Two years now. I would not tell you to worry you, but now I must tell +some one, for something must be done. Delia has never been very kind to +her since she was married. I have no home for her; what am I to do? I +could not ask any happy home to take her in; I cannot bear to think of +the Old Lady's Home for her, she will think her children have turned her +off. And the girls have." + +"Ask Miss Prudence what to do," said Marjorie brightly, "she always +knows." + +"I intend to. But she has been so kind to us all. Indeed, that was one of +my motives in coming here. Between themselves the girls may send her +somewhere while I am gone and I want to make that impossible. When I am +captain I will take mother around the world. I will show her how good God +is everywhere. Poor mother! She is one of those bubbling-over +temperaments like Linnet's and when she is down she is all the way down. +Who would have anything to live for if they did not believe in the love +of God? Would I? Would you?" + +"I could not live; I would _die_," said Marjorie vehemently. + +"She does not live, she exists! She is emaciated; sometimes she fasts day +after day until she is too weak to move around--she says she must fast +while she prays. O, Marjorie, I'm sorry to let you know there is such +sorrow in the world." + +"Why should I not know about sorrow?" asked Marjorie, gravely. "Must I +always be joyful?" + +"I want you to be. There is no sorrow like this sorrow. I know something +about it; before I could believe that God had forgiven me I could not +sleep or eat." + +"I always believed it, I think," said Marjorie simply. + +"I want her to be with some one who loves her and understands her; the +girls scold her and find fault with her, and she has been such a good +mother to them; perhaps she let them have their own way too much, and +this is one of the results of it. She has worked while they slept, and +has taken the hardest of everything for them. And now in her sore +extremity they want to send her among strangers. I wish I had a home of +my own. If I can do no better, I will give up my position, and stay on +land and make some kind of a home for her." + +"Oh, not yet. Don't decide so hastily. Tell Miss Prudence. Telling her a +thing is the next best thing to praying about it," said Marjorie, +earnestly. + +"What now?" Miss Prudence asked. "Morris, this girl is an enthusiast!" + +She was standing behind Marjorie's chair and touched her hair as she +spoke. + +"Oh, have you heard it all?" cried Marjorie, springing up. + +"No, I came in this instant; I only heard that Morris must not decide +hastily, but tell me all about it, which is certainly good advice, and +while we are at breakfast Morris shall tell me." + +"I can't, before Prue," said Morris. + +"Then we will have a conference immediately afterward. Deborah's muffins +must not wait or she will be cross, and she has made muffins for me so +many years that I can't allow her to be cross." + +Morris made an attempt to be his usual entertaining self at the breakfast +table, then broke down suddenly. + +"Miss Prudence, I'm so full of something that I can't talk about anything +else." + +"I'm full of something too," announced Prue. "Aunt Prue, when am I going +to Marjorie's school." + +"I have not decided, dear." + +"Won't you please decide now to let me go to-day?" she pleaded. + +Miss Prudence was sure she had never "spoiled" anybody, but she began to +fear that this irresistible little coaxer might prove a notable +exception. + +"I must think about it awhile, little one." + +"Would I like it, Marjorie, at your school?" + +"I am sure of it." + +"I never went to school. The day I went with you it was ever so nice. I +want a copy-book and a pile of books, and I want the girls to call me +'Miss Holmes.'" + +"We can do that," said Miss Prudence, gravely. "Morris, perhaps Miss +Holmes would like another bit of steak." + +"That isn't it," said Prue, shaking her curls. + +"Not genuine enough? How large is your primary class, Marjorie?" + +"Twenty, I think. And they are all little ladies. It seems so comical to +me to hear the girls call the little ones 'Miss.' Alice Dodd is younger +than Prue, and Master McCosh says 'Miss Dodd' as respectfully as though +she were in the senior class." + +"Why shouldn't he?" demanded Prue. "Miss Dodd looked at me in church +Sunday; perhaps I shall sit next to her. Do the little girls come in +your room, Marjorie?" + +"At the opening of school, always, and you could come in at +intermissions. We have five minute intermissions every hour, and an hour +at noon." + +"O, Aunt Prue! When _shall_ I go? I wish I could go to-day! You say I +read almost well enough. Marjorie will not be ashamed of me now." + +"I'd never be ashamed of you," said Marjorie, warmly. + +"Papa said I must not say my name was 'Jeroma,' shall I write it _Prue_ +Holmes, Aunt Prue?" + +"Prue J. Holmes! How would that do?" + +But Miss Prudence spoke nervously and did not look at the child. Would +she ever have to tell the child her father's story? Would going out among +the children hasten that day? + +"I like that," said Prue, contentedly; "because I keep papa's name tucked +in somewhere. _May_ I go to-day, Aunt Prue?" + +"Not yet, dear. Master McCosh knows you are coming by and by. Marjorie +may bring me a list of the books you will need and by the time the +new quarter commences in February you may be able to overtake them if you +study well. I think that will have to do, Prue." + +"I would _rather_ go to-day," sobbed the child, trying to choke the tears +back. Rolling up her napkin hurriedly, she excused herself almost +inaudibly and left the table. + +"Aunt Prue! she'll cry," remonstrated Marjorie. + +"Little girls have to cry sometimes," returned Miss Prudence, her own +eyes suffused. + +"She is not rebellious," remarked Morris. + +"No, never rebellious--not in words; she told me within the first half +hour of our meeting that she had promised papa she would be obedient. +But for that promise we might have had a contest of wills. She will not +speak of school again till February." + +"How she creeps into one's heart," said Morris. + +Miss Prudence's reply was a flash of sunshine through the mist of her +eyes. + +Marjorie excused herself to find Prue and comfort her a little, promising +to ask Aunt Prue to let her go to school with her one day every week, as +a visitor, until the new quarter commenced. + +Miss Prudence was not usually so strict, she reasoned within herself; why +must she wait for another quarter? Was she afraid of the cold for +Prue? She must be waiting for something. Perhaps it was to hear from Mr. +Holmes, Marjorie reasoned; she consulted him with regard to every +new movement of Prue's. She knew that when she wrote to him she called +her "our little girl." + +While Miss Prudence and Morris lingered at the breakfast table they +caught sounds of romping and laughter on the staircase and in the hall +above. + +"Those two are my sunshine," said Miss Prudence. + +"I wish mother could have some of its shining," answered Morris. "My +sisters do not give poor mother much beside the hard side of their own +lives." + +When Miss Prudence's two sunbeams rushed (if sunbeams do rush) into the +back parlor they found her and Morris talking earnestly in low, rather +suppressed tones, Morris seemed excited, there was an air of resolution +about Miss Prudence's attitude that promised Marjorie there would be some +new plan to be talked about that night. There was no stagnation, even in +the monotony of Miss Prudence's little household. Hardly a day passed +that Marjorie did not find her with some new thing to do for somebody +somewhere outside in the ever-increasing circle of her friends. Miss +Prudence's income as well as herself was kept in constant circulation. +Marjorie enjoyed it; it was the ideal with which she had painted the +bright days of her own future. + +But then--Miss Prudence had money, and she would never have money. In a +little old book of Miss Prudence's there was a list of names,--Miss +Prudence had shown it to her,--against several names was written "Gone +home;" against others, "Done;" and against as many as a dozen, "Something +to do." The name of Morris' mother was included in the last. Marjorie +hoped the opportunity to do that something had come at last; but what +could it be? She could not influence Morris' hardhearted sisters to +understand their mother and be tender towards her: even she could not do +that. What would Miss Prudence think of? Marjorie was sure that his +mother would be comforted and Morris satisfied. She hoped Morris would +not have to settle on the "land," he loved the water with such abounding +enthusiasm, he was so ready for his opportunities and so devoted to +becoming a sailor missionary. What a noble boy he was! She had never +loved him as she loved him at this moment, as he stood there in all his +young strength and beauty, willing to give up his own planned life to +serve the mother whom his sisters had cast off. He was like that hero she +had read about--rather were not all true heroes like him? It was queer, +she had not thought of it once since;--why did she think of it now?--but, +that day Miss Prudence had come to see her so long ago, the day she found +her asleep in her chair, she had been reading in her Sunday school +library about some one like Morris, just as unselfish, just as ready to +serve Christ anywhere, and--perhaps it was foolish and childish--she +would be ashamed to tell any one beside God about it--she had asked him +to let some one love her like him, and then she had fallen asleep. Oh, +and--Morris had not given her that thing he had brought to her. Perhaps +it was a book she wanted, she was always wanting a book--or it might be +some curious thing from Italy. Had he forgotten it? She cared to have it +now more than she cared last night; what was the matter with her last +night that she cared so little? She did "look up" to him more than she +knew herself, she valued his opinion, she was more to herself because she +was so much to him. There was no one in the world that she opened her +heart to as she opened it to him; not Miss Prudence, even, sympathetic as +she was; she would not mind so very, very much if he knew about that +foolish, childish prayer. But she could not ask him what he had brought +her; she had almost, no, quite, refused it last night. How contradictory +and uncomfortable she was! She must say good-bye, now, too. + +During her reverie she had retreated to the front parlor and stood +leaning over the closed piano, her wraps all on for school and shawl +strap of books in her hand. + +"O, Marjorie, ready for school! May I walk with you? I'll come back and +see Miss Prudence afterward." + +"Will you?" she asked, demurely; "but that will only prolong the agony of +saying good-bye." + +"As it is a sort of delicious agony we do not need to shorten it. +Good-bye, Prue," he cried, catching one of Prue's curls in his fingers as +he passed. "You will be a school-girl with a shawl strap of books, by and +by, and you will put on airs and think young men are boys." + +Prue stood in the doorway calling out "goodbye" as they went down the +path to the gate, Miss Prudence's "old man" had been there early +to sweep off the piazzas and shovel paths; he was one of her +beneficiaries with a history. Marjorie said they all had histories: she +believed he had lost some money in a bank years ago, some that he had +hoarded by day labor around the wharves. + +The pavements in this northern city were covered with snow hard packed, +the light snow of last night had frozen and the sidewalks were slippery; +in the city the children were as delighted to see the brick pavement in +spring as the country children were glad to see the green grass. + +"Whew"! ejaculated Morris, as the wind blew sharp in their faces, "this +is a stiff north-wester and no mistake. I don't believe that small +Californian would enjoy walking to school to-day." + +"I think that must be why Aunt Prue keeps her at home; I suppose she +wants to teach her to obey without a reason, and so she does not give her +one." + +"That isn't a bad thing for any of us," said Morris. + +"She has bought her the prettiest winter suit! She is so warm and lovely +in it--and a set of white furs; she is a bluebird with a golden crest. +After she was dressed the first time Miss Prudence looked down at her and +said, as if excusing the expense to herself: 'But I must keep the child +warm--and it is my own money.' I think her father died poor." + +"I'm glad of it," said Morris. + +"Why?" asked Marjorie, wonderingly. + +"Miss Prudence and Mr. Holmes will take care of her; she doesn't need +money," he answered, evasively. "I wouldn't like Prue to be a rich woman +in this city." + +"Isn't it a good city to be a rich woman in?" questioned Marjorie with a +laugh. "As good as any other." + +"Not for everybody; do you know I wonder why Miss Prudence doesn't live +in New York as she did when she sent Linnet to school." + +"She wanted to be home, she said; she was tired of boarding, and she +liked Master McCosh's school for me. I think she will like it for Prue. +I'm so glad she will have Prue when I have to go back home. Mr. Holmes +isn't rich, is he? You said he would take care of Prue." + +"He has a very small income from his mother; his mother was not Prue's +father's mother." + +"Why, do you know all about them?" + +"Yes." + +"Who told you? Aunt Prue hasn't told me." + +"Mother knows. She knew Prue's father. I suspect some of the girls' +fathers in your school knew him, too." + +"I don't know. He was rich once--here--I know that. Deborah told me where +he used to live; it's a handsome house, with handsome grounds, a stable +in the rear and an iron fence in front." + +"I've seen it," said Morris, in his concisest tone. "Mr. Holmes and I +walked past one day. Mayor Parks lives there now." + +"Clarissa Parks' father!" cried Marjorie, in an enlightened tone. "She's +in our first class, and if she studied she would learn something. She's +bright, but she hasn't motive enough." + +"Do you think Mr. Holmes, will ever come home?" he asked. + +"Why not? Of course he will," she answered in astonishment. + +"That depends. Prue might bring him. I want to see him finished; there's +a fine finishment for him somewhere and I want to see it. For all that +is worth anything in me I have to thank him. He made me--as God lets one +man make another. I would like to live long enough to pass it on; to +make some one as he made me." + +It was too cold to walk slowly, their words were spoken in brief, brisk +sentences. + +There was nothing specially memorable in this walk, but Marjorie thought +of it many times; she remembered it because she was longing to ask him +what he had brought her and was ashamed to do it. It might be due to him +after her refusal last night; but still she was ashamed. She would write +about it, she decided; it was like her not to speak of it. + +"I haven't told you about our harbor mission work at Genoa; the work is +not so great in summer, but the chaplain told me that in October there +were over sixty seamen in the Bethel and they were very attentive. One +old captain told me that the average sailor had much improved since he +began to go to sea, and I am sure the harbor mission work is one cause of +it. I wish you could hear some of the old sailors talk and pray. The +_Linnet_ will be a praise meeting in itself some day; four sailors have +become Christians since I first knew the _Linnet_." + +"Linnet wrote that it was your work." + +"I worked and prayed and God blessed. Oh, the blessing! oh, the blessing +of good books! Marjorie, do you know what makes waves?" + +"No," she laughed; "and I'm too cold to remember if I did. I think the +wind must make them. Now we turn and on the next corner is our entrance." + +The side entrance was not a gate, but a door in a high wall; girls were +flocking up the street and down the street, blue veils, brown veils, gray +veils, were streaming in all directions, the wind was blowing laughing +voices all around them. + +Marjorie pushed the door open: + +"Good-bye, Morris," she said, as he caught her hand and held it last. + +"Good-bye, Marjorie,--_dear_" he whispered as a tall girl in blue brushed +past them and entered the door. + +Little Miss Dodd ran up laughing, and Marjorie could say no more; what +more could she say than "good-bye"? But she wanted to say more, she +wanted to say--but Emma Downs was asking her if it were late and Morris +had gone. + +"What a handsome young fellow!" exclaimed Miss Parks to Marjorie, hanging +up her cloak next to Marjorie's in the dressing room. "Is he your +brother?" + +"My twin-brother," replied Marjorie. + +"He doesn't look like you. He is handsome and tall." + +"And I am homely and stumpy," said Marjorie, good-humoredly. "No, he is +not my real brother." + +"I don't believe in that kind." + +"I do," said Marjorie. + +"Master McCosh will give you a mark for transgressing." + +"Oh, I forgot!" exclaimed Marjorie; "but he is so much my brother that it +is not against the rules." + +"Is he a sailor?" asked Emma Downs. + +"Yes," said Marjorie. + +"A common sailor!" + +"No, an uncommon one." + +"Is he before the mast?" she persisted. + +"Does he look so?" asked Marjorie, seriously. + +"No, he looks like a captain; only that cap is not dignified enough." + +"It's becoming," said Miss Parks, "and that's better than dignity." + +The bell rang and the girls passed into the schoolroom in twos and +threes. A table ran almost the length of the long, high apartment; it was +covered with green baize and served as a desk for the second class girls; +the first class girls occupied chairs around three sides of the room, +during recitation the chairs were turned to face the teacher, at other +times the girls sat before a leaf that served as a rest for their books +while they studied, shelves being arranged above to hold the books. The +walls of the room were tinted a pale gray. Mottoes in black and gold were +painted in one straight line above the book shelves, around the three +sides of the room. Marjorie's favorites were: + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO KNOW, IS CURIOSITY. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO BE KNOWN, IS VANITY. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO SELL YOUR KNOWLEDGE, IS COVETOUSNESS. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO EDIFY ONE'S SELF, IS PRUDENCE. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO EDIFY OTHERS, IS CHARITY. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO GLORIFY GOD, IS RELIGION. + +The words were very ancient, Master McCosh told Marjorie, the last having +been written seven hundred years later than the others. The words "TO +GLORIFY GOD" were over Marjorie's desk. + +The first class numbered thirty. Clarissa Parks was the beauty of the +class, Emma Downs the poet, Lizzie Harrowgate the mathematician, Maggie +Peet the pet, Ella Truman wrote the finest hand, Maria Denyse was the +elocutionist, Pauline Hayes the one most at home in universal history, +Marjorie West did not know what she was: the remaining twenty-two were in +no wise remarkable; one or two were undeniably dull, more were careless, +and most came to school because it was the fashion and they must do +something before they were fully grown up. + +At each recitation the student who had reached the head of the class was +marked "head" and took her place in the next recitation at the foot. +During the first hour and a half there were four recitations--history, +astronomy, chemistry, and English literature. That morning Marjorie, who +did not know what she was in the class, went from the foot through the +class, to the head three times; it would have been four times but she +gave the preference to Pauline Hayes who had written the correct date +half a second after her own was on the slate. "Miss Hayes writes more +slowly than I," she told Master McCosh. "She was as sure of it as I was." + +The replies in every recitation were written upon the slate; there was no +cheating, every slate was before the eyes of its neighbor, every word +must be exact. + +"READING MAKES A FULL MAN, CONFERENCE A READY MAN, WRITING AN EXACT MAN," +was one of the wall mottoes. + +Marjorie had an amusing incident to relate to Miss Prudence about her +first recitation in history. The question was: "What general reigned at +this time?" The name of no general occurred. Marjorie was nonplussed. +Pencils were rapidly in motion around her. "Confusion" read the head +girl. Then to her chagrin Marjorie recalled the words in the lesson: +"General confusion reigned at this time." + +It was one of the master's "catches". She found that he had an abundant +supply. + +Another thing that morning reminded her of that mysterious "vibgyor" of +the old times. + +Master McCosh told them they could _clasp_ Alexander's generals; then +Pauline Hayes gave their names--Cassander, Lysimachus, Antiognus, +Seleucus and Ptolemy. Marjorie had that to tell Miss Prudence. Miss +Prudence lived through her own school days that winter with Marjorie; the +girl's enthusiasm reminded her of her own. Master McCosh, who never +avoided personalities, observed as he marked the last recitation: + +"Miss West studies, young ladies; she has no more brains than one or two +of the rest of you, but she has something that more than half of you +woefully lack--application and conscience." + +"Perhaps she expects to teach," returned Miss Parks, in her most +courteous tone, as she turned the diamond upon her engagement finger. + +"I hope she may teach--this class," retorted the master with equal +courtesy. + +Miss Parks smiled at Marjorie with her lovely eyes and acknowledged the +point of the master's remark with a slight inclination of her pretty +head. + +At the noon intermission a knot of the girls gathered around Marjorie's +chair; Emma Downs took the volume of "Bridgewater Treatises" out of her +hand and marched across the room to the book case with it, the others +clapped their hands and shouted. + +"Now we'll make her talk," said Ella Truman. "She is a queen in the midst +of her court." + +"She isn't tall enough," declared Maria Denyse. + +"Or stately enough," added Pauline Hayes. + +"Or self-possessed enough," supplemented Lizzie Harrowgate. + +"Or imperious enough," said Clarissa Parks. + +"She would always be abdicating in favor of some one who had an equal +right to it," laughed Pauline Hayes. + +"Oh, Miss West, who was that lovely little creature with you in Sunday +school Sunday?" asked Miss Denyse. "She carries herself like a little +princess." + +"She is just the one not to do it," replied Miss Parks. + +"What do you mean?" inquired Miss Harrowgate before Marjorie could speak. + +"I mean," she began, laying a bunch of white grapes in Marjorie's +fingers, "that her name is _Holmes_." + +"Doesn't that belong to the royal line?" asked Pauline, lightly. + +"It belongs to the line of _thieves_." + +Marjorie's fingers dropped the grapes. + +"Her father spent years in state-prison when he should have spent a +lifetime there at hard labor! Ask my father. Jerome Holmes! He is famous +in this city! How dared he send his little girl here to hear all about +it!" + +"Perhaps he thought he sent her among Christians and among ladies," +returned Miss Harrowgate. "I should think you would be ashamed to bring +that old story up, Clarissa." + +Marjorie was paralyzed; she could not move or utter a sound. + +"Father has all the papers with the account in; father lost enough, he +ought to know about it." + +"That child can't help it," said Emma Downs. "She has a face as sweet and +innocent as an apple blossom." + +"I hope she will never come here to school to revive the old scandal," +said Miss Denyse. "Mother told me all about it as soon as she knew who +the child was." + +"Somebody else had the hardest of it," said Miss Parks; "_that's_ a story +for us girls. Mother says she was one of the brightest and sweetest girls +in all the city; she used to drive around with her father, and her +wedding day was set, the cards were out, and then it came out that he had +to go to state-prison instead. She gave up her diamonds and everything of +value he had given her. She was to have lived in the house we live in +now; but he went to prison and she went somewhere and has never been back +for any length of time until this year, and now she has his little girl +with her." + +Miss Prudence! Was that Miss Prudence's story? Was she bearing it like +this? Was that why she loved poor little Prue so? + +"Bring some water, quick!" Marjorie heard some one say. + +"No, take her to the door," suggested another voice. + +"Oh, I'm so sorry, so sorry!" This was Miss Parks. + +Marjorie arose to her feet, pushed some one away from her, and fled from +them all--down the schoolroom, though the cloak-room out to the fresh +air. + +She needed the stiff worth-wester to bring her back to herself. Miss +Prudence had lived through _that!_ And Prue must grow up to know! Did +Miss Prudence mean that she must decide about that before Prue could come +to school? She remembered now that a look, as if she were in pain, had +shot itself across her eyes. Oh, that she would take poor little Prue +back to California where nobody knew. If some one should tell _her_ a +story like that about her own dear honest father it would kill her! She +never could bear such shame and such disappointment in him. But Prue need +never know if Miss Prudence took her away to-day, to-morrow. But Miss +Prudence had had it to bear so long. Was that sorrow--and the blessing +with it--the secret of her lovely life? And Mr. Holmes, the master! +Marjorie was overwhelmed with this new remembrance of him. He was another +one to bear it. Now she understood his solitary life. Now she knew why he +shrank from anything like making himself known. The depth of the meaning +of some of his favorite sayings flashed over her. She even remembered one +of her own childish questions, and his brief, stern affirmative: "Mr. +Holmes, were you ever in a prison?" How much they had borne together, +these two! And now they had Prue to love and to live for. She would never +allow even a shadow of jealousy of poor little Prue again. Poor little +Prue, with such a heritage of shame. How vehemently and innocently she +had declared that she would not be called Jeroma. + +The wind blew sharply against her; she stepped back and closed the door; +she was shivering while her cheeks were blazing. She would go home, she +could not stay through the hour of the afternoon and be looked at and +commented upon. Was not Miss Prudence's shame and sorrow her own? As +she was reaching for her cloak she remembered that she must ask to be +excused, taking it down and throwing it over her arm she re-entered the +schoolroom. + +Master McCosh was writing at the table, a group of girls were clustered +around one of the registers. + +"It was mean! It was real mean!" a voice was exclaiming. + +"I don't see how you _could_ tell her, Clarissa Parks! You know she +adores Miss Pomeroy." + +"You all seemed to listen well enough," retorted Miss Parks. + +"We were spell-bound. We couldn't help it," excused Emma Downs. + +"I knew it before," said Maria Denyse. + +"I didn't know Miss Pomeroy was the lady," said Lizzie Harrowgate. "She +is mother's best friend, so I suppose she wouldn't tell me. They both +came here to school." + +Master McCosh raised his head. + +"What new gossip now, girls?" he inquired sternly. + +"Oh, nothing," answered Miss Parks. + +"You are making quite a hubbub about nothing. The next time that subject +is mentioned the young lady who does it takes her books and goes home. +Miss Holmes expects to come here among you, and the girl who does not +treat her with consideration may better stay at home. Jerome Holmes was +the friend of my boyhood and manhood; he sinned and he suffered for it; +his story does not belong to your generation. It is not through any merit +of yours that your fathers are honorable men. It becomes us all to be +humble?" + +A hush fell upon the group. Clarissa Parks colored with anger; why should +_she_ be rebuked, she was not a thief nor the daughter of a thief. + +Marjorie went to the master and standing before him with her cheeks +blazing and eyes downcast she asked: + +"May I go home? I cannot recite this afternoon." + +"If you prefer, yes," he replied in his usual tone; "but I hardly think +you care to see Miss Pomeroy just now." + +"Oh, no, I didn't think of that; I only thought of getting away from +here." + +"Getting away is not always the best plan," he replied, his pen still +moving rapidly. + +"Is it true? Is it _all_ true?" + +"It is all true. Jerome Holmes was president of a bank in this city. I +want you in moral science this afternoon." + +"Thank you," said Marjorie, after a moment. "I will stay." + +She returned to the dressing-room, taking a volume of Dick from the +book-case as she passed it; and sitting in a warm corner, half concealed +by somebody's shawl and somebody's cloak, she read, or thought she read, +until the bell for the short afternoon session sounded. + +Moral science was especially interesting to her, but the subject this +afternoon kept her trouble fresh in her mind; it was Property, the use of +the institution of Property, the history of Property, and on what the +right of Property is founded. + +A whisper from Miss Parks reached her: + +"Isn't it a poky subject? All I care to know is what is mine and what +isn't, and to know what right people have to take what isn't theirs." + +The hour was ended at last, and she was free. How could she ever enter +that schoolroom again? She hurried along the streets, grown older since +the morning. Home would be her sanctuary; but there was Miss Prudence! +Her face would tell the tale and Miss Prudence's eyes would ask for it. +Would it be better for Prue, for Aunt Prue, to know or not to know? Miss +Prudence had written to her once that some time she would tell her a +story about herself; but could she mean this story? + +As she opened the gate she saw her blue bird with the golden crest +perched on the arm of a chair at the window watching for her. + +She was at the door before Marjorie reached it, ready to spring into her +arms and to exclaim how glad she was that she had come. + +"You begin to look too soon, Kitten." + +"I didn't begin till one o'clock," she said convincingly. + +"But I don't leave school till five minutes past two, childie." + +"But I have something to tell you to-day. Something _de_-licious. Aunt +Prue has gone away with Morris. It isn't that, because I didn't want +her to go." + +Marjorie followed her into the front parlor and began to unfasten her +veil. + +"Morris' mother is coming home with her to-morrow to stay all winter, but +that isn't it. Do guess, Marjorie." + +She was dancing all around her, clapping her hands. + +"Linnet hasn't come! That isn't it!" cried Marjorie, throwing off her +cloak. + +"No; it's all about me. It is going to happen to _me_." + +"I can't think. You have nice things every day." + +"It's this. It's nicer than anything. I am going to school with you +to-morrow! Not for all the time, but to make a visit and see how I like +it." + +The child stood still, waiting for an outburst of joy at her +announcement; but Marjorie only caught her and shook her and tumbled her +curls without saying one word. + +"Aren't you _glad_, Marjorie?" + +"I'm glad I'm home with you, and I'm glad you are to give me my dinner." + +"It's a very nice dinner," answered Prue, gravely; "roast beef and +potatoes and tomatoes and pickled peaches and apple pie, unless you want +lemon pie instead. I took lemon pie. Which will you have?" + +"Lemon," said Marjorie. + +"But you don't look glad about anything. Didn't you know your lessons +to-day?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"I'll put your things on the hat-rack and you can get warm while I tell +Deborah to put your dinner on the table. I think you are cold and that is +why you can't be glad. I don't like to be cold." + +"I'm not cold now," laughed Marjorie. + +"Now you feel better! And I'm to sit up until you go to bed, and you are +to sleep with me; and _won't_ it be splendid for me to go to school and +take my lunch, too? And I can have jelly on my bread and an orange just +as you do." + +Marjorie was awake long before Deborah entered the chamber to kindle the +fire, trying to form some excuse to keep Prue from going to school +with her. How could she take her to-day of all days; for the girls to +look at her, and whisper to each other, and ask her questions, and to +study critically her dress, and to touch her hair, and pity her and kiss +her! And she would be sure to open the round gold locket she wore upon a +tiny gold chain about her neck and tell them it was "my papa who died in +California." + +She was very proud of showing "my papa." + +What excuse could she make to the child? It was not storming, and she did +not have a cold, and her heart did seem so set on it. The last thing +after she came upstairs last night she had opened the inside blinds to +look out to see if it were snowing. And she had charged Deborah to have +the fire kindled early so that she would not be late at breakfast. + +She must go herself. She could concoct no reason for remaining at home +herself; her throat had been a trifle sore last night, but not even the +memory of it could bring it back this morning. + +Deborah had a cough, if she should be taken ill--but there was the fire +crackling in the airtight in confirmation of Deborah's ability to be +about the house; or if Prue--but the child was never ill. Her cheeks were +burning last night, but that was with the excitement of the anticipation. +If somebody should come! But who? She had not stayed at home for Morris, +and Linnet would not come early enough to keep them at home, that is if +she ought to remain at home for Linnet. + +What could happen? She could not make anything happen? She could not tell +the child the naked truth, the horrible truth. And she could not tell her +a lie. And she could not break her heart by saying that she did not want +her to go. Oh, if Miss Prudence were only at home to decide! But would +she tell _her_ the reason? If she did not take Prue she must tell Miss +Prudence the whole story. She would rather go home and never go to school +any more than to do that. Oh, why must things happen all together? Prue +would soon be awake and asking if it were storming. She had let her take +it for granted last night; she could not think of anything to say. Once +she had said in aggrieved voice: + +"I think you might be glad, Marjorie." + +But was it not all selfishness, after all? She was arranging to give Prue +a disappointment merely to spare herself. The child would not understand +anything. But then, would Aunt Prue want her to go? She must do what Miss +Prudence would like; that would decide it all. + +Oh, dear! Marjorie was a big girl, too big for any nonsense, but there +were unmistakable tears on her cheeks, and she turned away from sleeping +Prue and covered her face with both hands. And then, beside this, Morris +was gone and she had not been kind to him. "Good-bye, Marjorie--_dear_" +the words smote her while they gave her a feeling of something to be very +happy about. There did seem to be a good many things to cry about this +morning. + +"Marjorie, are you awake?" whispered a soft voice, while little fingers +were in her hair and tickling her ear. + +Marjorie did not want to be awake. + +"_Marjorie_," with an appeal in the voice. + +Then the tears had to be brushed away, and she turned and put both arms +around the white soft bundle and rubbed her cheek against her hair. + +"Oh, _do_ you think it's storming?" + +"No." + +"You will have to curl my hair." + +"Yes." + +"And mustn't we get up? Shan't we be late?" + +"Listen a minute; I want to tell you something." + +"Is it something _dreadful?_ Your voice sounds so." + +"No not dreadful one bit. But it is a disappointment for a little girl I +know." + +"Oh, is it _me?_" clinging to her. + +"Yes, it is you." + +"Is it about going to school?" she asked with a quick little sob. + +"Yes." + +"_Can't_ I go, Marjorie?" + +"Not to-day, darling." + +"Oh, dear!" she moaned. "I did want to so." + +"I know it, and I'm so sorry. I am more sorry than you are. I was so +sorry that I could not talk about it last night." + +"Can't I know the reason?" she asked patiently. + +"The reason is this: Aunt Prue would not let you go. She would not let +you go if she knew about something that happened in school yesterday." + +"Was it something so bad?" + +"It was something very uncomfortable; something that made me very +unhappy, and if you were old enough to understand you would not want to +go. You wouldn't go for anything." + +"Then what makes you go?" asked Prue quickly. + +"Because I have to." + +"Will it hurt you to-day?" + +"Yes." + +"Then I wouldn't go. Tell Aunt Prue; she won't make you go." + +"I don't want to tell her; it would make her cry." + +"Then don't tell her. I'll stay home then--if I have to. But I want to +go. I can stand it if you can." + +Marjorie laughed at her resignation and resolution and rolling her over +pushed her gently out down to the carpet. Perhaps it would be better +to stay home if there were something so dreadful at school, and Deborah +might let her make molasses candy. + +"Won't you please stay home with me and make molasses candy, or +peppermint drops?" + +"We'll do it after school! won't that do? And you can stay with Deborah +in the kitchen, and she'll tell you stories." + +"Her stories are sad," said Prue, mournfully. + +"Ask her to tell you a funny one, then." + +"I don't believe she knows any. She told me yesterday about her little +boy who didn't want to go to school one day and she was washing and +said he might stay home because he coaxed so hard. And she went to find +him on the wharf and nobody could tell her where he was. And she went +down close to the water and looked in and he was there with his face up +and a stick in his hand and he was dead in the water and she saw him." + +"Is that true?" asked Marjorie, in surprise. + +"Yes, true every word. And then her husband died and she came to live +with Aunt Prue's father and mother ever so long ago. And she cried and +it was sad." + +"But I know she knows some funny stories. She will tell you about Aunt +Prue when she was little." + +"She has told me. And about my papa. He used to like to have muffins for +tea." + +"Oh, I know! Now I know! I'll take you to Lizzie Harrowgate's to stay +until I come from school. You will like that. There is a baby there +and a little girl four years old. Do you want to go?" + +"If I can't go to school, I do," in a resigned voice. + +"And you must not speak of school; remember, Prue, do not say that you +wanted to go, or that I wouldn't take you; do not speak of school at +all." + +"No, I will not," promised Prue; "and when that thing doesn't happen any +more you will take me?" + + + + +XIX. + +A STORY THAT WAS NOT VERY SAD. + +"Children have neither past nor future; and, what scarcely ever happens +to us, they enjoy the present."--_Bruyére._ + + +Prue was watching at the window with Minnie Harrowgate, and was joyfully +ready to go home to see Aunt Prue when Marjorie and Lizzie Harrowgate +appeared. + +Standing a few moments near the parlor register, while Prue ran to put on +her wraps, Marjorie's eye would wander to the Holland plate on the +bracket. She walked home under a depression that was not all caused by +the dread of meeting Miss Prudence. They found Miss Prudence on the +stairs, coming down with a tray of dishes. + +"O, Aunt Prue! Aunt Prue!" was Prue's exclamation. "I didn't go to +school, I went to Mrs. Harrowgate's instead. Marjorie said I must, +because something dreadful happened in school and I never could go until +it never happened again. But I've had a splendid time, and I want to go +again." + +Miss Prudence bent over to kiss her, and gave her the tray to take into +the kitchen. + +"You may stay with Deborah, dear, till I call you." + +Marjorie dropped her shawl-strap of books on the carpet of the hall and +stood at the hat-stand hanging up her cloak and hat. Miss Prudence +had kissed her, but they had not looked into each other's eyes. + +Was it possible that Miss Prudence suspected? Marjorie asked herself as +she took off her rubbers. She suffered her to pass into the front parlor, +and waited alone in the hall until she could gather courage to follow +her. But the courage did not come, she trembled and choked, and the slow +tears rolled over her cheeks. + +"Marjorie!" + +Miss Prudence was at her side. + +"O, Miss Prudence! O, dear Aunt Prue, I don't want to tell you," she +burst out; "they said things about her father and about you, and I can't +tell you." + +Miss Prudence's arm was about her, and she was gently drawn into the +parlor; not to sit down, for Miss Prudence began slowly to walk up and +down the long length of the room, keeping Marjorie at her side. They +paused an instant before the mirror, between the windows in the front +parlor, and both glanced in: a slight figure in gray, for she had put off +her mourning at last, with a pale, calm face, and a plump little creature +in brown, with a flushed face and full eyes--the girl growing up, and the +girl grown up. + +For fully fifteen minutes they paced slowly and in silence up and down +the soft carpet. Miss Prudence knew when they stood upon the very spot +where Prue's father--not Prue's father then--had bidden her that lifetime +long farewell. God had blessed her and forgiven him. Was it such a very +sad story then? + +Miss Prudence dropped into a chair as if her strength were spent, and +Marjorie knelt beside her and laid her head on the arm of her chair. + +"It is true, Marjorie." + +"I know it. Master McCosh heard it and he said it was true." + +"It will make a difference, a great difference. I shall take Prue away. I +must write to John to-night." + +"I'm so glad you have him, Aunt Prue. I'm so glad you and Prue have him." + +Miss Prudence knew now, herself: never before had she known how glad she +was to have him; how glad she had been to have him all her life. She +would tell him that, to-night, also. She was not the woman to withhold a +joy that belonged to another. + +Marjorie did not raise her head, and therefore did not catch the first +flash of the new life that John Holmes would see when he looked into +them. + +"He is so good, Aunt Prue," Marjorie went on. "_He_ is a Christian when +he speaks to a dog." + +"Don't you want to go upstairs and see Morris' mother? She was excited a +little, and I promised her that she should not come down-stairs +to-night." + +"But I don't know her," said Marjorie rising. + +"I think you do. And she knows you. She has come here to learn how good +God is, and I want you to help me show it to her." + +"I don't know how." + +"Be your sweet, bright self, and sing all over the house all the +comforting hymns you know." + +"Will she like that?" + +"She likes nothing so well. I sung her to sleep last night." + +"I wish mother could talk to her." + +"Marjorie! you have said it. Your mother is the one. I will send her to +your mother in the spring. Morris and I will pay her board, and she +shall keep close to your happy mother as long as they are both willing." + +"Will Morris let you help pay her board?" + +"Morris cannot help himself. He never resists me. Now go upstairs and +kiss her, and tell her you are her boy's twin-sister." + +Before the light tap on her door Mrs. Kemlo heard, and her heart was +stirred as she heard it, the pleading, hopeful, trusting strains of +"Jesus, lover of my soul." + +Moving about in her own chamber, with her door open, Marjorie sang it all +before she crossed the hall and gave her light tap on Mrs. Kemlo's door. + +When Marjorie saw the face--the sorrowful, delicate face, and listened to +the refined accent and pretty choice of words, she knew that Morris Kemlo +was a gentleman because his mother was a lady. + +Prue wandered around the kitchen, looking at things and asking questions. +Deborah was never cross to Prue. + +It was a sunny kitchen in the afternoon, the windows faced west and south +and Deborah's plants throve. Miss Prudence had taken great pleasure in +making Deborah's living room a room for body and spirit to keep strong +in. Old Deborah said there was not another room in the house like the +kitchen; "and to think that Miss Prudence should put a lounge there for +my old bones to rest on." + +Prue liked the kitchen because of the plants. It was very funny to see +such tiny sweet alyssum, such dwarfs of geranium, such a little bit of +heliotrope, and only one calla among those small leaves. + +"Just wait till you go to California with us, Deborah," she remarked this +afternoon. "I'll show you flowers." + +"I'm too old to travel, Miss Prue." + +"No, you are not. I shall take you when I go. I can wait on Morris' +mother, can't I? Marjorie said she and I were to help you if she came." + +"Miss Marjorie is good help." + +"So am I," said Prue, hopping into the dining-room and amusing herself by +stepping from one green pattern in the carpet to another green one, and +then from one red to another red one, and then, as her summons did not +come, from a green to a red and a red to a green, and still Aunt Prue did +not call her. Then she went back to Deborah, who was making lemon jelly, +at one of the kitchen tables, in a great yellow bowl. She told Prue that +some of it was to go to a lady in consumption, and some to a little boy +who had a hump on his back. Prue said that she would take it to the +little boy, because she had never seen a hump on a boy's back; she had +seen it on camels in a picture. + +Still Aunt Prue did not come for her, and she counted thirty-five bells +on the arbutilon, and four buds on the monthly rose, and pulled off three +drooping daisies that Deborah had not attended to, and then listened, and +"Prue! Prue!" did not come. + +Aunt Prue and Marjorie must be talking "secrets." + +"Deborah," standing beside her and looking seriously up into the kindly, +wrinkled face, "I wish you knew some secrets." + +"La! child, I know too many." + +"Will you tell me one. Just one. I never heard a secret in my life. +Marjorie knows one, and she's telling Aunt Prue now." + +"Secrets are not for little girls." + +"I would never, never tell," promised Prue, coaxingly. + +"Not even me!" cried Marjorie behind her. "Now come upstairs with me and +see Morris' mother. Aunt Prue is not ready for you yet awhile." + +Mrs. Kemlo's chamber was the guest chamber; many among the poor and +suffering whom Miss Prudence had delighted to honor had "warmed both +hands before the fire of life" in that luxurious chamber. + +Everything in the room had been among her father's wedding presents to +herself--the rosewood furniture, the lace curtains, the rare engravings, +the carpet that was at once perfect to the tread and to the eye, the +ornaments everywhere: everything excepting the narrow gilt frame over the +dressing bureau, enclosing on a gray ground, painted in black, crimson, +and gold the words: "I HAVE SEEN THY TEARS." Miss Prudence had placed it +there especially for Mrs. Kemlo. + +Deborah had never been alone in the house in the years when her mistress +was making a home for herself elsewhere. + +Over the mantel hung an exquisite engraving of the thorn-crowned head of +Christ. The eyes that had wept so many hopeless tears were fixed upon +it as Marjorie and Prue entered the chamber. + +"This is Miss Prudence's little girl Prue," was Marjorie's introduction. + +Prue kissed her and stood at her side waiting for her to speak. + +"That is the Lord," Prue said, at last, breaking the silence after +Marjorie had left them; "our dear Lord." + +Mrs. Kemlo kept her eyes upon it, but made no response. + +"What makes him look so sorry, Morris' mother?" + +"Because he is grieving for our sins." + +"I thought the thorns hurt his head." + +"Not so much as our sins pierced his heart." + +"I'm sorry if I have hurt him. What made our sins hurt him so?" + +"His great love to us." + +"Nobody's sins ever hurt me so." + +"You do not love anybody well enough." + +The spirit of peace was brooding, at last, over the worn face. Morris had +left her with his heart at rest, for the pain on lip and brow began to +pass away in the first hour of Miss Prudence's presence. + +Prue was summoned after what to her seemed endless waiting, and, nestling +in Aunt Prue's lap, with her head on her shoulder and her hand in hers, +she sat still in a content that would not stir itself by one word. + +"Little Prue, I want to tell you a story." + +"Oh, good!" cried Prue, nestling closer to express her appreciation. + +"What kind of stories do you like best?" + +"Not sad ones. Don't let anybody die." + +"This story is about a boy. He was like other boys, he was bright and +quick and eager to get on in the world. He loved his mother and his +brother and sister, and he worked for them on the farm at home. And then +he came to the city and did so well that all his friends were proud of +him; everybody liked him and admired him. He was large and fine looking +and a gentleman. People thought he was rich, for he soon had a handsome +house and drove fine horses. He had a lovely wife, but she died and left +him all alone. He always went to church and gave money to the church; but +he never said that he was a Christian. I think he trusted in himself, +people trusted him so much that he began to trust himself. They let him +have their money to take care of; they were sure he would take good care +of it and give it safe back, and he was sure, too. And he did take good +care of it, and they were satisfied. He was generous and kind and loving. +But he was so sure that he was strong that he did not ask God to keep him +strong, and God let him become weaker and weaker, until temptation became +too great for him and he took this money and spent it for himself; this +money that belonged to other people. And some belonged to widows who had +no husbands to take care of them, and to children who had no fathers, and +to people who had worked hard to save money for their children and to +take care of themselves in their old age; but he took it and spent it +trying to make more money for himself, and instead of making more money +always he lost their money that he took away from them. He meant to give +their money back, he did not mean to steal from any one, but he took what +was not his own and lost it and the people had to suffer, for he had no +money to pay them with." + +"That is sad," said Prue. + +"Yes, it was very sad, for he had done a dreadful thing and sinned +against God. Do you think he ought to be punished?" + +"Yes, if he took poor people's money and little children's money and +could not give it back." + +"So people thought, and he was punished: he was sent to prison." + +"To _prison_! Oh, that was dreadful." + +"And he had to stay there for years and work hard, with other wicked +men." + +"Wasn't he sorry?" + +"He was very sorry. It almost killed him. He would gladly have worked to +give the money back but he could not earn so much. He saw how foolish +and wicked he had been to think himself so strong and trustworthy and +good when he was so weak. And when he saw how wicked he was he fell down +before God and asked God to forgive him. His life was spoiled, he could +not be happy in this world; but, as God forgave him, he could begin +again and be honest and trustworthy, and be happy in Heaven because he +was a great sinner and Christ had died for him." + +"Did his sins _hurt_ Christ?" Prue asked. + +"Yes." + +"I'm sorry he hurt Christ," said Prue sorrowfully. + +"He was sorry, too." + +"Is that all?" + +"Yes, he died, and we hope he is in Heaven tonight, praising God for +saving sinners." + +"I don't think that is such a sad story. It would be sad if God never did +forgive him. It was bad to be in prison, but he got out and wasn't wicked +any more. Did you ever see him, Aunt Prue?" + +"Yes, dear, many times." + +"Did you love him?" + +"I loved him better than I loved anybody, and Uncle John loved him." + +"Was he ever in this room?" + +"Yes. He has been many times in this chair in which you and I are +sitting; he used to love to hear me play on that piano; and we used to +walk in the garden together, and he called me 'Prue' and not Aunt Prue, +as you do." + +"Aunt Prue!" the child's voice was frightened. "I know who your story is +about." + +"Your dear papa!" + +"Yes, my dear papa!" + +"And aren't you glad he is safe through it all, and God his forgiven +him?" + +"Yes, I'm glad; but I'm sorry he was in that prison." + +"He was happy with you, afterward, you know. He had your mamma and she +loved him, and then he had you and you loved him." + +"But I'm sorry." + +"So am I, darling, and so is Uncle John; we are all sorry, but we are +glad now because it is all over and he cannot sin any more or suffer any +more. I wanted to tell you while you were little, so that somebody would +not tell you when you grow up. When you think about him, thank God that +he forgave him,--that is the happy part of it." + +"Why didn't papa tell me?" + +"He knew I would tell you some day, if you had to know. I would rather +tell you than have any one else in the world tell you." + +"I won't tell anybody, ever. I don't want people to know my papa was in a +prison. I asked him once what a prison was like and he would not tell +me much." + +She kept her head on Miss Prudence's shoulder and rubbed her fingers over +Miss Prudence's hand. + +There were no tears in her eyes, Miss Prudence's quiet, hopeful voice +had kept the tears from coming. Some day she would understand it, but +to-night it was a story that was not very sad, because he had got out of +the prison and God had forgiven him. It would never come as a shock to +her; Miss Prudence had saved her that. + + + + +XX. + +"HEIRS TOGETHER." + +"Oh, for a mind more clear to see, +A hand to work more earnestly, +For every good intent."--_Phebe Cary_. + + +"Aunt Prue," began Marjorie, "I can't help thinking about beauty." + +"I don't see why you should, child, when there are so many beautiful +things for you to think about." + +It was the morning after Prue had heard the story of her father; it was +Saturday morning and she was in the kitchen "helping Deborah bake." +Mrs. Kemlo was resting in a steamer chair near the register in the back +parlor, resting and listening; the listening was in itself a rest. It was +a rest not to speak unless she pleased; it was a rest to listen to the +low tones of cultured voices, to catch bits of bright talk about things +that brought her out of herself; it was a rest, above all, to dwell in a +home where God was in the midst; it was a rest to be free from the care +of herself. Was Miss Prudence taking care of her? Was not God taking care +of her through the love of Miss Prudence? + +Marjorie was busy about her weekly mending, sitting at one of the front +windows. It was pleasant to sit there and see the sleighs pass and hear +the bells jingle; it was pleasant to look over towards the church and the +parsonage; and pleasantest of all to bring her eyes into Miss Prudence's +face and work basket and the work in her lap for Prue. + +"But I mean--faces," acknowledged Marjorie. "I mean faces--too. I don't +see why, of all the beautiful things God has made, faces should be +ignored. The human face, with the love of God in it, is more glorious +than any painting, more glorious than any view of mountain, lake, or +river." + +"I don't believe I know what beauty is." + +"You know what you think it is." + +"Yes; Prue is beautiful to me, and you are, and Linnet, and mother,--you +see how confused I am. The girls think so much of it. One of them hurts +her feet with three and a half shoes when she ought to wear larger. And +another laces so tight! And another thinks so much of being slight and +slender that she will not dress warmly enough in the street; she always +looks cold and she has a cough, too. And another said she would rather +have tubercles on her lungs than sores on her face! We had a talk about +personal beauty yesterday and one girl said she would rather have it than +anything else in the world. But _do_ you think so much depends upon +beauty?" + +"How much?" + +"Why, ever so much? Friends, and being loved, and marriage." + +"Did you ever see a homely girl with plenty of friends? And are wives +always beautiful?" + +"Why, no." + +"One of the greatest favorites I know is a middle-aged lady,--a maiden +lady,--not only with a plain face, but with a defect in the upper lip. +She is loved; her company is sought. She is not rich; she has only an +ordinary position--she is a saleswoman down town. She is not educated. +Some of your school girl friends are very fond of her. She is attractive, +and you look at her and wonder why; but you hear her speak, and you +wonder no longer. She always has something bright to say. I do not know +of another attraction that she has, beside her willingness to help +everybody." + +"And she's neither young nor pretty." + +"No; she is what you girls call an old maid." + +Marjorie was mending the elbow of her brown school dress; she wore that +dress in all weathers every day, and on rainy Sundays. Some of the +girls said that she did not care enough about dress. She forgot that she +wore the same dress every day until one of the dressy little things in +the primary class reminded her of the fact. And then she laughed. + +"In the Bible stories Sarah and Rebekah and Esther and Abigail are spoken +of as being beautiful." + +"Does their fortune depend upon their beautiful faces?" + +"Didn't Esther's?" + +"She was chosen by the king on account of her beauty, but I think it was +God who brought her into favor and tender love, as he did Daniel; and +rather more depended upon her praying and fasting than upon her beautiful +face." + +"Then you mean that beauty goes for a great deal with the world and not +with God?" + +"One of Jesse's sons was so tall and handsome that Samuel thought surely +the Lord had chosen him to be king over his people. Do you remember +what the Lord said about that?" + +"Not quite." + +"He said: 'Look not on his countenance or the height of his stature, +because I have refused him; for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man +looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart!'" + +"Then it does make a difference to man." + +"It seems as if it made a difference to Samuel; and the Lord declares +that man is influenced by the outward appearance. Well, now, taking it +for granted from the Lord's own words, what then?" + +"Then it is rather hard not to be beautiful, isn't it?" + +"Genius makes a difference; is it rather hard not to be a genius? Money +makes a difference; is it rather hard not to be rich? Position makes a +difference; is it rather hard not to be noble?" + +"I never thought about those things. They give you advantage in the +world; but beauty makes people love you." + +"What kind of beauty?" + +"Lovable beauty," confessed Marjorie, smiling, feeling that she was being +cornered. + +"What makes lovable beauty?" + +"A lovable heart, I suppose." + +"Then I shouldn't wonder if you might have it as well as another. Is +Clarissa Parks more loved than any one in your class?" + +"Oh, no. She is not a favorite at all." + +"Then, child, I don't see that you are proving your assertion." + +"I know I'm not," laughed Marjorie. "Clarissa Parks is engaged; but so is +Fanny Hunting, and Fanny is the plainest little body. But I did begin by +really believing that beautiful faces had the best of it in the world, +and I was feeling rather aggrieved because somebody described me +yesterday as 'that girl in the first class who is always getting up head; +she is short and rather stout and wears her hair in a knot at the back of +her head?' Now wasn't that humiliating? Not a word about my eyes or +complexion or manner!" + +Miss Prudence laughed at her comically aggrieved tone. + +"It is hard to be nothing distinctive but short and stout and to wear +your hair in a knot, as your grandmother does! But the getting up head is +something." + +"It doesn't add to my beauty. Miss Prudence, I'm afraid I'll be a homely +blue stocking. And if I don't teach, how shall I use my knowledge? I +cannot write a book, or even articles for the papers; and I must do +something with the things I learn." + +"Every educated lady does not teach or write." + +"You do not," answered Marjorie, thoughtfully; "only you teach Prue. And +I think it increases your influence, Miss Prudence. How much you have +taught Linnet and me!" + +"I'm thinking about two faces I saw the other night at Mrs. Harrowgate's +tea table. Both were strangers to me. As the light fell over the face of +one I thought I never saw anything so exquisite as to coloring: the hair +was shining like threads of gold; the eyes were the azure you see in the +sky; lips and cheeks were tinted; the complexion I never saw excelled for +dazzling fairness,--we see it in a child's face, sometimes. At her side +sat a lady: older, with a quiet, grave face; complexion dark and not +noticeable; hair the brown we see every day; eyes brown and expressive, +but not finer than we often see. Something about it attracted me from her +bewitching neighbor, and I looked and compared. One face was quiet, +listening; the other was sparkling as she talked. The grave dark face +grew upon me; it was not a face, it was a soul, a human life with a +history. The lovely face was lovely still, but I do not care to see it +again; the other I shall not soon forget." + +"But it was beauty you saw," persisted Marjorie. + +"Not the kind you girls were talking about. A stranger passing through +the room would not have noticed her beside the other. The lovely face has +a history, I was told after supper, and she is a girl of character." + +"Still--I wish--story books would not dwell so much on attitudes; and how +the head sets on the shoulders; and the pretty hands and slender figures. +It makes girls think of their hands and their figures. It makes this girl +I know not wrap up carefully for fear of losing her 'slender' figure. And +the eyelashes and the complexion! It makes us dissatisfied with +ourselves." + +"The Lord knew what kind of books would be written when he said that man +looketh on the out ward appearance--" + +"But don't Christian writers ever do it?" + +"Christian writers fall into worldly ways. There are lovely girls and +lovely women in the world; we meet them every day. But if we think of +beauty, and write of it, and exalt it unduly, we are making a use of it +that God does not approve; a use that he does not make of it himself. How +beauty and money are scattered everywhere. God's saints are not the +richest and most beautiful. He does not lavish beauty and money upon +those he loves the best. I called last week on an Irish washerwoman and I +was struck with the beauty of her girls--four of them, the eldest +seventeen, the youngest six. The eldest had black eyes and black curls; +the second soft brown eyes and soft brown curls to match; the third curls +of gold, as pretty as Prue's, and black eyes; the youngest blue eyes and +yellow curls. I never saw such a variety of beauty in one family. The +mother was at the washtub, the oldest daughter was ironing, the second +getting supper of potatoes and indian meal bread, the third beauty was +brushing the youngest beauty's hair. As I stood and looked at them I +thought, how many girls in this city would be vain if they owned their +eyes and hair, and how God had thrown the beauty down among them who had +no thought about it. He gives beauty to those who hate him and use it to +dishonor him, just as he gives money to those who spend it in sinning. I +almost think, that he holds cheaply those two things the world prizes so +highly; money and beauty." + +After a moment Marjorie said: "I do not mean to live for the world." + +"And you do not sigh for beauty?" smiled Miss Prudence. + +"No, not really. But I do want to be something beside short and stout, +with my hair in a knot." + +The fun in her eyes did not conceal the vexation. + +"Miss Prudence, it's hard to care only for the things God cares about," +she said, earnestly. + +"Yes, very hard." + +"I think _you_ care only for such things. You are not worldly one single +bit." + +"I do not want to be--one single bit." + +"I know you do give up things. But you have so much; you have the best +things. I don't want things you have given up. I think God cares for the +things you care for." + +"I hope he does," said Miss Prudence, gently. "Marjorie, if he has given +you a plain face give it back to him to glorify himself with; if a +beautiful face, give that back to him to glorify himself with. You are +not your own; your face is not yours; it is bought with a price." + +Marjorie's face was radiant just then. The love, the surprise, the joy, +made it beautiful. + +Miss Prudence could not forbear, she drew the beautiful face down to kiss +it. + +"People will always call you plain, dear, but keep your soul in your +face, and no matter." + +"Can I help Deborah now? Or isn't there something for me to do upstairs? +I can study and practice this afternoon." + +"I don't believe you will. Look out in the path." + +Marjorie looked, then with a shout that was almost like Linnet's she +dropped her work, and sprang towards the door. + +For there stood Linnet herself, in the travelling dress Marjorie had seen +her last in; not older or graver, but with her eyes shining like stars, +ready to jump into Marjorie's arms. + +How Miss Prudence enjoyed the girls' chatter. Marjorie wheeled a chair to +the grate for Linnet, and then, having taken her wraps, kneeled down +on the rug beside her and leaned both elbows on the arm of her chair. + +How fast she asked questions, and how Linnet talked and laughed and +brushed a tear away now and then! Was there ever so much to tell before? +Miss Prudence had her questions to ask; and Morris' mother, who had been +coaxed to come in to the grate, steamer chair and all, had many questions +to ask about her boy. + +Marjorie was searching her through and through to discover if marriage +and travel had changed her; but, no, she was the same happy, laughing +Linnet; full of bright talk and funny ways of putting things, with the +same old attitudes and the same old way of rubbing Marjorie's fingers as +she talked. Marriage had not spoiled her. But had it helped her? That +could not be decided in one hour or two. + +When she was quiet there was a sweeter look about her mouth than there +had ever used to be; and there was an assurance, no, it was not so +strong as that, there was an ease of manner, that she had brought home +with her. Marjorie was more her little sister that ever. + +Marjorie laughed to herself because everything began with Linnet's +husband and ended in him: the stories about Genoa seemed to consist in +what Will said and did; Will was the attraction of Naples and the summit +of Mt. Vesuvius; the run down to Sicily and the glimpse of Vesuvius were +somehow all mingled with Will's doings; the stories about the priest at +Naples were all how he and Will spent hours and hours together comparing +their two Bibles; and the tract the priest promised to translate into +Italian was "The Amiable Louisa" that Will had chosen; and, when the +priest said he would have to change the title to suit his readers, Will +had suggested "A Moral Tale." This priest was confessor to a noble family +in the suburbs; and once, when driving out to confess them, had taken +Will with him, and both had stayed to lunch. The priest had given them +his address, and Will had promised to write to him; he had brought her +what he called his "paintings," from his "studio," and she had pinned +them up in her little parlor; they were painted on paper and were not +remarkable evidences of genius. Not quite the old masters, although +painted in Italy by an Italian. His English was excellent; he was +expecting to come to America some day. A sea captain in Brooklyn had a +portrait of him in oil, and when Miss Prudence went to New York she must +call and see it; Morris and he were great friends. That naughty Will had +asked him one day if he never wished to marry, and he had colored so, +poor fellow, and said, 'It is better to live for Christ.' And Will had +said he hoped he lived for Christ, too. The priest had a smooth face and +a little round spot shaven on top of his head. She used to wish Marjorie +might see that little round spot. + +And the pilot, they had such a funny pilot! When anything was passed him +at the table, or you did him a favor, he said "thank you" in Italian +and in English. + +And how they used to walk the little deck! And the sunsets! She had to +confess that she did not see one sunrise till they were off Sandy Hook +coming home. But the moonlight on the water was most wonderful of all! +That golden ladder rising and falling in the sea! They used to look at it +and talk about home and plan what she would do in that little house. + +She used to be sorry for Morris; but he did not seem lonesome: he was +always buried in a book at leisure times; and he said he would be sailing +over the seas with his wife some day. + +"Morris is so _good_" she added. "Sometimes he has reminded me of the +angels who came down to earth as young men." + +"I think he was a Christian before he was seven years old," said his +mother. + +At night Marjorie said, when she conducted Linnet up to her chamber, that +they would go back to the blessed old times, and build castles, and +forget that Linnet was married and had crossed the ocean. + +"I'm living in my castle now," returned Linnet. "I don't want to build +any more. And this is lovelier than any we ever built." + +Marjorie looked at her, but she did not speak her thought; she almost +wished that she might "grow up," and be happy in Linnet's way. + +With a serious face Linnet lay awake after Marjorie had fallen asleep, +thinking over and over Miss Prudence's words when she bade her +goodnight:-- + +"It is an experience to be married, Linnet; for God holds your two lives +as one, and each must share his will for the other; if joyful, it is +twice as joyful; if hard, twice as hard." + +"Yes," she had replied, "Will says we are _heirs together_ of the grace +of life." + + + + +XXI. + +MORRIS AGAIN. + +"Overshadow me, O Lord, +With the comfort of thy wings." + + +Marjorie stood before the parlor grate; it was Saturday afternoon, and +she was dressed for travelling--not for a long journey, for she was only +going home to remain over Sunday and Monday, Monday being Washington's +Birthday, and a holiday. She had seen Linnet those few days that she +visited them on her return from her voyage, and her father and mother not +once since she came to Maple Street in September. She was hungry for +home; she said she was almost starving. + +"I wish you a very happy time," said Miss Prudence as she opened +Marjorie's pocketbook to drop a five-dollar bill into its emptiness. + +"I know it will be a happy time," Marjorie affirmed; "but I shall think +of you and Prue, and want to be here, too." + +"I wish I could go, too," said Prue, dancing around her with Marjorie's +shawl strap in her hand. + +There was a book for her father in the shawl strap, "The Old Bibie and +the New Science"; a pretty white cap for her mother, that Miss Prudence +had fashioned; a cherry-silk tie for Linnet; and a couple of white aprons +for Annie Grey, her mother's handmaiden, these last being also Miss +Prudence's handiwork. + +"Wait till next summer, Prue. Aunt Prue wants to bring you for the sea +bathing." + +"Don't be too sure, Marjorie; if Uncle John comes home he may have other +plans for her." + +"Oh, _is_ he coming home?" inquired Marjorie. + +"He would be here to-day if I had not threatened to lock him out and keep +him standing in a snowdrift until June. He expects to be here the first +day of summer." + +"And what will happen then?" queried Prue. "Is it a secret?" + +"Yes, it's a secret," said Miss Prudence, stepping behind Marjorie to +fasten her veil. + +"Does Marjorie know?" asked Prue anxiously. + +"I never can guess," said Marjorie. "Now, Kitten, good-bye; and sing to +Mrs. Kemlo while I am gone, and be good to Aunt Prue." + +"Marjorie, dear, I shall miss you," said Miss Prudence. + +"But you will be so glad that I am taking supper at home in that dear old +kitchen. And Linnet will be there; and then I am to go home with her to +stay all night. I don't see how I ever waited so long to see her keep +house. Will calls the house Linnet's Nest. I'll come back and tell you +stories about everything." + +"Don't wait any longer, dear; I'm afraid you'll lose the train. I must +give you a watch like Linnet's for a graduating present." + +Marjorie stopped at the gate to toss back a kiss to Prue watching at the +window. Miss Prudence remembered her face years afterward, flushed and +radiant, round and dimpled; such an innocent, girlish face, without one +trace of care or sorrow. Not a breath of real sorrow had touched her in +all her eighteen years. Her laugh that day was as light hearted as +Prue's. + +"That girl lives in a happy world," Mrs. Kemlo had said to Miss Prudence +that morning. + +"She always will," Miss Prudence replied; "she has the gift of living in +the sunshine." + +Miss Prudence looked at the long mirror after Marjorie had gone down the +street, and wished that it might always keep that last reflection of +Marjorie. The very spirit of pure and lovely girlhood! But the same +mirror had not kept her own self there, and the self reflected now was +the woman grown out of the girlhood; would she keep Marjorie from +womanhood? + +Miss Prudence thought in these days that her own youth was being restored +to her; but it had never been lost, for God cannot grow old, neither +can any of himself grow old in the human heart which is his temple. + +Marjorie's quick feet hurried along the street. She found herself at the +depot with not one moment to lose. She had brought her "English +Literature" that she might read Tuesday's lesson in the train. She opened +it as the train started, and was soon so absorbed that she was startled +at a voice inquiring, "Is this seat engaged?" + +"No," she replied, without raising her eyes. But there was something +familiar in the voice; or was she thinking of somebody? She moved +slightly as a gentleman seated himself beside her. Her veil was shading +her face; she pushed it back to give a quick glance at him. The voice had +been familiar; there was still something more familiar in the hair, the +contour of the cheek, and the blonde moustache. + +"Hollis!" she exclaimed, as his eyes looked into hers. She caught her +breath a little, hardly knowing whether she were glad or sorry. + +"Why, Marjorie!" he returned, surprise and embarrassment mingled in his +voice. He did not seem sure, either, whether to be glad or sorry. + +For several moments neither spoke; both were too shy and too conscious of +something uncomfortable. + +"It isn't so very remarkable to find you here, I suppose," he remarked, +after considering for some time an advertisement in a daily paper which +he held in his hand. + +"No, nor so strange to encounter you." + +"You have not been home for some time." + +"Not since I came in September." + +"And I have not since Will's wedding day. There was a shower that night, +and your mother tried to keep me; and I wished she had more than a few +times on my dark way home." + +"It is almost time to hear from Will." Marjorie had no taste for +reminiscences. + +"I expect to hear every day." + +"So do we. Mrs. Kemlo watches up the street and down the street for the +postman." + +"Oh, yes. Morris. I forgot. Does he like the life?" + +"He is enthusiastic." + +She turned a leaf, and read a page of extracts from Donald Grant +Mitchell; but she had not understood one word, so she began again and +read slowly, trying to understand; then she found her ticket in her +glove, and examined it with profound interest, the color burning in her +cheeks; then she gazed long out of the window at the snow and the bare +trees and the scattered farmhouses; then she turned to study the lady's +bonnet in front of her, and to pity the mother with the child in front of +_her_; she looked before and behind and out the windows; she looked +everywhere but at the face beside her; she saw his overcoat, his black +travelling bag, and wondered what he had brought his mother; she looked +at his brown kid gloves, at his black rubber watch chain, from which a +gold anchor was dangling; but it was dangerous to raise her eyes higher, +so they sought his boots and the newspaper on his knee. Had he spoken +last, or had she? What was the last remark? About Morris? It was +certainly not about Donald Grant Mitchell. Yes, she had spoken last; she +had said Morris was-- + +Would he speak of her long unanswered letter? Would he make an excuse for +not noticing it? A sentence in rhetoric was before her eyes: "Any letter, +not insulting, merits a reply." Perhaps he had never studied rhetoric. +Her lips were curving into a smile; wouldn't it be fun to ask him? + +"I am going to London next week. I came home to say good-bye to mother." + +"Will you stay long?" was all that occurred to her to remark. Her voice +was quite devoid of interest. + +"Where? In London, or at home?" + +"Both," she said smiling. + +"I must return to New York on Monday; and I shall stay in London only +long enough to attend to business. I shall go to Manchester and to Paris. +My route is not all mapped out for me yet. Do you like school as well as +you expected to?" + +"Oh, yes, indeed." + +"You expect to finish this year?" + +"I suppose I shall leave school." + +"And go home?" + +"Oh, yes. What else should I do?" + +"And learn housekeeping from Linnet." + +"It is not new work to me." + +"How is Miss Prudence?" + +"As lovely as ever." + +"And the little girl?" + +"Sweet and good and bright." + +"And Mrs. Kemlo?" + +"She is--happier." + +"Hasn't she always been happy?" + +"No; she was like your mother; only hers has lasted so long. I am so +sorry for such--unhappiness." + +"So am I. I endured enough of it at one time." + +"I cannot even think of it. She is going home with me in June. Morris +will be glad to have her with mother." + +"When is Mr. Holmes coming here?" + +"In June." + +"June is to be a month of happenings in your calendar." + +"Every month is--in my calendar." + +He was bending towards her that she might listen easily, as he did not +wish to raise his voice. + +"I haven't told you about my class in Sunday school." + +"Oh, have you a class?" + +"Yes, a class of girls--girls about fourteen. I thought I never could +interest them. I don't know how to talk to little girls; but I am full of +the lesson, and so are they, and the time is up before we know it." + +"I'm very glad. It will be good for you," said Marjorie, quite in Miss +Prudence's manner. + +"It is, already," he said gravely and earnestly "I imagine it is better +for me than for them." + +"I don't believe that" + +"Our lesson last Sunday was about the Lord's Supper; and one of them +asked me if Christ partook of the Supper with his disciples. I had not +thought of it. I do not know. Do you?" + +"He ate the passover with them." + +"But this was afterward. Why should he do it in remembrance of his own +death? He gave them the bread and the cup." + +Marjorie was interested. She said she would ask her father and Miss +Prudence; and her mother must certainly have thought about it. + +The conductor nudged Hollis twice before he noticed him and produced his +ticket; then the candy boy came along, and Hollis laid a paper of +chocolate creams in Marjorie's lap. It was almost like going back to the +times when he brought apples to school for her. If he would only explain +about the letter-- + +The next station would be Middlefield! What a short hour and a half! She +buttoned her glove, took her shawl strap into her lap, loosening the +strap so that she might slip her "English Literature" in, tightened it +again, ate the last cream drop, tossed aside the paper, and was ready for +Middlefield. + +As the train stopped he took the shawl strap from her hand. She followed +him through the car, gave him her hand to assist her to the platform, and +then there was a welcome in her ears, and Linnet and her father seemed to +be surrounding her. Captain Rheid had brought Linnet to the train, +intending to take Hollis back. Linnet was jubilant over the news of +Will's safe arrival; they had found the letter at the office. + +"Father has letters too," she said to Hollis; "he will give you his +news." + +As the sleigh containing Linnet, her father, and Marjorie sped away +before them, Captain Rheid said to Hollis:-- + +"How shall I ever break it to them? Morris is dead." + +"Dead!" repeated Hollis. + +"He died on the voyage out. Will gives a long account of it for his +mother and Marjorie. It seems the poor fellow was engaged to her, and has +given Will a parting present for her." + +"How did it happen?" + +Will has tried to give details; but he is rather confusing. He is in +great trouble. He wanted to bring him home; but that was impossible. They +came upon a ship in distress, and laid by her a day and a night in foul +weather to take them off. Morris went to them with a part of the crew, +and got them all safely aboard the _Linnet_; but he had received some +injury, nobody seemed to know how. His head was hurt, for he was +delirious after the first night. He sent his love to his mother, and +gave Will something for Marjorie, and then did not know anything after +that. Will is heartbroken. He wants me to break it to Linnet; but I +didn't see how I can. Your mother will have to do it. The letter can go +to his mother; Miss Prudence will see to that. + +"But Marjorie," said Hollis slowly. + +"Yes, poor little Marjorie!" said the old man compassionately. "It will +go hard with her." + +"Linnet or her mother can tell her." + +The captain touched his horse, and they flew past the laughing +sleighload. Linnet waved her handkerchief, Marjorie laughed, and their +father took off his hat to them. + +"Oh, _dear_," groaned the captain. + +"Lord, help her; poor little thing," prayed Hollis, with motionless lips. + +He remembered that last letter of hers that he had not answered. His +mother had written to him that she surmised that Marjorie was engaged +to Morris; and he had felt it wrong--"almost interfering," he had put it +to himself--to push their boy and girl friendship any further. And, +again--Hollis was cautious in the extreme--if she did not belong to +Morris, she might infer that he was caring with a grown up feeling, which +he was not at all sure was true--he was not sure about himself in +anything just then; and, after he became a Christian, he saw all things +in a new light, and felt that a "flirtation" was not becoming a disciple +of Christ. He had become a whole-hearted disciple of Christ. His Aunt +Helen and his mother were very eager for him to study for the ministry; +but he had told them decidedly that he was not "called." + +"And I _am_ called to serve Christ as a businessman. Commercial +travellers, as a rule, are men of the world; but, as I go about, I want +to go about my Father's business." + +"But he would be so enthusiastic," lamented Aunt Helen. + +"And he has such a nice voice," bewailed his mother; "and I did hope to +see one of my five boys in the pulpit." + + + + +XXII. + +TIDINGS. + +"He giveth his beloved sleep." + + +Sunday in the twilight Linnet and Marjorie were alone in Linnet's little +kitchen. Linnet was bending over the stove stirring the chocolate, and +Marjorie was setting the table for two. + +"Linnet!" she exclaimed, "it's like playing house." + +"I feel very much in earnest." + +"So do I. That chocolate makes me feel so. Have you had time to watch the +light over the fields? Or is it too poor a sight after gazing at the +sunset on the ocean?" + +"Marjorie!" she said, turning around to face her, and leaving the spoon +idle in the steaming pot, "do you know, I think there's something the +matter?" + +"Something the matter? Where?" + +"I don't know where. I was wondering this afternoon if people always had +a presentiment when trouble was coming." + +"Did you ever have any trouble?" asked Marjorie seriously. + +"Not real, dreadful trouble. But when I hear of things happening +suddenly, I wonder if it is so sudden, really; or if they are not +prepared in some way for the very thing, or for something." + +"We always know that our friends may die--that is trouble. I feel as if +it would kill me for any one I love to die." + +"Will is safe and well," said Linnet, "and father and mother." + +"And Morris--I shall find a letter for me at home, I expect. I suppose +his mother had hers last night. How she lives in him! She loves him +more than any of us. But what kind of a feeling have you?" + +"I don't know." + +"You are tired and want to go to sleep," said Marjorie, practically. +"I'll sing you to sleep after supper. Or read to you! We have 'Stepping +Heavenward' to read. That will make you forget all your nonsense." + +"Hollis' face isn't nonsense." + +"He hasn't talked to me since last night. I didn't see him in church." + +"I did. And that is what I mean. I should think his trouble was about +Will, if I hadn't the letter. And Father Rheid! Do you see how fidgety +he is? He has been over here four times to-day." + +"He is always stern." + +"No; he isn't. Not like this. And Mother Rheid looked so--too." + +"How?" laughed Marjorie. "O, you funny Linnet." + +"I wish I could laugh at it. But I heard something, too. Mother Rheid was +talking to mother after church this afternoon, and I heard her say, +'distressing.' Father Rheid hurried me into the sleigh, and mother put +her veil down; and I was too frightened to ask questions." + +"She meant that she had a distressing cold," said Marjorie lightly. +"'Distressing' is one of her pet words. She is distressed over the +coldness of the church, and she is distressed when all her eggs do not +hatch. I wouldn't be distressed about that, Linnet. And mother put her +veil down because the wind was blowing I put mine down, too." + +Linnet stirred the chocolate; but her face was still anxious. Will had +not spoken of Morris. Could it be Morris? It was not like Will not to +speak of Morris. + +"Will did not speak of Morris. Did you notice that?" + +"Does he always? I suppose Morris has spoken for himself." + +"If Hollis doesn't come over by the time we are through tea, I'll go over +there. I can't wait any longer." + +"Well, I'll go with you to ease your mind. But you must eat some supper." + +As Linnet placed the chocolate pot on the table, Marjorie exclaimed, +"There they are! Mother Rheid and Hollis. They are coming by the road; +of course the field is blocked with snow. Now your anxious heart shall +laugh at itself. I'll put on plates for two more. Is there chocolate +enough? And it won't seem so much like playing house." + +While Marjorie put on the extra plates and cut a few more slices of +sponge cake, Linnet went to the front door, and stood waiting for them. + +Through the open kitchen door Marjorie heard her ask, "Is anything the +matter?" + +"Hush! Where's Marjorie?" asked Hollis' voice. + +Was it her trouble? Was it Miss Prudence? Or Prue--it could not be her +father and mother; she had seen them at church. Morris! _Morris!_ Had +they not just heard from Will? He went away, and she was not kind to him. + +Who was saying "dead"? Was somebody dead? + +She was trembling so that she would have fallen had she not caught at the +back of a chair for support. There was a buzzing in her ears; she was +sinking down, sinking down. Linnet was clinging to her, or holding her +up. Linnet must be comforted. + +"Is somebody--dead?" she asked, her dry lips parting with an effort. + +"Yes, dear; it's Morris," said Mrs. Rheid. "Lay her down flat, Linnet. +It's the shock? Hollis, bring some water." + +"Oh, no, no," shivered Marjorie, "don't touch me. What shall I say to his +mother? His mother hasn't any one else to care for her. Where is he? +Won't somebody tell me all about it?" + +"Oh, dear; I can't," sobbed Mrs. Rheid. + +Hollis drew her into a chair and seated himself beside her, keeping her +cold hand in his. + +"I will tell you, Marjorie." + +But Marjorie did not hear; she only heard, "Good-bye, Marjorie--_dear_." + +"Are you listening, Marjorie?" + +"Oh, yes." + +Linnet stood very white beside her. Mrs. Rheid was weeping softly. + +"They were near a ship in distress; the wind was high, and they could not +go to her for many hours; at last Morris went in a boat, with some of the +crew, and helped them off the wreck; he saved them all, but he was hurt +in some way,--Will does not know how; the men tried to tell him, but they +contradicted themselves,--and after getting safe aboard his own ship--do +you understand it all?" + +"Yes. Morris got back safe to the _Linnet_, but he was injured--" + +"And then taken very ill, so ill that he was delirious. Will did +everything for his comfort that he could do; he was with him night and +day; he lived nine days. But, before he became delirious, he sent his +love to his mother, and he gave Will something to give to you." + +"Yes. I know," said Marjorie. "I don't deserve it. I refused it when he +wanted to give it to me. I wasn't kind to him." + +"Yes, you were," said Linnet, "you don't know what you are saying. You +were always kind to him, and he loved you." + +"Yes; but I might have been kinder," she said. "Must I tell his mother?" + +"No; Miss Prudence will do that," answered Hollis. "I have Will's letter +for you to take to her." + +"Where is he? Where _is_ Morris?" + +"Buried in England. Will could not bring him home," said Hollis. + +"His mother! What will she do?" moaned Marjorie. + +"Marjorie, you talk as if there was no one to comfort her," rebuked Mrs. +Rheid. + +"You have all your boys, Mrs. Rheid, and she had only Morris," said +Marjorie. + +"Yes; that is true; and I cannot spare one of them. Do cry, child. Don't +sit there with your eyes so wide open and big." + +Marjorie closed her eyes and leaned back against Linnet. Morris had gone +to God. + +It was hours before the tears came. She sobbed herself to sleep towards +morning. She did not deserve it; but she would keep the thing he had sent +to her. Another beautiful life was ended; who would do his work on the +earth. Would Hollis? Could she do a part of it? She would love his +mother. Oh, how thankful she was that he had known that rest had begun to +come to his mother, that he had known that she was safe with Miss +Prudence. + +It was like Marjorie, even in her first great sorrow, to fall asleep +thanking God. + + + + +XXIII. + +GOD'S LOVE. + +"As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." + + +Marjorie opened her "English Literature." She must recite to-morrow. She +had forgotten whom she had studied about Saturday afternoon. + +Again Hollis was beside her in the train. Her shawl strap was at her +feet; her ticket was tucked into her glove; she opened at the same place +in "English Literature." Now she remembered "Donald Grant Mitchell." His +"Dream Life" was one of Morris' favorites. They had read it together one +summer under the apple-tree. He had coaxed her to read aloud, saying that +her voice suited it. She closed the book; she could not study; how +strange it would be to go among the girls and hear them laugh and talk; +would any of them ask her if she were in trouble? They would remember her +sailor boy. + +Was it Saturday afternoon? Hollis wore those brown kid gloves, and there +was the anchor dangling from his black chain. She was not too shy to look +higher, and meet the smile of his eyes to-day. Was she going home and +expecting a letter from Morris? There was a letter in her pocket; but it +was not from Morris. Hollis had said he expected to hear from Will; and +they had heard from Will. He would be home before very long, and tell +them all the rest. The train rushed on; a girl was eating peanuts behind +her, and a boy was studying his Latin Grammar in front of her. She was +going to Morris' mother; the rushing train was hurrying her on. How could +she say to Miss Prudence, "Morris is dead." + +"Marjorie." + +"Well," she answered, rousing herself. + +"Are you comfortable?" + +The voice was sympathetic; tears started, she could only nod in reply. + +There seemed to be nothing to talk about to-day. + +She had replied in monosyllables so long that he was discouraged with his +own efforts at conversation, and lapsed into silence. But it was a +silence that she felt she might break at any moment. + +The train stopped at last; it had seemed as if it would never stop, and +then as if it would stop before she could catch her breath and be ready +to speak. If she had not refused that something he had brought her this +would not have been so hard. Had he cared so very much? Would she have +cared very much if he had refused those handkerchiefs she had marked for +him? But Hollis had taken her shawl strap, and was rising. + +"You will not have time to get out." + +"Did you think I would leave you anywhere but with your friends? Have you +forgotten me so far as that?" + +"I was thinking of your time." + +"Never mind. One has always time for what he wants to do most." + +"Is that an original proverb?" + +"I do not know that it is a quotation." + +She dropped her veil over her face, and walked along the platform at his +side. There were no street cars in the small city, and she had protested +against a carriage. + +"I like the air against my face." + +That last walk with Morris had been so full of talk; this was taken in +absolute silence. The wind was keen and they walked rapidly. Prue was +watching at the window, loving little Prue, as Marjorie knew she would +be. + +"There's a tall man with Marjorie, Aunt Prue." + +Aunt Prue left the piano and followed her to the door. Mrs. Kemlo was +knitting stockings for Morris in her steamer chair. + +Marjorie was glad of Prue's encircling arms. She hid her face in the +child's hair while Hollis passed her and spoke to Miss Prudence. + +Miss Prudence would be strong. Marjorie did not fear anything for her. It +might be cowardly, but she must run away from his mother. She laid Will's +letter in Hollis' hand, and slipping past him hastened up the stairway. +Prue followed her, laughing and pulling at her cloak. + +She could tell Prue; it would relieve her to talk to Prue. + +They were both weeping, Prue in Marjorie's arms, when Miss Prudence found +them in her chamber an hour later. The only light in the room came +through the open door of the airtight. + +"Does she know?" asked Marjorie, springing up to greet Miss Prudence. + +"Yes; she is very quiet, I have prayed with her twice; and we have talked +about his life and his death. She says that it was unselfish to the end." + +"He sent his love to her; did Hollis tell you?" + +"I read the letter--I read it twice. She holds it in her hand now." + +"Has the tall man gone?" asked Prue. + +"Yes, he did not stay long. Marjorie, you did not bid him good-night." + +"I know it; I did not think." + +"Marjorie, dear;" Miss Prudence opened her arms, and Marjorie crept into +them. + +"Oh, Aunt Prue, I would not be so troubled, but he wanted to give me +something--some little thing he had brought me--because he always did +remember me, and I would not even look at it. I don't know what it was. I +refused it; and I know he was so hurt. I was almost tempted to take it +when I saw his eyes; and then I wanted to be true." + +"Were you true?" + +"I tried to be." + +"Then there is nothing to be troubled about. He is comforted for it now. +Don't you want to go down and see his mother?" + +"I'm afraid to see her." + +"She will comfort you. She is sure now that God loves her. I have been +trying to teach her, and now God has taught her so that she can rejoice +in his love. Whom the Lord loveth, she says, he chastens; and he knows +how he has chastened her. If it were not for his love, Marjorie, what +would keep our hearts from breaking?" + +"Papa died, too," said Prue. + +Marjorie went down to the parlor. Mrs. Kemlo was sitting at the grate, +leaning back in her steamer chair. Marjorie kissed her without a word. + +"Marjorie! The girls ought to know. I don't believe I can write." + +"I can. I will write to-night." + +"And copy this letter; then they will know it just as it is. He was with +you so long they will not miss him as we do. They were older, and they +loved each other, and left him to me. And, Marjorie--" + +"Yes'm." + +"Tell them I am going to your mother's as soon as warm weather comes, +unless one of them would rather take me home; tell them Miss Prudence has +become a daughter to me; I am not in need of anything. Give them my love, +and say that when they love their little ones, they must think of how +I loved them." + +"I will," said Marjorie, "You and mother will enjoy each other so much." + +Marjorie wrote the letters that evening, her eyes so blinded with tears +that she wrote very crookedly. No one would ever know what she had lost +in Morris. He had been a part of herself that even Linnet had never been. +She was lost without him, and for months wandered in a new world. She +suffered more keenly upon the anniversary of the day of the tidings of +his death than she suffered that day. Then, she could appreciate more +fully what God had taken from her. But the letters were written, and +mailed on her way to school in the morning; her recitations were gone +through with; and night came, when she could have the rest of sleep. The +days went on outwardly as usual. Prue was daily becoming more and more a +delight to them all. Mrs. Kemlo's sad face was sweet and chastened; and +Miss Prudence's days were more full of busy doings, with a certain +something of a new life about them that Marjorie did not understand. She +could almost imagine what Miss Prudence had been twenty years ago. +Despite her lightness of foot, her inspiriting voice, and her _young_ +interest in every question that pertained to life and work and study, +Miss Prudence seemed old to eighteen-years-old Marjorie. Not as old as +her mother; but nearly forty-five was very old. When she was forty-five, +she thought, her life would be almost ended; and here was Miss Prudence +always _beginning again_. + +Answers to her letters arrived duly. They were not long; but they were +conventionally sympathetic. + +One daughter wrote: "Morris took you away from us to place you with +friends whom he thought would take good care of you; if you are satisfied +to stay with them, I think you will be better off than with me. Business +is dull, and Peter thinks he has enough on his hands." + +The other wrote: "I am glad you are among such kind friends. If Miss +Pomeroy thinks she owes you anything, now is her time to repay it. But +she could pay your board with me as well as with strangers, and you could +help me with the children. I am glad you can be submissive, and that you +are in a pleasanter frame of mind. Henry sends love, and says you never +shall want a home while he has a roof over his own head." + +The mother sighed over both letters. They both left so much unsaid. They +were wrapped up in their husbands and children. + +"I hope their children will love them when they are old," was the only +remark she made about the letters. + +"I am your child, too," said Marjorie. "Won't you take me instead--no, +not instead of Morris, but _with_ him?" + +In April Will came home. He spent a night in Maple Street, and almost +satisfied the mother's hungry heart with the comfort he gave her. +Marjorie listened with tears. She went away by herself to open the tiny +box that Will placed in her hand. Kissing the ring with loving and +reverent lips, she slipped it on the finger that Morris would have +chosen, the finger on which Linnet wore her wedding ring. "_Semper +fidelis._" She could see the words now as he used to write them on the +slate. If he might only know that she cared for the ring! If he might +only know that she was waiting for him to come back to bring it to her. +If he might only know--But he had God now; he was in the presence of +Jesus Christ. There was no marrying or giving in marriage in the +presence of Christ in Heaven. Giving in marriage and marrying had been in +his presence on the earth; but where fullness of joy was, there was +something better. Marriage belonged to the earth. She belonged to the +earth; but he belonged to Heaven. The ring did not signify that she was +married to him--I think it might have meant that to her, if she had read +the shallow sentimentalism of some love stories; but Miss Prudence had +kept her from false ideas, and given her the truth; the truth, that +marriage was the symbol of the union of Christ and his people; a pure +marriage was the type of this union. Linnet's marriage was holier and +happier because of Miss Prudence's teaching. Miss Prudence was an old +maid; but she had helped others beside Linnet and Marjorie towards the +happiest marriage. Marjorie had not one selfish, or shallow, or false +idea with regard to marriage. And why should girls have, who have good +mothers and the Old and New Testaments? + +With no shamefacedness, no foolish consciousness, she went down among +them with Morris' ring upon her finger. She would as soon have been +ashamed to say that an angel had spoken to her. Perhaps she was not a +modern school-girl, perhaps she was as old-fashioned as Miss Prudence +herself. + + + + +XXIV. + +JUST AS IT OUGHT TO BE. + +"I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would +wear well."--_Goldsmith._ + + +"Prudence!" + +"Well, John," she returned, as he seemed to hesitate. + +"Have we arranged everything?" + +"Everything! And you have been home three hours." + +"Three and a half, if you please; it is now six o'clock." + +"Then the tea-bell will ring." + +"No; I told Deborah to ring at seven to-night." + +"She will think you are putting on the airs of the master." + +"Don't you think it is about time? Or, it will be at half past six." + +"Why, in half an hour?" + +"Half an hour may make all the difference in the world." + +"In some instances, yes?" + +They were walking up and down the walk they had named years ago "the +shrubbery path." He had found her in the shrubbery path in the old days +when she used to walk up and down and dream her girlish dreams. Like +Linnet she liked her real life better than anything she had dreamed. + +Mr. Holmes had returned with his shoulders thrown back, the lines of care +softened into lines of thought, and the slouched hat replaced by a +broad-brimmed panama; his step was quick, his voice had a ring in it, the +stern, determined expression was altogether gone; there was a loveliness +in his face that was not in Miss Prudence's own; when his sterner and +stronger nature became sweet, it was very sweet. Life had been a long +fight; in yielding, he had conquered. He bubbled over into nonsense now +and then. Twenty years ago he had walked this path with Prudence Pomeroy, +when there was hatred in his heart and an overwhelming sorrow in hers. +There always comes a time when we are _through_. He believed that +tonight. Prue was not lighter of heart than he. + +"Twenty years is a large piece out of a man's lifetime; but I would have +waited twice twenty for this hour, Prudence." + +"I wish I deserved my happiness as much as you do yours, John." + +"Perhaps you haven't as much to deserve." + +"I'm glad I don't deserve it. I want it to be all God's gift and his +goodness." + +"It is, dear." + +"I wish we might take Marjorie with us," she said, after a moment; "she +would have such an unalloyed good time." + +"Any one else?" + +"Mrs. Kemlo." + +"Is that all?" + +"There's Deborah." + +"Prudence, you ought to be satisfied with me. You don't know how to be +married." + +"Suppose I wait twenty years longer and learn." + +"No, it is like learning to swim; the best way is to plunge at once. And +at once will be in about twenty minutes, instead of twenty years." + +"What do you mean?" she asked, standing still in unfeigned astonishment. + +"I mean that your neighbor across the way has been invited to call at +half past six this evening to marry me, and I supposed you were willing +to be married at the same time." + +"John Holmes!" + +"Do you want to send me off again?" + +"But I never thought of such a thing." + +"It wasn't necessary; one brilliant mind is enough to plan. What did you +ask me to come home for?" + +"But not now--not immediately." + +"Why not?" he asked, gravely. + +"Because," she smiled at her woman's reason, "I'm not ready." + +"Don't you know whether you are willing or not?" + +"Yes, I know that." + +"Aren't you well enough acquainted with me? Haven't you proved me long +enough?" + +"O, John," her eyes filling with tears. + +"What else can you mean by 'ready'?" + +She looked down at her dress; a gray flannel--an iron gray flannel--a +gray flannel and linen collar and cuffs to be married in. But was it not +befitting her gray locks? + +"John, look at me!" + +"I am looking at you." + +"What do you see?" + +"You were never so lovely in your life." + +"You were never so obstinate in your life." + +"I never had such a good right before. Now listen to reason. You say this +house is to be sold; and the furniture, for future housekeeping, is to be +packed and stored; that you and Prue are to sail for Havre the first +steamer in July; and who beside your husband is to attend to this, and to +get you on board the steamer in time?" + +"But, John!" laying her hand in expostulation upon his arm. + +"But, Prudence!" he laughed. "Is Deborah to go with us? Shall we need her +in our Italian palace, or are we to dwell amid ruins?" + +"Nothing else would make her old heart so glad." + +"Marjorie and Mrs. Kemlo expect to go home to-morrow." + +"Yes." + +"Don't you want Marjorie to stay and help you?" + +"With such a valiant husband at the front! I suspect you mean to create +emergencies simply to help me out of them." + +"I'm creating one now; and all I want you to do is to be helped out--or +in." + +"But, John, I must go in and fix my hair." + +"Your hair looks as usual." + +"But I don't want it to look as usual. Do you want the bride to forget +her attire and her ornaments?" + +A blue figure with curls flying and arms outstretched was flying down +towards them from the upper end of the path. + +"O, Aunt Prue! Mr. March has come over--without Mrs. March, and he asked +for you. I told him Uncle John had come home, and he smiled, and said he +could not get along without him." + +"John, you should have asked Mrs. March, too." + +"I forgot the etiquette of it. I forgot she was your pastor's wife. But +it's too late now." + +"Prue!" Miss Prudence laid her hand on Prue's head to keep her quiet. +"Ask Marjorie and Mrs. Kemlo and Deborah to come into the parlor." + +"We are to be married, Prue!" said John Holmes. + +"_Who_ is?" asked Prue. + +"Aunt Prue and I. Don't you want papa and mamma instead of Uncle John and +Aunt Prue?" + +"Yes; I do! Wait for us to come. I'll run and tell them," she answered, +fleeing away. + +"John, this is a very irregular proceeding!" + +"It quite befits the occasion, however," he answered gravely. Very slowly +they walked toward the house. + +All color had left Miss Prudence's cheeks and lips. Deborah was sure she +would faint; but Mrs. Kemlo watched her lips, and knew by the firm lines +that she would not. + +No one thought about the bridegroom, because no one ever does. Prue kept +close to Miss Prudence, and said afterward that she was mamma's +bridesmaid. Marjorie thought that Morris would be glad if he could know +it; he had loved Mr. Holmes. + +The few words were solemnly spoken. + +Prudence Pomeroy and John Holmes were husband and wife. + +"What God hath joined--" + +Oh, how God had joined them. She had belonged to him so long. + +The bridegroom and bride went on their wedding tour by walking up and +down the long parlor in the summer twilight. Not many words were spoken. + +Deborah went out to the dining-room to change the table cloth for one of +the best damasks, saying to herself, "It's just as it ought to be! Just +as it ought to be! And things do happen so once in a while in this +crooked world." + + + + +XXV. + +THE WILL OF GOD. + +"To see in all things good and fair, +Thy love attested is my prayer."--_Alice Cary._ + + +"Linnet is happy enough," said their mother; "but there's Marjorie!" + +Yes; there was Marjorie! She was not happy enough. She was twenty-one +this summer, and not many events had stirred her uneventful life since we +left her the night of Miss Prudence's marriage. She came home the next +day bringing Mrs. Kemlo with her, and the same day she began to take the +old household steps. She had been away but a year, and had not fallen out +of the old ways as Linnet had in her three years of study; and she had +not come home to be married as Linnet had; she came home to do the next +thing, and the next thing had even been something for her father and +mother, or Morris' mother. + +Annie Grey went immediately, upon the homecoming of the daughter of the +house, to Middlefield to learn dressmaking, boarding with Linnet and +"working her board." Linnet was lonely at night; she began to feel lonely +as dusk came on; and the arrangement of board for one and pleasant +companionship for the other, was satisfactory to both. Not that there was +very much for Annie to do, beside staying at home Monday mornings to help +with the washing, and ironing Monday evening or early Tuesday. Linnet +loved her housekeeping too well to let any other fingers intermeddle. +Will decided that she must stay, for company, especially through the +winter nights, if he had to pay her board. + +Therefore Marjorie took the place that she left vacant in the farmhouse, +and more than filled it, but she did not love housekeeping for its own +comfortable sake, as Linnet did; she did it as "by God's law." + +Her father's health failed signally this first summer. He was weakened by +several hemorrhages, and became nervous and unfitted even to superintend +the work of the "hired man." That general superintendence fell to Mrs. +West, and she took no little pride in the flourishing state of the few +acres. Now she could farm as she wanted to; Graham had not always +listened to her. The next summer he died. That was the summer Marjorie +was twenty. The chief business of the nursing fell to Marjorie; her +mother was rather too energetic for the comfort of the sickroom, and +there was always so much to be attended to outside that quiet chamber. + +"Marjorie knows her father's way," Mrs. West apologized to Mrs. Kemlo. +"He never has to tell her what he wants; but I have to make him explain. +There are born nurses, and I'm not one of them. I'll keep things running +outside, and that's for his comfort. He is as satisfied as though he were +about himself. If one of us must be down, he knows that he'd better be +the one." + +During their last talk--how many talks Marjorie and her father had!--he +made one remark that she had not forgotten, and would never forget:-- + +"My life has been of little account, as the world goes; but I have sought +to do God's will, and that is success to a man on his death-bed." + +Would not her life be a success, then? For what else did she desire but +the will of God. + +The minister told Marjorie that there was no man in the church whose life +had had such a resistless influence as her father's. + +The same hired man was retained; the farm work was done to Mrs. West's +satisfaction. The farm was her own as long as she lived; and then it was +to belong equally to the daughters. There were no debts. + +The gentle, patient life was missed with sore hearts; but there was no +outward difference within doors or without. Marjorie took his seat at +table; Mrs. Kemlo sat in his armchair at the fireside; his wife read his +_Agriculturist_; and his daughter read his special devotional books. His +wife admitted to herself that Graham lacked force of character. She +herself was a _pusher_. She did not understand his favorite quotation: +"He that believeth shall not make haste." + +Marjorie had her piano--this piano was a graduating present from Miss +Prudence; more books than she could read, from the libraries of Mr. and +Mrs. Holmes; her busy work in the household; an occasional visit to the +farmhouse on the sea shore, to read to the old people and sing to them, +and even to cut and string apples and laugh over her childish abhorrence +of the work. She never opened the door of the chamber they still called +"Miss Prudence's," without feeling that it held a history. How different +her life would have been but for Miss Prudence. And Linnet's. And +Morris's! And how many other lives, who knew? There were, beside, her +class in Sunday school; and her visits to Linnet, and exchanging visits +with the school-girls,--not with the girls at Master McCosh's; she had +made no intimate friendships among them. And then there were letters from +Aunt Prue, and childish, affectionate notes from dear little Prue. + +Marjorie's life was not meagre; still she was not "happy enough." She +wrote to Aunt Prue that she was not "satisfied." + +"That's a girl's old story," Mrs. Holmes said to her husband. "She must +_evolve_, John. There's enough in her for something to come out of her." + +"What do girls want to _do_?" he asked, looking up from his writing. + +"Be satisfied," laughed his wife. + +"Did you go through that delusive period?" + +"Was I not a girl?" + +"And here's Prue growing up, to say some day that she isn't satisfied." + +"No; to say some day that she is." + +"_When_ were you satisfied?" + +"At what age? You will not believe that I was thirty-five, before I was +satisfied with my life. And then I was satisfied, because I was willing +for God to have his way with me. If it were not for that willingness, I +shouldn't be satisfied yet." + +"Then you can tell Marjorie not to wait until she is half of three score +and ten before she gives herself up." + +"Her will is more yielding than mine; she doesn't seek great things for +herself." + +The letter from Switzerland about being "satisfied" Marjorie read again +and again. There was only one way for childhood, girlhood, or womanhood +to be satisfied; and that one way was to acknowledge God in every thing, +and let him direct every step. Then if one were not satisfied, it was +dissatisfaction with God's will; God's will was not enough. + +Hollis had made short visits at home twice since she had left school. The +first time, she had been at her grandfather's and saw him but half an +hour; the second time, they met not at all, as she was attending to some +business for Mrs. Holmes, and spending a day and night with Mrs. +Harrowgate. + +This twenty-first summer she was not happy; she had not been happy for +months. It was a new experience, not to be happy. She had been born +happy. I do not think any trial, excepting the one she was suffering, +would have so utterly unsettled her. It was a strange thing--but, no, I +do not know that it was a strange thing; but it may be that you are +surprised that she could have this kind of trial; as she expressed it, +she was not sure that she was a Christian! All her life she had thought +about God; now, when she thought about herself, she began to fear and +doubt and tremble. + +No wonder that she slept fitfully, that she awoke in the night to weep, +that she ate little and grew pale and thin. It was a strange thing to +befall my happy Marjorie. Her mother could not understand it. She tempted +her appetite in various ways, sent her to her grandfather's for a change, +and to Linnet's; but she came home as pale and dispirited as she went. + +"She works too hard," thought the anxious mother; and sent for a woman to +wash and iron, that the child might be spared. Marjorie protested, saying +that she was not ill; but as the summer days came, she did not grow +stronger. Then a physician was called; who pronounced the malady nervous +exhaustion, prescribed a tonic--cheerful society, sea bathing, horseback +riding--and said he would be in again. + +Marjorie smiled and knew it would do no good. If Aunt Prue were near her +she would open her heart to her; she could have told her father all +about it; but she shrank from making known to her mother that she was not +ill, but grieving because she was not a Christian. Her mother would +give her energetic advice, and bid her wrestle in prayer until peace +came. Could her mother understand, when she had lived in the very +sunshine of faith for thirty years? + +She had prayed--she prayed for hours at a time; but peace came not. She +had fasted and prayed, and still peace did not come. + +Her mother was as blithe and cheery as the day was long. Linnet was as +full of song as a bird, because Will was on the passage home. In Mrs. +Kemlo's face and voice and words and manner, was perfect peace. Aunt +Prue's letters were overflowing with joy in her husband and child, and +joy in God. Only Marjorie was left outside. Mrs. Rheid had become zealous +in good works. She read extracts from Hollis' letters to her, where he +wrote of his enjoyment in church work, his Bible class, the Young Men's +Christian Association, the prayer-meeting. But Marjorie had no heart for +work. She had attempted to resign as teacher in Sunday school; but the +superintendent and her class of bright little girls persuaded her to +remain. She had sighed and yielded. How could she help them to be what +she was not herself? No one understood and no one helped her. For the +first time in her life she was tempted to be cross. She was weary at +night with the effort all day to keep in good humor. + +And she was a member of the church? Had she a right to go to the +communion? Was she not living a lie? She stayed at home the Sabbath of +the summer communion, and spent the morning in tears in her own chamber. + +Her mother prayed for her, but she did not question her. + +"Marjorie, dear," Morris' mother said, "can you not feel that God loves +you?" + +"I _know_ he does," she replied, bursting into tears; "but I don't love +him." + +In August of this summer Captain Will was loading in Portland for Havana. +She was ready for sea, but the wind was ahead. After two days of +persistent head wind Saturday night came, and it was ahead still. Captain +Will rushed ashore and hurried out to Linnet. He would have one Sunday +more at home. + +Annie was spending a week in Middlefield, and Linnet was alone. She had +decided not to go home, but to send for Marjorie; and was standing at the +gate watching for some one to pass, by whom she might send her message, +when Will himself appeared, having walked from the train. + +Linnet shouted; he caught her in his arms and ran around the house with +her, depositing her at last in the middle of the grass plat in front of +the house. + +"One more Sunday with you, sweetheart! Have you been praying for a head +wind?" + +"Suppose I should pray for it to be ahead as long as we live!" + +"Poor little girl! It's hard for you to be a sailor's wife, isn't it?" + +"It isn't hard to be your wife. It would be hard not to be," said +demonstrative Linnet. + +"You are going with me next voyage, you have promised." + +"Your father has not said I might." + +"He won't grumble; the _Linnet_ is making money for him." + +"You haven't had any supper, Will! And I am forgetting it." + +"Have you?" + +"I didn't feel like eating, but I did eat a bowl of bread and milk." + +"Do you intend to feed me on that?" + +"No; come in and help, and I'll get you the nicest supper you ever had." + +"I suppose I ought to go over and see father." + +"Wait till afterward, and I'll go with you. O, Will! suppose it is fair +to-morrow, will he make you sail on Sunday?" + +"I never _have_ sailed on Sunday." + +"But he has! He says it is all nonsense not to take advantage of the +wind." + +"I have been in ships that did do it. But I prefer not to. The _Linnet_ +is ready as far as she can be, and not be in motion; there will not be as +much to do as there is often in a storm at sea; but this is not an +emergency, and I won't do it if I can help it." + +"But your father is so determined." + +"So am I," said Will in a determined voice. + +"But you do not own a plank in her," said Linnet anxiously. "Oh, I hope +it _won't_ be fair to-morrow." + +"It isn't fair to-night, at any rate. I believe you were to give a hungry +traveller some supper." + +Linnet ran in to kindle the fire and make a cup of tea; Will cut the cold +boiled ham and the bread, while Linnet brought the cake and sugared the +blueberries. + +"Linnet, we have a precious little home." + +"Thanks to your good father." + +"Yes, thanks to my father. I ought not to displease him," Will returned +seriously. + +"You do please him; you satisfy him in everything. He told Hollis so." + +"Why, I didn't tell you that Hollis came in the train with me. See how +you make me forget everything. He is to stay here a day or so, and then +go on a fishing excursion with some friends, and then come back here for +another day or so. What a fine fellow he is. He is the gentleman among us +boys." + +"I would like to know what you are," said Linnet indignantly. + +"A rough old tar," laughed Will, for the sake of the flash in his wife's +eyes. + +"Then I'm a rough old tar too," said Linnet decidedly. + +How short the evening was! They went across the fields to see Hollis, and +to talk over affairs with the largest owner of the _Linnet_. Linnet +wondered when she knelt beside Will that night if it would be wrong to +ask God to keep the wind ahead until Monday morning. Marjorie moaned in +her sleep in real trouble. Linnet dreamed that she awoke Sunday morning +and the wind had not changed. + +But she did not awake until she heard a heavy rap on the window pane. It +was scarcely light, and Will had sprung out of bed and had raised the +window and was talking to his father. + +"I'll be here in an hour or less time to drive you into Portland. Hollis +won't drive you; but I'll be here on time." + +"But, father," expostulated Will. He had never resisted his father's will +as the others had done. He inherited his mother's peace-loving +disposition; he could only expostulate and yield. + +"The Linnet must sail, or I'll find another master," said his father in +his harshest voice. + +Linnet kept the tears back bravely for Will's sake; but she clung to him +sobbing at the last, and he wept with her; he had never wept on leaving +her before; but this time it was so hard, so hard. + +"Will, how _can_ I let you go?" + +"Keep up, sweetheart. It isn't a long trip--I'll soon be home. Let us +have a prayer together before I go." + +It was a simple prayer, interrupted by Linnet's sobbing. He asked only +that God would keep his wife safe, and bring him home safe to her, for +Jesus' sake. And then his father's voice was shouting, and he was gone; +and Linnet threw herself across the foot of the bed, sobbing like a +little child, with quick short breaths, and hopeless tears. + +"It isn't _right_" she cried vehemently; "and Will oughtn't to have gone; +but he never will withstand his father." + +All day she lived on the hope that something might happen to bring him +back at night; but before sundown Captain Rheid drove triumphantly into +his own yard, shouting out to his wife in the kitchen doorway that the +_Linnet_ was well on her way. + +At dusk, Linnet's lonely time, Marjorie stepped softly through the entry +and stood beside her. + +"O, Marjorie! I'm _so_ glad," she exclaimed, between laughing and crying. +"I've had a miserable day." + +"Didn't you know I would come?" + +"How bright you look!" said Linnet, looking up into the changed face; for +Marjorie's trouble was all gone, there was a happy tremor about the lips, +and peace was shining in her eyes. + +"I _am_ bright." + +"What has happened to you?" + +"I can tell you about it now. I have been troubled--more than troubled, +almost in despair--because I could not feel that I was a Christian. I +thought I was all the more wicked because I professed to be one. And +to-day it is all gone--the trouble. And in such a simple way. As I was +coming out of Sunday school I overheard somebody say to Mrs. Rich, 'I +know I'm not a Christian.' 'Then,' said Mrs. Rich, 'I'd begin this very +hour to be one, if I were you.' And it flashed over me why need I bemoan +myself any longer; why not begin this very hour; _and I did._" + +"I'm very glad," said Linnet, in her simple, hearty way. "I never had +anything like that on my mind, and I know it must be dreadful." + +"Dreadful?" repeated Marjorie. "It is being lost away from Christ." + +"Mrs. Rheid told Hollis that you were going into a decline, that mother +said so, and Will and I were planning what we could do for you." + +"Nobody need plan now," smiled Marjorie. "Shall we have some music? We'll +sing Will's hymns." + +"How your voice sounds!" + +"That's why I want to sing. I want to pour it all out." + +The next evening Hollis accompanied Linnet on her way to Marjorie's to +spend the evening. Marjorie's pale face and mourning dress had touched +him deeply. He had taught a class of boys near her class in Sunday +school, and had been struck with the dull, mechanical tone in which she +had questioned the attentive little girls who crowded around her. + +It was not Marjorie; but it was the Marjorie who had lost Morris and her +father. Was she so weak that she sank under grief? In his thought she was +always strong. But it was another Marjorie who met him at the gate the +next evening; the cheeks were still thin, but they were tinted and there +was not a trace of yesterday's dullness in face or voice; it was a joyful +face, and her voice was as light-hearted as a child's. Something had +wrought a change since yesterday. + +Such a quiet, unobtrusive little figure in a black and white gingham, +with a knot of black ribbon at her throat and a cluster of white roses in +her belt. Miss Prudence had done her best with the little country girl, +and she was become only a sweet and girlish-looking woman; she had not +marked out for herself a "career"; she had done nothing that no other +girl might do. But she was the lady that some other girls had not become, +he argued. + +The three, Hollis, Linnet, and Marjorie, sat in the moon lighted parlor +and talked over old times. Hollis had begun it by saying that his father +had shown him "Flyaway" stowed away in the granary chamber. + +He was sitting beside Linnet in a good position to study Marjorie's face +unobserved. The girl's face bore the marks of having gone through +something; there was a flutter about her lips, and her soft laugh and the +joy about the lips was almost contradicted by the mistiness that now and +then veiled the eyes. She had planned to go up to her chamber early, and +have this evening alone by herself,--alone on her knees at the open +window, with the stars above her and the rustle of the leaves and the +breath of the sea about her. It had been a long sorrow; all she wanted +was to rest, as Mary did, at the feet of the Lord; to look up into his +face, and feel his eyes upon her face; to shed sweetest tears over the +peace of forgiven sin. + +She had written to Aunt Prue all about it that afternoon. She was tempted +to show the letter to her mother, but was restrained by her usual shyness +and timidity. + +"Marjorie, why don't you talk?" questioned Linnet. + +Marjorie was on the music stool, and had turned from them to play the air +of one of the songs they used to sing in school. + +"I thought I had been talking a great deal. I am thinking of so many +things and I thought I had spoken of them all." + +"I wish you would," said Hollis. + +"I was thinking of Morris just then. But he was not in your school days, +nor in Linnet's. He belongs to mine." + +"What else? Go on please," said Hollis. + +"And then I was thinking that his life was a success, as father's was. +They both did the will of the Lord." + +"I've been trying all day to submit to that will," said Linnet, in a +thick voice. + +"Is that all we have to do with it--submit to it?" asked Hollis with a +grave smile. "Why do we always groan over 'Thy will be done,' as though +there never was anything pleasant in it?" + +"That's true," returned Linnet emphatically. "When Will came Saturday, I +didn't rejoice and say 'It is the Lord's will,' but Sunday morning I +thought it was, because it was so hard! All the lovely things that happen +to us _are_ his will of course." + +"Suppose we study up every time where the Lord speaks of his father's +will, and learn what that will is. Shall we, Marjorie?" proposed Hollis. + +"Oh, yes; it will be delightful!" she assented. + +"And when I come back from my fishing excursion we will compare notes, +and give each other our thoughts. I must give that topic in our +prayer-meeting and take it in my Bible class." + +"We know the will of God is our sanctification," said Marjorie slowly. "I +don't want to sigh, 'Thy will be done,' about that." + +"Hollis, I mean to hold on to that--every happy thing is God's will as +well as the hard ones," said Linnet. + +"And here come the mothers for some music," exclaimed Marjorie. "They +cannot go to sleep without it." + +And Marjorie's mother did not go to sleep with it. Hollis had invited +himself to remain all night, saying that he was responsible for Linnet +and could not go home unless she went home. + + + + +XXVI. + + +MARJORIE'S MOTHER. + +"Leave to Heaven the measure and the choice."--_Johnson_. + + +Marjorie fell asleep as happy as she wanted to be; but her mother did not +close her eyes in sleep all that night. She closed them in prayer, +however, and told Miss Prudence afterward that she "did not catch one +wink of sleep." All night long she was asking the Lord if she might +intermeddle between Marjorie and Hollis. As we look at them there was +nothing to intermeddle with. Marjorie herself did not know of anything. +Perhaps, more than anything, she laid before the Lord what she wanted him +to do. She told him how Marjorie looked, and how depressed she had been, +and her own fear that it was disappointment that was breaking her heart. +The prayer was characteristic. + +"Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest the hearts of both, and what +is in thy will for both; but thou dost choose means, thou hast chosen +means since the world began; and if thou hast chosen me, make me ready to +speak. Soften the heart of the young man; show him how ill he has done; +and knit their hearts to each other as thou didst the hearts of David and +Jonathan. Make her willing as thou didst make Rebekah willing to go with +the servant of Abraham. Give her favor in his eyes, as thou gavest favor +to Abigail in the eyes of David. Bring her into favor and tender love, as +thou broughtest Daniel. Let it not be beneath thy notice; the sparrows +are not, and she is more than many sparrows to thee. Give me words to +speak, and prepare his heart to listen. The king's heart is in thine +hand, and so is his heart. If we acknowledge thee in all our ways, thou +wilt direct our steps. I do acknowledge thee. Oh, direct my steps and +my words." + +With variety of phrasing, she poured out this prayer all through the +hours of the night; she spread the matter before the Lord as Hezekiah +did the letter that troubled him. Something must be _done_. She forgot +all the commands to _wait_, to _sit still_ and see the salvation of the +Lord; she forgot, or put away from her, the description of one who +believeth: "He that believeth shall not make haste." And she was making +haste with all her might. + +In the earliest dawn she arose, feeling assured that the Lord had heard +her cry and had answered her; he had given her permission to speak to +Hollis. + +That he permitted her to speak to Hollis, I know; that it was his will, I +do not know; but she was assured that she knew, and she never changed +her mind. It may be that it was his will for her to make a mistake and +bring sorrow upon Marjorie; the Lord does not shrink from mistakes; he +knows what to do with them. + +Before the house was astir, Hollis found her in the kitchen; she had +kindled the fire, and was filling the tea-kettle at the pump in the sink. + +"Good morning, Mrs. West. Excuse my early leave; but I must meet my +friends to-day." + +"Hollis!" + +She set the tea-kettle on the stove, and turned and looked at him. The +solemn weight of her eye rooted him to the spot. + +"Hollis, I've known you ever since you were born." + +"And now you are going to find fault with me!" he returned, with an easy +laugh. + +"No, not to find fault, but to speak with great plainness. Do you see how +changed Marjorie is!" + +"Yes. I could not fail to notice it. Has she been ill?" + +"Yes, very ill. You see the effect of something." + +"But she is better. She was so bright last night." + +"Yes, last night," she returned impressively, setting the lid of the +tea-kettle firmly in its place. "Did you ever think that you did wrong in +writing to her so many years and then stopping short all of a sudden, +giving her no reason at all?" + +"Do you mean _that_ has changed her, and hurt her?" he asked, in extreme +surprise. + +"I do. I mean that. I mean that you gained her affections and then left +her," she returned with severity. + +Hollis was now trembling in every limb, strong man as he was; he caught +at the back of a chair, and leaned on his two hands as he stood behind +it gazing into her face with mute lips. + +"And now, what do you intend to do?" + +"I never did that! It was not in my heart to do that! I would scorn to do +it!" he declared with vehemence. + +"Then what did you do?" she asked quietly. + +"We were good friends. We liked to write to each other. I left off +writing because I thought it not fair to interfere with Morris." + +"Morris! What did he have to do with it?" + +"She wears his ring," he said in a reasoning voice. + +"She wears it as she would wear it if a brother had given it to her. They +were brother and sister." + +Hollis stood with his eyes upon the floor. Afterward Mrs. West told Miss +Prudence that when it came to that, she pitied him with all her heart, +"he shook all over and looked as if he would faint." + +"Mrs. West!" he lifted his eyes and spoke in his usual clear, manly +voice, "I have never thought of marrying any one beside Marjorie. I gave +that up when mother wrote me that she cared for Morris. I have never +sought any one since. I have been waiting--if she loved Morris, she could +not love me. I have been giving her time to think of me if she wanted +to--" + +"I'd like to know how. You haven't given her the first sign." + +"She does not know me; she is shy with me. I do not know her; we do not +feel at home with each other." + +"How are you going to get to feel at home with each other five hundred +miles apart?" inquired the practical mother. + +"It will take time." + +"Time! I should think it would." Mrs. West pushed a stick of wood into +the stove with some energy. + +"But if you think it is because--" + +"I do think so." + +"Then she must know me better than I thought she did," he continued, +thoughtfully. + +"Didn't she go to school with you?" + +"Not with me grown up." + +"That's a distinction that doesn't mean anything." + +"It means something to me. I am more at home with Linnet than I am with +her. She has changed; she keeps within herself." + +"Then you must bring her out." + +"How can she care, if she thinks I have trifled with her?" + +"I didn't say she thought so, I said _I_ thought so!" + +"You have hastened this very much. I wanted her to know me and trust me. +I want my wife to love me, Mrs. West." + +"No doubt of that, Master Hollis," with a sigh of congratulation to +herself. "All you have to do is to tell her what you have told me. She +will throw you off." + +"Has she _said_ so?" he inquired eagerly. + +"Do you think she is the girl to say so?" + +"I am sure not," he answered proudly. + +"Hollis, this is a great relief," said Marjorie's mother. + +"Well, good-bye," he said, after hesitating a moment with his eyes on the +kitchen floor, and extending his hand. "I will speak to her when I come +back." + +"The Lord bless you," she answered fervently. + +Just then Marjorie ran lightly down-stairs singing a morning hymn, +entering the kitchen as he closed the door and went out. + +"Hollis just went," said her mother. + +"Why didn't he stay to breakfast?" she asked, without embarrassment. + +"He had to meet his friends early," replied her mother, averting her face +and busying herself at the sink. + +"He will have to eat breakfast somewhere; but perhaps he expects to take +a late breakfast on the fish he has caught. Mother, Linnet and I are to +be little girls, and go berrying." + +"Only be happy, children; that's all I want," returned Mrs. West, her +voice breaking. + +While Marjorie fried the fish for breakfast her mother went to her +chamber to kneel down and give thanks. + + + + +XXVII. + +ANOTHER WALK AND ANOTHER TALK. + +"We are not to lead events but to follow them."--_Epictetus_. + + +Marjorie was so happy that she trembled with the joy of it. The relief +from her burden, at times, was almost harder to bear than the burden +itself. She sang all day hymns that were the outpouring of her soul in +love to Christ. + +"What a child you are, Marjorie," her mother said one day. "You were as +doleful as you could be, and now you are as happy as a bird." + +"Do you remember what Luther says?" + +"Luther says several wise and good things." + +"And this is one of them; it is one of Aunt Prue's favorite sayings: 'The +Christian should be like a little bird, which sits on its twig and sings, +and lets God think for it.'" + +"That's all very well for a bird; but we have to _do_," replied her +mother sharply. + +"We have to _do_ what God _thinks_, though," returned Marjorie quickly. + +"Child, you are your father all over again; he always wanted to wait and +see; but mine was the faith that acted." + +"But now can we act, until we wait and see?" persisted Marjorie. "I want +to be sure that God means for us to do things." + +"Many a thing wouldn't have happened if I hadn't pushed through--why, +your father would have been willing for Linnet to be engaged years +and years." + +"So would I," said Marjorie seriously. + +A week later, one afternoon towards dusk, Marjorie was walking home from +her grandfather's. Her happy face was shaded by a brown straw hat, her +hands were sunburned, and her fingers were scratched with numerous +berrying expeditions. There was a deepened color in the roundness of +her cheeks; she was a country maiden this afternoon, swinging an empty +basket in her hand. She was humming to herself as she walked along, +hurrying her steps a little as she remembered that it was the mail for +her long, foreign letter. This afternoon she was as happy as she wanted +to be. Within half a mile of home she espied a tall figure coming towards +her,--a figure in a long linen duster, wearing a gray, low-crowned, felt +hat. After an instant she recognized Hollis and remembered that to-day he +was expected home. She had not thought of it all day. + +"Your mother sent me to meet you," he said, without formal greeting. +Instantly she detected a change in his manner towards her; it was as +easy as if he were speaking to Linnet. + +"I've been off on one of my long walks." + +"Do you remember our walk together from your grandfather's--how many +years ago?" + +"When I appealed to your sympathies and enlisted you in my behalf?" + +"You were in trouble, weren't you? I believe it is just seven years ago." + +"Physiologists tell us we are made over new every seven years, therefore +you and I are another Hollis and another Marjorie." + +"I hope I am another Hollis," he answered gravely. + +"And I am _sure_ I am another Marjorie," she said more lightly. "How you +lectured me then!" + +"I never lectured any one." + +"You lectured me. I never forgot it. From that hour I wanted to be like +your cousin Helen." + +"You do not need to copy any one. I like you best as yourself." + +"You do not know me." + +"No; I do not know you; but I want to know you." + +"That depends upon yourself as well as upon me." + +"I do not forget that. I am not quick to read and you are written in many +languages." + +"Are you fond of the study--of languages? Did you succeed in French?" + +"Fairly. And I can express my wants in German. Will you write to me +again?" + +There was a flush now that was not sunburn; but she did not speak; she +seemed to be considering. + +"Will you, Marjorie?" he urged, with gentle persistence. + +"I--don't know." + +"Why don't you know." + +"I have not thought about it for so long. Let me see--what kind of +letters did you write. Were they interesting?" + +"_Yours_ were interesting. Were you hurt because--" + +It happened so long ago that she smiled as she looked up at him. + +"I have never told you the reason. I thought Morris Kemlo had a prior +claim." + +"What right had you to think that?" + +"From what I heard--and saw." + +"I am ignorant of what you could hear or see. Morris was my twin-brother; +he was my blessing; he _is_ my blessing." + +"Is not my reason sufficient?" + +"Oh, yes; it doesn't matter. But see that sumach. I have not seen +anything so pretty this summer; mother must have them. You wouldn't think +it, but she is very fond of wild flowers." + +She stepped aside to pluck the sumach and sprays of goldenrod; they were +growing beside a stone wall, and she crossed the road to them. He stood +watching her. She was as unconscious as the goldenrod herself. + +What had her mother meant? Was it all a mistake? Had his wretched days +and wakeful nights been for nothing? Was there nothing for him to be +grieved about? He knew now how much he loved her--and she? He was not a +part of her life, at all. Would he dare speak the words he had planned to +speak? + +"Then, Marjorie, you will not write to me," he began afresh, after +admiring the sumach. + +"Oh, yes, I will! If you want to! I love to write letters; and my life +isn't half full enough yet. I want new people in it." + +"And you would as readily take me as another," he said, in a tone that +she did not understand. + +"More readily than one whom I do not know. I want you to hear extracts +from one of Mrs. Holmes' delicious letters to-night." + +"You are as happy as a lark to-day. + +"That is what mother told me, only she did not specify the bird. Morris, +I _am_ happier than I was Sunday morning." + +He colored over the name. She smiled and said, "I've been thinking about +him to-day, and wanting to tell him how changed I am." + +"What has changed you?" he asked. + +Her eyes filled before she could answer him. In a few brief sentences, +sentences in which each word told, she gave him the story of her dark +year. + +"Poor little Mousie," he said tenderly. "And you bore the dark time all +by yourself." + +"That's the way I have my times. But I do not have my happy times by +myself, you see." + +"Did nothing else trouble you?" + +"No; oh, no! Nothing like that. Father's death was not a trouble. I went +with him as far as I could--I almost wanted to go all the way." + +"And there was nothing else to hurt you?" he asked very earnestly. + +"Oh, no; why should there be?" she answered, meeting his questioning eyes +frankly. "Do you know of anything else that should have troubled me?" + +"No, nothing else. But girls do have sometimes. Didn't your mother help +you any? She helps other people." + +"I could not tell her. I could not talk about it. She only thought I was +ill, and sent for a physician. Perhaps I did worry myself into feeling +ill." + +"You take life easily," he said. + +"Do I? I like to take it as God gives it to me; not before he gives it to +me. This slowness--or faith--or whatever it is, is one of my inheritances +from my blessed father. Who is it that says, 'I'd see to it pretty sharp +that I didn't hurry Providence.' That has helped me." + +"I wish it would some one else," he said grimly. + +"I wish it would help _every one_ else. Everything is helping me now; if +I were writing to you I could tell you some of them." + +"I like to hear you talk, Marjorie." + +"Do you?" she asked wonderingly. "Linnet does, too, and Mrs. Kemlo. As I +shall never write a book, I must learn to talk, and talk myself all out. +Aunt Prue is living her book." + +"Tell me something that has helped you," he urged. + +She looked at the goldenrod in her hand, and raised it to her lips. + +"It is coming to me that Christ made everything. He made those lilies of +which he said, 'Consider the lilies.' Isn't it queer that we will not let +him clothe us as he did the lilies? What girl ever had a white dress of +the texture and whiteness and richness of the lily?" + +"But the lily has but one dress; girls like a new dress for every +occasion and a different one." + +"'Shall he not much more clothe you?' But we do not let him clothe us. +When one lily fades, he makes another in a fresh dress. I wish I could +live as he wants me to. Not think about dress or what we eat or drink? +Only do his beautiful work, and not have to worry and be anxious about +things." + +"Do you _have_ to be?" he asked smiling. + +"My life is a part of lives that are anxious about these things. But I +don't think about dress as some girls do. I never like to talk about it. +It is not a temptation to me. It would not trouble me to wear one dress +all my life--one color, as the flowers do; it should be a soft gray--a +cashmere, and when one was soiled or worn out I would have another like +it--and never spend any more thought about it. Aunt Prue loves gray--she +almost does that--she spends no thought on dress. If we didn't have to +'take thought,' how much time we would have--and how our minds would be +at rest--to work for people and to study God's works and will." + +Hollis smiled as he looked down at her. + +"Girls don't usually talk like that," he said. + +"Perhaps I don't--usually. What are you reading now?" + +"History, chiefly--the history of the world and the history of the +church." + +They walked more and more slowly as they drifted into talk about books +and then into his life in New York and the experiences he had had in his +business tours and the people whom he had met. + +"Do you like your life?" she asked. + +"Yes, I like the movement and the life: I like to be 'on the go.' I +expect to take my third trip across the ocean by and by. I like to mingle +with men. I never could settle down into farming; not till I am old, at +any rate." + +They found Marjorie's mother standing in the front doorway, looking for +them. She glanced at Hollis, but he was fastening the gate and would not +be glanced at. Marjorie's face was no brighter than when she had set out +for her walk. Linnet was setting the tea-table and singing, "A life on +the ocean wave." + +After tea the letter from Switzerland was read and discussed. Miss +Prudence, as Mrs. West could not refrain from calling her, always gave +them something to talk about. To give people something to think about +that was worth thinking about, was something to live for, she had said +once to Marjorie. + +And then there was music and talk. Marjorie and Hollis seemed to find +endless themes for conversation. And then Hollis and Linnet went home. +Hollis bade them good-bye; he was to take an early train in the morning. +Marjorie's mother scanned Marjorie's face, and stood with a lighted +candle in her hand at bedtime, waiting for her confidence; but +unconscious Marjorie closed the piano, piled away the sheets of music, +arranged the chairs, and then went out to the milkroom for a glass of +milk. + +"Good-night, mother," she called back. "Are you waiting for anything?" + +"Did you set the sponge for the bread?" + +"Oh, yes," in a laughing voice. + +And then the mother went slowly and wonderingly up the stairs, muttering +"Well! well! Of all things!" + +Marjorie drew Aunt Prue's letter from her pocket to think it all over +again by herself. Mr. Holmes was buried in manuscript. Prue was studying +with her, beside studying French and German with the pastor's daughter in +the village, and she herself was full of many things. They were coming +home by and by to choose a home in America. + +"When I was your age, Marjorie, and older, I used to fall asleep at night +thinking over the doings of the day and finding my life in them; and +in the morning when I awoke, my thought was, 'What shall I _do_ to-day?' +And now when I awake--now, when my life is at its happiest and as full +of doings as I can wish, I think, instead, of Christ, and find my joy in +nearness to him, in doing all with his eye upon me. You have not come to +this yet; but it is waiting for you. Your first thought to-morrow morning +may be of some plan to go somewhere, of some one you expect to see, of +something you have promised to-day; but, by and by, when you love him as +you are praying to love him, your first thought will be that you are with +him. You can imagine the mother awaking with joy at finding her child +asleep beside her, or the wife awaking to another day with her husband; +but blessed more than all is it to awake and find the Lord himself near +enough for you to speak to." + +Marjorie went to sleep with the thought in her heart, and awoke with it; +and then she remembered that Hollis must be on his way to the train, and +then that she and Linnet were to drive to Portland that day on a small +shopping excursion and to find something for the birthday present of +Morris' mother. + +Several days afterward when the mail was brought in Mrs. West beckoned +Marjorie aside in a mysterious manner and laid in her hand a letter from +Hollis. + +"Yes," said Marjorie. + +"Did you expect it?" + +"Oh, yes." + +Mrs. West waited until Marjorie opened it, and felt in her pocket for her +glasses. In the other time she had always read his letters. But Marjorie +moved away with it, and only said afterward that there was no "news" in +it. + +It was not like the letters of the other time. He had learned to write as +she had learned to talk. Her reply was as full of herself as it would +have been to Morris. Hollis could never be a stranger again. + + + + +XXVIII. + +THE LINNET. + +"He who sends the storm steers the vessel."--_Rev. T. Adams_ + + +August passed and September was almost through and not one word had been +heard of the _Linnet_. Linnet lived through the days and through the +nights, but she thought she would choke to death every night. Days before +she had consented, her mother had gone to her and urged her with every +argument at her command to lock up her house and come home until they +heard. At first, she resented the very thought of it; but Annie Grey was +busy in Middlefield, Marjorie was needed at home, and the hours of the +days seemed never to pass away; at last, worn out with her anguish, she +allowed Captain Rheid to lift her into his carriage and take her to her +mother. + +As the days went on Will's father neither ate nor slept; he drove into +Portland every day, and returned at night more stern and more pale than +he went away in the morning. + +Linnet lay on her mother's bed and wept, and then slept from exhaustion, +to awake with the cry, "Oh, why didn't I die in my sleep?" + +One evening Mrs. Rheid appeared at the kitchen door; her cap and +sunbonnet had fallen off, her gray hair was roughened over her forehead, +her eyes were wild, her lips apart. Her husband had brought her, and sat +outside in his wagon too stupefied to remember that he was leaving his +old wife to stagger into the house alone. + +Mrs. West turned from the table, where she was reading her evening +chapter by candle light, and rising caught her before she fell into her +arms. The two old mothers clung to each other and wept together; it +seemed such a little time since they had washed up Linnet's dishes and +set her house in order on the wedding day. Mrs. Rheid thrust a newspaper +into her hand as she heard her husband's step, and went out to meet him +as Mrs. West called Marjorie. Linnet was asleep upon her mother's bed. + +"My baby, my poor baby!" cried her mother, falling on her knees beside +the bed, "must you wake up to this?" + +She awoke at midnight; but her mother lay quiet beside her, and she did +not arouse her. In the early light she discerned something in her +mother's face, and begged to know what she had to tell. + +Taking her into her arms she told her all she knew. It was in the +newspaper. A homeward-bound ship had brought the news. The _Linnet_ +had been seen; wrecked, all her masts gone, deserted, not a soul on +board--the captain supposed she went down that night; there was a storm, +and he could not find her again in the morning. He had tried to keep near +her, thinking it worth while to tow her in. Before she ended, the child +was a dead weight in her arms. For an hour they all believed her dead. A +long illness followed; it was Christmas before she crossed the chamber, +and in April Captain Rheid brought her downstairs in his arms. + +His wife said he loved Linnet as he would have loved an own daughter. His +heart was more broken than hers. + +"Poor father," she would say, stroking his grizzly beard with her thin +fingers; "poor father." + +"Cynthy," African John's wife, had a new suggestion every time she was +allowed to see Linnet. Hadn't she waited, and didn't she know? Mightn't +an East Indian have taken him off and carried him to Madras, or somewhere +there, and wasn't he now working his passage home as she had once heard +of a shipwrecked captain doing! Or, perhaps some ship was taking him +around the Horn--it took time to go around that Horn, as everybody +knew--or suppose a whaler had taken him off and carried him up north, +could he expect to get back in a day, and did she want him to find her in +such a plight? + +So Linnet hoped and hoped. His mother put on mourning, and had a funeral +sermon preached; and his father put up a grave-stone in the churchyard, +with his name and age engraved on it, and underneath, "Lost at sea." +There were, many such in that country churchyard. + +It was two years before Linnet could be persuaded to put on her widow's +mourning, and then she did it to please the two mothers. The color +gradually came back to her cheeks and lips; she moved around with a grave +step, but her hands were never idle. After two years she insisted upon +going back to Will's home, where the shutters had been barred so long, +and the only signs of life were the corn and rye growing in the fields +about it. + +Annie Grey was glad to be with her again. She worked at dressmaking; and +spent every night at home with Linnet. + +The next summer the travellers returned from abroad; Mr. Holmes, more +perfectly his developed self; little Prue growing up and as charming a +girl as ever papa and mamma had hoped for, prayed for, and worked for; +and Mrs. Holmes, or "Miss Prudence" and "Aunt Prue," as she was called, +a lady whose slight figure had become rounded and whose white hair shaded +a fair face full of peace. + +There was no resisting such persuasions as those of Mrs. Kemlo, the +girls' mother, and the "girls" themselves; and almost before they had +decided upon it they found themselves installed at Mrs. West's for the +summer. Before the first snow, however, a house was rented in New York +City, the old, homelike furniture removed to it, and they had but to +believe it to feel themselves at home in the long parlor in Maple Street. + +Linnet was taken from her lonely home by loving force, and kept all +winter. She could be at rest with Miss Prudence; she could be at rest and +enjoy and be busy. It was wonderful how many things she became busied +about and deeply interested in. Her letters to Marjorie were as full of +life as in her school days. She was Linnet, Mrs. Holmes wrote to her +mother; but she was Linnet chastened and sanctified. + +And all this time Hollis and Marjorie had written to each other, and had +seen each other for two weeks every day each year. + +During the winter Linnet spent in New York the firm for which he +travelled became involved; the business was greatly decreased; changes +were made: one of the partners left the firm; the remaining head had a +nephew, whom he preferred to his partner's favorite, Hollis Rheid; and +Hollis Rheid found himself with nothing to do but to look around for +something to do. + +"Come home," wrote his father. "I will build you a house, and give you +fifty acres of good land." + +With the letter in his pocket, he sought his friends, the Holmes'. He was +not so averse to a farmer's life as he had been when he once spoke of it +to Marjorie. + +He found Prue practicing; papa was in the study, she said, and mamma and +Linnet had gone to the train to meet Marjorie. + +"Marjorie did not tell me that she was coming." + +"It was to be your surprise, and now I've spoiled it." + +"Nothing can spoil the pleasure of it," he returned. + +Prue stationed herself at the window, as when she was a little girl, to +watch for Marjorie. She was still the blue bird with the golden crest. + + + + +XXIX. + +ONE NIGHT. + +"We are often prophets to others only because we are our own +historians."--_Madame Swetchine_. + + +The evening before Marjorie started for New York she was sitting alone in +her father's arm chair before the sitting-room fire. Her mother had left +her to go up to Mrs. Kemlo's chamber for her usual evening chat. Mrs. +Kemlo was not strong this winter, and on very cold days did not venture +down-stairs to the sitting-room. Marjorie, her mother, and the young +farmer who had charge of the farm, were often the only ones at the table, +and the only occupants of the sitting-room during the long winter +evenings. Marjorie sighed for Linnet, or she would have sighed for her, +if she had been selfish; she remembered the evenings of studying with +Morris, and the master's tread as he walked up and down and talked to her +father. + +Now she was alone in the dim light of two tallow candles. It was so cold +that the small wood stove did not sufficiently heat the room, and she +had wrapped the shawl about her that Linnet used to wear to school when +Mr. Holmes taught. She hid herself in it, gathering her feet up under +the skirt of her dress, in a position very comfortable and lazy, and very +undignified for a maiden who would be twenty-five on her next birthday. + +The last letter from Hollis had stated that he was seeking a position in +the city. He thought he understood his business fairly, and the outlook +was not discouraging. He had a little money well invested; his life was +simple; and, beyond the having nothing to do, he was not anxious. He had +thought of farming as a last resort; but there was rather a wide +difference between tossing over laces and following the plow. + +"Not that I dread hard work, but I do not love the _solitude_ of country +life. 'A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone,' Swift +writes; but I am not a wise man, nor a wild beast. I love men and the +homes of men, the business of men, the opportunities that I find among +men." + +She had not replied to this letter; what a talk they would have over it! +She had learned Hollis; she knew him by heart; she could talk to him now +almost as easily as she could write. These years of writing had been a +great deal to both of them. They had educated each other. + +The last time Mrs. West had seen Hollis she had wondered how she had ever +dared speak to him as she had spoken that morning in the kitchen. Had +she effected anything? She was not sure that they were engaged; she had +"talked it over" with his mother, and that mother was equally in the +dark. + +"I know what his intentions are," confided Marjorie's mother "I know he +means to have her, for he told me so." + +"He has never told me so," said Hollis' mother. + +"You haven't asked him," suggested Mrs. West comfortably. + +"Have _you_?" + +"I made an opportunity for it to be easy for him to tell me." + +"I don't know how to make opportunities," returned Mrs. Rheid with some +dignity. + +"Everybody doesn't," was the complacent reply. + +Marjorie had had a busy day arranging household matters for her mother +while she should be gone, and was dozing with her head nestled in the +soft folds of the shawl when her mother's step aroused her. + +"Child, you are asleep and letting the fire go down." + +"Am I?" she asked drowsily, "the room _is_ cold." + +She wrapped the shawl about her more closely and nestled into it again. + +"Perhaps Hollis will come home with you," her mother began, drawing her +own especial chair nearer the fire and settling down as if for a long +conversation. + +"Mother, you will be chilly;" and, with the instinct that her mother must +be taken care of, she sprang up with her eyes still half asleep and +attended to the fire. + +The dry chips soon kindled a blaze, and she was wide awake with the flush +of sleep in her cheeks. + +"Why do you think he will?" she asked. + +"It looks like it. Mrs. Rheid ran over to-day to tell me that the Captain +had offered to give him fifty acres and build him a house, if he would +come home for good." + +"I wonder if he will like it." + +"You ought to know," in a suggestive tone. + +"I am not sure. He does not like farming." + +"A farm of his own may make a difference. And a house of his own. I +suppose the Captain thinks he is engaged to you." + +Mrs. West was rubbing her thumb nail and not looking at Marjorie. +Marjorie was playing with a chip, thrusting it into the fire and bringing +it out lighted as she and Linnet used to like to do. + +"Marjorie, _is_ he?" + +"No, ma'am," answered Marjorie, the corners of her lips twitching. + +"I'd like to know why he isn't," with some asperity. + +"Perhaps he knows," suggested Marjorie, looking at her lighted chip. It +was childish; but she must be doing something, if her mother would insist +upon talking about Hollis. + +"Do _you_ know?" + +Marjorie dropped her chip into the stove and looked up at the broad +figure in the wooden rocker--a figure in a black dress and gingham apron, +with a neat white cap covering her gray hair, a round face, from which +Marjorie had taken her roundness and dimples, a shrewd face with a +determined mouth and the kindliest eyes that ever looked out upon the +world. Marjorie looked at her and loved her. + +"Mother, do you want to know? I haven't anything to tell you." + +"Seems to me he's a long time about it." + +Marjorie colored now, and, rising from her seat in front of the fire, +wrapped the shawl again around her. + +"Mother, dear, I'm not a child now; I am a woman grown." + +"Too old to be advised," sighed her mother. + +"I don't know what I need to be advised about." + +"People never do. It is more than three years ago that he told me that he +had never thought of any one but you." + +"Why should he tell you that?" Marjorie's tone could be sharp as well as +her mother's. + +"I was talking about you. I said you were not well--I was afraid you were +troubled--and he told me--that." + +"Troubled about _what_?" Marjorie demanded. + +"About his not answering your letter," in a wavering voice. + +The words had to come; Mrs. West knew that Marjorie would have her +answer. + +"And--after that--he asked me--to write to him. Mother, mother, you do +not know what you have done!" + +Marjorie fled away in the dark up to her own little chamber, threw +herself down on the bed without undressing, and lay all night, moaning +and weeping. + +She prayed beside; she could not be in trouble and not give the first +breath of it to the Lord. Hollis had asked her to write because of what +her mother had said to him. He believed--what did he believe? + +"O, mother! mother!" she moaned, "you are so good and so lovely, and yet +you have hurt me so. How could you? How could you?" + +While the clock in Mrs. Kemlo's room was striking six, a light flashed +across her eyes. Her mother stood at the bedside with a lighted candle in +her hand. + +"I was afraid you would oversleep. Why, child! Didn't you undress? +Haven't you had anything but that quilt over you?" + +"Mother, I am not going; I never want to see Hollis again," cried +Marjorie weakly. + +"Nonsense child," answered her mother energetically. + +"It is not nonsense. I will not go to New York." + +"What will they all think?" + +"I will write that I cannot come. I could not travel to-day; I have not +slept at all." + +"You look so. But you are very foolish. Why should he not speak to me +first?" + +"It was your speaking to him first. What must he think of me! O, mother, +mother, how could you?" + +The hopeless cry went to her mother's heart. + +"Marjorie, I believe the Lord allows us to be self-willed. I have not +slept either; but I have sat up by the fire. Your father used to say that +we would not make haste if we trusted, and I have learned that it is so. +All I have done is to break your heart." + +"Not quite that, poor mother. But I shall never write to Hollis again." + +Mrs. West turned away and set the candle on the bureau. "But I can," she +said to herself. + +"Come down-stairs where it is warm, and I'll make you a cup of coffee. +I'm afraid you have caught your death of cold." + +"I _am_ cold," confessed Marjorie, rising with a weak motion. + +Her new gray travelling dress was thrown over a chair, her small trunk +was packed, even her gloves were laid out on the bureau beside her +pocket-book. + +"Linnet has counted on it so," sighed her mother. + +"Mother!" rising to her feet and standing by the bedside. "I will go. +Linnet shall not be disappointed." + +"That's a good child! Now hurry down, and I'll hurry you off," said her +mother, in her usual brisk tone. + +An hour and a half later Mrs. West kissed Marjorie's pale lips, and bade +her stay a good while and have a good time. And before she washed up the +breakfast dishes she put on a clean apron, burnished her glasses, and sat +down to write to Hollis. The letter was as plain as her talk had been. He +had understood then, he should understand now. But with Marjorie would be +the difficulty; could he manage her? + + + + +XXX. + +THE COSEY CORNER. + +"God takes men's hearty desires and will instead of the deed where they +have not the power to fulfill it; but he never took the bare deed instead +of the will."--_Richard Baxter_. + + +Prue opened the door, and sprang into Marjorie's arms in her old, +affectionate way; and Marjorie almost forgot that she was not in Maple +Street, when she was led into the front parlor; there was as much of the +Maple Street parlor in it as could be well arranged. Hollis was there on +the hearth rug, waiting modestly in the background for his greeting; +he had not been a part of Maple Street. The greeting he waited for was +tardy in coming, and was shy and constrained, and it seemed impossible to +have a word with her alone all the evening: she was at the piano, or +chatting in the kitchen with old Deborah, or laughing with Prue, or +asking questions of Linnet, and when, at last, Mr. Holmes took her +upstairs to show her his study, he said good night abruptly and went +away. + +Marjorie chided herself for her naughty pride and passed another +sleepless night; in the morning she looked so ill that the plans for the +day were postponed, and she was taken into Mrs. Holmes own chamber to be +petted and nursed to sleep. She awoke in the dusk to find Aunt Prue's +dear face beside her. + +"Aunt Prue," she said, stretching up her hands to encircle her neck, "I +don't know what to do." + +"I do. Tell me." + +"Perhaps I oughtn't to. It's mother's secret." + +"Suppose I know all about it." + +"You can't! How can you?" + +"Lie still," pushing her back gently among the pillows, "and let me tell +you." + +"I thought I was to tell you." + +"A while ago the postman brought me a note from your mother. She told me +that she had confessed to you something she told me last summer." + +"Oh," exclaimed Marjorie, covering her face with both hands, "isn't it +too dreadful!" + +"I think your mother saw clearly that she had taken your life into her +own hands without waiting to let God work for you and in you. I assured +her that I knew all about that dark time of yours, and she wept some very +sorrowful tears to think how heartbroken you would be if you knew. +Perhaps she thought you ought to know it; she is not one to spare +herself; she is even harder upon herself than upon other sinners." + +"But, Aunt Prue, what ought I to do now? What can I do to make it right?" + +"Do you want to meddle?" + +"No, oh no; but it takes my breath away. I'm afraid he began to write to +me again because he thought I wanted him to." + +"Didn't you want him to?" + +"Yes--but not--but not as mother thought I did. I never once asked God to +give him back to me; and I should if I had wanted it very much, because I +always ask him for everything." + +"Your pride need not be wounded, poor little Marjorie! Do you remember +telling Hollis about your dark time, that night he met you on your way +from your grandfather's?" + +"Yes; I think I do. Yes, I know I told him; for he called me 'Mousie,' +and he had not said that since I was little; and with it he seemed to +come back to me, and I was not afraid or timid with him after that." + +"You wrote me about the talk, and he has told me about it since. To be +frank, Marjorie, he told me about the conversation with your mother, and +how startled he was. After that talk with you he was assured that she was +mistaken--but, child, there was no harm, no sin--even if it had been +true. The only sin I find was your mother's want of faith in making +haste. And she sees it now and laments it. She says making haste has been +the sin of her lifetime. Her unbelief has taken that form. You were very +chilly to Hollis last night." + +"I couldn't help it," said Marjorie. "I would not have come if I could +have stayed at home." + +"Is that proud heart satisfied now?" + +"Perhaps it oughtn't to be--if it is proud." + +"We will not argue about it now as there's somebody waiting for you +down-stairs." + +"I don't want to see him--now." + +"Suppose he wants to see you." + +"Aunt Prue! I wish I could be selfish just a few minutes." + +"You may. A whole hour. You may be selfish up here all by yourself until +the dinner bell rings." + +Marjorie laughed and drew the lounge afghan up about her shoulders. She +was so happy that she wanted to go to sleep;--to go to sleep and be +thankful. But the dinner bell found her in the parlor talking to Linnet; +Prue and Hollis were chattering together in French. Prue corrected his +pronunciation and promised to lend him books. + +The most inviting corner in the house to Marjorie was a cosey corner in +the library; she found her way thither after dinner, and there Hollis +found her, after searching parlors, dining-room, and halls for her. The +cosey corner itself was an arm-chair near the revolving bookcase; Prue +said that papa kept his "pets" in that bookcase. + +Marjorie had taken a book into her hand and was gathering a thought here +and there when Hollis entered; he pushed a chair to her side, and, +seating himself, took the book from her fingers. + +"Marjorie, I have come to ask you what to do?" + +"About your father's offer?" + +"Yes. I should have written to-day. I fancy how he watches the mail. But +I am in a great state of indecision. My heart is not in his plan." + +"Is your heart in buying and selling laces?" + +"I don't see why you need put it that way," he returned, with some +irritation. "Don't you like my business?" + +"Do you?" + +"I like what it gives me to do." + +"I should not choose it if I were a man." + +"What would you choose?" + +"I have not considered sufficiently to choose, I suppose. I should want +to be one of the mediums through which good passed to my neighbor." + +"What would you choose for me to do?" + +"The thing God bids you do." + +"That may be to buy and sell laces." + +"It may be. I hope it was while you were doing it." + +"You mean that through this offer of father's God may be indicating his +will." + +"He is certainly giving you an opportunity to choose." + +"I had not looked upon it in that light. Marjorie, I'm afraid the thought +of his will is not always as present with me as with you." + +"I used to think I needed money, like Aunt Prue, if I would bless my +neighbor; but once it came to me that Christ through his _poverty_ made +us rich: the world's workers have not always been the men and the women +with most money. You see I am taking it for granted that you do not +intend to decide for yourself, or work for yourself." + +"No; I am thinking of working for you." + +"I am too small a field." + +"But you must be included." + +"I can be one little corner; there's all Middlefield beside. Isn't there +work for you as a citizen and as a Christian in our little town? Suppose +you go to Middlefield with the same motives that you would go on a +mission to India, Africa, or the Isles of the Sea! You will not be sent +by any Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, but by him who has +sent you, his disciple, into the world. You have your experience, you +have your strength, you have your love to Christ and your neighbor, to +give them. They need everything in Middlefield. They need young men, +Christian young men. The village needs you, the Church needs you. It +seems too bad for all the young men to rush away from their native place +to make a name, or to make money. Somebody must work for Middlefield. Our +church needs a lecture room and a Sunday school room; the village needs a +reading room--the village needs more than I know. It needs Christian +_push_. Perhaps it needs Hollis Rheid." + +"Marjorie, it will change all my life for me." + +"So it would if you should go West, as you spoke last night of doing. If +you should study law, as you said you had thought of doing, that would +change the course of your life. You can't do a new thing and keep to the +old ways." + +"If I go I shall settle down for life." + +"You mean you will settle down until you are unsettled again." + +"What will unsettle me?" + +"What unsettled you now?" + +"Circumstances." + +"Circumstances will keep on being in existence as long as we are in +existence. I never forget a motto I chose for my birthday once on a time. +'The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.'" + +"He commands us to fight, sometimes." + +"And then we must fight. You seem to be undergoing some struggles now. +Have you any opening here?" + +"I answered an advertisement this morning, but we could not come to +terms. Marjorie, what you say about Middlefield is worth thinking of." + +"That is why I said it," she said archly. + +"Would _you _like that life better?" + +"Better for you?" + +"No, better for yourself." + +"I am there already, you know," with rising color. + +"I believe I will write to father and tell him I will take his kindness +into serious consideration." + +"There is no need of haste." + +"He will want to begin to make plans. He is a great planner. Marjorie! I +just thought of it. We will rent Linnet's house this summer--or board +with her, and superintend the building of our own, Do you agree to that?" + +"You haven't taken it into serious consideration yet." + +"Will it make any difference to you--my decision? Will you share my +life--any way?" + +Prue ran in at that instant, Linnet following. Hollis arose and walked +around among the books. Prue squeezed herself into Marjorie's broad +chair; and Linnet dropped herself on the hassock at Marjorie's feet, and +laid her head in Marjorie's lap. + +There was no trouble in Linnet's face, only an accepted sorrow. + +"Marjorie, will you read to us?" coaxed Prue. "Don't you know how you +used to read in Maple Street?" + +"What do you feel like listening to?" + +"Your voice," said Prue, demurely. + + + + +XXXI. + +AND WHAT ELSE? + +"What is the highest secret of victory and peace? +To will what God wills."--_W.R. Alger_. + + +And now what further remains to be told? + +Would you like to see Marjorie in her new home, with Linnet's chimneys +across the fields? Would you like to know about Hollis' success as a +Christian and a Christian citizen in his native town? Would you like to +see the proud, indulgent grandmothers the day baby Will takes his +first steps? For Aunt Linnet named him, and the grandfather declares "she +loves him better than his mother, if anything!" + +One day dear Grandma West came to see the baby, and bring him some +scarlet stockings of her own knitting; she looked pale and did not feel +well, and Marjorie persuaded her to remain all night. + +In the morning Baby went into her chamber to awaken her with a kiss; but +her lips were cold, and she would not open her eyes. She had gone home, +as she always wanted to go, in her sleep. + +That summer Mrs. Kemlo received a letter from her elder daughter; she was +ill and helpless; she wanted her mother, and the children wanted her. + +"They _need_ me now," she said to Marjorie, with a quiver of the lip, +"and nobody else seems to. When one door is shut another door is opened." + +And then the question came up, what should Linnet and Marjorie do with +their father's home? And then the Holmeses came to Middlefield for +the summer in time to solve the problem. Mrs. Holmes would purchase it +for their summer home; and, she whispered to Marjorie, "When Prue marries +the medical student that papa admires so much, we old folks will settle +down here and be grandpa and grandma to you all." + +In time Linnet gave up "waiting for Will," and began to think of him as +waiting for her. And, in time, they all knew God's will concerning them; +as you may know if you do the best you can before you see it clearly. + +THE END. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Miss Prudence, by Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10322 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4ccd8c --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10322 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10322) diff --git a/old/10322-8.txt b/old/10322-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ce296e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10322-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13831 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Miss Prudence, by Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Miss Prudence + A Story of Two Girls' Lives. + +Author: Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin + +Release Date: November 27, 2003 [EBook #10322] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS PRUDENCE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + +Note: There are three lines of text missing from the original printed +book. These are marked with: [missing text]. + + + + + MISS PRUDENCE + + A STORY OF TWO GIRLS' LIVES + + By JENNIE M. DRINKWATER + + 1883 + + +"We are not to lead events but to follow them."--_Epictetus_. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP + + I. AFTER SCHOOL + + II. EVANGELIST + + III. WHAT "DESULTORY" MEANS + + IV. A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE + + V. TWO PROMISES + + VI. MARJORIE ASLEEP AND AWAKE + + VII. UNDER THE APPLE-TREE + + VIII. BISCUITS AND OTHER THINGS + + IX. JOHN HOLMES + + X. LINNET + + XI. GRANDMOTHER + + XII. A BUDGET OF LETTERS + + XIII. A WEDDING DAY + + XIV. A TALK AND ANOTHER TALK + + XV. JEROMA + + XVI. MAPLE STREET + + XVII. MORRIS + + XVIII. ONE DAY + + XIX. A STORY THAT WAS NOT VERY SAD + + XX. "HEIRS TOGETHER" + + XXI. MORRIS AGAIN + + XXII. TIDINGS + + XXIII. GOD'S LOVE + + XXIV. JUST AS IT OUGHT TO BE + + XXV. THE WILL OF GOD + + XXVI. MARJORIE'S MOTHER + + XXVII. ANOTHER WALK AND ANOTHER TALE + + XXVIII. THE LINNET + + XXIX. ONE NIGHT + + XXX. THE COSEY CORNER + + XXXI. AND WHAT ELSE? + + + + +MISS PRUDENCE. + + + + +I. + +AFTER SCHOOL. + +"Our content is our best having."--_Shakespeare_. + + +Nobody had ever told Marjorie that she was, as somebody says we all +are, three people,--the Marjorie she knew herself, the Marjorie other +people knew, and the Marjorie God knew. It was a "bother" sometimes to +be the Marjorie she knew herself, and she had never guessed there was +another Marjorie for other people to know, and the Marjorie God knew +and understood she did not learn much about for years and years. At +eleven years old it was hard enough to know about herself--her naughty, +absent-minded, story-book-loving self. Her mother said that she loved +story-books entirely too much, that they made her absent-minded and +forgetful, and her mother's words were proving themselves true this very +afternoon. She was a real trouble to herself and there was no one near to +"confess" to; she never could talk about herself unless enveloped in the +friendly darkness, and then the confessor must draw her out, step by +step, with perfect frankness and sympathy; even then, a sigh, or sob, or +quickly drawn breath and half inarticulate expression revealed more than +her spoken words. + +She was one of the children that are left to themselves. Only Linnet knew +the things she cared most about; even when Linnet laughed at her, she +could feel the sympathetic twinkle in her eye and the sympathetic +undertone smothered in her laugh. + +It was sunset, and she was watching it from the schoolroom window, the +clouds over the hill were brightening and brightening and a red glare +shone over the fields of snow. It was sunset and the schoolroom clock +pointed to a quarter of five. The schoolroom was chilly, for the fire had +died out half an hour since. Hollis Rheid had shoved big sticks into the +stove until it would hold no more and had opened the draft, whispering to +her as he passed her seat that he would keep her warm at any rate. But +now she was shivering, although she had wrapped herself in her coarse +green and red shawl, and tapped her feet on the bare floor to keep them +warm; she was hungry, too; the noon lunch had left her unsatisfied, for +she had given her cake to Rie Blauvelt in return for a splendid Northern +Spy, and had munched the apple and eaten her two sandwiches wishing all +the time for more. Leaving the work on her slate unfinished, she had +dived into the depths of her home-made satchel and discovered two crumbs +of molasses cake. That was an hour ago. School had closed at three +o'clock to-day because it was Friday and she had been nearly two hours +writing nervously on her slate or standing at the blackboard making +hurried figures. For the first time in her life Marjorie West had been +"kept in." And that "Lucy" book hidden in her desk was the cause of it; +she had taken it out for just one delicious moment, and the moment had +extended itself into an hour and a half, and the spelling lesson was +unlearned and the three hard examples in complex fractions unworked. +She had not been ignorant of what the penalty would be. Mr. Holmes had +announced it at the opening of school: "Each word in spelling that is +missed, must be written one hundred times, and every example not brought +in on the slate must be put on the blackboard after school." + +She had smiled in self-confidence. Who ever knew Marjorie West to miss in +spelling? And had not her father looked over her examples last night and +pronounced them correct? But on her way to school the paper on which the +examples were solved had dropped out of her Geography, and she had been +wholly absorbed in the "Lucy" book during the time that she had expected +to study the test words in spelling. And the overwhelming result was +doing three examples on the board, after school, and writing seven +hundred words. Oh, how her back ached and how her wrist hurt her and how +her strained eyes smarted! Would she ever again forget _amateur, abyss, +accelerate, bagatelle, bronchitis, boudoir_ and _isosceles_? + +Rie Blauvelt had written three words one hundred times, laughed at her, +and gone home; Josie Grey had written _isosceles_ one hundred times, and +then taken up a slate to help Marjorie; before Marjorie was aware Josie +had written _abyss_ seventy-five times, then suspecting something by the +demureness of Josie's eyes she had snatched her slate and erased the +pretty writing. + +"You're real mean," pouted Josie; "he said he would take our word for it, +and you could have answered some way and got out of it." + +Marjorie's reply was two flashing eyes. + +"You needn't take my head off," laughed Josie; "now I'll go home and +leave you, and you may stay all night for all I care." + +"I will, before I will deceive anybody," resented Marjorie stoutly. + +Without another word Josie donned sack and hood and went out, leaving the +door ajar and the cold air to play about Marjorie's feet. + +But five o'clock came and the work was done! + +More than one or two tears fell slowly on the neat writing on Marjorie's +slate; the schoolroom was cold and she was shivering and hungry. It would +have been such a treat to read the last chapter in the "Lucy" book; she +might have curled her feet underneath her and drawn her shawl closer; but +it was so late, and what would they think at home? She was ashamed to go +home. Her father would look at her from under his eyebrows, and her +mother would exclaim, "Why, Marjorie!" She would rather that her father +would look at her from under his eyebrows, than that her mother would +say, "Why, _Marjorie!_" Her mother never scolded, and sometimes she +almost wished she would. It would be a relief if somebody would scold her +tonight; she would stick a pin into herself if it would do any good. + +_Her_ photograph would not be in the group next time. She looked across +at the framed photograph on the wall; six girls in the group and herself +the youngest--the reward for perfect recitations and perfect deportment +for one year. Her father was so proud of it that he had ordered a copied +picture for himself, and, with a black walnut frame, it was hanging in +the sitting-room at home. The resentment against herself was tugging away +at her heart and drawing miserable lines on her brow and lips--on her +sweet brow and happy lips. + +It was a bare, ugly country schoolroom, anyway, with the stained floor, +the windows with two broken panes, and the unpainted desks with +innumerable scars made by the boys' jack-knives, and Mr. Holmes was +unreasonable, anyway, to give her such a hard punishment, and she didn't +care if she had been kept in, anyway! + +In that "anyway" she found vent for all her crossness. Sometimes she +said, "I don't care," but when she said, "I don't care, _anyway_!" +then everybody knew that Marjorie West was dreadful. + +"I'm _through_," she thought triumphantly, "and I didn't cheat, and I +wasn't mean, and nobody has helped me." + +Yes, somebody had helped her. She was sorry that she forgot to think that +God had helped her. Perhaps people always did get through! If they didn't +help themselves along by doing wrong and--God helped them. The sunshine +rippled over her face again and she counted the words on her slate for +the second time to assure herself that there could be no possible +mistake. Slowly she counted seven hundred, then with a sudden impulse +seized her pencil and wrote each of the seven words five times more to be +"_sure_ they were all right." + +Josie Grey called her "horridly conscientious," and even Rie Blauvelt +wished that she would not think it wicked to "tell" in the class, and to +whisper about something else when they had permission to whisper about +the lessons. + +By this time you have learned that my little Marjorie was strong and +sweet. I wish you might have seen her that afternoon as she crouched over +the wooden desk, snuggled down in the coarse, plaid shawl, her elbows +resting on the hard desk, her chin dropped in her two plump hands, with +her eyes fixed on the long, closely written columns of her large slate. +She was not sitting in her own seat, her seat was the back seat on the +girls' side, of course, but she was sitting midway on the boys' side, and +her slate was placed on the side of the double desk wherein H.R. was cut +in deep, ugly letters. She had fled to this seat as to a refuge, when she +found herself alone, with something of the same feeling, that once two or +three years ago when she was away from home and homesick she used to +kneel to say her prayers in the corner of the chamber where her valise +was; there was home about the valise and there was protection and safety +and a sort of helpfulness about this desk where her friend Hollis Rheid +had sat ever since she had come to school. This was her first winter at +school, her mother had taught her at home, but in family council this +winter it had been decided that Marjorie was "big" enough to go to +school. + +The half mile home seemed a long way to walk alone, and the huge +Newfoundland at the farmhouse down the hill was not always chained; he +had sprung out at them this morning and the girls had huddled together +while Hollis and Frank Grey had driven him inside his own yard. Hollis +had thrown her an intelligent glance as he filed out with the boys, and +had telegraphed something back to her as he paused for one instant at the +door. Not quite understanding the telegraphic signal, she was waiting for +him, or for something. His lips had looked like: "Wait till I come." If +the people at home were not anxious about her she would have been willing +to wait until midnight; it would never occur to her that Hollis might +forget her. + +Her cheeks flushed as she waited, and her eyes filled with tears; it was +a soft, warm, round face, with coaxing, kissable lips, a smooth, low brow +and the gentlest of hazel eyes: not a pretty face, excepting in its +lovely childishness and its hints of womanly graces; some of the girls +said she was homely. Marjorie thought herself that she was very homely; +but she had comforted herself with, "God made my face, and he likes it +this way." Some one says that God made the other features, but permits us +to make the mouth. Marjorie's sweetness certainly made her mouth. But +then she was born sweet. Josie Grey declared that she would rather see a +girl "get mad" than cry, as Marjorie did when the boys washed her face in +the snow. + +Mr. Holmes had written to a friend that Marjorie West, his favorite among +the girls, was "almost too sweet." He said to himself that he feared she +"lacked character." Marjorie's quiet, observant father would have smiled +at that and said nothing. The teacher said that she did not know how to +take her own part. Marjorie had been eleven years in this grasping world +and had not learned that she had any "part" to take. + +Since her pencil had ceased scribbling the room was so still that a tiny +mouse had been nibbling at the toe of her shoe. Just then as she raised +her head and pinned her shawl more securely the door opened and something +happened. The something happened in Marjorie's face. Hollis Rheid thought +the sunset had burst across it. She did not exclaim, "Oh, I am so glad!" +but the gladness was all in her eyes. If Marjorie had been more given to +exclamations her eyes would not have been so expressive. The closed lips +were a gain to the eyes and her friends missed nothing. The boy had +learned her eyes by heart. How stoutly he would have resisted if some one +had told him that years hence Marjorie's face would be a sealed volume to +him. + +But she was making her eyes and mouth to-day and years hence she made +them, too. Perhaps he had something to do with it then as he certainly +had something to do with it now. + +"I came back with my sled to take you home. I gave Sam my last ten cents +to do the night work for me. It was my turn, but he was willing enough. +Where's your hood, Mousie? Any books to take?" + +"Yes, my Geography and Arithmetic," she answered, taking her fleecy white +hood from the seat behind her. + +"Now you look like a sunbeam in a cloud," he said poetically as she tied +it over her brown head. "Oh, ho!" turning to the blackboard, "you do make +handsome figures. Got them all right, did you?" + +"I knew how to do them, it was only that--I forgot." + +"I don't think you'll forget again in a hurry. And that's a nice looking +slate, too," he added, stepping nearer. "Mother said it was too much of a +strain on your nervous system to write all that." + +"I guess I haven't much of a nervous system," returned Marjorie, +seriously; "the girls wrote the words they missed fifty times last Friday +and he warned us about the one hundred to-day. I suppose it will be one +hundred and fifty next Friday. I don't believe I'll _ever_ miss again," +she said, her lips trembling at the mention of it. + +"I think I'll have a word or two to say to the master if you do. I wonder +how Linnet would have taken it." + +"She wouldn't have missed." + +"I'll ask Mr. Holmes to put you over on the boys side if you miss next +week," he cried mischievously, "and make you sit with us all the +afternoon." + +"I'd rather write each word five hundred times," she cried vehemently. + +"I believe you would," he said good humoredly. "Never mind, Mousie, I +know you won't miss again." + +"I'll do my examples to-night and father will help me if I can't do them. +He used to teach in this very schoolhouse; he knows as much as Mr. +Holmes." + +"Then he must be a Solomon," laughed the boy. + +The stamp of Hollis' boots and the sound of his laughter had frightened +the mouse back into its hiding-place in the chimney; Marjorie would not +have frightened the mouse all day long. + +The books were pushed into her satchel, her desk arranged in perfect +order, her rubbers and red mittens drawn on, and she stood ready, satchel +in hand, for her ride on the sled down the slippery hill where the boys +and girls had coasted at noon and then she would ride on over the snowy +road half a mile to the old, brown farmhouse. Her eyes were subdued a +little, but the sunshine lingered all over her face. She knew Hollis +would come. + +He smiled down at her with his superior fifteen-year-old smile, she was +such a wee mousie and always needed taking care of. If he could have a +sister, he would want her to be like Marjorie. He was very much like +Marjorie himself, just as shy, just as sensitive, hardly more fitted to +take his own part, and I think Marjorie was the braver of the two. He was +slow-tempered and unforgiving; if a friend failed him once, he never took +him into confidence again. He was proud where Marjorie was humble. He +gave his services; she gave herself. He seldom quarrelled, but never was +the first to yield. They were both mixtures of reserve and frankness; +both speaking as often out of a shut heart as an open heart. But when +Marjorie could open her heart, oh, how she opened it! As for Hollis, I +think he had never opened his; demonstrative sympathy was equally the key +to the hearts of both. + +But here I am analyzing them before they had learned they had any self to +analyze. But they existed, all the same. + +Marjorie was a plain little body while Hollis was noticeably handsome +with eloquent brown eyes and hair with its golden, boyish beauty just +shading into brown; his sensitive, mobile lips were prettier than any +girl's, and there was no voice in school like his in tone or culture. Mr. +Holmes was an elocutionist and had taken great pains with Hollis Rheid's +voice. There was a courteous gentleness in his manner all his own; if +knighthood meant purity, goodness, truth and manliness, then Hollis Rheid +was a knightly school-boy. The youngest of five rough boys, with a stern, +narrow-minded father and a mother who loved her boys with all her heart +and yet for herself had no aims beyond kitchen and dairy, he had not +learned his refinement at home; I think he had not _learned_ it anywhere. +Marjorie's mother insisted that Hollis Rheid must have had a praying +grandmother away back somewhere. The master had written to his friend, +Miss Prudence Pomeroy, that Hollis Rheid was a born gentleman, and had +added with more justice and penetration than he had shown in reading +Marjorie, "he has too little application and is too mischievous to become +a real student. But I am not looking for geniuses in a country school. +Marjorie and Hollis are bright enough for every purpose in life excepting +to become leaders." + +"Are you going to church, to-night?" Hollis inquired as she seated +herself carefully on the sled. + +"In the church?" she asked, bracing her feet and tucking the ends of her +shawl around them. + +"Yes; an evangelist is going to preach." + +"Evangelist!" repeated Marjorie in a voice with a thrill in it. + +"Don't you know what that is?" asked Hollis, harnessing himself into the +sled. + +"Oh, yes, indeed," said she. "I know about him and Christian." + +Hollis looked perplexed; this must be one of Marjorie's queer ways of +expressing something, and the strange preacher certainly had something to +do with Christians. + +"If it were not for the fractions I suppose I might go. I wish I wasn't +stupid about Arithmetic." + +"It's no matter if girls are stupid," he said consolingly. "Are you sure +you are on tight? I'm going to run pretty soon. You won't have to earn +your living by making figures." + +"Shall you?" she inquired with some anxiety. + +"Of course, I shall. Haven't I been three times through the Arithmetic +and once through the Algebra that I may support myself and somebody else, +sometime?" + +This seemed very grand to child Marjorie who found fractions a very +Slough of Despond. + +"I'm going to the city as soon as Uncle Jack finds a place for me. I +expect a letter from him every night." + +"Perhaps it will come to-night," said Marjorie, not very hopefully. + +"I hope it will. And so this may be your last ride on Flyaway. Enjoy it +all you can, Mousie." + +Marjorie enjoyed everything all she could. + +"Now, hurrah!" he shouted, starting on a quick run down the hill. "I'm +going to turn you over into the brook." + +Marjorie laughed her joyous little laugh. "I'm not afraid," she said in +absolute content. + +"You'd better be!" he retorted in his most savage tone. + +The whole west was now in a glow and the glorious light stretched across +fields of snow. + +"Oh, how splendid," Marjorie exclaimed breathlessly as the rapid motion +of the sled and the rush of cold air carried her breath away. + +"Hold on tight," he cried mockingly, "we're coming to the brook." + +Laughing aloud she held on "tight." Hollis was her true knight; she would +not have been afraid to cross the Alps on that sled if he had asked her +to! + +She was in a talkative mood to-night, but her horse pranced on and would +not listen. She wanted to tell him about _vibgyor_. The half mile was +quickly travelled and he whirled the sled through the large gateway and +around the house to the kitchen door. The long L at the back of the house +seemed full of doors. + +"There, Mousie, here you are!" he exclaimed. "And don't you miss your +lesson to-morrow." + +"To-morrow is Saturday! oh, I had forgotten. And I can go to see +Evangelist to-night." + +"You haven't said 'thank you' for your last ride on Flyaway." + +"I will when I'm sure that it is," she returned with her eyes laughing. + +He turned her over into a snowdrift and ran off whistling; springing up +she brushed the snow off face and hands and with a very serious face +entered the kitchen. The kitchen was long and low, bright with the sunset +shining in at two windows and cheery with its carpeting of red, yellow +and green mingled confusingly in the handsome oilcloth. + +Unlike Hollis, Marjorie was the outgrowth of home influences; the kitchen +oilcloth had something to do with her views of life, and her mother's +broad face and good-humored eyes had a great deal more. Good-humor in the +mother had developed sweet humor in the child. + +Now I wonder if you understand Marjorie well enough to understand all she +does and all she leaves undone during the coming fifteen or twenty years? + + + + +II. + +EVANGELIST. + +"The value of a thought cannot be told."--_Bailey_. + + +Her mother's broad, gingham back and the twist of iron gray hair low in +her neck greeted her as she opened the door, then the odor of hot +biscuits intruded itself, and then there came a shout from somebody +kneeling on the oilcloth near the stove and pushing sticks of dry wood +through its blazing open door. + +"Oh, Marjie, what happened to you?" + +"Something _didn't_ happen. I didn't have my spelling or my examples. I +read the "Lucy" book in school instead," she confessed dolefully. + +"Why, _Marjie_!" was her mother's exclamation, but it brought the color +to Marjorie's face and suffused her eyes. + +"We are to have company for tea," announced the figure kneeling on the +oilcloth as she banged the stove door. "A stranger; the evangelist Mr. +Horton told us about Sunday." + +"I know," said Marjorie. "I've read about him in _Pilgrim's Progress_; he +showed Christian the way to the Wicket Gate." + +Linnet jumped to her feet and shook a chip from her apron. "O, Goosie! +Don't you know any better?" + +Fourteen-year-old Linnet always knew better. + +"Where is he?" questioned Marjorie. + +"In the parlor. Go and entertain him. Mother and I must get him a good +supper: cold chicken, canned raspberries, currant jelly, ham, hot +biscuit, plain cake and fruit cake and--butter and--tea." + +"I don't know how," hesitated Marjorie. + +"Answer his questions, that's all," explained Linnet promptly. "I've told +him all I know and now it's your turn." + +"I don't like to answer questions," said Marjorie, still doubtfully. + +"Oh, only your age and what you study and--if--you are a Christian." + +"And he tells you how if you don't know how," said Marjorie, eagerly; +"that's what he's for." + +"Yes," replied her mother, approvingly, "run in and let him talk to you." + +Very shyly glad of the opportunity, and yet dreading it inexpressibly, +Marjorie hung her school clothing away and laid her satchel on the shelf +in the hall closet, and then stood wavering in the closet, wondering if +she dared go in to see Evangelist. He had spoken very kindly to +Christian. She longed, oh, how she longed! to find the Wicket Gate, but +would she dare ask any questions? Last Sabbath in church she had seen a +sweet, beautiful face that she persuaded herself must be Mercy, and now +to have Evangelist come to her very door! + +What was there to know any better about? She did not care if Linnet had +laughed. Linnet never cared to read _Pilgrim's Progress_. + +It is on record that the first book a child reads intensely is the book +that will influence all the life. + +At ten Marjorie had read _Pilgrim's Progress_ intensely. Timidly, with +shining eyes, she stood one moment upon the red mat outside the parlor +door, and then, with sudden courage, turned the knob and entered. At a +glance she felt that there was no need of courage; Evangelist was seated +comfortably in the horse-hair rocker with his feet to the fire resting on +the camp stool; he did not look like Evangelist at all, she thought, +disappointedly; he reminded her altogether more of a picture of Santa +Claus: massive head and shoulders, white beard and moustache, ruddy +cheeks, and, as the head turned quickly at her entrance, she beheld, +beneath the shaggy, white brows, twinkling blue eyes. + +"Ah," he exclaimed, in an abrupt voice, "you are the little girl they +were expecting home from school." + +"Yes, sir." + +He extended a plump, white hand and, not at all shyly, Marjorie laid her +hand in it. + +"Isn't it late to come from school? Did you play on the way home?" + +"No sir; I'm too big for that" + +"Doesn't school dismiss earlier?" + +"Yes, sir," flushing and dropping her eyes, "but I was kept in." + +"Kept in," he repeated, smoothing the little hand. "I'm sure it was not +for bad behavior and you look bright enough to learn your lessons." + +"I didn't know my lessons," she faltered. + +"Then you should have done as Stephen Grellet did," he returned, +releasing her hand. + +"How did he do?" she asked. + +Nobody loved stories better than Marjorie. + +Pushing her mother's spring rocker nearer the fire, she sat down, +arranged the skirt of her dress, and, prepared herself, not to +"entertain" him, but to listen. + +"Did you never read about him?" + +"I never even heard of him." + +"Then I'll tell you something about him. His father was an intimate +friend and counsellor of Louis XVI. Stephen was a French boy. Do you +know who Louis XVI was?" + +"No, sir." + +"Do you know the French for Stephen?" + +"No, sir." + +"Then you don't study French. I'd study everything if I were you. My wife +has read the Hebrew Bible through. She is a scholar as well as a good +housewife. It needn't hinder, you see." + +"No, sir," repeated Marjorie. + +"When little Etienne--that's French for Stephen--was five or six years +old he had a long Latin exercise to learn, and he was quite +disheartened." + +Marjorie's eyes opened wide in wonder. Six years old and a long Latin +exercise. Even Hollis had not studied Latin. + +"Sitting alone, all by himself, to study, he looked out of the window +abroad upon nature in all her glorious beauty, and remembered that God +made the gardens, the fields and the sky, and the thought came to him: +'Cannot the same God give me memory, also?' Then he knelt at the foot of +his bed and poured out his soul in prayer. The prayer was wonderfully +answered; on beginning to study again, he found himself master of his +hard lesson, and, after that, he acquired learning with great readiness." + +It was wonderful, Marjorie thought, and beautiful, but she could not say +that; she asked instead: "Did he write about it himself?" + +"Yes, he has written all about himself." + +"When I was six I didn't know my small letters. Was he so bright because +he was French?" + +The gentleman laughed and remarked that the French were a pretty bright +nation. + +"Is that all you know about him?" + +"Oh, no, indeed; there's a large book of his memoirs in my library. He +visited many of the crowned heads of Europe." + +There was another question forming on Marjorie's lips, but at that +instant her mother opened the door. Now she would hear no more about +Stephen Grellet and she could not ask about the Wicket Gate or Mercy or +the children. + +Rising in her pretty, respectful manner she gave her mother the spring +rocker and pushed an ottoman behind the stove and seated herself where +she might watch Evangelist's face as he talked. + +How the talk drifted in this direction Marjorie did not understand; she +knew it was something about finding the will of the Lord, but a story was +coming and she listened with her listening eyes on his face. + +"I had been thinking that God would certainly reveal his will if we +inquired of him, feeling sure of that, for some time, and then I had this +experience." + +Marjorie's mother enjoyed "experiences" as well as Marjorie enjoyed +stories. And she liked nothing better than to relate her own; after +hearing an experience she usually began, "Now I will tell you mine." + +Marjorie thought she knew every one of her mother's experiences. But it +was Evangelist who was speaking. + +The little girl in the brown and blue plaid dress with red stockings and +buttoned boots, bent forward as she sat half concealed behind the stove +and drank in every word with intent, wondering, unquestioning eyes. + +Her mother listened, also, with eyes as intent and believing, and years +afterward, recalled this true experience, when she was tempted to take +Marjorie's happiness into her own hands, her own unwise, haste-making +hands. + +"My wife had been dead about two years," began Evangelist again, speaking +in a retrospective tone. "I had two little children, the elder not eight +years old, and my sister was my housekeeper. She did not like +housekeeping nor taking care of children. Some women don't. She came to +me one day with a very serious face. 'Brother,' said she, 'you need a +wife, you must have a wife. I do not know how to take care of your +children and you are almost never at home.' She left me before I could +reply, almost before I could think what to reply. I was just home from +helping a pastor in Wisconsin, it was thirty-six degrees below zero the +day I left, and I had another engagement in Maine for the next week. I +_was_ very little at home, and my children did need a mother. I had not +thought whether I needed a wife or not; I was too much taken up with the +Lord's work to think about it. But that day I asked the Lord to find me a +wife. After praying about it three days it came to me that a certain +young lady was the one the Lord had chosen. Like Peter, I drew back and +said, 'Not so, Lord.' My first wife was a continual spiritual help to me; +she was the Lord's own messenger every day; but this lady, although a +church member, was not particularly spiritually minded. Several years +before she had been my pupil in Hebrew and Greek. I admired her +intellectual gifts, but if a brother in the ministry had asked me if she +would be a helpful wife to him, I should have hesitated about replying +in the affirmative. And, yet here it was, the Lord had chosen her for me. +I said, 'Not so, Lord,' until he assured me that her heart was in his +hand and he could fit her to become my wife and a mother to my children. +After waiting until I knew I was obeying the mind of my Master, I asked +her to marry me. She accepted, as far as her own heart and will were +concerned, but refused, because her father, a rich and worldly-minded +man, was not willing for her to marry an itinerant preacher. + +"I had not had a charge for three years then. I was so continually called +to help other pastors that I had no time for a charge of my own. So it +kept on for months and months; her father was not willing, and she would +not marry me without his consent. My sister often said to me, 'I don't +see how you can want to marry a woman that isn't willing to have you,' +but I kept my own counsel. I knew the matter was in safe hands. I was not +at all troubled; I kept about my Master's business and he kept about +mine. Therefore, when she wrote to say that suddenly and unexpectedly her +father had withdrawn all opposition, I was not in the least surprised. +My sister declared I was plucky to hold on, but the Lord held on for me; +I felt as if I had nothing to do with it. And a better wife and mother +God never blessed one of his servants with. She could do something beside +read the Bible in Hebrew; she could practice it in English. For forty +years [missing text] my companion and counsellor and dearest +friend. So you see"--he added in his bright, convincing voice, "we may +know the will of the Lord about such things and everything else." + +"I believe it," responded Marjorie's mother, emphatically. + +"Now tell me about all the young people in your village. How many have +you that are unconverted?" + +Was Hollis one of them? Marjorie wondered with a beating heart. Would +Evangelist talk to him? Would he kiss him, and give him a smile, and bid +him God speed? + +But--she began to doubt--perhaps there was another Evangelist and this +was not the very one in _Pilgrim's Progress_; somehow, he did not seem +just like that one. Might she dare ask him? How would she say it? Before +she was aware her thought had become a spoken thought; in the interval +of quiet while her mother was counting the young people in the village +she was very much astonished to hear her own timid, bold, little voice +inquire: + +"Is there more than one Evangelist?" + +"Why, yes, child," her mother answered absently and Evangelist began to +tell her about some of the evangelists he was acquainted with. + +"Wonderful men! Wonderful men!" he repeated. + +Before another question could form itself on her eager lips her father +entered and gave the stranger a cordial welcome. + +"We have to thank scarlet fever at the Parsonage for the pleasure of your +visit with us, I believe," he said. + +"Yes, that seems to be the bright side of the trouble." + +"Well, I hope you have brought a blessing with you." + +"I hope I have! I prayed the Lord not to bring me here unless he came +with me." + +"I think the hush of the Spirit's presence has been in our church all +winter," said Mrs. West. "I've had no rest day or night pleading for our +young people." + +The words filled Marjorie with a great awe; she slipped out to unburden +herself to Linnet, but Linnet was setting the tea-table in a frolicsome +mood and Marjorie's heart could not vent itself upon a frolicsome +listener. + +From the china closet in the hall Linnet had brought out the china, one +of her mother's wedding presents and therefore seldom used, and the glass +water pitcher and the small glass fruit saucers. + +"Can't I help?" suggested Marjorie looking on with great interest. + +"No," refused Linnet, decidedly, "you might break something as you did +the night Mrs. Rheid and Hollis were here." + +"My fingers were too cold, then." + +"Perhaps they are too warm, now," laughed Linnet. + +"Then I can tell you about the primary colors; I suppose I won't break +_them_," returned Marjorie with her usual sweet-humor. + +Linnet moved the spoon holder nearer the sugar bowl with the air of a +house wife, Marjorie stood at the table leaning both elbows upon it. + +"If you remember _vibgyor_, you'll remember the seven primary colors!" +she said mysteriously. + +"Is it like cutting your nails on Saturday without thinking of a fox's +tail and so never have the toothache?" questioned Linnet. + +"_No_; this is earnest. It isn't a joke; it's a lesson," returned +Marjorie, severely. "Mr. Holmes said a professor told it to him when he +was in college." + +"You see it's a joke! I remember _vibgyor_, but now I don't know the +seven primary colors. You are always getting taken in, Goosie! I hope +you didn't ask Mr. Woodfern if he is the man in _Pilgrim's Progress_." + +"I know he isn't," said Marjorie, seriously, "there are a good many of +them, he said so. I guess _Pilgrim's Progress_ happened a long time ago. +I shan't look for Great-heart, any more," she added, with a sigh. + +Linnet laughed and scrutinized the white handled knives to see if there +were any blemishes on the blades; her mother kept them laid away in old +flannel. + +"Now, Linnet, you see it isn't a joke," began Marjorie, protestingly; +"the word is made of all the first letters of the seven colors,--just +see!" counting on her fingers, "violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, +orange, red! Did you see how it comes right?" + +"I didn't see, but I will as soon as I get time. You were not taken in +that time, I do believe. Did Mr. Woodfern ask you questions?" + +"Not _that_ kind! And I'm glad he didn't. Linnet, I haven't any +'experience' to talk about." + +"You are not old enough," said Linnet, wisely. + +"Are you?" + +"Yes, I have a little bit." + +"Shall you tell him about it?" asked Marjorie curiously. + +"I don't know." + +"I wish I had some; how do you get it?" + +"It comes." + +"From where?" + +"Oh, I don't know." + +"Then you can't tell me how to get it," pleaded Marjorie. + +"No," said Linnet, shaking her sunshiny curls, "perhaps mother can." + +"When did you have yours?" Marjorie persisted. + +"One day when I was reading about the little girl in the Sandwich +Islands. Her father was a missionary there, and she wrote in her journal +how she felt and I felt so, too," + +"Did you put it in your journal?" + +"Some of it." + +"Did you show it to mother?" + +"Yes." + +"Was she glad?" + +"Yes, she kissed me and said her prayers were answered." + +Marjorie looked very grave. She wished she could be as old as Linnet and +have "experience" to write in her journal and have her mother kiss her +and say her prayers were answered. + +"Do you have it all the time?" she questioned anxiously as Linnet hurried +in from the kitchen with a small platter of sliced ham in her hand. + +"Not every day; I do some days." + +"I want it every day." + +"You call them to tea when I tell you. And you may help me bring things +in." + +When Marjorie opened the parlor door to call them to tea she heard Mr. +Woodfern inquire: + +"Do all your children belong to the Lord?" + +"The two in heaven certainly do, and I think Linnet is a Christian," her +mother was saying. + +"And Marjorie," he asked. + +"You know there are such things; I think Marjorie's heart was changed in +her cradle." + +With the door half opened Marjorie stood and heard this lovely story +about herself. + +"It was before she was three years old; one evening I undressed her and +laid her in the cradle, it was summer and she was not ready to go to +sleep; she had been in a frolic with Linnet and was all in a gale of +mischief. She arose up and said she wanted to get out; I said 'no,' very +firmly, 'mamma wants you to stay.' But she persisted with all her might, +and I had to punish her twice before she would consent to lie still; I +was turning to leave her when I thought her sobs sounded more rebellious +than subdued, I knelt down and took her in my arms to kiss her, but she +drew back and would not kiss me. I saw there was no submission in her +obedience and made up my mind not to leave her until she had given up her +will to mine. If you can believe it, it was two full hours before she +would kiss me, and then she couldn't kiss me enough. I think when she +yielded to my will she gave up so wholly that she gave up her whole being +to the strongest and most loving will she knew. And as soon as she knew +God, she knew--or I knew--that she had submitted to him." + +"Come to tea," called Marjorie, joyfully, a moment later. + +This lovely story about herself was only one of the happenings that +caused Marjorie to remember this day and evening: this day of small +events stood out clearly against the background of her childhood. + +That evening in the church she had been moved to do the hardest, happiest +thing she had ever done in her hard and happy eleven years. At the close +of his stirring appeal to all who felt themselves sinners in God's sight, +Evangelist (he would always be Evangelist to Marjorie) requested any to +rise who had this evening newly resolved to seek Christ until they found +him. A little figure in a pew against the wall, arose quickly, after an +undecided, prayerful moment, a little figure in a gray cloak and broad, +gray velvet hat, but it was such a little figure, and the radiant face +was hidden by such a broad hat, and the little figure dropped back into +its seat so hurriedly, that, in looking over the church, neither the +pastor nor the evangelist noticed it. Her heart gave one great jump when +the pastor arose and remarked in a grieved and surprised tone: "I am +sorry that there is not one among us, young or old, ready to seek our +Saviour to-night." + +The head under the gray hat drooped lower, the radiant face became for +one instant sorrowful. As they were moving down the aisle an old lady, +who had been seated next to Marjorie, whispered to her, "I'm sorry they +didn't see you, dear." + +"Never mind," said the bright voice, "God saw me." + +Hollis saw her, also, and his heart smote him. This timid little girl had +been braver than he. From the group of boys in the gallery he had looked +down at her and wondered. But she was a girl, and girls did not mind +doing such things as boys did; being good was a part of Marjorie's life, +she wouldn't be Marjorie without it. There was a letter in his pocket +from his uncle bidding him to come to the city without delay; he pushed +through the crowd to find Marjorie, "it would be fun to see how sorry she +would look," but her father had hurried her out and lifted her into the +sleigh, and he saw the gray hat in the moonlight close to her father's +shoulder. + +As he was driving to the train the next afternoon, he jumped out and ran +up to the door to say good-bye to her. + +Marjorie opened the door, arrayed in a blue checked apron with fingers +stained with peeling apples. + +"Good-bye, I'm off," he shouted, resisting the impulse to catch her in +his arms and kiss her. + +"Good-bye, I'm so glad, and so sorry," she exclaimed with a shadowed +face. + +"I wish I had something to give you to remember me by," he said suddenly. + +"I think you _have_ given me lots of things." + +"Come, Hol, don't stand there all day," expostulated his brother from the +sleigh. + +"Good-bye, then," said Hollis. + +"Good-bye," said Marjorie. And then he was off and the bells were +jingling down the road and she had not even cautioned him "Be a good +boy." She wished she had had something to give him to remember _her_ by; +she had never done one thing to help him remember her and when he came +back in years and years they would both be grown up and not know each +other. + +"Marjie, you are taking too thick peels," remonstrated her mother. For +the next half hour she conscientiously refrained from thinking of any +thing but the apples. + +"Oh, Marjie," exclaimed Linnet, "peel one whole, be careful and don't +break it, and throw it over your right shoulder and see what letter +comes." + +"Why?" asked Magorie, selecting a large, fair apple to peel. + +"I'll tell you when it comes," answered Linnet, seriously. + +With an intent face, and slow, careful fingers, Marjorie peeled the +handsome apple without breaking the coils of the skin, then poised her +hand and gave the shining, green rings a toss over her shoulder to the +oilcloth. + +"_S! S!_ Oh! what a handsome _S!_" screamed Linnet. + +"Well, what does it mean?" inquired Marjorie, interestedly. + +"Oh, nothing, only you will marry a man whose name begins with _S_," said +Linnet, seriously. + +"I don't believe I will!" returned Marjorie, contentedly. "Do you believe +I will, mother?" + +Mrs. West was lifting a deliciously browned pumpkin pie from the oven, +she set it carefully on the table beside Marjorie's yellow dish of +quartered apples and then turned to the oven for its mate. + +"Now cut one for me," urged Linnet gleefully. + +"But I don't believe it," persisted Marjorie, picking among the apples in +the basket at her feet; "you don't believe it yourself." + +"I never _knew_ it to come true," admitted Linnet, sagely, "but _S_ is a +common letter. There are more Smiths in the world than any one else. A +woman went to an auction and bought a brass door plate with _Smith_ on it +because she had six daughters and was sure one of them would marry a +Smith." + +"And _did_ one?" asked Maijorie, in her innocent voice. Linnet was sure +her lungs were made of leather else she would have burst them every day +laughing at foolish little Marjorie. + +"The story ended there," said Linnet. + +"Stories always leave off at interesting places," said Marjorie, guarding +Linnet's future with slow-moving fingers. "I hope mine won't." + +"It will if you die in the middle of it," returned Linnet + +Linnet was washing the baking dishes at the sink. + +"No, it wouldn't, it would go on and be more interesting," said Marjorie, +in her decided way; "but I do want to finish it all." + +"Be careful, don't break mine," continued Linnet, as Marjorie gave the +apple rings a toss. "There! you have!" she cried disappointedly. "You've +spoiled my fortune, Marjie." + +"Linnet! Linnet!" rebuked her mother, shutting the oven door, "I thought +you were only playing. I wouldn't have let you go on if I had thought you +would have taken it in earnest." + +"I don't really," returned Linnet, with a vexed laugh, "but I did want to +see what letter it would be." + +"It's _O_," said Marjorie, turning to look over her shoulder. + +"Rather a crooked one," conceded Linnet, "but it will have to do." + +"Suppose you try a dozen times and they all come different," suggested +practical Marjorie. + +"That proves it's all nonsense," answered her mother. + +"And suppose you don't marry anybody," Marjorie continued, spoiling +Linnet's romance, "some letter, or something _like_ a letter has to come, +and then what of it?" + +"Oh, it's only fun," explained Linnet. + +"I don't want to know about my _S_" confessed Marjorie. "I'd rather wait +and find out. I want my life to be like a story-book and have surprises +in the next chapter." + +"It's sure to have that," said her mother. "We mustn't _try_ to find out +what is hidden. We mustn't meddle with our lives, either. Hurry +providence, as somebody says in a book." + +"And we can't ask anybody but God," said Marjorie, "because nobody else +knows. He could make any letter come that he wanted to." + +"He will not tell us anything that way," returned her mother. + +"I don't want him to," said Marjorie. + +"Mother, I was in fun and you are making _serious_," cried Linnet with a +distressed face. + +"Not making it dreadful, only serious," smiled her mother. + +"I don't see why the letter has to be about your husband," argued +Marjorie, "lots of things will happen to us first" + +"But that is exciting," said Linnet, "and it is the most of things in +story-books." + +"I don't see why," continued Marjorie, unconvinced, turning an apple +around in her fingers, "isn't the other part of the story worth +anything?" + +"Worth anything!" repeated Linnet, puzzled. + +"Doesn't God care for the other part?" questioned the child. "I've got to +have a good deal of the other part." + +"So have all unmarried people," said her mother, smiling at the quaint +gravity of Marjorie's eyes. + +"Then I don't see why--" said Marjorie. + +"Perhaps you will by and by," her mother replied, laughing, for Marjorie +was looking as wise as an owl; "and now, please hurry with the apples, +for they must bake before tea. Mr. Woodfern says he never ate baked apple +sauce anywhere else." + +Marjorie hoped he would not stay a whole week, as he proposed, if she had +to cut the apples. And then, with a shock and revulsion at herself, she +remembered that her father had read at worship that morning something +about giving even a cup of cold water to a disciple for Christ's sake. + +Linnet laughed again as she stooped to pick up the doubtful _O_ and +crooked _S_ from the oilcloth. + +But the letters had given Marjorie something to think about. + +I had decided to hasten over the story of Marjorie's childhood and bring +her into her joyous and promising girlhood, but the child's own words +about the "other part" that she must have a "good deal" of have changed +my mind. Surely God does care for the "other part," too. + +And I wonder what it is in you (do you know?) that inclines you to hurry +along and skip a little now and then, that you may discover whether +Marjorie ever married Hollis? Why can't you wait and take her life as +patiently as she did? + +That same Saturday evening Marjorie's mother said to Marjorie's father, +with a look of perplexity upon her face, + +"Father, I don't know what to make of our Marjorie." + +He was half dozing over the _Agriculturist_; he raised his head and asked +sharply, "Why? What has she done now?" + +Everybody knew that Marjorie was the apple of her father's eye. + +"Nothing new! Only everything she does _is_ new. She is two Marjories, +and that's what I can't make out. She is silent and she is talkative; +she is shy, very shy, and she is as bold as a little lion; sometimes she +won't tell you anything, and sometimes she tells you everything; +sometimes I think she doesn't love me, and again she loves me to death; +sometimes I think she isn't as bright as other girls, and then again I'm +sure she is a genius. Now Linnet is always the same; I always know what +she will do and say; but there's no telling about Marjorie. I don't know +what to make of her," she sighed. + +"Then I wouldn't try, wife," said Marjorie's father, with his shrewd +smile. "I'd let somebody that knows." + +After a while, Marjorie's mother spoke again: + +"I don't know that you help me any." + +"I don't know that I can; girls are mysteries--you were a mystery once +yourself. Marjorie can respond, but she will not respond, unless she has +some one to respond _to_, or some _thing_ to respond to. Towards myself I +never find but one Marjorie!" + +"That means that you always give her something to respond to!" + +"Well, yes, something like it," he returned in one of Marjorie's +contented tones. + +"She'll have a good many heart aches before she's through, then," decided +Mrs. West, with some sharpness. + +"Probably," said Marjorie's father with the shadow of a smile on his thin +lips. + + + + +III. + +WHAT "DESULTORY" MEANS. + +"A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded." + + +"Miss Prudence! O, Miss Prudence!" + +It was summer time and Marjorie was almost fourteen years old. Her soul +was looking out of troubled eyes to-day. Just now life was all one +unanswered question. + +"Marjorie! O, Marjorie!" mimicked Miss Prudence. + +"I don't know what _desultory_ means," said Marjorie. + +"And you don't know where to find a dictionary?" + +"Mustn't I ask you questions when I can find the answer myself?" asked +Marjorie, straightforwardly. + +"I think it's rather impertinent, don't you?" + +"Yes," considered Marjorie, "rather." + +Miss Prudence was a fair vision in Marjorie's eyes and Marjorie was a +radiant vision in Miss Prudence's eyes. The radiant vision was not +clothed in gorgeous apparel; the radiance was in the face and voice and +in every motion; the apparel was simply a stiffly starched blue muslin, +that had once belonged to Linnet and had been "let down" for Marjorie, +and her head was crowned with a broad-brimmed straw hat, around the crown +of which was tied a somewhat faded blue ribbon, also a relic of Linnet's +summer days; her linen collar was fastened with an old-fashioned pin of +her mother's; her boots were new and neatly fitting, her father had made +them especially for herself. + +Her sense of the fitness of things was sometimes outraged; one of the +reasons why she longed to grow up was that she might have things of her +own; things bought for her and made for her as they always were for +Linnet. But Linnet was pretty and good and was going away to school! + +The fair vision was clothed in white, a soft white, that fell in folds +and had no kinship with starch. Marjorie had never seen this kind of +white dress before; it was a part of Miss Prudence's loveliness. The face +was oval and delicate, with little color in the lips and less in the +cheeks, smooth black hair was brushed away from the thoughtful forehead +and underneath the heavily pencilled black brows large, believing, gray +eyes looked unquestioningly out upon the world. Unlike Marjorie, Miss +Prudence's questions had been answered. She would have told Marjorie that +it was because she had asked her questions of One who knew how to answer. +She was swinging in her hammock on the back porch; this back porch looked +over towards the sea, a grass plat touched the edge of the porch and then +came the garden; it was a kitchen garden, and stretched down to the flat +rocks, and beyond the flat rocks were the sand and the sea. + +Marjorie had walked two miles and a half this hot afternoon to spend two +or three hours with her friend, Miss Prudence. Miss Prudence was boarding +at Marjorie's grandfather's; this was the second summer that she had been +at this farmhouse by the sea. She was the lady of whom Marjorie had +caught a glimpse so long ago in church, and called her Mercy. Throwing +aside her hat, Marjorie dropped down on the floor of the porch, so near +the gently swaying hammock that she might touch the soft, white drapery, +and in a position to watch Miss Prudence's face. + +"I don't see the use of learning somethings," Marjorie began; that is, if +she could be said to begin anything with Miss Prudence, the beginning of +all her questions had been so long ago. So long ago to Marjorie; long ago +to Miss Prudence was before Marjorie was born. + +There were no books or papers in the hammock. Miss Prudence had settled +herself comfortably, so comfortably that she was not conscious of +inhabiting her body when Marjorie had unlatched the gate. + +"Which one of the things, for instance?" + +In the interested voice there was not one trace of the delicious reverie +she had been lost in. + +"Punctuation," said Marjorie, promptly; "and Mr. Holmes says we must be +thorough in it. I can't see the use of anything beside periods, and, of +course, a comma once in a while." + +A gleam of fun flashed into the gray eyes. Miss Prudence was a born +pedagogue. + +"I'll show you something I learned when I was a little girl; and, after +this, if you don't confess that punctuation has its work in the world, I +have nothing more to say about it." + +Marjorie had been fanning herself with her broad brim, she let it fall in +her eagerness and her eyes were two convincing arguments against the +truth of her own theory, for they were two emphasized exclamation points; +sometimes when she was very eager she doubled herself up and made an +interrogation point of herself. + +"Up in my room on the table you will find paper and pencil; please bring +them to me." + +Marjorie flew away and Miss Prudence gave herself up to her interrupted +reverie. To-day was one of Miss Prudence's hard-working days; that is, it +was followed by the effect of a hard-working day; the days in which she +felt too weak to do anything beside pray she counted the successful days +of her life. She said they were the only days in her life in which she +accomplished anything. + +Marjorie was at home in every part of her grandfather's queer old house; +Miss Prudence's room was her especial delight. It was a low-studded +chamber, with three windows looking out to the sea, the wide fireplace +was open, filled with boughs of fragrant hemlock; the smooth yellow +floor with its coolness and sweet cleanliness invited you to enter; there +were round braided mats spread before the bureau and rude washstand, and +more pretentious ones in size and beauty were laid in front of the red, +high-posted bedstead and over the brick hearth. There were, beside, in +the apartment, two tables, an easy-chair with arms, its cushions covered +with red calico, a camp stool, three rush-bottomed chairs, a Saratoga +trunk, intruding itself with ugly modernness, also, hanging upon hooks, +several articles of clothing, conspicuously among them a gray flannel +bathing suit. The windows were draperied in dotted swiss, fastened back +with green cord; her grandmother would never have been guilty of those +curtains. Marjorie was sure they had intimate connection with the +Saratoga trunk. Sunshine, the salt-breath of the sea and the odor of pine +woods as well! + +There were rollicking voices outside the window, Marjorie looked out and +spied her five little cousins playing in the sand. Three of them held in +their hands, half-eaten, the inevitable doughnut; morning, noon, and +night those children were to be found with doughnuts in their hands. + +She laughed and turned again to the contemplation of the room; on the +high mantel was a yellow pitcher, that her grandmother knew was a hundred +years old, and in the centre of the mantel were arranged a sugar bowl and +a vinegar cruet that Miss Prudence had coaxed away from the old lady; her +city friends would rave over them, she said. The old lady had laughed, +remarking that "city folks" had ways of their own. + +"I've given away a whole set of dishes to folks that come in the yachts," +she said. "I should think you would rather have new dishes." + +Miss Prudence never dusted her old possessions; she told Marjorie that +she had not the heart to disturb the dust of ages. + +Marjorie was tempted to linger and linger; in winter this room was closed +and seemed always bare and cold when she peeped into it; there was no +temptation to stay one moment; and now she had to tear herself away. It +must be Miss Prudence's spirit that brooded over it and gave it sweetness +and sunshine. This was the way Marjorie put the thought to herself. The +child was very poetical when she lived alone with herself. Miss +Prudence's wicker work-basket with its dainty lining of rose-tinted silk, +its shining scissors and gold thimble, with its spools and sea-green silk +needlebook was a whole poem to the child; she thought the possession of +one could make any kind of sewing, even darning stockings, very +delightful work. "Stitch, stitch, stitch," would not seem dreadful, at +all. + +How mysterious and charming it was to board by the seashore with +somebody's grandfather! And then, in winter, to go back to some +bewildering sort of a fairyland! To some kind of a world where people did +not talk all the time about "getting along" and "saving" and "doing +without" and "making both ends meet." How Marjorie's soul rebelled +against the constant repetition of those expressions! How she thought she +would never _let_ her little girls know what one of them meant! If she +and her little girls had to be saving and do without, how brave they +would be about it, and laugh over it, and never ding it into anybody's +ears! And she would never constantly be asking what things cost! Miss +Prudence never asked such questions. But she would like to know if that +gold pen cost so very much, and that glass inkstand shaped like a +pyramid, and all that cream note-paper with maple tassels and autumn +leaves and butterflies and ever so many cunning things painted in its +left corners. And there was a pile of foolscap on the table, and some +long, yellow envelopes, and some old books and some new books and an +ivory paper-cutter; all something apart from the commonplace world she +inhabited. Not apart from the world her thoughts and desires revelled +in; not her hopes, for she had not gotten so far as to hope to live in a +magical world like Miss Prudence. And yet when Miss Prudence did not wear +white she was robed in deep mourning; there was sorrow in Miss Prudence's +magical world. + +It was some few moments before the roving eyes could settle themselves +upon the paper and pencil she had been sent for; she would have liked to +choose a sheet of the thick cream-paper with the autumn leaves painted on +it, but that was not for study, and Miss Prudence certainly intended +study, although there was fun in her eyes. She selected carefully a sheet +of foolscap and from among the pen oils a nicely sharpened Faber number +three. With the breath of the room about her, and the beauty and +restfulness of it making a glory in her eyes, she ran down to the broad, +airy hall. + +Glancing into the sitting-room as she passed its partly opened door she +discovered her grandfather asleep in his arm-chair and her grandmother +sitting near him busy in slicing apples to be strung and hung up in the +kitchen to dry! With a shiver of foreboding the child passed the door on +tiptoe; suppose her grandmother _should_ call her in to string those +apples! The other children never strung them to suit her and she +"admired" Marjorie's way of doing them. Marjorie said once that she hated +apple blossoms because they turned into dried apples. But that was when +she had stuck the darning needle into her thumb. + +I'm afraid you will think now that Marjorie is not as sweet as she used +to be. + +She presented the paper, congratulating herself upon her escape, and Miss +Prudence lifted herself in the hammock and took the pencil, holding it in +her fingers while she meditated. What a little girl she was when her +whiteheaded old teacher had bidden her write this sentence on the +blackboard. She wrote it carefully, Marjorie's attentive eyes following +each movement of the pencil. + +"The persons inside the coach were Mr Miller a clergyman his son a lawyer +Mr Angelo a foreigner his lady and a little child" In the entire sentence +there was not one punctuation mark. + +"Read it, please." + +Marjorie began to read, then stopped and laughed. + +"I can't." + +"You wouldn't enjoy a book very much written in that style, would you?" + +"I couldn't enjoy it at all. I wouldn't read it" + +"Well, if you can't read it, explain it to me. How many persons are in +the coach?" + +"That's easy enough! There's Mr. Miller, that's one; there's the +clergyman, that's two!" + +"Perhaps that is only one; Mr. Miller may be a clergyman." + +"So he may. But how can I tell?" asked Marjorie, perplexed. "Well, then, +his son makes two." + +"Whose son?" + +"Why, Mr. Miller's!" + +"Perhaps he was the clergyman's son," returned Miss Prudence seriously. + +"Well, then," declared Marjorie, "I guess there were eight people! Mr. +Miller, the clergyman, the son, the lawyer, Mr. Angelo, a foreigner, a +lady, and a child!" + +"Placing a comma after each there are eight persons," said Miss Prudence +making the commas. + +"Yes," assented Marjorie, watching her. + +Beneath it Miss Prudence wrote the sentence again, punctuating thus: + +"The persons inside the conch were Mr. Miller, a clergyman; his son, a +lawyer; Mr. Angelo, a foreigner, his lady; and a little child." + +"Now how many persons are there inside this coach?" + +"Three gentlemen, a lady and child," laughed Marjorie--"five instead of +eight. Those little marks have caused three people to vanish." + +"And to change occupations." + +"Yes, for Mr. Miller is a clergyman, his son a lawyer, and Mr. Angelo has +become a foreigner." + +The pencil was moving again and the amused, attentive eyes were +steadfastly following. + +"The persons inside the coach were Mr. Miller; a clergyman, his son; a +lawyer, Mr. Angelo; a foreigner, his lady, and a little child." + +Marjorie uttered an exclamation; it was so funny! + +"Now, Mr. Miller's son is a clergyman instead of himself, Mr. Angelo is a +lawyer, and nobody knows whether he is a foreigner or not, and we don't +know the foreigner's name, and he has a wife and child." + +Miss Prudence smiled over the young eagerness, and rewrote the sentence +once again causing Mr. Angelo to cease to be a lawyer and giving the +foreigner a wife but no little child. + +"O, Miss Prudence, you've made the little thing an orphan all alone in a +stage-coach all through the change of a comma to be a semi-colon!" +exclaimed Marjorie in comical earnestness. "I think punctuation means +ever so much; it isn't dry one bit," she added, enthusiastically. + +"You couldn't enjoy Mrs. Browning very well without it," smiled Miss +Prudence. + +"I never would know what the 'Cry of the Children' meant, or anything +about Cowper's grave, would I? And if I punctuated it myself, I might +not get all _she_ meant. I might make a meaning of my own, and that would +be sad." + +"I think you do," said Miss Prudence; "when I read it to you and the +children, there were tears in your eyes, but the others said all they +liked was my voice." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "but if somebody had stumbled over every line I +shouldn't have felt it so. I know the good there is in studying +elocution. When Mr. Woodfern was here and read 'O, Absalom, my son! My +son, Absalom!' everybody had tears in their eyes, and I had never seen +tears about it before. And now I know the good of punctuation. I guess +punctuation helps elocution, too." + +"I shouldn't wonder," replied Miss Prudence, smiling at Marjorie's air of +having discovered something. "Now, I'll give you something to do while I +close my eyes and think awhile." + +"Am I interrupting you?" inquired Marjorie in consternation. "I didn't +know how I could any more than I can interrupt--" + +"God" was in her thought, but she did not give it utterance. + +"I shall not allow you," returned Miss Prudence, quietly. "You will work +awhile, and I will think and when I open my eyes you may talk to me about +anything you please. You are a great rest to me, child." + +"Thank you," said the child, simply. + +"You may take the paper and change the number of people, or relationship, +or professions again. I know it may be done." + +"I don't see how." + +"Then it will give you really something to do." + +Seating herself again on the yellow floor of the porch, within range of +Miss Prudence's vision, but not near enough to disturb her, Marjorie bit +the unsharpened end of her pencil and looked long at the puzzling +sentences on the foolscap. With the attitude of attentiveness she was not +always attentive; Mr. Holmes told her that she lacked concentration and +that she could not succeed without it. Marjorie was very anxious to +"succeed." She scribbled awhile, making a comma and a dash, a +parenthesis, an interrogation point, an asterisk and a line of asterisks! +But the sense was not changed; there was nobody new in the stage-coach +and nobody did anything new. Then she rewrote it again, giving the little +child to the foreigner and lady; she wanted the child to have a father +and mother, even if the father were a foreigner and did not speak +English; she called the foreigner Mr. Angelo, and imagined him to be a +brother of the celebrated Michael Angelo; making a dive into the shallow +depths of her knowledge of Italian nomenclature she selected a name for +the child, a little girl, of course--Corrinne would do, or it might be a +boy and named for his uncle Michael. In what age of the world had Michael +Angelo lived? At the same time with Petrarch and Galileo, and Tasso +and--did she know about any other Italians? Oh, yes. Silvio +Pellico,--wasn't he in prison and didn't he write about it? And was not +the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy? Was that one of the Seven Wonders of +the World? And weren't there Seven Wise Men of Greece? And wasn't there a +story about the Seven Sleepers? But weren't they in Asia? And weren't the +churches in Revelation in Asia? And wasn't the one at Laodicea lukewarm? +And did people mix bread with lukewarm water in summer as well as winter? +And wasn't it queer--why how had she got there? But it _was_ queer for +the oriental king to refuse to believe and say it wasn't so--that water +couldn't become hard enough for people to walk on it! And it was funny +for the East Indian servant to be alarmed because the butter was +"spoiled," just because when they were up in the mountains it became hard +and was not like oil as it was down in Calcutta! And that was where Henry +Martyn went, and he dressed all in white, and his face was so lovely and +pure, like an angel's; and angels _were_ like young men, for at the +resurrection didn't it say they were young men! Or was it some other +time? And how do you spell _resurrection_? Was that the word that had one +_s_ and two _r's_ in it? And how would you write two _r's?_ Would +punctuation teach you that? Was _B_ a word and could you spell it? + +"Well, Marjorie?" + +"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Marjorie. "I've been away off! I always do go +away off! I don't remember what the last thing I thought of was. I never +shall be concentrated," she sighed. "I believe I could go right on and +think of fifty other things. One thing always reminds me of some thing +else." + +"And some day," rebuked Miss Prudence, "when you must concentrate your +thoughts you will find that you have spoiled yourself." + +"I have found it out now," acknowledged Marjorie humbly. + +"I have to be very severe with myself." + +"I ought to be," Marjorie confessed with a rueful face, "for it spoils my +prayers so often. I wouldn't dare tell you all the things I find myself +thinking of. Why, last night--you know at the missionary meeting they +asked us to pray for China and so I thought I'd begin last night, and I +had hardly begun when it flashed into my mind--suppose somebody should +make me Empress of China, and give me supreme power, of course. And I +began to make plans as to how I should make them all Christians. I +thought I wouldn't _force_ them or destroy their temples, but I'd have +all my officers real Christians; Americans, of course; and I thought I +_would_ compel them to send the children to Christian schools. I'd have +such grand schools. I had you as principal for the grandest one. And I'd +have the Bible and all our best books, and all our best Sunday School +books translated into Chinese and I _would_ make the Sabbath a holy day +all over the land. I didn't know what I would do about that room in every +large house called the Hall of Ancestors. You know they worship their +grandparents and great-great-grandparents there. I think I should have to +let them read the old books. Isn't it queer that one of the proverbs +should be like the Bible? 'God hates the proud and is kind to the +humble.' Do you know all about Buddha?" + +"Is that as far as you got in your prayer?" asked Miss Prudence, gravely. + +"About as far. And then I was so contrite that I began to pray for myself +as hard as I could, and forgot all about China." + +"Do you wander off in reading the Bible, too?" + +"Oh, no; I can keep my attention on that. I read Genesis and Exodus last +Sunday. It is the loveliest story-book I know. I've begun to read it +through. Uncle James said once, that when he was a sea-captain, he +brought a passenger from Germany and he used to sit up all night and read +the Bible. He told me last Sunday because he thought I read so long. I +told him I didn't wonder. Miss Prudence," fixing her innocent, +questioning eyes upon Miss Prudence's face, "why did a lady tell mother +once that she didn't want her little girl to read the Bible through until +she was grown up? It was Mrs. Grey,--and she told mother she ought not to +let me begin and read right through." + +"What did your mother say?" + +"She said she was glad I wanted to do it." + +"I think Mrs. Grey meant that you might learn about some of the sin there +is in the world. But if you live in the world, you will be kept from the +evil, because Christ prayed that his disciples might be thus kept; but +you must know the sin exists. And I would rather my little girl would +learn about the sins that God hates direct from his lips than from any +other source. As soon as you learn what sin is, you will learn to hate +it, and that is not sure if you learn it in any other way. I read the +Bible through when I was about your age, and I think there are some forms +of sin I never should have hated so intensely if I had not learned about +them in the way God thinks best to teach us his abhorrence of them. I +never read any book in which a sin was fully delineated that I did not +feel some of the excitement of the sin--some extenuation, perhaps, some +glossing over, some excuse for the sinner,--but in the record God gives I +always intensely hate the sin and feel how abominable it is in his sight. +The first book I ever cried over was the Bible and it was somebody's sin +that brought the tears. I would like to talk to Mrs. Grey!" cried Miss +Prudence, her eyes kindling with indignation. "To think that God does not +know what is good for his children." + +"I wish you would," said Marjorie with enthusiasm, "for I don't know how +to say it. Mother knows a lady who will not read Esther on Sunday because +God isn't in it" + +"The name of God, you mean," said Miss Prudence smiling. "I think Esther +and Mordecai and all the Jews thought God was in it." + +"I will try not to build castles," promised Marjorie often a silent half +minute. "I've done it so much to please Linnet. After we go to bed at +night she says, 'Shut your eyes, Marjie, and tell me what you see,' Then +I shut my eyes and see things for us both. I see ourselves grown up and +having a splendid home and a real splendid husband, and we each have +three children. She has two boys and one girl, and I have two girls and +one boy. And we educate them and dress them so nice, and they do lovely +things. We travel all around the world with them, and I tell Linnet all +we see in Europe and Asia. Our husbands stay home and send us money. They +have to stay home and earn it, you know," Marjorie explained with a +shrewd little smile. "Would you give that all up?" she asked +disappointedly. + +"Yes, I am sure I would. You are making a disappointment for yourself; +your life may not be at all like that. You may never marry, in the first +place, and you may marry a man who cannot send you to Europe, and I think +you are rather selfish to spend his money and not stay home and be a good +wife to him," said Miss Prudence, smiling. + +"Oh. I write him splendid long letters!" said Marjorie quickly. "They are +so splendid that he thinks of making a book of them." + +"I'm afraid they wouldn't take," returned Miss Prudence seriously, "books +of travel are too common nowadays." + +"Is it wrong to build castles for any other reason than for making +disappointments?" Marjorie asked anxiously. + +"Yes, you dwell only on pleasant things and thus you do not prepare +yourself, or rather un-prepare yourself for bearing trial. And why should +a little girl live in a woman's world?" + +"Oh, because it's so nice!" cried Marjorie. + +"And are you willing to lose your precious childhood and girlhood?" + +"Why no," acknowledged the child, looking startled. + +"I think you lose a part of it when you love best to look forward to +womanhood; I should think every day would be full enough for you to live +in." + +"To-day is full enough; but some days nothing happens at all." + +"Now is your study time; now is the time for you to be a perfect little +daughter and sister, a perfect friend, a perfect helper in every way that +a child may help. And when womanhood comes you will be ready to enjoy it +and to do its work. It would be very sad to look back upon a lost or +blighted or unsatisfying childhood." + +"Yes," assented Marjorie, gravely. + +"Perhaps you and Linnet have been reading story-books that were not +written for children." + +"We read all the books in the school library." + +"Does your mother look over them?" + +"No, not always." + +"They may harm you only in this way that I see. You are thinking of +things before the time. It would be a pity to spoil May by bringing +September into it." + +"All the girls like the grown-up stories best" excused Marjorie. + +"Perhaps they have not read books written purely for children. Think of +the histories and travels and biographies and poems piled up for you to +read!" + +"I wish I had them. I read all I could get." + +"I am sure you do. O, Marjorie, I don't want you to lose one of your +precious days. I lost so many of mine by growing up too soon. There are +years and years to be a woman, but there are so few years to be a child +and a girl." + +Marjorie scribbled awhile thinking of nothing to say. Had she been +"spoiling" Linnet, too? But Linnet was two years older, almost old enough +to think about growing up. + +"Marjorie, look at me!" + +Marjorie raised her eyes and fixed them upon the glowing eyes that were +reading her own. Miss Prudence's lips were white and tremulous. + +"I have had some very hard things in my life and I fully believe I +brought many of them upon myself. I spoiled my childhood and early +girlhood by light reading and castle-building; I preferred to live among +scenes of my own imagining, than in my own common life, and oh, the +things I left up done! The precious girlhood I lost and the hard +womanhood I made for myself." + +The child's eyes were as full of tears as the woman's. + +"Please tell me what to do," Marjorie entreated. "I don't want to lose +anything. I suppose it is as good to be a girl as a woman." + +"Get all the sweetness out of every day; _live_ in to-day, don't plan or +hope about womanhood; God has all that in his safe hands. Read the kind +of books I have spoken of and when you read grown-up stories let some one +older and wiser choose them for you. By and by your taste will be so +formed and cultivated that you will choose only the best for yourself. I +hope the Bible will spoil some other books for you." + +"I _devour_ everything I can borrow or find anywhere." + +"You don't eat everything you can borrow or find anywhere. If you choose +for your body, how much more ought you to choose for your mind." + +"I do get discontented sometimes and want things to happen as they do in +books; something happens in every chapter in a book," acknowledged +Marjorie. + +"There's nothing said about the dull, uneventful days that come between; +if the author should write only about the dull days no one would read the +book." + +"It wouldn't be like life, either," said Marjorie, quickly, "for +something does happen, sometimes nothing has happened yet to me, though. +But I suppose something will, some day." + +"Then if I should write about your thirteen years the charm would have to +be all in the telling." + +"Like Hector in the Garden," said Marjorie, brightly. "How I do love +that. And he was only nine years old." + +"But how far we've gotten away from punctuation!" + +Next to prayer children were Miss Prudence's most perfect rest. They were +so utterly unconscious of what she was going through. It seemed to Miss +Prudence as if she were always going through and never getting through. + +"Are you fully satisfied that punctuation has its work in the world?" + +"Yes, ever so fully. I should never get along in the Bible without it." + +"That reminds me; run upstairs and bring me my Bible and I'll show you +something. + +"And, then, after that will you show me the good of remembering _dates_. +They are so hard to remember. And I can't see the good. Do you suppose +you _could_ make it as interesting as punctuation?" + +"I might try. The idea of a little girl who finds punctuation so +interesting having to resort to castle-building to make life worth +living," laughed Miss Prudence. + +"Mother said to-day that she was afraid I was growing deaf, for she spoke +three times before I answered; I was away off somewhere imagining I had a +hundred dollars to spend, so she went down cellar for the butter +herself." + +Marjorie walked away with a self-rebuked air; she did dread to pass that +open sitting-room door; Uncle James had come in in his shirt sleeves, +wiping his bald head with his handkerchief and was telling her +grandfather that the hay was poor this year; Aunt Miranda was brushing +Nettie's hair and scolding her for having such greasy fingers; and her +grandmother had a pile, _such_ a pile of sliced apple all ready to be +strung. Her head was turning, yes, she would see her and then she could +not know about dates or have a lesson in reading poetry! Tiptoing more +softly still and holding the skirt of her starched muslin in both hands +to keep it from rustling, she at last passed the ordeal and breathed +freely as she gained Miss Prudence's chamber. The spirit of handling +things seemed to possess her this afternoon, for, after finding the +Bible, she went to the mantel and took into her hands every article +placed upon it; the bird's nest with the three tiny eggs, the bunch of +feathers that she had gathered for Miss Prudence with their many shades +of brown, the old pieces of crockery, handling these latter very +carefully until she seized the yellow pitcher; Miss Prudence had paid her +grandmother quite a sum for the pitcher, having purchased it for a +friend; Marjorie turned it around and around in her hands, then, +suddenly, being startled by a heavy, slow step on the stairs which +she recognized as her grandmother's, and having in fear those apples to +be strung, in attempting to lift it to the high mantel, it fell short of +the mantel edge and dropped with a crash to the hearth. + +For an instant Marjorie was paralyzed with horror; then she stifled a +shriek and stood still gazing down through quick tears upon the yellow +fragments. Fortunately her grandmother, being very deaf, had passed the +door and heard no sound. What would have happened to her if her +grandmother had looked in! + +How disappointed Miss Prudence would be! It belonged to her friend and +how could she remedy the loss? + +Stooping, with eyes so blinded with tears that she could scarcely see the +pieces she took into her hand, she picked up each bit, and then on the +spur of the moment hid them among the thick branches of hemlock. Now what +was she to do next? Could she earn money to buy another hundred-years-old +yellow pitcher? And if she could earn the money, where could she find the +pitcher? She would not confess to Miss Prudence until she found some way +of doing something for her. Oh, dear! This was not the kind of thing that +she had been wishing would happen! And how could she go down with such a +face to hear the rest about punctuation? + +"Marjorie! Marjorie!" shouted Uncle James from below, "here's Cap'n Rheid +at the gate, and if you want to catch a ride you'd better go a ways with +him." + +The opportunity to run away was better than the ride; hastening down to +the hammock she laid the Bible in Miss Prudence's lap. + +"I have to go, you see," she exclaimed, hurriedly, averting her face. + +"Then our desultory conversation must be finished another time." + +"If that's what it means, it means delightful!" said Marjorie. "Thank +you, and good-bye." + +The blue muslin vanished between the rows of currant bushes. She was +hardly a radiant vision as she flew down to the gate; in those few +minutes what could have happened to the child? + + + + +IV. + +A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE. + +"Children always turn toward the light" + + +"Well, Mousie!" + +The old voice and the old pet name; no one thought of calling her +"Mousie" but Hollis Rheid. + +Her mother said she was noisier than she used to be; perhaps he would not +call her Mousie now if he could hear her sing about the house and run up +and down stairs and shout when she played games at school. That time when +she was so quiet and afraid of everybody seemed ages ago; ages ago before +Hollis went to New York. He had returned home once since, but she had +been at her grandfather's and had not seen him. Springing to the ground, +he caught her in his arms, this tall, strange boy, who had changed so +much, and yet who had not changed at all, and lifted her into the back of +the open wagon. + +"Will you squeeze in between us--there's but one seat you see, and +father's a big man, or shall I make a place for you in the bottom among +the bags?" + +"I'd rather sit with the bags," said Marjorie, her timidity coming back. +She had always been afraid of Hollis' father; his eyes were the color of +steel, and his voice was not encouraging. He thought he was born to +command. People said old Captain Rheid acted as if he were always on +shipboard. His wife said once in the bitterness of her spirit that he +always marched the quarter-deck and kept his boys in the forecastle. + +"You don't weigh more than that bag of flour yourself, not as much, and +that weighs one hundred pounds." + +"I weigh ninety pounds," said Marjorie. + +"And how old are you?" + +"Almost fourteen," she answered proudly. + +"Four years younger than I am! Now, are you comfortable? Are you afraid +of spoiling your dress? I didn't think of that?" + +"Oh, no; I wish I was," laughed Marjorie, glancing shyly at him from +under her broad brim. + +It was her own bright face, yet, he decided, with an older look in it, +her eyelashes were suspiciously moist and her cheeks were reddened with +something more than being lifted into the wagon. + +Marjorie settled herself among the bags, feeling somewhat strange and +thinking she would much rather have walked; Hollis sprang in beside his +father, not inclined to make conversation with him, and restrained, by +his presence, from turning around to talk to Marjorie. + +Oh, how people misunderstand each other! How Captain Rheid misunderstood +his boys and how his boys misunderstood him! The boys said that Hollis +was the Joseph among them, his father's favorite; but Hollis and his +father had never opened their hearts to each other. Captain Rheid often +declared that there was no knowing what his boys would do if they were +not kept in; perhaps they had him to thank that they were not all in +state-prison. There was a whisper among the country folks that the old +man himself had been in prison in some foreign country, but no one had +ever proved it; in his many "yarns" at the village store, he had not even +hinted at such a strait. If Marjorie had not stood quite so much in fear +of him she would have enjoyed his adventures; as it was she did enjoy +with a feverish enjoyment the story of thirteen days in an open boat on +the ocean. His boys were fully aware that he had run away from home when +he was fourteen, and had not returned for fourteen years, but they were +not in the least inclined to follow his example. Hollis' brothers had all +left home with the excuse that they could "better" themselves elsewhere; +two were second mates on board large ships, Will and Harold, Sam was +learning a trade in the nearest town, he was next to Hollis in age, and +the eldest, Herbert, had married and was farming on shares within ten +miles of his father's farm. But Captain Rheid held up his head, declaring +that his boys were good boys, and had always obeyed him; if they had left +him to farm his hundred and fifty acres alone, it was only because their +tastes differed from his. In her lonely old age, how his wife sighed for +a daughter!--a daughter that would stay at home and share her labors, and +talk to her, and read to her on stormy Sundays, and see that her collar +was on straight, and that her caps were made nice. Some mothers had +daughters, but she had never had much pleasure in her life! + +"Like to come over to your grandfather's, eh?" remarked Captain Rheid, +looking around at the broad-brimmed hat among the full bags. + +"Yes, sir," said Marjorie, denting one of the full bags with her +forefinger and wondering what he would do to her if she should make a +hole in the bag, and let the contents out. + +She rarely got beyond monosyllables with Hollis' father. + +"Your uncle James isn't going to stay much longer, he tells me," + +"No, sir," said Marjorie, obediently. + +"Wife and children going back to Boston, too?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Her forefinger was still making dents. + +"Just come to board awhile, I suppose?" + +"I thought they _visited_" said Marjorie. + +"Visited? Humph! _Visit_ his poor old father with a wife and five +children!" + +Marjorie wanted to say that her grandfather wasn't poor. + +"Your grandfather's place don't bring in much, I reckon." + +"I don't know," Marjorie answered. + +"How many acres? Not more'n fifty, and some of that _made_ land. I +remember when some of your grandfather's land was water! I don't see what +your uncle James had to settle down to business in Boston for--_that's_ +what comes of marrying a city girl! Why didn't he stay home and take care +of his old father?" + +Marjorie had nothing to say. Hollis flushed uncomfortably. + +"And your mother had to get married, too. I'm glad I haven't a daughter +to run away and get married?" + +"She didn't run away," Marjorie found voice to answer indignantly. + +"O, no, the Connecticut schoolmaster had to come and make a home for +her." + +Marjorie wondered what right he had to be so disagreeable to her, and why +should he find fault with her mother and her uncle, and what right had he +to say that her grandfather was poor and that some of his land had once +been water? + +"Hollis shan't grow up and marry a city girl if I can help it," he +growled, half good-naturedly. + +Hollis laughed; he thought he was already grown up, and he did admire +"city girls" with their pretty finished manners and little ready +speeches. + +Marjorie wished Hollis would begin to talk about something pleasant; +there were two miles further to ride, and would Captain Rheid talk all +the way? + +If she could only have an errand somewhere and make an excuse to get out! +But the Captain's next words relieved her perplexity; "I can't take you +all the way, Sis, I have to branch off another road to see a man about +helping me with the hay. I would have let Hollis go to mill, but I +couldn't trust him with these horses." + +Hollis fidgeted on his seat; he had asked his father when they set out to +let him take the lines, but he had replied ungraciously that as long as +he had hands he preferred to hold the reins. + +Hollis had laughed and retorted: "I believe that, father." + +"Shall I get out now?" asked Marjorie, eagerly. "I like to walk. I +expected to walk home." + +"No; wait till we come to the turn." + +The horses were walking slowly up the hill; Marjorie made dents in the +bag of flour, in the bag of indian meal, and in the bag of wheat bran, +and studied Hollis' back. The new navy-blue suit was handsome and +stylish, and the back of his brown head with its thick waves of brownish +hair was handsome also--handsome and familiar; but the navy-blue suit was +not familiar, and the eyes that just then turned and looked at her were +not familiar either. Marjorie could get on delightfully with _souls_, but +bodies were something that came between her soul and their soul; the +flesh, like a veil, hid herself and hid the other soul that she wanted to +be at home with. She could have written to the Hollis she remembered many +things that she could not utter to the Hollis that she saw today. +Marjorie could not define this shrinking, of course. + +"Hollis has to go back in a day or two," Captain Rheid announced; "he +spent part of his vacation in the country with Uncle Jack before he came +home. Boys nowadays don't think of their fathers and mothers." + +Hollis wondered if _he_ thought of his mother and father when he ran away +from them those fourteen years: he wished that his father had never +revealed that episode in his early life. He did not miss it that he did +not love his father, but he would have given more than a little if he +might respect him. He knew Marjorie would not believe that he did not +think about his mother. + +"I wonder if your father will work at his trade next winter," continued +Captain Rheid. + +"I don't know," said Marjorie, hoping the "turn" was not far off. + +"I'd advise him to--summers, too, for that matter. These little places +don't pay. Wants to sell, he tells me." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Real estate's too low; 'tisn't a good time to sell. But it's a good time +to buy; and I'll buy your place and give it to Hollis if he'll settle +down and work it." + +"It would take more than _that_ farm to keep me here," said Hollis, +quickly; "but, thank you all the same, father; Herbert would jump at the +chance." + +"Herbert shan't have it; I don't like his wife; she isn't respectful to +Herbert's father. He wants to exchange it for city property, so he can go +into business, he tells me." + +"Oh, does he?" exclaimed Marjorie. "I didn't know that." + +"Girls are rattlebrains and chatterboxes; they can't be told everything," +he replied shortly. + +"I wonder what makes you tell me, then," said Marjorie, demurely, in the +fun of the repartee forgetting for the first time the bits of yellow ware +secreted among the hemlock boughs. + +Throwing back his head Captain Rheid laughed heartily, he touched the +horses with the whip, laughing still. + +"I wouldn't mind having a little girl like you," he said, reining in the +horses at the turn of the road; "come over and see marm some day." + +"Thank you," Marjorie said, rising. + +Giving the reins to Hollis, Captain Rheid climbed out of the wagon that +he might lift the child out himself. + +"Jump," he commanded, placing her hands on his shoulders. + +Marjorie jumped with another "thank you." + +"I haven't kissed a little girl for twenty years--not since my little +girl died--but I guess I'll kiss you." + +Marjorie would not withdraw her lips for the sake of the little girl that +died twenty years ago. + +"Good-bye, Mousie, if I don't see you again," said Hollis. + +"Good-bye," said Marjorie. + +She stood still till the horses' heads were turned and the chains had +rattled off in the distance, then, very slowly, she walked on in the +dusty road, forgetting how soft and green the grass was at the wayside. + +"She's a proper nice little thing," observed Hollis' father; "her father +wouldn't sell her for gold. I'll exchange my place for his if he'll throw +her in to boot. Marm is dreadful lonesome." + +"Why don't she adopt a little girl?" asked Hollis. + +"I declare! That _is_ an idea! Hollis, you've hit the nail on the head +this time. But I'd want her willing and loving, with no ugly ways. And +good blood, too. I'd want to know what her father had been before her." + +"Are your boys like _you_, father?" asked Hollis. + +"God forbid!" answered the old man huskily. "Hollis, I want you to be a +better man than your father. I pray every night that my boys may be +Christians; but my time is past, I'm afraid. Hollis, do you pray and read +your Bible, regular?" + +Hollis gave an embarrassed cough. "No, sir," he returned. + +"Then I'd see to it that I did it. That little girl joined the Church +last Sunday and I declare it almost took my breath away. I got the Bible +down last Sunday night and read a chapter in the New Testament. If you +haven't got a Bible, I'll give you money to buy one." + +"Oh, I have one," said Hollis uneasily. + +"Git up, there!" shouted Captain Rheid to his horses, and spoke not +another word all the way home. + +After taking a few slow steps Marjorie quickened her pace, remembering +that Linnet did not like to milk alone; Marjorie did not like to milk at +all; at thirteen there were not many things that she liked to do very +much, except to read and think. + +"I'm afraid she's indolent," sighed her mother; "there's Linnet now, +she's as spry as a cricket" + +But Linnet was not conscious of very many things to think about and +Marjorie every day discovered some new thought to revel in. At this +moment, if it had not been for that unfortunate pitcher, she would have +been reviewing her conversation with Miss Prudence. It _was_ wonderful +about punctuation; how many times a day life was "wonderful" to the +growing child! + +Along this road the farmhouses were scattered at long distances, there +was one in sight with the gable end to the road, but the next one was +fully quarter of a mile away; she noted the fact, not that she was afraid +or lonely, but it gave her something to think of; she was too thoroughly +acquainted with the road to be afraid of anything by night or by day; she +had walked to her grandfather's more times than she could remember ever +since she was seven years old. She tried to guess how far the next house +was, how many feet, yards or rods; she tried to guess how many quarts of +blueberries had grown in the field beyond; she even wondered if anybody +could count the blades of grass all along the way if they should try! But +the remembrance of the broken pitcher persisted in bringing itself +uppermost, pushing through the blades of grass and the quarts of +blueberries; she might as well begin to plan how she was to earn another +pitcher! Or, her birthday was coming--in a month she would be fourteen; +her father would certainly give her a silver dollar because he was glad +that he had had her fourteen years. A quick, panting breath behind her, +and the sound of hurrying feet, caused her to turn her head; she fully +expected to meet the gaze of some big dog, but instead a man was close +upon her, dusty, travel-stained, his straw hat pushed back from a +perspiring face and a hand stretched out to detain her. + +On one arm he carried a long, uncovered basket in which were arranged +rows and piles of small bottles; a glance at the basket reassured her, +every one knew Crazy Dale, the peddler of essences, cough-drops and quack +medicines. + +"It's lonesome walking alone; I've been running to overtake you; I tried +to be in time to catch a ride; but no matter, I will walk with you, if +you will kindly permit." + +She looked up into his pleasant countenance; he might have been handsome +years ago. + +"Well," she assented, walking on. + +"You don't know where I could get a girl to work for me," he asked in a +cracked voice. + +"No sir." + +"And you don't want a bottle of my celebrated mixture to teach you how to +discern between the true and the false! Rub your head with it every +morning, and you'll never believe a lie." + +"I don't now," replied Marjorie, taking very quick steps. + +"How do you know you don't?" he asked keeping step with her. "Tell me how +to tell the difference between a lie and the truth!" + +"Rub your head with your mixture," she said, laughing. + +But he was not disconcerted, he returned in a simple tone. + +"Oh, _that's_ my receipt, I want yours. Yours may be better than mine." + +"I think it is." + +"Tell me, then, quick." + +"Don't you want to go into that house and sell something?" she asked, +pointing to the house ahead of them. + +"When I get there; and you must wait for me, outside, or I won't go in." + +"Don't you know the way yourself?" she evaded. + +"I've travelled it ever since the year 1, I ought to know it," he +replied, contemptuously. "But you've got to wait for me." + +"Oh, dear," sighed Marjorie, frightened at his insistence; then a quick +thought came to her: "Perhaps they will keep you all night." + +"They won't, they always refuse. They don't believe I'm an angel +unawares. That's in the Bible." + +"I'd ask them, if I were you," said Marjorie, in a coaxing, tremulous +voice; "they're nice, kind people." + +"Well, then, I will," he said, hurrying on. + +She lingered, breathing more freely; he would certainly overtake her +again before she could reach the next house and if she did not agree +with everything he proposed he might become angry with her. Oh, dear! how +queerly this day was ending! She did not really want anything to happen; +the quiet days were the happiest, after all. He strode on before her, +turning once in a while, to learn if she were following. + +"That's right; walk slow," he shouted in a conciliatory voice. + +By the wayside, near the fence opposite the gate he was to enter, there +grew a dense clump of blackberry vines; as the gate swung behind him, she +ran towards the fence, and, while he stood with his back towards her in +the path talking excitedly to a little boy who had come to meet him, she +squeezed herself in between the vines and the fence, bending her head and +gathering the skirt of her dress in both hands. + +He became angry as he talked, vociferating and gesticulating; every +instant she the more congratulated herself upon her escape; some of the +girls were afraid of him, but she had always been too sorry for him to be +much afraid; still, she would prefer to hide and keep hidden half the +night rather than be compelled to walk a long, lonely mile with him. Her +father or mother had always been within the sound of her voice when he +had talked with her; she had never before had to be a protection to +herself. Peering through the leaves, she watched him, as he turned again +towards the gate, with her heart beating altogether too rapidly for +comfort: he opened the gate, strode out to the road and stood looking +back. + +He stood a long, long time, uttering no exclamation, then hurried on, +leaving a half-frightened and very thankful little girl trembling among +the leaves of the blackberry vines. But, would he keep looking back? And +how could she ever pass the next house? Might he not stop there and be +somewhere on the watch for her? If some one would pass by, or some +carriage would only drive along! The houses were closer together a mile +further on, but how dared she pass that mile? He would not hurt her, he +would only look at her out of his wild eyes and talk to her. Answering +Captain Rheid's questions was better than this! Staying at her +grandfather's and confessing about the pitcher was better than this! + +Suddenly--or had she heard it before, a whistle burst out upon the air, a +sweet and clear succession of notes, the air of a familiar song: "Be it +ever so humble, there's no place like home." + +Some one was at hand, she sprang through the vines, the briers catching +the old blue muslin, extricating herself in time to run almost against +the navy-blue figure that she had not yet become familiar with. + +The whistle stopped short--"Well, Mousie! Here you are!" + +"O, Hollis," with a sobbing breath, "I'm so glad!" + +"So am I. I jumped off and ran after you. Why, did I frighten you? Your +eyes are as big as moons." + +"No," she laughed, "I wasn't frightened." + +"You look terribly like it." + +"Perhaps some things are _like_--" she began, almost dancing along by his +side, so relieved that she could have poured out a song for joy. + +"What do you do nowadays?" he asked presently. "You are more of a _live_ +mouse than you used to be! I can't call you Mousie any more, only for the +sake of old times." + +"I like it," said Marjorie. + +"But what do you do nowadays?" + +"I read all the time--when I can, and I work, different kinds of work. +Tell me about the little city girls." + +"I only know my cousins and one or two others, their friends." + +"What do they look like?" + +"Like girls! Don't you know how girls look?" + +"Not city girls." + +"They are pretty, most of them, and they dress older than you and have a +_manner;_ they always know how to reply and they are not awkward and too +shy; they know how to address people, and introduce people, and sometimes +to entertain them, they seem to know what to talk about, and they are +bright and wide-awake. They play and sing and study the languages and +mathematics. The girls I know are all little ladies." + +Marjorie was silent; her cheeks were burning and her eyes downcast. She +never could be like that; she never could be a "little lady," if a little +lady meant all those unattainable things. + +"Do they talk differently from us--from country girls?" she asked after a +long pause. + +"Yes, I think they do. Mira Crane--I'll tell you how the country girls +talk--says 'we am,' and 'fust rate,' and she speaks rudely and abruptly +and doesn't look directly at a person when she speaks, she says 'good +morning' and 'yes' and 'no' without 'sir' or 'ma'am' or the person's +name, and answers 'I'm very well' without adding 'thank you.'" + +"Yes," said Marjorie, taking mental note of each expression. + +"And Josie Grey--you see I've been studying the difference in the girls +since I came home--" + +Had he been studying _her_? + +"Is there so much difference?" she asked a little proudly. + +"Yes. The difference struck me. It is not city or country that makes the +difference, it is the _homes_ and the _schools_ and every educating +influence. Josie Grey has all sorts of exclamations like some old +grandmother, and she says 'I tell you,' and 'I declare,' and she hunches +all up when she sits or puts her feet out into the middle of the room." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, again, intently. + +"And Nettie Trevor colors and stammers and talks as if she were afraid of +you. My little ladies see so many people that they become accustomed to +forgetting themselves and thinking of others. They see people to admire +and imitate, too." + +"So do I," said Marjorie, spiritedly. "I see Miss Prudence and I see Mrs. +Proudfit, our new minister's wife, and I see--several other people." + +"I suppose I notice these things more than some boys would. When I left +home gentleness was a new language to me; I had never heard it spoken +excepting away from home. I was surprised at first that a master could +command with gentleness and that those under authority could obey with +gentleness." + +Marjorie listened with awe; this was not like Hollis; her old Hollis was +gone, a new, wise Hollis had come instead. She sighed a little for the +old Hollis who was not quite so wise. + +"I soon found how much I lacked. I set myself to reading and studying. +From the first of October all through the winter I attend evening school +and I have subscribed to the Mercantile Library and have my choice among +thousands of books. Uncle Jack says I shall be a literary business man." + +A "literary business man" sounded very grand to Marjorie. Would she stay +home and be ignorant and never be or do anything? At that instant a +resolve was born in her heart; the resolve to become a scholar and a +lady. But she did not speak, if possible she became more quiet. Hollis +should not be ashamed of being her friend. + +"Mousie! Why don't you talk to me?" he asked, at last. + +"Which of your cousins do you like best?" + +"Helen," he said unhesitatingly. + +"How old is she?" she asked with a sinking at her heart. + +"Seventeen. _She's_ a lady, so gentle and bright, she never rustles or +makes a noise, she never says anything to hurt any one's feelings: and +how she plays and sings. She never once laughed at me, she helps me in +everything; she wanted me to go to evening school and she told me about +the Mercantile Library. She's a Christian, too. She teaches in a mission +school and goes around among poor people with Aunt Helen. She paints and +draws and can walk six miles a day. I go everywhere with her, to lectures +and concerts and to church and Sunday school." + +How Marjorie's eyes brightened! She had found her ideal; she would give +herself no rest until she had become like Helen Rheid. But Helen Rheid +had everything to push her on, every one to help her. For the first time +in her life Marjorie was disheartened. But, with a reassuring conviction, +flashed the thought--there were years before _she_ would be seventeen. + +"Wouldn't you like to see her, Mousie?" + +"Indeed, I would," said Marjorie, enthusiastically. + +"I brought her photograph to mother--how she looked at me when 'marm' +slipped out one day. The boys always used to say 'Marm,'" he said +laughing. + +Marjorie remembered that she had been taught to say "grandmarm," but as +she grew older she had softened it to "grandma." + +"I'll bring you her photograph when I come to-morrow to say good-bye. +Now, tell me what you've been looking sad about." + +Is it possible that she was forgetting? + +"Oh, perhaps you can help me!" + +"Help you! Of course I will." + +"How did you know I was troubled?" she asked seriously, looking up into +his eyes. + +"Have I eyes?" he answered as seriously. "Father happened to think that +mother had an errand for him to do on this road, so I jumped off and ran +after you." + +"No, you ran after your mother's errand," she answered, jealously. + +"Well, then, I found you, my precise little maiden, and now you must tell +me what you were crying about." + +"Not spilt milk, but only a broken milk pitcher! _Do_ you think you can +find me a yellow pitcher, with yellow figures--a man, or a lion, or +something, a hundred or two hundred years old?" + +"In New York? I'm rather doubtful. Oh, I know--mother has some old ware, +it belonged to her grandmother, perhaps I can beg a piece of it for you. +Will it do if it isn't a pitcher?" + +"I'd rather have a pitcher, a yellow pitcher. The one I broke belongs to +a friend of Miss Prudence." + +"Prudence! Is she a Puritan maiden?" he asked. + +Marjorie felt very ignorant, she colored and was silent. She supposed +Helen Rheid would know what a Puritan maiden was. + +"I won't tease you," he said penitently. "I'll find you something to make +the loss good, perhaps I'll find something she'll like a great deal +better." + +"Mr. Onderdonk has a plate that came from Holland, it's over two hundred +years old he told Miss Prudence; oh, if you _could_ get that!" cried +Marjorie, clasping her hands in her eagerness. + +"Mr. Onderdonk? Oh, the shoemaker, near the schoolhouse. Well, Mousie, +you shall have some old thing if I have to go back a century to get it. +Helen will be interested to know all about it; I've told her about you." + +"There's nothing to tell about me," returned Marjorie. + +"Then I must have imagined it; you used to be such a cunning little +thing." + +"_Used to be!_" repeated sensitive Marjorie, to herself. She was sure +Hollis was disappointed in her. And she thought he was so tall and wise +and handsome and grand! She could never be disappointed in him. + +How surprised she would have been had she known that Helen's eyes had +filled with tears when Hollis told her how his little friend had risen +all alone in that full church! Helen thought she could never be like +Marjorie. + +"I wish you had a picture of how you used to look for me to show Helen." + +Not how she looked to-day! Her lips quivered and she kept her eyes on her +dusty shoes. + +"I suppose you want the pitcher immediately." + +Two years ago Hollis would have said "right away." + +After that Marjorie never forgot to say "immediately." + +"Yes, I would," she said, slowly. "I've hidden the pieces away and nobody +knows it is broken." + +"That isn't like you," Hollis returned, disappointedly. + +"Oh, I didn't do it to deceive; I couldn't. I didn't want her to be sorry +about it until I could see what I could do to replace it" + +"That sounds better." + +Marjorie felt very much as if he had been finding fault with her. + +"Will you have to pay for it?" + +"Not if mother gives it to me, but perhaps I shall exact some return from +you." + +She met his grave eyes fully before she spoke. "Well, I'll give you all I +can earn. I have only seventy-three cents; father gives me one tenth of +the eggs for hunting them and feeding the chickens, and I take them to +the store. That's the only way I can earn money," she said in her sweet +half-abashed voice. + +A picture of Helen taking eggs to "the store" flashed upon Hollis' +vision; he smiled and looked down upon his little companion with +benignant eyes. + +"I could give you all I have and send you the rest. Couldn't I?" she +asked. + +"Yes, that would do. But you must let me set my own price," he returned +in a business like tone. + +"Oh I will. I'd do anything to get Miss Prudence a pitcher," she said +eagerly. + +The faded muslin brushed against him; and how odd and old-fashioned her +hat was! He would not have cared to go on a picnic with Marjorie in this +attire; suppose he had taken her into the crowd of girls among which his +cousin Helen was so noticeable last week, how they would have looked at +her! They would think he had found her at some mission school. Was her +father so poor, or was this old dress and broad hat her mother's taste? +Anyway, there was a guileless and bright face underneath the flapping +hat and her voice was as sweet as Helen's even it there was such an +old-fashioned tone about it. One word seemed to sum up her dress and +herself--old-fashioned. She talked like some little old grandmother. +She was more than quaint--she was antiquated. That is, she was antiquated +beside Helen. But she did not seem out of place here in the country; he +was thinking of her on a city pavement, in a city parlor, or among a +group of fluttering, prettily dressed city girls, with their modulated +voices, animated gestures and laughing, bright replies. There was light +and fire about them and Marjorie was such a demure little mouse. + +"Don't fret about it any more," he said, kindly, with his grown-up air, +patting her shoulder with a light, caressing touch. "I will take it into +my hands and you need not think of it again." + +"Oh, thank you! thank you!" she cried, her eyes brimming over. + +It was the old Hollis, after all; he could do anything and everything she +wanted. + +Forgetting her shyness, after that home-like touch upon her shoulder, she +chatted all the way home. And he did not once think that she was a quiet +little mouse. + +He did not like "quiet" people; perhaps because his own spirit was so +quiet that it required some effort for him to be noisy. Hollis admired +most characteristics unlike his own; he did not know, but he _felt_ that +Marjorie was very much like himself. She was more like him than he was +like her. They were two people who would be very apt to be drawn together +under all circumstances, but without special and peculiar training could +never satisfy each other. This was true of them even now, and, if +possible with the enlarged vision of experience, became truer as they +grew older. If they kept together they might grow together; but, the +question is, whether of themselves they would ever have been drawn very +close together. They were close enough together now, as Marjorie chatted +and Hollis listened; he had many questions to ask about the boys and +girls of the village and Marjorie had many stories to relate. + +"So George Harris and Nell True are really married!" he said. "So young, +too!" + +"Yes, mother did not like it. She said they were too young. He always +liked her best at school, you know. And when she joined the Church she +was so anxious for him to join, too, and she wrote him a note about it +and he answered it and they kept on writing and then they were married." + +"Did he join the Church?" asked Hollis, + +"He hasn't yet." + +"It is easier for girls to be good than for boys," rejoined Hollis in an +argumentative tone, + +"Is it? I don't see how." + +"Of course you don't. We are in the world where the temptations are; what +temptations do _you_ have?" + +"I have enough. But I don't want to go out in the world where more +temptations are. Don't you know--" She colored and stopped, + +"Know what?" + +"About Christ praying that his disciples might be kept from the evil that +was in the world, not that they might be taken out of the world. They +have _got_ to be in the world." + +"Yes." + +"And," she added sagely, "anybody can be good where no temptations are." + +"Is that why girls are good?" + +"I don't think girls are good." + +"The girls I know are." + +"You know city girls," she said archly. "We country girls have the world +in our own hearts." + +There was nothing of "the world" in the sweet face that he looked down +into, nothing of the world in the frank, true voice. He had been wronging +her; how much there was in her, this wise, old, sweet little Marjorie! + +"Have you forgotten your errand?" she asked, after a moment. + +"No, it is at Mr. Howard's, the house beyond yours." + +"I'm glad you had the errand." + +"So am I. I should have gone home and not known anything about you." + +"And I should have stayed tangled in the black berry vines ever so long," +she laughed. + +"You haven't told me why you were there." + +"Because I was silly," she said emphatically. + +"Do silly people always hide in blackberry vines?" he questioned, +laughing. + +"Silly people like me," she said. + +At that moment they stopped in front of the gate of Marjorie's home; +through the lilac-bushes--the old fence was overgrown with lilacs--Hollis +discerned some bright thing glimmering on the piazza. The bright thing +possessed a quick step and a laugh, for it floated towards them and when +it appeared at the gate Hollis found that it was only Linnet. + +There was nothing of the mouse about Linnet. + +"Why, Marjie, mother said you might stay till dark." + +Linnet was seventeen, but she was not too grown up for "mother said" to +be often on her lips. + +"I didn't want to," said Marjorie. "Good-bye, Hollis. I'm going to hunt +eggs." + +"I'd go with you, it's rare fun to hunt eggs, only I haven't seen +Linnet--yet." + +"And you must see Linnet--yet," laughed Linnet, "Hollis, what a big boy +you've grown to be!" she exclaimed regarding him critically; the new +suit, the black onyx watch-chain, the blonde moustache, the full height, +and last of all the friendly brown eyes with the merry light in them. + +"What a big girl you've grown to be, Linnet," he retorted surveying her +critically and admiringly. + +There was fun and fire and changing lights, sauciness and defiance, with +a pretty little air of deference, about Linnet. She was not unlike his +city girl friends; even her dress was more modern and tasteful than +Marjorie's. + +"Marjorie is so little and doesn't care," she often pleaded with their +mother when there was not money enough for both. And Marjorie looked on +and held her peace. + +Self-sacrifice was an instinct with Marjorie. + +"I am older and must have the first chance," Linnet said. + +So Marjorie held back and let Linnet have the chances. + +Linnet was to have the "first chance" at going to school in September. +Marjorie stayed one moment looking at the two as they talked, proud of +Linnet and thinking that Hollis must think she, at least, was something +like his cousin Helen, and then she hurried away hoping to return with +her basket of eggs before Hollis was gone. Hollis was almost like some +one in a story-book to her. I doubt if she ever saw any one as other +people saw them; she always saw so much. She needed only an initial; it +was easy enough to fill out the word. She hurried across the yard, opened +the large barn-yard gate, skipped across the barn-yard, and with a little +leap was in the barn floor. Last night she had forgotten to look in the +mow; she would find a double quantity hidden away there to-night. She +wondered if old Queen Bess were still persisting in sitting on nothing in +the mow's far dark corner; tossing away her hindering hat and catching up +an old basket, she ran lightly up the ladder to the mow. She never +remembered that she ran up the ladder. + +An hour later--Linnet knew that it was an hour later--Marjorie found +herself moving slowly towards the kitchen door. She wanted to see her +mother. Lifting the latch she staggered in. + +She was greeted with a scream from Linnet and with a terrified +exclamation from her mother. + +"Marjorie, what _is_ the matter?" cried her mother catching her in her +arms. + +"Nothing," said Marjorie, wondering. + +"Nothing! You are purple as a ghost!" exclaimed Linnet, "and there's a +lump on your forehead as big as an egg." + +"Is there?" asked Marjorie, in a trembling voice. + +"Did you fall? Where did you fall?" asked her mother shaking her gently. +"Can't you speak, child?" + +"I--didn't--fall," muttered Marjorie, slowly. + +"Yes, you did," said Linnet. "You went after eggs." + +"Eggs," repeated Marjorie in a bewildered voice. + +"Linnet, help me quick to get her on to the sitting-room lounge! Then get +pillows and a comforter, and then run for your father to go for the +doctor." + +"There's nothing the matter," persisted the child, smiling weakly. "I can +walk, mother. Nothing hurts me." + +"Doesn't your head ache?" asked Linnet, guiding her steps as her head +rested against her mother's breast. + +"No." + +"Don't you ache _anywhere?_" questioned her mother, as they led her to +the lounge. + +"No, ma'am. Why should I? I didn't fall." + +Linnet brought the pillow and comforter, and then ran out through the +back yard calling, "Father! Father!" + +Down the road Hollis heard the agonized cry, and turning hastened back to +the house. + +"Oh, go for the doctor quick!" cried Linnet, catching him by the arm; +"something dreadful has happened to Marjorie, and she doesn't know what +it is." + +"Is there a horse in the stable?" + +"Oh, no, I forgot. And mother forgot Father has gone to town." + +"I'll get a horse then--somewhere on the road--don't be so frightened. +Dr. Peck will be here in twenty minutes after I find him." + +Linnet flew back to satisfy her mother that the doctor had been sent for, +and found Marjorie reiterating to her mother's repeated inquiries: + +"I don't ache anywhere; I'm not hurt at all." + +"Where were you, child." + +"I wasn't--anywhere," she was about to say, then smiled, for she knew she +must have been somewhere. + +"What happened after you said good-bye to Hollis?" questioned Linnet, +falling on her knees beside her little sister, and almost taking her into +her arms. + +"Nothing." + +"Oh, dear, you're crazy!" sobbed Linnet. + +Marjorie smiled faintly and lifted her hand to stroke Linnet's cheeks. + +"I won't hurt _you_," she comforted tenderly. + +"I know what I'll do!" exclaimed Mrs. West suddenly and emphatically, "I +can put hot water on that bump; I've heard that's good." + +Marjorie closed her eyes and lay still; she was tired of talking about +something that had not happened at all. She remembered afterward that the +doctor came and opened a vein in her arm, and that he kept the blood +flowing until she answered "Yes, sir," to his question, "Does your head +hurt you _now_?" She remembered all their faces--how Linnet cried and +sobbed, how Hollis whispered, "I'll get a pitcher, Mousie, if I have to +go to China for it," and how her father knelt by the lounge when he came +home and learned that it had happened and was all over, how he knelt and +thanked God for giving her back to them all out of her great danger. That +night her mother sat by her bedside all night long, and she remembered +saying to her: + +"If I had been killed, I should have waked up in Heaven without knowing +that I had died. It would have been like going to Heaven without dying." + + + + +V. + +TWO PROMISES. + +"He who promiseth runs in debt." + + +Hollis held a mysterious looking package in his hand when he came in the +next day; it was neatly done up in light tissue paper and tied with +yellow cord. It looked round and flat, not one bit like a pitcher, unless +some pitchers a hundred years ago _were_ flat. + +Marjorie lay in delicious repose upon the parlor sofa, with the green +blinds half closed, the drowsiness and fragrance of clover in the air +soothed her, rather, quieted her, for she was not given to nervousness; +a feeling of safety enwrapped her, she was _here_ and not very much hurt, +and she was loved and petted to her heart's content. And that is saying a +great deal for Marjorie, for _her_ heart's content was a very large +content. Linnet came in softly once in a while to look at her with +anxious eyes and to ask, "How do you feel now?" Her mother wandered in +and out as if she could rest in nothing but in looking at her, and her +father had given her one of his glad kisses before he went away to the +mowing field. Several village people having heard of the accident through +Hollis and the doctor had stopped at the door to inquire with a +sympathetic modulation of voice if she were any better. But the safe +feeling was the most blessed of all. Towards noon she lay still with her +white kitten cuddled up in her arms, wondering who would come next; +Hollis had not come, nor Miss Prudence, nor the new minister, nor +grandma, nor Josie Grey; she was wishing they would all come to-day when +she heard a quick step on the piazza and a voice calling out to somebody. + +"I won't stay five minutes, father." + +The next instant the handsome, cheery face was looking in at the parlor +door and the boisterous "vacation" voice was greeting her with, + +"Well, Miss Mousie! How about the tumble down now?" + +But her eyes saw nothing excepting the mysterious, flat, round parcel in +his hand. + +"Oh, Hollis, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed, raising herself upon one elbow. + +The stiff blue muslin was rather crumpled by this time, and in place of +the linen collar and old-fashioned pin her mother had tied a narrow scarf +of white lace about her throat; her hair was brushed back and braided in +two heavy braids and her forehead was bandaged in white. + +"Well, Marjorie, you _are_ a picture, I must say," he cried, bounding in. +"Why don't you jump up and take another climb?" + +"I want to. I want to see the swallow's nest again; I meant to have fed +the swallows last night" + +"Where are they?" + +"Oh, up in the eaves. Linnet and I have climbed up and fed them." + +As he dropped on his knees on the carpet beside the sofa she fell back on +her pillow. + +"Father is waiting for me to go to town with him and I can't stay. You +will soon be climbing up to see the swallows again and hunting eggs and +everything as usual." + +"Oh, yes, indeed," said Marjorie, hopefully. + +Watching her face he laid the parcel in her hand. "Don't open it till I'm +gone. I had something of a time to get it. The old fellow was as +obstinate as a mule when he saw that my heart was set on it. Mother +hadn't a thing old enough--I ransacked everywhere--if I'd had time to go +to grandmother's I might have done better. She's ninety-three, you know, +and has some of her grandmother's things. This thing isn't a beauty to +look at, but it's old, and that's the chief consideration. Extreme old +age will compensate for its ugliness; which is an extenuation that I +haven't for mine. I'm going to-morrow." + +"Oh, I want to see it," she exclaimed, not regarding his last remark. + +"That's all you care," he said, disappointedly. "I thought you would be +sorry that I'm going." + +"You know I am," she returned penitently, picking at the yellow cord. + +"Perhaps when I am two hundred years old you'll be as anxious to look at +me as you are to look at that!" + +"Oh, Hollis, I do thank you so." + +"But you must promise me two things or you can't have it!" + +"I'll promise twenty." + +"Two will do until next time. First, will you go and see my mother as +soon as you get well, and go often?" + +"That's too easy; I want to do something _hard_ for you," she answered +earnestly. + +"Perhaps you will some day, who knows? There are hard enough things to do +for people, I'm finding out. But, have you promised?" + +"Yes, I have promised." + +"And I know you keep your promises. I'm sure you won't forget. Poor +mother isn't happy; she's troubled." + +"About you?" + +"No, about herself, because she isn't a Christian." + +"That's enough to trouble anybody," said Marjorie, wisely. + +"Now, one more promise in payment. Will you write to me every two weeks?" + +"Oh, I couldn't," pleaded Marjorie. + +"Now you've found something too hard to do for me," he said, +reproachfully. + +"Oh, I'll do it, of course; but I'm afraid." + +"You'll soon get over that. You see mother doesn't write often, and +father never does, and I'm often anxious about them, and if you write and +tell me about them twice a month I shall be happier. You see you are +doing something for me." + +"Yes, thank you. I'll do the best I can. But I can't write like your +cousin Helen," she added, jealously. + +"No matter. You'll do; and you will be growing older and constantly +improving and I shall begin to travel for the house by and by and my +letters will be as entertaining as a book of travels." + +"Will you write to me? I didn't think of that." + +"Goosie!" he laughed, giving her Linnet's pet name. "Certainly I will +write as often as you do, and you mustn't stop writing until your last +letter has not been answered for a month." + +"I'll remember," said Marjorie, seriously. "But I wish I could do +something else. Did you have to pay money for it?" + +Marjorie was accustomed to "bartering" and that is the reason that she +used the expression "pay money." + +"Well, yes, something," he replied, pressing his lips together. + +He was angry with the shoemaker about that bargain yet. + +"How much? I want to pay you." + +"Ladies never ask a gentleman such a question when they make them a +present," he said, laughing as he arose. "Imagine Helen asking me how +much I paid for the set of books I gave her on her birthday." + +The tears sprang to Marjorie's eyes. Had she done a dreadful thing that +Helen would not think of doing? + +Long afterward she learned that he gave for the plate the ten dollars +that his father gave him for a "vacation present." + +"Good-bye, Goosie, keep both promises and don't run up a ladder again +until you learn how to run down." + +But she could not speak yet for the choking in her throat. + +"You have paid me twice over with those promises," he said. "I am glad +you broke the old yellow pitcher." + +So was she even while her heart was aching. Her fingers held the parcel +tightly; what a hearts-ease it was! It had brought her peace of mind that +was worth more hard promises than she could think of making. + +"He said his father's great-grandfather had eaten out of that plate over +in Holland and he had but one more left to bequeath to his little +grandson." + +"I'm glad the great-grandfather didn't break it," said Marjorie. + +Hollis would not disturb her serenity by remarking that the shoemaker +_might_ have added a century to the age of his possession; it looked two +hundred years old, anyway. + +"Good-bye, again, if you don't get killed next time you fall you may live +to see me again. I'll wear a linen coat and smell of cheese and smoke a +pipe too long for me to light myself by that time--when I come home from +Germany." + +"Oh, don't," she exclaimed, in a startled voice. + +"Which? The coat or the cheese or the pipe." + +"I don't care about the cheese or the coat--" + +"You needn't be afraid about the pipe; I promised mother to-day that I +would never smoke or drink or play cards." + +"That's good," said Marjorie, contentedly. + +"And so she feels safe about me; safer than I feel about myself, I +reckon. But it _is_ good-bye this time. I'll tell Helen what a little +mouse and goose you are!" + +"Hollis! _Hollis!_" shouted a gruff voice, impatiently. + +"Aye, aye, sir," Hollis returned. "But I must say good-bye to your mother +and Linnet." + +Instead of giving him a last look she was giving her first look to her +treasure. The first look was doubtful. It was not half as pretty as the +pitcher. It was not very large and there were innumerable tiny cracks +interlacing each other, there were little raised figures on the broad rim +and a figure in the centre, the colors were buff and blue. But it was a +treasure, twofold more a treasure than the yellow pitcher, for it was +twice as old and had come from Holland. The yellow pitcher had only come +from England. Miss Prudence would be satisfied that she had not hidden +the pitcher to escape detection, and perhaps her friend might like this +ancient plate a great deal better and be glad of what had befallen the +pitcher. But suppose Miss Prudence did believe all this time that she had +hidden the broken pieces and meant, never to tell! At that, she could not +forbear squeezing her face into the pillow and dropping a few very +sorrowful tears. Still she was glad, even with a little contradictory +faint-heartedness, for Hollis would write to her and she would never lose +him again. And she could _do_ something _for_ him, something hard. + +Her mother, stepping in again, before the tears were dried upon her +cheek, listened to the somewhat incoherent story of the naughty thing she +had done and the splendid thing Hollis had done, and of how she had paid +him with two promises. + +Mrs. West examined the plate critically. "It's old, there's no sham about +it. I've seen a few old things and I know. I shouldn't wonder if he gave +five dollars for it" + +"Five dollars!" repeated Marjorie in affright "Oh, I hope not." + +"Well, perhaps not, but it is worth it and more, too, to Miss Prudence's +friend." + +"And I'll keep my promises," said Marjorie's steadfast voice. + +"H'm," ejaculated her mother. "I rather think Hollis has the best of it." + +"That depends upon me," said wise little Marjorie. + + + + +VI. + +MARJORIE ASLEEP AND AWAKE. + +"She was made for happy thoughts."--_Mary Howlet._ + + +I wonder if there is anything, any little thing I should have said, that +tries a woman more than the changes in her own face, a woman that has +just attained two score and--an unmarried woman. Prudence Pomeroy was +discovering these changes in her own face and, it may be undignified, it +may be unchristian even, but she was tried. It was upon the morning of +her fortieth birthday, that, with considerable shrinking, she set out +upon a voyage of discovery upon the unknown sea of her own countenance. +It was unknown, for she had not cared to look upon herself for some +years, but she bolted her chamber door and set herself about it with grim +determination this birthday morning. It was a weakness, it may be, but we +all have hours of weakness within our bolted chamber doors. + +She had a hard early morning all by herself; but the battle with herself +did not commence until she shoved that bolt, pushed back the white +curtains, and stationed herself in the full glare of the sun light with +her hand-glass held before her resolute face. It was something to go +through; it was something to go through to read the record of a score of +birthdays past: but she had done that before the breakfast bell rang, +locked the old leathern bound volume in her trunk and arranged herself +for breakfast, and then had run down with her usual tripping step and +kept them all amused with her stories during breakfast time. But that was +before the door was bolted. She gazed long at the reflection of the face +that Time had been at work upon for forty years; there were the tiniest +creases in her forehead, they were something like the cracks in the plate +two hundred years old that Marjorie had sent to her last night, there +were unmistakable lines under her eyes, the pale tint of her cheek did +not erase them nor the soft plumpness render them invisible, they stared +at her with the story of relentless years; at the corners of her lips the +artistic fingers of Time had chiselled lines, delicate, it is true, but +clearly defined--a line that did not dent the cheeks of early maidenhood, +a line that had found no place near her own lips ten years ago; and above +her eyes--she had not discerned that, at first--there was a lack of +fullness, you could not name it hollowness; that was new, at least new to +her, others with keener eyes may have noticed it months ago, and there +was a yellowness--she might as well give it boldly its right name--at the +temple, decrease of fairness, she might call it, but that it was a +positive shade of that yellowness she had noticed in others no older than +herself; and, then, to return to her cheeks, or rather her chin, there +was a laxity about the muscles at the sides of her mouth that gave her +chin an elderly outline! No, it was not only the absence of youth, it was +the presence of age--her full forty years. And her hair! It was certainly +not as abundant as it used to be, it had wearied her, once, to brush out +its thick glossy length; it was becoming unmistakably thinner; she was +certainly slightly bald about the temples, and white hairs were +straggling in one after another, not attempting to conceal themselves. A +year ago she had selected them from the mass of black and cut them short, +but now they were appearing too fast for the scissors. It was a sad face, +almost a gloomy one, that she was gazing into: for the knowledge that her +forty years had done their work in her face as surely, and perhaps not as +sweetly as in her life had come to her with a shock. She was certainly +growing older and the signs of it were in her face, nothing could hide +it, even her increasing seriousness made it more apparent; not only +growing older, but growing old, the girls would say. Twenty years ago, +when she first began to write that birthday record, she had laughed at +forty and called it "old" herself. As she laid the hand-glass aside with +a half-checked sigh, her eyes fell upon her hand and wrist; it was +certainly losing its shapeliness; the fingers were as tapering as ever +and the palm as pink, but--there was a something that reminded her of +that plate of old china. She might be like a bit of old china, but she +was not ready to be laid upon the shelf, not even to be paid a price for +and be admired! She was in the full rush of her working days. Awhile ago +her friends had all addressed her as "Prudence," but now, she was not +aware when it began or how, she was "Miss Prudence" to every one who was +not within the nearest circle of intimacy. Not "Prudie" or "Prue" any +more. She had not been "Prudie" since her father and mother died, and not +"Prue" since she had lost that friend twenty years ago. + +In ten short years she would be fifty years old, and fifty was half a +century: old enough to be somebody's grandmother. Was she not the bosom +friend of somebody's grandmother to-day? Laura Harrowgate, her friend +and schoolmate, not one year her senior, was the grandmother of +three-months-old Laura. Was it possible that she herself did not belong +to "the present generation," but to a generation passed away? She had no +daughter to give place to, as Laura had, no husband to laugh at her +wrinkles and gray hairs, as Laura had, and to say, "We're growing old +together." If it were only "together" there would be no sadness in it. +But would she want it to be such a "together" as certain of her friends +shared? + +Laura Harrowgate was a grandmother, but still she would gush over that +plate from Holland two centuries old, buy a bracket for it and exhibit it +to her friends. A hand-glass did not make _her_ dolorous. A few years +since she would have rebelled against what the hand-glass revealed; but, +to-day, she could not rebel against God's will; assuredly it _was_ his +will for histories to be written in faces. Would she live a woman's life +and adorn herself with a baby's face? Had not her face been moulded by +her life? Had she stopped thinking and working ten years ago she might, +to-day, have looked at the face she looked at ten years ago. No, she +demurred, not a baby's face, but--then she laughed aloud at herself--was +not her fate the common fate of all? Who, among her friends, at forty +years of age, was ever taken, or mistaken, for twenty-five or thirty? And +if _she_ were, what then? Would her work be worth more to the world? +Would the angels encamp about her more faithfully or more lovingly? And, +then, was there not a face "marred"? Did he live his life upon the earth +with no sign of it in his face? Was it not a part of his human nature to +grow older? Could she be human and not grow old? If she lived she must +grow old; to grow old or to die, that was the question, and then she +laughed again, this time more merrily. Had she made the changes herself +by fretting and worrying; had she taken life too hard? Yes; she had taken +life hard. Another glance into the glass revealed another fact: her neck +was not as full and round and white as it once was: there was a +suggestion of old china about that, too. She would discard linen collars +and wear softening white ruffles; it would not be deceitful to hide +Time's naughty little tracery. She smiled this time; she _was_ coming to +a hard place in her life. She had believed--oh, how much in vain!--that +she had come to all the hard places and waded through them, but here +there was looming up another, fully as hard, perhaps harder, because it +was not so tangible and, therefore, harder to face and fight. The +acknowledging that she had come to this hard place was something. She +remembered the remark of an old lady, who was friendless and poor: "The +hardest time of my life was between forty and forty-five; I had to accept +several bitter facts that after became easier to bear." Prudence Pomeroy +looked at herself, then looked up to God and accepted, submissively, even +cheerfully, his fact that she had begun to grow old, and then, she +dressed herself for a walk and with her sun-umbrella and a volume of +poems started out for her tramp along the road and through the fields to +find her little friend Marjorie. The china plate and pathetic note last +night had moved her strangely. Marjorie was in the beginning of things. +What was her life worth if not to help such as Marjorie live a worthier +life than her own two score years had been? + +A face flushed with the long walk looked in at the window upon Marjorie +asleep. The child was sitting near the open window in a wooden rocker +with padded arms and back and covered with calico with a green ground +sprinkled over with butterflies and yellow daisies; her head was thrown +back against the knitted tidy of white cotton, and her hands were resting +in her lap; the blue muslin was rather more crumpled than when she had +seen it last, and instead of the linen collar the lace was knotted about +her throat. The bandage had been removed from her forehead, the swelling +had abated but the discolored spot was plainly visible; her lips were +slightly parted, her cheeks were rosy; if this were the "beginning of +things" it was a very sweet and peaceful beginning. + +Entering the parlor with a soft tread Miss Prudence divested herself of +hat, gloves, duster and umbrella, and, taking a large palm leaf fan from +the table, seated herself near the sleeper, gently waving the fan to and +fro as a fly lighted on Marjorie's hands or face. On the window seat were +placed a goblet half filled with lemonade, a small Bible, a book that had +the outward appearance of being a Sunday-school library book, and a copy +in blue and gold of the poems of Mrs. Hemans. Miss Prudence remembered +her own time of loving Mrs. Hemans and had given this copy to Marjorie; +later, she had laid her aside for Longfellow, as Marjorie would do by and +by, and, in his turn, she had given up Longfellow for Tennyson and Mrs. +Browning, as, perhaps, Marjorie would never do. She had brought Jean +Ingelow with her this morning to try "Brothers and a Sermon" and the +"Songs of Seven" with Marjorie. Marjorie was a natural elocutionist; Miss +Prudence was afraid of spoiling her by unwise criticism. The child must +thoroughly appreciate a poem, forget herself, and then her rendering +would be more than Miss Prudence with all her training could perfectly +imitate. + +"Don't teach her too much; she'll want to be an actress," remonstrated +Marjorie's father after listening to Marjorie's reading one day. + +Miss Prudence laughed and Marjorie looked perplexed. + +"Marjorie is to comfort with her reading as some do by singing," she +replied. "Wait till you are old and she reads the Bible to you!" + +"She reads to me now," he said. "She read 'The Children of the Lord's +Supper' to me last night." + +Miss Prudence moved the fan backward and forward and studied the +sleeping, innocent face. I had almost written "sweet" again; I can +scarcely think of her face, as it was then, without writing sweet. It +would be long, Miss Prudence mused, before lines and creases intruded +here and there in that smooth forehead, and in the tinted cheeks that +dimpled at the least provocation; but life would bring them in time, and +they would add beauty if there were no bitterness nor hardness in them. +If the Holy Spirit dwelt in the temple of the body were not the lines +upon the face his handwriting? She knew more than one old face that +was growing more attractive with each year of life. + +The door was pushed open and Mrs. West's broad shoulders and motherly +face appeared. Miss Prudence smiled and laid her finger on her lips and, +smiling, too, the mother moved away. Linnet, in her kitchen apron, and +with the marks of the morning's baking on her fingers, next looked in, +nodded and ran away. After awhile, the sleeping eyelids quivered and +lifted themselves; a quick flush, a joyous exclamation and Marjorie +sprang into her friend's arms. + +"I _felt_ as if I were not alone! How long have you been here? Oh, why +_didn't_ you speak to me or touch me?" + +"I wanted to have the pleasure all on my side. I never saw you asleep +before." + +"I hope I didn't keep my mouth open and snore." + +"Oh, no, your lips were gently apart and you breathed regularly as they +would say in books!" + +Marjorie laughed, released Miss Prudence from the tight clasp and went +back to her chair. + +"You received my note and the plate," she said anxiously. + +"Both in perfect preservation. There was not one extra crack in the +plate, it was several hours older than when it left your hands, but that +only increases its value." + +"And did you think I was dreadful not to confess before?" asked Marjorie, +tremulously. + +"I thought you were dreadful to run away from me instead of _to_ me." + +"I was so sorry; I wanted to get something else before you knew about it. +Did you miss it?" + +"I missed something in the room, I could not decide what it was." + +"Will the plate do, do you think? Is it handsome enough?" + +"It is old enough, that is all the question. Do you know all about +Holland when that plate first came into existence?" + +"No; I only know there _was_ a Holland." + +"That plate will be a good point to begin with. You and I will study up +Holland some day. I wonder what you know about it now." + +"Is that why your friend wants the plate, because she knows about Holland +two hundred years ago?" + +"No; I'm afraid not. I don't believe she knows more than you do about it. +But she will delight in the plate. Which reminds me, your uncle has +promised to put the unfortunate pitcher together for me. And in its +mended condition it will appear more ancient than ever. I cannot say that +George Washington broke it with his little hatchet; but I can have a +legend about you connected with it, and tell it to your grandchildren +when I show it to them fifty years hence. Unto them I will discover--not +a swan's nest among the reeds, as Mrs. Browning has it, but an old yellow +pitcher that their lovely grandmother was in trouble about fifty years +ago." + +"It will be a hundred and fifty years old then," returned Marjorie, +seriously, "and I think," she added rebukingly, "that _you_ were building +castles then." + +"I had you and the pitcher for the foundation," said Miss Prudence, in a +tone of mock humility. + +"Don't you think--" Marjorie's face had a world of suggestion in +it--"that 'The Swan's Nest' is bad influence for girls? Little Ellie sits +alone and builds castles about her lover, even his horse is 'shod in +silver, housed in azure' and a thousand serfs do call him master, and he +says 'O, Love, I love but thee.'" + +"But all she looks forward to is showing him the swan's nest among the +reeds! And when she goes home, around a mile, as she did daily, lo, the +wild swan had deserted and a rat had gnawed the reeds. That was the end +of her fine castle!" + +"'If she found the lover, ever, + Sooth, I know not, but I know +She could never show him, never, + That swan's nest among the reeds,'" + +quoted Marjorie. "So it did all come to nothing." + +"As air-castles almost always do. But we'll hope she found something +better." + +"Do people?" questioned Marjorie. + +"Hasn't God things laid up for us better than we can ask or think or +build castles about?" + +"I _hope_ so," said Marjorie; "but Hollis Rheid's mother told mother +yesterday that her life was one long disappointment." + +"What did your mother say?" + +"She said 'Oh, Mrs. Rheid, it won't be if you get to Heaven, at last.'" + +"I think not." + +"But she doesn't expect to go to Heaven, she says. Mother says she's +almost in 'despair' and she pities her so!" + +"Poor woman! I don't see how she can live through despair. The old +proverb 'If it were not for hope, the heart would break,' is most +certainly true." + +"Why didn't you come before?" asked Marjorie, caressing the hand that +still played with the fan. + +"Perhaps you never lived on a farm and cannot understand. I could not +come in the ox-cart because the oxen were in the field, and every day +since I heard of your accident your uncle has had to drive your aunt to +Portland on some business. And I did not feel strong enough to walk until +this morning." + +"How good you are to walk!" + +"As good as you are to walk to see me." + +"Oh, but I am young and strong, and I wanted to see you so, and ask you +questions so." + +"I believe the latter," said Miss Prudence smiling. + +"Well, I'm happy now," Marjorie sighed, with the burden of her trouble +still upon her. "Suppose I had been killed when I fell and had not told +you about the pitcher nor made amends for it." + +"I don't believe any of us could be taken away without one moment to make +ready and not leave many things undone--many tangled threads and rough +edges to be taken care of. We are very happy if we have no sin to +confess, no wrong to make right." + +"I think Hollis would have taken care of the plate for me," said +Marjorie, simply; "but I wanted to tell you myself. Mother wants to go +home as suddenly as that would have been for me, she says. I shouldn't +wonder if she prays about it--she prays about everything. Do people have +_that_ kind of a prayer answered?" + +"I have known more than one instance--and I read about a gentleman who +had desired to be taken suddenly and he was killed by lightning while +sitting on his own piazza." + +"Oh!" said Marjorie. + +"That was all he could have wished. And the mother of my pastor at home, +who was over ninety, was found dead on her knees at her bedside, and she +had always wished to be summoned suddenly." + +"When she was speaking to him, too," murmured Marjorie. "I like old +people, don't you? Hollis' grandmother is at his house and Mrs. Rheid +wants me to go to see her; she is ninety-three and blind, and she loves +to tell stories about herself, and I am to stay all day and listen to her +and take up her stitches when she drops them in her knitting work and +read the Bible to her. She won't listen to anything but the Bible; she +says she's too old to hear other books read." + +"What a treat you will have!" + +"Isn't it lovely? I never had _that_ day in my air-castles, either. Nor +you coming to stay all day with me, nor writing to Hollis. I had a letter +from him last night, the funniest letter! I laughed all the time I was +reading it. He begins: 'Poor little Mousie,' and ends, 'ours, till next +time.' I'll show it to you. He doesn't say much about Helen. I shall tell +him if I write about his mother he must write about Helen. I'm sorry to +tell him what his mother said yesterday about herself but I promised and +I must be faithful." + +"I hope you will have happy news to write soon." + +"I don't know; she says the minister doesn't do her any good, nor reading +the Bible nor praying. Now what can help her?" + +"God," was the solemn reply. "She has had to learn that the minister and +Bible reading and prayer are not God. When she is sure that God will do +all the helping and saving, she will be helped and saved. Perhaps she has +gone to the minister and the Bible instead of to God, and she may have +thought her prayers could save her instead of God." + +"She said she was in despair because they did not help her and she did +not know where to turn next," said Marjorie, who had listened with +sympathetic eyes and aching heart. + +"Don't worry about her, dear, God is teaching her to turn to himself." + +"I told her about the plate, but she did not seem to care much. What +different things people _do_ care about!" exclaimed Marjorie, her eyes +alight with the newness of her thought. + +"Mrs. Harrowgate will never be perfectly satisfied until she has a +memorial of Pompeii. I've promised when I explore underground I'll find +her a treasure. Your Holland plate is something for her small collection; +she has but eighty-seven pieces of china, while a friend of hers has +gathered together two hundred." + +"What do _you_ care for most, Miss Prudence? + +"In the way of collections? I haven't shown you my penny buried in the +lava of Mt. Vesuvius; I told my friend that savored of Pompeii, the only +difference is one is above ground and the other underneath, but I +couldn't persuade her to believe it." + +"I don't mean collecting coins or things; I mean what do you care for +_most_?" + +"If you haven't discovered, I cannot care very much for what I care for +most." + +Marjorie laughed at this way of putting it, then she answered gravely: "I +do know. I think you care most--" she paused, choosing her phrase +carefully--"to help people make something out of themselves." + +"Thank you. That's fine. I never put it so excellently to myself." + +"I haven't found out what I care most for." + +"I think I know. You care most to make something out of yourself." + +"Do I? Isn't that selfish? But I don't know how to help any one else, not +even Linnet." + +"Making the best of ourselves is the foundation for making something out +of others." + +"But I didn't say _that_" persisted Marjorie. "You help people to do it +for themselves." + +"I wonder if that is my work in the world," rejoined Miss Prudence, +musingly. "I could not choose anything to fit me better--I had no thought +that I have ever succeeded; I never put it to myself in that way." + +"Perhaps I'll begin some day. Helen Rheid helps Hollis. He isn't the same +boy; he studies and buys books and notices things to be admired in +people, and when he is full of fun he isn't rough. I don't believe I ever +helped anybody." + +"You have some work to do upon yourself first. And I am sure you have +helped educate your mother and father." + +Marjorie pulled to pieces the green leaf that had floated in upon her lap +and as she kept her eyes on the leaf she pondered. + +Her companion was "talking over her head" purposely to-day; she had a +plan for Marjorie and as she admitted to herself she was "trying the +child to see what she was made of." + +She congratulated herself upon success thus far. + +"That children do educate their mothers is the only satisfactory reason I +have found when I have questioned why God does give children to _some_ +mothers." + +"Then what becomes of the children?" asked Marjorie, alarmed. + +"The Giver does not forget them; he can be a mother himself, you know." + +Marjorie did not know; she had always had her mother. Had she lost +something, therefore, in not thus finding out God? Perhaps, in after life +she would find his tenderness by losing--or not having--some one else. It +was not too bad, for it would be a great pity if there were not such +interruptions, but at this instant Linnet's housewifely face was pushed +in at the door, and her voice announced: "Dinner in three minutes and a +half! Chicken-pie for the first course and some new and delicious thing +for dessert." + +"Oh, splendid!" cried Marjorie, hopping up. "And we'll finish everything +after dinner, Miss Prudence." + +"As the lady said to the famous traveller at a dinner party: 'We have +five minutes before dinner, please tell me all about your travels,'" said +Miss Prudence, rising and laughing. + +"You remember you haven't told me what you sent me for the Bible to show +me that unhappy--no, happy time--I broke the picture," reminded Marjorie, +leading the way to the dining-room. + + + + +VII. + +UNDER THE APPLE-TREE. + +"Never the little seed stops in its growing."--_Mrs. Osgood._ + + +Linnet moved hither and thither, after the dinner dishes were done, all +through the house, up stairs and down, to see that everything was in +perfect order before she might dress and enjoy the afternoon. Linnet was +pre-eminently a housekeeper, to her mother's great delight, for her +younger daughter was not developing according to her mind in housewifely +arts. + +"That will come in time," encouraged Marjorie's father when her mother +spoke faultfindingly of some delinquency in the kitchen. + +"I should like to know _what_ time!" was the sharp reply. + +It was queer about Marjorie's mother, she was as sharp as she was +good-humored. + +"Linnet has no decided tastes about anything but housekeeping and +fancy-work, and Marjorie has some other things to be growing in," said +her father. + +"I wish she would grow to some purpose then," was the energetic reply. + +"As the farmer said about his seed before it was time for it to sprout," +laughed the children's father. + +This father and mother could not talk confidentially together five +minutes without bringing the "children" in. + +Their own future was every day; but the children had not begun to live in +theirs yet; their golden future, which was to be all the more golden +because of their parents' experiences. + +This mother was so very old-fashioned that she believed that there was no +career open to a girl beside marriage; the dreadful alternative was +solitary old-maidenhood. She was a good mother, in many respects a wise +mother; but she would not have slept that night had she believed that +either of her daughters would attain to thirty years unmarried. This may +have been owing to a defect of education, or it may have been that she +was so happily married to a husband six years her junior--whom she could +manage. And she was nearly thirty when she was married herself and had +really begun to believe that she should never be married at all. She +believed marriage to be so honorable in all, that the absence of it, as +in Miss Prudence's case, was nearly dishonorable. She was almost a Jewish +mother in her reverence for marriage and joyfulness for the blessing of +children. This may have been the result of her absorbed study of the Old +Testament Scriptures. Marjorie had wondered why her mother in addressing +the Lord had cried, "O, Lord God of Israel," and instead of any other +name nearer New Testament Christians, she would speak of him as "The Holy +One of Israel." Sometimes I have thought that Marjorie's mother began her +religious life as a Jew, and that instead of being a Gentile Christian +she was in reality a converted Jew, something like what Elizabeth would +have been if she had been more like Marjorie's mother and Graham West's +wife. This type of womanhood is rare in this nineteenth century; for +aught I know, she is not a representative woman, at all; she is the only +one I ever knew, and perhaps you never saw any one like her. She has no +heresies, she can prove every assertion from the Bible, her principles +are as firm as adamant and her heart as tender as a mother's. Still, +marriage and motherhood have been her education; if the Connecticut, +school-teacher had not realized her worth, she might have become what she +dreaded her own daughters becoming--an old maid with uncheerful views of +life. In planning their future she looked into her own heart instead of +into theirs. + +The children were lovely blossomings of the seed in the hearts of both +parents; of seeds, that in them had not borne abundant fruitage. + +"How did two such cranky old things ever have such happy children!" she +exclaimed one day to her husband. + +"Perhaps they will become what we stopped short of being," he replied. + +Graham West was something of a philosopher; rather too much of a +philosopher for his wife's peace of mind. To her sorrow she had learned +that he had no "business tact," he could not even scrape a comfortable +living off his scrubby little farm. + +But I began with Linnet and fell to discoursing about her mother; it was +Linnet, as she appeared in her grayish brown dress with a knot of crimson +at her throat, running down the stairway, that suggested her mother's +thought to me. + +"Linnet is almost growing up," she had said to herself as she removed her +cap for her customary afternoon nap. This afternoon nap refreshed her +countenance and kept her from looking six years older than her husband. +Mrs. West was not a worldly woman, but she did not like to look six years +older than her husband. + +Linnet searched through parlor and hall, then out on the piazza, then +looked through the front yard, and, finally, having explored the garden, +found Marjorie and her friend in camp-chairs on the soft green turf under +the low hanging boughs of an apple-tree behind the house. There were two +or three books in Marjorie's lap, and Miss Prudence was turning the +leaves of Marjorie's Bible. She was answering one of Marjorie's questions +Linnet supposed and wondered if Marjorie would be satisfied with the +answer; she was not always satisfied, as the elder sister knew to her +grievance. For instance: Marjorie had said to her yesterday, with that +serious look in her eyes: "Linnet, father says when Christ was on earth +people didn't have wheat ground into fine flour as we do;--now when it is +so much nicer, why do you suppose he didn't tell them about grinding it +fine?" + +"Perhaps he didn't think of it," she replied, giving the first thought +that occurred to her. + +"That isn't the reason," returned Marjorie, "for he could think of +everything he wanted to." + +"Then--for the same reason why didn't he tell them about chloroform and +printing and telegraphing and a thousand other inventions?" questioned +Linnet in her turn. + +"That's what I want to know," said Marjorie. + +Linnet settled herself on the turf and drew her work from her pocket; she +was making a collar of tatting for her mother's birthday and working at +it at every spare moment. It was the clover leaf pattern, that she had +learned but a few weeks ago; the thread was very fine and she was doing +it exquisitely. She had shown it to Hollis because he was in the lace +business, and he had said it was a fine specimen of "real lace." To make +real lace was one of Linnet's ambitions. The lace around Marjorie's neck +was a piece that their mother had made towards her own wedding outfit. +Marjorie's mother sighed and feared that Marjorie would never care to +make lace for her wedding outfit. + +Linnet frowned over her clover leaf and Marjorie watched Miss Prudence as +she turned the leaves. Marjorie did not care for the clover leaf, only as +she was interested in everything that Linnet's fingers touched, but +Linnet did care for the answer to Marjorie's question. She thought +perhaps it was about the wheat. + +The Bible leaves were still, after a second Miss Prudence read: + +"'For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even +weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.'" + +_That_ was not the answer, Linnet thought. + +"What does that mean to you, Marjorie?" asked Miss Prudence. + +"Why--it can't mean anything different from what it says. Paul was so +sorry about the people he was writing about that he wept as he told +them--he was so sorry they were enemies of the cross of Christ." + +"Yes, he told them even weeping. But I knew an old gentleman who read the +Bible unceasingly--I saw one New Testament that he had read through +fifteen times--and he told me once that some people were so grieved +because they were the enemies of the cross of Christ that they were +enemies even weeping. I asked 'Why did they continue enemies, then?' and +he said most ingenuously that he supposed they could not help it. Then I +remembered this passage, and found it, and read it to him as I read it to +you just now. He was simply astounded. He put on his spectacles and read +it for himself. And then he said nothing. He had simply put the comma in +the wrong place. He had read it in this way: 'For many walk, of whom I +have told you often and now tell you, even weeping that they are the +enemies of the cross of Christ.'" + +"Oh," cried Marjorie, drawing an astonished long breath, "what a +difference it does make." + +"Now I know, it's punctuation you're talking about," exclaimed Linnet. +"Marjorie told me all about the people in the stage-coach. O, Miss +Prudence, I don't love to study; I want to go away to school, of course, +but I can't see the _use_ of so many studies. Marjorie _loves_ to study +and I don't; perhaps I would if I could see some use beside 'being like +other people.' Being like other people doesn't seem to me to be a _real_ +enough reason." + +Linnet had forgotten her clover leaf, she was looking at Miss Prudence +with eyes as grave and earnest as Marjorie's ever were. She did not love +to study and it was one of the wrong doings that she had confessed in her +prayers many a time. + +"Well, don't you see the reason now for studying punctuation?" + +"Yes, I do," she answered heartily. "But we don't like dates, either of +us." + +"Did you ever hear about Pompeii, the city buried long ago underground?" + +Linnet thought that had nothing to do with her question. + +"Oh, yes," said Marjorie, "we have read about it. 'The Last Days of +Pompeii' is in the school library. I read it, but Linnet didn't care for +it." + +"Do you know _when_ it was buried?" + +"No," said Linnet, brightening. + +"Have you any idea?" + +"A thousand years ago?" guessed Marjorie. + +"Then you do not know how long after the Crucifixion?" + +"No," they replied together. + +"You know when the Crucifixion was, of course?" + +"Why--yes," admitted Linnet, hesitatingly. + +"Christ was thirty-three years old," said Marjorie, "so it must have been +in the year 33, or the beginning of 34." + +"Of course I know _Anno Domini_," said Linnet; "but I don't always know +what happened before and after." + +"Suppose we were walking in one of the excavated streets of Pompeii and I +should say, 'O, girls! Look at that wall!' and you should see a rude +cross carved on it, what would you think?" + +"I should think they knew about Christ," answered Linnet. + +The clover leaf tatting had fallen into her lap and the shuttle was on +the grass. + +"Yes, and is that all?" + +"Why, yes," she acknowledged. + +"Pompeii wasn't so far, so very far from Jerusalem and--they could hear," +said Marjorie. + +"And you two would pass on to a grand house with a wonderful mosaic floor +and think no more about the cross." + +"I suppose we would," said Linnet "Wouldn't you?" + +"But I should think about the cross. I should think that the city was +destroyed in 79 and be rejoiced that the inhabitants had heard of the +Cross and knew its story before swift destruction overtook them. It was +destroyed about forty-five years after the Crucifixion." + +"I _like_ to know that," said Marjorie. "Perhaps some of the people in it +had seen St. Paul and heard him tell about the Cross." + +"I see some use in that date," said Linnet, picking up her shuttle. + +"Suppose I should tell you that once on a time a laborer would have to +work fifteen years to earn enough to buy a Bible and then the Bible must +be in Latin, wouldn't you like to know when it was." + +"I don't know when the Bible was printed in English," confessed Marjorie. + +"If you did know and knew several other things that happened about that +time you would be greatly interested. Suppose I should tell you about +something that happened in England, you would care very much more if you +knew about something that was linked with it in France, and in Germany. +If I say 1517 I do not arouse your enthusiasm; you don't know what was +happening in Germany then; and 1492 doesn't remind you of anything--" + +"Yes, it does," laughed Marjorie, "and so does 1620." + +"Down the bay on an island stand the ruins of a church, and an old lady +told me it was built in 1604. I did not contradict her, but I laughed +all to myself." + +"I know enough to laugh at that," said Linnet. + +"But I have seen in America the spot where Jamestown stood and that dates +almost as far back. Suppose I tell you that Martin Luther read _Pilgrims +Progress_ with great delight, do you know whether I am making fun or not? +If I say that Queen Elizabeth wrote a letter to Cleopatra, do you know +whether I mean it or not? And if I say that Richard the Third was +baptized by St. Augustine, can you contradict it? And Hannah More wrote a +sympathetic letter to Joan of Arc, and Marie Antoinette danced with +Charlemagne, and George Washington was congratulated on becoming +President by Mary Queen of Scots." + +The girls could laugh at this for they had an idea that the Queen of +Scots died some time before the first president of the United States was +born; but over the other names and incidents they looked at each other +gravely. + +"Life is a kind of conglomeration without dates," said Linnet. + +"I wonder if you know how long ago the flood was!" suggested Miss +Prudence, "or if Mahomet lived before the flood or after," she added, +seriously. + +Marjorie smiled, but Linnet was serious. + +"You confuse me so," said Linnet. "I believe I don't know when anything +_was_. I don't know how long since Adam was made. Do you, Marjorie?" + +"No," in the tone of one dreadfully ashamed. + +"And now I'll tell you a lovely thought out of the Bible that came +through dates. I did not discover it myself, of course." + +"I don't see why 'of course,'" Marjorie said in a resentful tone. "You +_do_ discover things." + +"I discover little girls once in a while," returned Miss Prudence with a +rare softening of lips and eyes. + +If it had not been for a few such discoveries the lines about Miss +Prudence's lips might have been hard lines. + +"Of course you both remember the story of faithful old Abraham, how he +longed and longed for a son and hoped against hope, and, after waiting +so long, Isaac was born at last. He had the sure promise of God that in +his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Do you know +how many nations Abraham knew about? Did he know about France and England +and America, the Empire of Russia and populous China?" + +Linnet looked puzzled; Marjorie was very grave. + +"Did he know that the North American Indians would be blessed in him? Did +he know they would learn that the Great Spirit had a Son, Jesus Christ? +And that Jesus Christ was descended from him?" + +"I--don't--know," said Marjorie, doubtfully. "I get all mixed up." + +"It was because all the world would be blessed that he was so anxious to +have a son. And, then, after Isaac was born and married for years and +years the promise did not seem to come true, for he had no child. Must +the faithful, hopeful old father die with his hope deferred? We read that +Abraham died in a good old age, an old man, full of years, and Isaac and +Ishmael buried him, and farther on in the same chapter we find that the +twin boys are born, Jacob and Esau. But their old grandfather was dead. +He knew now how true God is to his promises, because he was in Heaven, +but we can't help wishing he had seen those two strong boys from one of +whom the Saviour of the whole world was to descend. But if we look at +Abraham's age when he died, and comparing it with Isaac's when the twins +were born, we find that the old man, truly, had to wait twenty years +before they were born, but that he really lived to see them seventeen or +eighteen years of age. He lived to tell them with his own lips about that +wonderful promise of God." + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Marjorie, enthusiastically. + +"He had another long time to wait, too," said Linnet. + +"Yes, he had hard times all along," almost sighed Miss Prudence. + +Forty years old did not mean to her that her hard times were all over. + +"But he had such a good time with the boys," said Marjorie, who never +could see the dark side of anything. "Just to think of _dates_ telling us +such a beautiful thing." + +"That's all you hate, dates and punctuation," Linnet declared; "but I +can't see the use of ever so many other things." + +"If God thought it worth while to make the earth and people it and +furnish it and govern it with laws, don't you think it worth your poor +little while to learn what he has done?" queried Miss Prudence, gently. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Linnet, "is _that_ it?" + +"Just it," said Miss Prudence, smiling, "and some day I will go over with +you each study by itself and show you how it will educate you and help +you the better to do something he asks you to do." + +"Oh, how splendid!" cried Linnet. "Before I go to school, so the books +won't seem hard and dry?" + +"Yes, any day that you will come to me. Marjorie may come too, even +though she loves to study." + +"I wonder if you can find any good in Natural Philosophy," muttered +Linnet, "and in doing the examples in it. And in remembering the signs +of the Zodiac! Mr. Holmes makes us learn everything; he won't let us +skip." + +"He is a fine teacher, and you might have had, if you had been so minded, +a good preparation for your city school." + +"I haven't," said Linnet. "If it were not for seeing the girls and +learning how to be like city girls, I would rather stay home." + +"Perhaps that knowledge would not improve you. What then?" + +"Why, Miss Prudence!" exclaimed Marjorie, "don't you think we country +girls are away behind the age?" + +"In the matter of dates! But you need not be. With such a teacher as you +have you ought to do as well as any city girl of your age. And there's +always a course of reading by yourself." + +"It isn't always," laughed Linnet, "it is only for the studiously +disposed." + +"I was a country girl, and when I went to the city to school I did not +fail in my examination." + +"Oh, _you_!" cried Linnet. + +"I see no reason why you, in your happy, refined, Christian home, with +all the sweet influences of your healthful, hardy lives, should not be as +perfectly the lady as any girl I know." + +Marjorie clapped her hands. Oh, if Hollis might only hear this! And Miss +Prudence _knew_. + +"I thought I had to go to a city school, else I couldn't be refined and +lady-like," said Linnet. + +"That does not follow. All city girls are not refined and lady-like; they +may have a style that you haven't, but that style is not always to their +advantage. It is true that I do not find many young ladies in your little +village that I wish you to take as models, but the fault is in them, as +well as in some of their surroundings. You have music, you have books, +you have perfection of beauty in shore and sea, you have the Holy Spirit, +the Educator of mankind." + +The girls were awed and silent. + +"I have been shocked at the rudeness of city girls, and I have been +charmed with the tact and courtesy of more than one country maiden. +Nowadays education and the truest culture may be had everywhere." + +"Even in Middlefield," laughed Marjorie her heart brimming over with the +thought that, after all, she might be as truly a lady as Helen Rheid. + +If Linnet had been as excited as Marjorie was, at that moment, she would +have given a bound into the grass and danced all around. But Marjorie +only sat still trembling with a flush in eyes and cheeks. + +"I think I'll keep a list of the books I read," decided Marjorie after a +quiet moment. + +"That's a good plan. I'll show you a list I made in my girlhood, some +day. But you mustn't read as many as an Englishman read,--Thomas Henry +Buckle,--his library comprised twenty-two thousand." + +"He didn't read them _all,_" cried Linnet. + +"He read parts of all, and some attentively, I dare say. He was a rapid +reader and had the rare faculty of being able to seize on what he needed +to use. He often read three volumes a day. But I don't advise you to copy +him. I want you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. He could +absorb, but, we'll take it for granted that you must plod on steadily, +step by step. He read through Johnson's Dictionary to enlarge his +vocabulary." + +"Vocabulary!" repeated Linnet. + +"His stock of words," exclaimed Marjorie. "Miss Prudence!" with a new +energy in her voice, "I'm going to read Webster through." + +"Well," smiled Miss Prudence. + +"Don't you believe I _can?_" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Then I will. I'll be like Buckle in one thing. I'll plan to read so many +pages a day. We've got a splendid one; mother got it by getting +subscriptions to some paper. Mother will do _anything_ to help us on, +Miss Prudence." + +"I have learned that. I have a plan to propose to her by and by." + +"Oh, can't you tell us?" entreated Linnet, forgetting her work. + +"Not yet." + +"Does it concern _us?_" asked Marjorie. + +"Yes, both of you." + +Two hours since it had "concerned" only Marjorie, but in this hour under +the apple-tree Miss Prudence had been moved to include Linnet, also. +Linnet was not Marjorie, she had mentally reasoned, but she was Linnet +and had her own niche in the world. Was she not also one of her little +sisters that were in the world and not of it? + +"When may we know?" questioned Linnet + +"That depends. Before I leave your grandfather's, I hope." + +"I know it is something good and wonderful, because you thought of it," +said Marjorie. "Perhaps it is as good as one of our day-dreams coming +true." + +"It may be something very like one of them, but the time may not be yet. +It will not do you any harm to know there's something pleasant ahead, +if it can be arranged." + +"I do like to know things that are going to happen to us," Linnet +confessed. "I used to wish I could dream and have the dreams come true." + +"Like the wicked ancients who used to wrap themselves in skins of beasts +and stay among the graves and monuments to sleep and dream--and in the +temples of the idols, thinking the departed or the idols would foretell +to them in dreams. Isaiah reproves the Jews for doing this. And Sir +Walter Scott, in his notes to 'The Lady of the Lake,' tells us something +about a similar superstition among the Scotch." + +"I like to know about superstitions," said Linnet, "but I'd be afraid to +do that." + +"Miss Prudence, I haven't read 'The Lady of the Lake'!" exclaimed +Marjorie. + +"No, imitator of Buckle, you haven't. But I'll send it to you when I go +home." + +"What did Buckle _do_ with all his learning?" inquired Marjorie. + +"I haven't told you about half of his learning. He wrote a work of great +learning, that startled the world somewhat, called 'The History of +Civilization,' in which he attempted to prove that the differences +between nations and peoples were almost solely to be attributed to +physical causes that food had more to do with the character of a +nation than faith." + +"Didn't the Israelites live on the same food that the Philistines did?" +asked Marjorie, "and didn't--" + +"Are you getting ready to refute him? The Jews could not eat pork, you +remember." + +"And because they didn't eat pork they believed in one true God!" +exclaimed Marjorie, indignantly. "I don't like his book, Miss Prudence." + +"Neither do I. And we need not read it, even if he did study twenty-two +thousand books and Johnson's Dictionary to help him write it." + +"Why didn't he study Webster?" asked Linnet. + +"Can't you think and tell me?" + +"No." + +"Can you not, Marjorie?" + +"Because he was English, I suppose, and Johnson wrote the English +Dictionary and Webster the American." + +"An Irish lady told me the other day that Webster was no authority. I +wish I could tell you all about Johnson; I love him, admire him, and pity +him." + +Marjorie laughed and squeezed Miss Prudence's hand. "Don't you wish you +could tell us about every _body_ and every _thing_, Miss Prudence?" + +"And then help you use the knowledge. I am glad of your question, +Marjorie, 'What did Mr. Buckle _do_ with his knowledge?' If I should +learn a new thing this week and not use it next week I should feel +guilty." + +"I don't know how to use knowledge," said Linnet. + +"You are putting your knowledge of tatting to very good service." + +"Miss Prudence, will you use your things on me?" inquired Marjorie, +soberly. + +"That is just what I am hoping to do." + +"Hillo! Hillo! Hillo!" sounded a voice behind the woodshed. After a +moment a tall figure emerged around a corner, arrayed in coarse working +clothes, with a saw over his shoulders. + +"Hillo! gals, I can't find your father. Tell him I left my saw here for +him to file." + +"I will," Linnet called back. + +"That's African John," explained Linnet as the figure disappeared around +the corner of the woodshed. "I wish I had asked him to stay and tell you +some of his adventures." + +"_African_ John. He is not an African;" said Miss Prudence. + +"No, oh no; he's Captain Rheid's cousin. People call him that because he +was three years in Africa. He was left on the coast. It happened this +way. He was only a sailor and he went ashore with another sailor and they +got lost in a jungle or something like it and when they came back to the +shore they saw the sails of their ship in the distance and knew it had +gone off and left them. The man with him fell down dead on the sand and +he had to stay three years before a ship came. He's an old man now and +that happened years and years ago. Captain Rheid can't tell anything more +frightful than that. Mother had a brother lost at sea, they supposed so, +for he never came back; if I ever have anybody go and not come back I'll +never, never, _never_ give him up." + +"Never, never, never give him up," echoed Miss Prudence in her heart. + +"They thought Will Rheid was lost once, but he came back! Linnet didn't +give him up, and his father and mother almost did." + +"I'd never give him up," said Linnet again, emphatically. + +"Will Rheid," teased Marjorie, "or anybody?" + +"Anybody," replied Linnet, but she twitched at her work and broke her +thread. + +"Now, girls, I'm going in to talk to your mother awhile, and then perhaps +Linnet will walk part of the way home with me," said Miss Prudence. + +"To talk about _that_," cried Marjorie. + +"I'll tell you by and by." + + + + +VIII. + +BISCUITS AND OTHER THINGS. + +"I am rather made for giving than taking."--_Mrs. Browning._ + + +Mrs. West had been awakened from her nap with an uncomfortable feeling +that something disagreeable had happened or was about to happen; she felt +"impressed" she would have told you. Pushing the light quilt away from +her face she arose with a decided vigor, determined to "work it off" if +it were merely physical; she brushed her iron gray hair with steady +strokes and already began to feel as if her presentiment were groundless; +she bathed her cheeks in cool water, she dressed herself carefully in her +worn black and white barège, put on her afternoon cap, a bit of black +lace with bows of narrow black ribbon, fastened the linen collar Linnet +had worked with button-hole stitch with the round gold and black +enamelled pin that contained locks of the light hair of her two lost +babes, and then felt herself ready for the afternoon, even ready for the +minister and his stylish wife, if they should chance to call. But she was +not ready without her afternoon work; she would feel fidgety unless she +had something to keep her fingers moving; the afternoon work happened to +be a long white wool stocking for Linnet's winter wear. Linnet must have +new ones, she decided; she would have no time to darn old ones, and +Marjorie might make the old ones do another winter; it was high time for +Marjorie to learn to mend. + +The four shining knitting needles were clicking in the doorway of the +broad little entry that opened out to the green front yard when Miss +Prudence found her way around to the front of the house. The ample figure +and contented face made a picture worth looking at, and Miss Prudence +looked at it a moment before she announced her presence by speaking. + +"Mrs. West, I want to come to see you a little while--may I?" + +Miss Prudence had a pretty, appealing way of speaking, oftentimes, that +caused people to feel as if she were not quite grown up. There was +something akin to childlikeness in her voice and words and manner, +to-day. She had never felt so humble in her life, as to-day when her +whole life loomed up before her--one great disappointment. + +"I was just thinking that I would go and find you after I had turned the +heel; I haven't had a talk with you yet." + +"I want it," returned the younger lady, seating herself on the upper step +and leaning back against the door post. "I've been wanting to be +_mothered_ all day. I have felt as if the sunshine were taking me into +its arms, and as if the soft warm grass were my mother's lap." + +"Dear child, you have had trouble in your life, haven't you?" replied the +motherly voice. + +Miss Prudence was not impulsive, at least she believed that she had +outgrown yielding to a sudden rush of feeling, but at these words she +burst into weeping, and drawing nearer dropped her head in the broad lap. + +"There, there, deary! Cry, if it makes you feel any better," hushed the +voice that had rocked babies to sleep. + +After several moments of self-contained sobbing Miss Prudence raised her +head. "I've never told any one, but I feel as if I wanted to tell you. It +is so long that it makes me feel old to speak of it. It is twenty years +ago since it happened. I had a friend that I love as girls love the man +they have chosen to marry; father admired him, and said he was glad to +leave me with such a protector. Mother had been dead about a year and +father was dying with consumption; they had no one to leave me with +excepting this friend; he was older than I, years older, but I admired +him all the more for that. Father had perfect trust in him. I think +the trouble hastened father's death. He had a position of trust--a great +deal of money passed through his hands. Like every girl I liked diamonds +and he satisfied me with them; father used to look grave and say: +'Prudie, your mother didn't care for such things.' But I cared for mine. +I had more jewels than any of my friends; and he used to promise that I +should have everything I asked for. But I did not want anything if I +might have him. My wedding dress was made--our wedding tour was all +planned: we were to come home to his beautiful house and father was to be +with us. Father and I were so contented over our plans; he seemed just +like himself that last evening that we laughed and talked. But he--my +friend was troubled and left early; when he went away he caught me in his +arms and held me. 'God bless you, bless you' he said, and then he said, +'May he forgive me!' I could not sleep that night, the words sounded in +my ears. In the morning I unburdened myself to father, I always told him +everything, and he was as frightened as I. Before two days we knew all. +He had taken--money--that was not his own, thousands of dollars, and he +was tried and sentenced. I sent them all my diamonds and everything that +would bring money, but that was only a little of the whole. They sent +him--to state-prison, to hard labor, for a term of five years. Father +died soon after and I had not any one nearer than an aunt or cousin. I +thought my heart broke with the shame and dishonor. I have lived in many +places since. I have money enough to do as I like--because I do not like +to do very much, perhaps. But I can't forget. I can't forget the shame. +And I trusted him so! I believed in him. He had buried a young wife years +ago, and was old and wise and good! When I see diamonds they burn into me +like live coals. I would have given up my property and worked for my +living, but father made me bind myself with a solemn promise that I would +not do it. But I have sought out many that he wronged, and given them all +my interest but the sum I compelled myself to live on. I have educated +two or three orphans, and I help every month several widows and one or +two helpless people who suffered through him. Father would be glad of +that, if he knew how comfortably I can live on a limited income. I have +made my will, remembering a number of people, and if they die before I +do, I shall keep trace of their children. I do all I can; I would, rather +give all my money up, but it is my father's money until I die." + +Mrs. West removed a knitting needle from between her lips and knit it +into the heel she had "turned." + +"Where is he--now?" she asked. + +"I never saw him after that night--he never wrote to me; I went to him in +prison but he refused to see me. I have heard of him many times through +his brother; he fled to Europe as soon as he was released, and has never +returned home--to my knowledge. I think his brother has not heard from +him for some years. When I said I had not a friend, I did not mention +this brother; he was young when it happened, too young to have any pity +for his brother; he was very kind to me, they all were. This brother was +a half-brother--there were two mothers--and much younger." + +"What was his name?" + +Mrs. West did not mean to be inquisitive, but she did want to know and +not simply for the sake of knowing. + +"Excuse me--but I must keep the secret for his brother's sake. He's the +only one left." + +"I may not know the name of the bank then?" + +"If you knew that you would know all. But _I_ know that your husband lost +his small patrimony in it--twenty-five hundred dollars--" + +"H'm," escaped Mrs. West's closely pressed lips. + +"And that is one strong reason why I want to educate your two daughters." + +The knitting dropped from the unsteady fingers. + +"And I've fretted and fretted about that money, and asked the Lord how my +girls ever were to be educated." + +"You know now," said Miss Prudence. "I had to tell you, for I feared that +you would not listen to my plan. You may guess how I felt when your +sister-in-law, Mrs. Easton, told me that she was to take Linnet for a +year or two and let her go to school. At first I could not see my way +clear, my money is all spent for a year to come--I only thought of taking +Marjorie home with me--but, I have arranged it so that I can spare a +little; I have been often applied to to take music pupils, and if I do +that I can take one of the girls home with me and send her to school; +next year I will take all the expense upon myself, wardrobe and all. +There is a cheap way of living in large cities as well as an expensive +one. If Linnet goes to Boston with her aunt, she will be kept busy out of +school hours. Mrs. Easton is very kindhearted but she considers no one +where her children are concerned. If I wore diamonds that Linnet's money +purchased, aren't you willing she shall eat bread and butter my money +purchases?" + +"But you gave the diamonds up?" + +"I wore them, though." + +"That diamond plea has done duty a good many times, I guess," said Mrs. +West, smiling down upon the head in her lap. + +"No, it hasn't. His brother has done many things for me; people are ready +enough to take money from his brother, and the widows are my friends. It +has not been difficult. It would have been without him." + +"The nights I've laid awake and made plans. My little boys died in +babyhood. I imagine their father and I would have mortgaged the farm, and +I would have taken in washing, and he would have gone back to his trade +to send those boys through college. But the girls don't need a college +education. The boys might have been ministers--one of them, at least. But +I would like the girls to have a piano, they both play so well on the +melodeon! I would like them to be--well, like you, Miss Prudence, and not +like their rough, hardworking old mother. I've shed tears enough about +their education, and told the Lord about it times enough. If the Boston +plan didn't suit, we had another, Graham and I--he always listens and +depends upon my judgment. I'm afraid, sometimes, I depend upon my own +judgment more than upon the Lord's wisdom. But this plan was--" the +knitting needle was being pushed vigorously through her back hair now, +"to exchange the farm for a house and lot in town--Middlefield is quite a +town, you know--and he was to go back to his trade, and I was to take +boarders, and the girls were to take turns in schooling and +accomplishments. I am not over young myself, and he isn't over strong, +but we had decided on that. I shed some tears over it, and he looked pale +and couldn't sleep, for we've counted on this place as the home of our +old age which isn't so far off as it was when he put that twenty-five +hundred dollars into that bank. But I do breathe freer if I think we may +have this place to live and die on, small as it is and the poor living it +gives us. Father's place isn't much to speak of, and James will come in +for his share of that, so we haven't much to count on anywhere. I don't +know, though," the knitting needle was doing duty in the stocking again, +"about taking _your_ money. You were not his wife, you hadn't spent it or +connived at his knavery." + +"I felt myself to be his wife--I am happier in making all the reparation +in my power. All I could do for one old lady was to place her in The Old +Ladies' Home. I know very few of the instances; I would not harrow my +soul with hearing of those I could not help. I have done very little, but +that little has been my exceeding comfort." + +"I guess so," said Mrs. West, in a husky voice. "I'll tell father what +you say, we'll talk it over and see. I know you love my girls--especially +Marjorie." + +"I love them both," was the quick reply. + +"Linnet is older, she ought to have the first chance." + +Miss Prudence thought, but did not say, "As Laban said about Leah," she +only said, "I do not object to that. We do Marjorie no injustice. This is +Linnet's schooltime. There does seem to be a justice in giving the first +chance to the firstborn, although God chose Jacob instead of the elder +Esau, and Joseph instead of his older brethren, and there was little +David anointed when his brothers were refused." + +Miss Prudence's tone was most serious, but her eyes were full of fun. She +was turning the partial mother's weapons against herself. + +"But David and Jacob and Joseph were different from the others," returned +the mother, gravely, "and in this case, the elder is as good as the +younger." + +It almost slipped off Miss Prudence's tongue, "But she will not take the +education Marjorie will," but she wisely checked herself and replied that +both the girls were as precious as precious could be. + +"And now don't you go home to-night, stay all night and I'll talk to +father," planned Mrs. West, briskly; "as Marjorie would say, Giant +Despair will get Diffidence his wife to bed and they will talk +the matter over. She doesn't read _Pilgrim's Progress_ as much as she +used to, but she calls you Mercy yet. And you are a mercy to us." + +With the tears rolling down her cheeks the mother stooped over and kissed +the lover of her girls. + +"Mr. Holmes is coming to see Marjorie to-night, he hasn't called since +her accident, and to talk to father, he likes to argue with him, and it +will be pleasanter to have you here. And Will Rheid is home from a +voyage, and he'll be running in. It must be lonesome for you over there +on the Point. It used to be for me when I was a girl." + +"But I'm not a girl," smiled Miss Prudence. + +"You'll pass for one any day. And you can play and make it lively. I am +not urging you with disinterested motives." + +"I can see through you; and I _am_ anxious to know how Mr. West will +receive my proposal." + +"He will see through my eyes in the end, but he always likes to argue a +while first. I want you to taste Linnet's cream biscuit, too. She made +them on purpose for you. There's father, now, coming with African John, +and there _is_ Will Rheid coming across lots. Well, I'm glad Linnet did +make the biscuits." + +Miss Prudence arose with a happy face, she did not go back to the girls +at once, there was a nook to be quiet in at the foot of the kitchen +garden, and she felt as if she must be alone awhile. Mrs. West, with her +heart in a tremor that it had not known since Marjorie was born, tucked +away her knitting behind the school-books on the dining-room table, tied +on her blue checked apron, and went out to the kitchen to kindle the fire +for tea, singing in her mellow voice, "Thus far the Lord hath led me on," +suddenly stopping short as she crammed the stove with shavings to +exclaim, "His name _was_ Holmes! And that's the school-master's name. And +that's why he's in such a fume when the boys cheat at marbles. Well, did +I _ever_!" + +Linnet ran in to exchange her afternoon dress for a short, dark calico, +and to put on her old shoes before she went into the barnyard to milk +Bess and Brindle and Beauty. Will Rheid found her in time to persuade +her to let him milk Brindle, for he was really afraid he would get his +hand out, and it would never do to let his wife do all the milking +when his father bequeathed him a fifth of his acres and two of his +hardest-to-be-milked cows. Linnet laughed, gave him one of her pails, +and found an other milking stool for him. + +Marjorie wandered around disconsolate until she discovered Miss Prudence +in the garden. + +She was perplexed over a new difficulty which vented itself in the +question propounded between tasting currants. + +"Ought I--do you think I ought--talk to people--about--like the +minister--about--" + +"No, child!" and Miss Prudence laughed merrily. "You ought to talk to +people like Marjorie West! Like a child and not like a minister." + + + + +IX. + +JOHN HOLMES. + +"Courage to endure and to obey."--_Tennyson._ + + +It was vacation-time and yet John Holmes was at work. No one knew him to +take a vacation, he had attempted to do it more than once and at the end +of his stipulated time had found himself at work harder than ever. The +last lazy, luxurious vacation that he remembered was his last college +vacation. What a boyish, good-for-nothing, aimless fellow he was in those +days! How his brother used to snap him up and ask if he had nothing +better to do than to dawdle around into Maple Street and swing Prudence +under the maples in that old garden, or to write rhymes with her and +correct her German exercises! How he used to tease her about having by +and by to color her hair white and put on spectacles, or else she would +have to call her husband "papa." And she would dart after him and box his +ears and laugh her happy laugh and look as proud as a queen over every +teasing word. He had told her that she grew prettier every hour as her +day of fate drew nearer, and then had audaciously kissed her as he bade +her good-by, for, in one week would she not be his sister, the only +sister he had ever had? He stood at the gate watching her as she tripped +up to her father's arm-chair on the piazza, and saw her bend her head +down to his, and then he had gone off whistling and thinking that his +brother certainly had a share of all of earth's good things position, a +good name, money, and now this sweet woman for a wife. Well, the world +was all before _him_ where to choose, and he would have money and a +position some day and the very happiest home in the land. + +The next time he saw Prudence she looked like one just risen out of a +grave: pallid, with purple, speechless lips, and eyes whose anguish rent +his soul. Her father had been suddenly prostrated with hemorrhage and he +stayed through the night with her, and afterward he made arrangements for +the funeral, and his mother and himself stood at the grave with her. And +then there was a prison, and after that a delirious fever for himself, +when for days he had not known his mother's face or Prudence's voice. + +The other boys had gone back to college, but his spirit was crushed, he +could not hold up his head among men. He had lost his "ambition," people +said. Since that time he had taught in country schools and written +articles for the papers and magazines; he had done one thing beside, he +had purchased books and studied them. In the desk in his chamber there +were laid away to-day four returned manuscripts, he was only waiting +for leisure to exchange their addressee and send them forth into the +world again to seek their fortunes. A rejection daunted him no more than +a poor recitation in the schoolroom; where would be the zest in life if +one had not the chance of trying again? + +John Holmes was a hermit, but he was a hermit who loved boys; girls were +too much like delicate bits of china, he was afraid of handling for fear +of breaking. Girls grown up were not quite so much like bits of china, +but he had no friend save one among womankind, his sister that was to +have been, Prudence Pomeroy. He had not addressed her with the name his +brother had given her since that last day in the garden; she was gravely +Prudence to him, in her plain attire, her smooth hair and little +unworldly ways, almost a veritable Puritan maiden. + +As to her marrying--again (he always thought "again"), he had no more +thought of it than she had. He had given to her every letter he had +received from his brother, but they always avoided speaking his name; +indeed Prudence, in her young reverence for his age and wisdom, had +seldom named his Christian name to others or to himself, he was "Mr. +Holmes" to her. + +John Holmes was her junior by three years, yet he had constituted himself +friend, brother, guardian, and sometimes, he told her, she treated him as +though he were her father, beside. + +"It's good to have all in one," she once replied, "for I can have you all +with me at one time." + +After being a year at Middlefield he had written to her about the +secluded homestead and fine salt bathing at the "Point," urging her to +spend her summer there. Marjorie had seen her face at church one day in +early spring as she had stopped over the Sabbath at the small hotel in +the town on her way on a journey farther north. + +This afternoon, while Prudence had been under the apple-tree and in the +front entry, he had bent over the desk in his chamber, writing. This +chamber was a low, wide room, carpeted with matting, with neither shades +nor curtains at the many-paned windows, containing only furniture that +served a purpose--a washstand, with a small, gilt-framed glass hanging +over it, one rush-bottomed chair beside the chair at the desk, that +boasted arms and a leather cushion, a bureau, with two large brass rings +to open each drawer, and a narrow cot covered with a white counterpane +that his hostess had woven as a part of her wedding outfit before he was +born, and books! There were books everywhere--in the long pine chest, on +the high mantel, in the bookcase, under the bed, on the bureau, and on +the carpet wherever it was not absolutely necessary for him to tread. + +Prudence and Marjorie had climbed the narrow stairway once this summer to +take a peep at his books, and Prudence had inquired if he intended +to take them all out West when he accepted the presidency of the college +that was waiting for him out there. + +"I should have to come back to my den, I couldn't write anywhere else." + +"And when somebody asks me if you are dead, as some king asked about the +author of Butler's 'Analogy' once, I'll reply, as somebody replied: 'Not +dead, but buried.'" + +"That is what I want to be," he had replied. "Don't you want a copy of my +little pocket dictionary? It just fits the vest pocket, you see. You +don't know how proud I was when I saw a young man on the train take one +from his pocket one day!" + +He opened his desk and handed her a copy; Marjorie looked at it and at +him in open-eyed wonder. And dared she recite to a teacher who had made a +book? + +"When is your Speller coming out?" + +"In the fall. I'm busy on my Reader now." + +Prudence stepped to his desk and examined the sheets of upright +penmanship; it could be read as easily as print. + +"And the Arithmetic?" + +"Oh, I haven't tackled that yet. That is for winter evenings, when my +fire burns on the hearth and the wind blows and nobody in the world cares +for me." + +"Then it won't be _this_ winter," said Marjorie, lifting her eyes from +the binding of the dictionary. + +"Why not?" he questioned. + +"Because somebody cares for you," she answered gravely. + +He laughed and shoved his manuscript into the desk. He was thinking of +her as he raised his head from the desk this afternoon and found the sun +gone down; he thought of her and remembered that he had promised to call +to see her to-night. Was it to take tea? He dreaded tea-parties, when +everybody talked and nobody said anything. A dim remembrance of being +summoned to supper a while ago flashed through his mind; but it hardly +mattered--Mrs. Devoe would take her cup of tea alone and leave his fruit +and bread and milk standing on the tea-table; it was better so, she would +not pester him with questions while he was eating, ask him why he did not +take more exercise, and if his room were not suffocating this hot day, +and if he did not think a cup of good, strong tea would not be better for +him than that bowl of milk! + +Mrs. Devoe, a widow of sixty-five, and her cat, Dolly, aged nineteen, +kept house and boarded the school-master. Her house was two miles nearer +the shore than the school-building, but he preferred the walk in all +weathers and he liked the view of the water. Mrs. Devoe had never kept a +boarder before, her small income being amply sufficient for her small +wants, but she liked the master, he split her wood and his own, locked +the house up at night, made no trouble, paid his board, two dollars per +week, regularly in advance, never went out at night, often read to her in +the evening after her own eyes had given out, and would have been perfect +if he had allowed her to pile away his books and sweep his chamber every +Friday. + +"But no man is perfect," she had sighed to Mrs. Rheid, "even my poor +husband would keep dinner waiting." + +After a long, absent-minded look over the meadows towards the sea, where +the waves were darkening in the twilight, he arose in haste, threw off +his wrapper, a gray merino affair, trimmed with quilted crimson silk, +that Prudence had given him on a birthday three years ago, and went to +the wash-stand to bathe his face and brush back that mass of black hair. +He did not study his features as Prudence had studied hers that morning; +he knew so little about his own face that he could scarcely distinguish a +good portrait of himself from a poor one; but Prudence knew it by heart. +It was a thin, delicate face, marred with much thought, the features not +large, and finely cut, with deep set eyes as black as midnight, and, when +they were neither grave nor stern, as soft as a dove's eyes; cheeks and +chin were closely shaven; his hair, a heavy black mass, was pushed back +from a brow already lined with thought or care, and worn somewhat long +behind the ears; there was no hardness in any line of the face, because +there was no hardness in the heart, there was sin and sorrow in the +world, but he believed that God is good. + +The slight figure was not above medium height; he had a stoop in the +shoulders that added to his general appearance of delicacy; he was +scholarly from the crown of his black head to the very tip of his worn, +velvet slipper; his slender hands, with their perfectly kept nails, and +even the stain of ink on the forefinger of his right hand, had an air of +scholarship about them. His black summer suit was a perfect fit, his +boots were shining, the knot of his narrow black neck tie was a little +towards one side, but that was the only evidence that he was careless +about his personal appearance. + +"I want my boys to be neat," he had said once apologetically to Mrs. +Devoe, when requesting her to give away his old school suit preparatory +to buying another. + +All he needed to be perfect was congenial social life, Prudence believed, +but that, alas, seemed never to enter his conception. He knew it never +had since that long ago day when he had congratulated his brother upon +his perfect share of this world's happiness. And, queerly enough, +Prudence stood too greatly in awe of him to suggest that his life was too +one-sided and solitary. + +"Some people wonder if you were ever married," Mrs. Devoe said to him +that afternoon when he went down to his late supper. Mrs. Devoe never +stood in awe of anybody. + +"Yes, I was married twenty years ago--to my work," he replied, gravely; +"there isn't any John Holmes, there is only my work." + +"There is something that is John Holmes to me," said the widow in her +quick voice, "and there's a John Holmes to the boys and girls, and I +guess the Lord thinks something of you beside your 'work,' as you call +it." + +Meditatively he walked along the grassy wayside towards the brown +farmhouse: + +"Perhaps there _is_ a John Holmes that I forget about," he said to +himself. + + + + +X. + +LINNET. + +"Use me to serve and honor thee, +And let the rest be as thou wilt"--_E.L.E._ + + +Marjorie's laugh was refreshing to the schoolmaster after his hard day's +work. She was standing behind her father, leaning over his shoulder, +and looking at them both as they talked; some word had reminded Mr. +Holmes of the subject of his writing that day and he had given them +something of what he had been reading and writing on Egyptian slavery. +Mr. Holmes was always "writing up" something, and one of Mr. West's +usual questions was: "What have you to tell us about now?" + +The subject was intensely interesting to Marjorie, she had but lately +read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and her tears and indignation were ready to +burst forth at any suggestion of injustice or cruelty. But the thing that +she was laughing at was a quotation from one of the older versions of the +Bible, Roger's Version Mr. Holmes told them when he quoted the passage: +"And the Lord was with Joseph and he was a luckie felowe." She lifted her +head from her father's shoulder and ran out into the little front yard to +find her mother and the others that she might tell them about Joseph and +ask Miss Prudence what "Roger's Version" meant. But her mother was busy +in the milkroom and Linnet was coming towards the house walking slowly +with her eyes on the ground. Will Rheid was walking as slowly toward his +home as Linnet was toward hers. + +Miss Prudence made a picture all by herself in her plain black dress, +with no color or ornament save the red rose in her black crape scarf, as +she sat upright in the rush-bottomed, straight-backed chair in the entry +before the wide-open door. Her eyes were towards the two who had parted +so reluctantly on the bridge over the brook. Marjorie danced away to find +her mother, suddenly remembering to ask if she might share the spare +chamber with Miss Prudence, that is--if Linnet did not want to very much. + +Marjorie never wanted to do anything that Linnet wanted to very much. + +Opening the gate Linnet came in slowly, with her eyes still on the +ground, shut the gate, and stood looking off into space; then becoming +aware of the still figure on the piazza hurried toward it. + +Linnet's eyes were stirred with a deeper emotion than had ever moved her +before; Miss Prudence did not remember her own face twenty years ago, but +she remembered her own heart. + +Will Rheid was a good young fellow, honest and true; Miss Prudence +stifled her sigh and said, "Well, dear" as the young girl came and stood +beside her chair. + +"I was wishing--I was saying to Will, just now, that I wished there was a +list of things in the Bible to pray about, and then we might be sure that +we were asking right." + +"And what did he say?" + +"He said he'd ask anyhow, and if it came, it was all right, and if it +didn't, he supposed that was all right, too." + +"That was faith, certainly." + +"Oh, he has faith," returned Linnet, earnestly. "Don't you know--oh, +you don't remember--when the Evangelist--that always reminds me of +Marjorie"--Linnet was a somewhat fragmentary talker like her mother--"but +when Mr. Woodfern was here four of the Rheid boys joined the Church, +all but Hollis, he was in New York, he went about that time. Mr. Woodfern +was so interested in them all; I shall never forget how he used to pray +at family worship: 'Lord, go through that Rheid family.' He prayed it +every day, I really believe. And they all joined the Church at the first +communion time, and every one of them spoke and prayed in the prayer +meetings. They used to speak just as they did about anything, and people +enjoyed it so; it was so genuine and hearty. I remember at a prayer +meeting here that winter Will arose to speak 'I was talking to a man in +town today and he said there was nothing _in_ religion. But, oh, my! I +told him there was nothing _out_ of it.' I told him about that to-night +and he said he hadn't found anything outside of it yet." + +"He's a fine young fellow," said Miss Prudence. "Mr. Holmes says he has +the 'right stuff' in him, and he means a great deal by that." + +A pleasant thought curved Linnet's lips. + +"But, Miss Prudence," sitting down on the step of the piazza, "I do wish +for a list of things. I want to know if I may pray that mother may +never look grave and anxious as she did at the supper table, and father +may not always have a cough in winter time, and Will may never have +another long voyage and frighten us all, and that Marjorie may have a +chance to go to school, too, and--why, _ever_ so many things!" + +A laugh from the disputants in the parlor brought the quick color to Miss +Prudence's cheeks. No mere earthly thing quickened her pulses like John +Holmes' laugh. And I do not think that was a mere earthly thing; there +was so much grace in it. + +"Doesn't St. Paul's 'everything' include your '_ever_ so many things?'" +questioned Miss Prudence, as the laugh died away. + +"I don't know," hesitatingly. "I thought it meant about people becoming +Christians, and faith and patience and such good things." + +"Perhaps your requests are good things, too. But I have thought of +something that will do for a list of things; it is included in this +promise: 'Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye +receive them and ye shall have them.' Desire _when_ ye pray! That's the +point." + +"Does the time when we desire make any difference?" asked Linnet, +interestedly. + +There were some kind of questions that Linnet liked to ask. + +"Does it not make all the difference? Suppose we think of something we +want while we are ease-loving, forgetful of duty, selfish, unforgiving, +neither loving God or our neighbor, when we feel far from him, instead of +near him, can we believe that we shall have such a heart's desire as that +would be? Would your desire be according to his will, his unselfish, +loving, forgiving will?" + +"No, oh, no," said Linnet, earnestly. "But I do think about father and +mother and Marjorie going to school and--when I am praying." + +"Then ask for everything you desire while you are praying; don't be +afraid." + +"_Is_ mother troubled about something?" + +"Not troubled, really; only perplexed a little over something we have +been planning about; and she is very glad, too." + +"I don't like to have her troubled, because her heart hurts her when she +worries. Marjorie don't know that, but she told me. That's one reason--my +strongest reason--for being sorry about going to Boston." + +"But your father is with her and he will watch over her." + +"But she depends on _me_," pleaded Linnet. + +"Marjorie is growing up," said Miss Prudence, hopefully. + +"Marjorie! It doesn't seem to me that she will ever grow up; she is such +a little puss, always absent-minded, with a book in her hand. And she +can't mend or sew or even make cake or clear up a room neatly. We spoil +her, mother and I, as much as she spoils her kitten, Pusheen. Did you +know that _pusheen_ is Irish for puss? Mr. Holmes told us. I do believe +he knows everything." + +"He comes nearer universal knowledge than the rest of us," said Miss +Prudence, smiling at the girl's eagerness. + +"But he's a book himself, a small volume, in fine print, printed in a +language that none of us can read," said Linnet. + +"To most people he is," granted Miss Prudence; "but when he was seven I +was ten, I was a backward child and he used to read to me, so he is not +a dead language to me." + +Linnet pulled at the fringe of her white shawl; Will Rheid had brought +that shawl from Ireland a year ago. + +"Miss Prudence, _do_ we have right desires, desires for things God likes, +while we are praying?" + +"If we feel his presence, if we feel as near to him as Mary sitting at +the feet of Christ, if we thank him for his unbounded goodness, and ask +his forgiveness for our sins with a grateful, purified, and forgiving +heart, how can we desire anything selfish--for our own good only and not +to honor him, anything unholy, anything that it would hurt him to grant; +if our heart is ever one with his heart, our will ever one with his will, +is it not when we are nearest to him, nearest in obeying, or nearest in +praying? Isn't there some new impulse toward the things he loves to give +us every time we go near to him?" + +Linnet assented with a slight movement of her head. She understood many +things that she could not translate into words. + +"Yesterday I saw in the paper the death of an old friend." They had been +silent for several minutes; Miss Prudence spoke in a musing voice. "She +was a friend in the sense that I had tried to befriend her. She was +unfortunate in her home surroundings, she was something of an invalid and +very deaf beside. She had lost money and was partly dependent upon +relatives. A few of us, Mr. Holmes was one of them, paid her board. She +was not what you girls call 'real bright,' but she was bright enough to +have a heartache every day. Reading her name among the deaths made me +glad of a kindness I grudged her once." + +"I don't believe you grudged it," interrupted Marjorie, who had come in +time to lean over the tall back of the chair and rest her hand on Miss +Prudence's shoulder while she listened to what promised to be a "story." + +"I did, notwithstanding. One busy morning I opened one of her long, +complaining, badly-written letters; I could scarcely decipher it; she was +so near-sighted, too, poor child, and would not put on glasses. Her +letters were something of a trial to me. I read, almost to my +consternation, 'I have been praying for a letter from you for three +weeks.' Slipping the unsightly sheet back into the envelope, hastily, +rather too hastily, I'm afraid, I said to myself: 'Well, I don't see how +you will get it.' I was busy every hour in those days, I did not have to +rest as often as I do now, and how could I spare the hour her prayer was +demanding? I could find the time in a week or ten days, but she had +prayed for it yesterday and would expect it to-day, would pray for it +to-day and expect it to-morrow. 'Why could she not pray about it without +telling me?' I argued as I dipped my pen in the ink, not to write to her +but to answer a letter that must be answered that morning. I argued about +it to myself as I turned from one thing to another, working in nervous +haste; for I did more in those days than God required me to do, I served +myself instead of serving him. I was about to take up a book to look over +a poem that I was to read at our literary circle when words from +somewhere arrested me: 'Do you like to have the answer to a prayer of +yours put off and off in this way?' and I answered aloud, 'No, I +_don't_.' 'Then answer this as you like to have God answer you.' And I +sighed, you will hardly believe it, but I _did_ sigh. The enticing poem +went down and two sheets of paper came up and I wrote the letter for +which the poor thing a hundred miles away had been praying three weeks. I +tried to make it cordial, spirited and sympathetic, for that was the kind +she was praying for. And it went to the mail four hours after I had +received her letter." + +"I'm so glad," said sympathetic Linnet. "How glad she must have been!" + +"Not as glad as I was when I saw her death in the paper yesterday." + +"You do write to so many people," said Marjorie. + +"I counted my list yesterday as I wrote on it the fifty-third name." + +"Oh, dear," exclaimed Linnet, who "hated" to write letters. "What do you +do it for?" + +"Perhaps because they need letters, perhaps because I need to write them. +My friends have a way of sending me the names of any friendless child, or +girl, or woman, who would be cheered by a letter, and I haven't the heart +to refuse, especially as some of them pray for letters and give thanks +for them. Instead of giving my time to 'society' I give it to letter +writing. And the letters I have in return! Nothing in story books equals +the pathos and romance of some of them." + +"I like that kind of good works," said Marjorie, "because I'm too bashful +to talk to people and I can _write_ anything." + +How little the child knew that some day she would write anything and +everything because she was "too bashful to talk." How little any of us +know what we are being made ready to do. And how we would stop to moan +and weep in very self-pity if we did know, and thus hinder the work of +preparation from going on. + +Linnet played with the fringe of her shawl and looked as if something +hard to speak were hovering over her lips. + +"Did mother tell you about Will?" she asked, abruptly, interrupting one +of Miss Prudence's stories to Marjorie of which she had not heeded one +word. + +"About Will!" repeated Marjorie. "What has happened to him?" + +Linnet looked up with arch, demure eyes. "He told mother and me while we +were getting supper; he likes to come out in the kitchen. The first mate +died and he was made first mate on the trip home, and the captain wrote a +letter to his father about him, and his father is as proud as he can be +and says he'll give him the command of the bark that is being built in +Portland, and he mustn't go away again until that is done. Captain Rheid +is the largest owner, he and African John, so they have the right to +appoint the master. Will thinks it grand to be captain at twenty-four." + +"But doesn't Harold feel badly not to have a ship, too?" asked Marjorie, +who was always thinking of the one left out. + +"But he's younger and his chance will come next. He doesn't feel sure +enough of himself either. Will has studied navigation more than he has. +Will went to school to an old sea-captain to study it, but Harold didn't, +he said it would get knocked into him, somehow. He's mate on a ship he +likes and has higher wages than Will will get, at first, but Will likes +the honor. It's so wonderful for his father to trust him that he can +scarcely believe it; he says his father must think he is some one else's +son. But that letter from the old shipmaster that Captain Rheid used to +know has been the means of it." + +"Is the bark named yet?" asked Marjorie. "Captain Rheid told father he +was going to let Mrs. Rheid name it." + +"Yes," said Linnet, dropping her eyes to hide the smile in them, "she is +named LINNET." + +"Oh, how nice! How splendid," exclaimed Marjorie, "Won't it look grand in +the _Argus_--'Bark LINNET, William Rheid, Master, ten days from +Portland'?" + +"Ten days to where?" laughed Linnet. + +"Oh, to anywhere. Siberia or the West Indies. I _wish_ he'd ask us to go +aboard, Linnet. _Don't_ you think he might?" + +"We might go and see her launched! Perhaps we all have an invitation; +suppose you run and ask mother," replied Linnet, with the demure smile +about her lips. + +Marjorie flew away, Linnet arose slowly, gathering her shawl about her, +and passed through the entry up to her own chamber. + +Miss Prudence did not mean to sigh, she did not mean to be so ungrateful, +there was work enough in her life, why should she long for a holiday +time? Girls must all have their story and the story must run on into +womanhood as hers had, there was no end till it was all lived through. + +"When thou passest _through_ the waters I will be with thee." + +Miss Prudence dropped her head in her hands; she was going through yet. + +Will Rheid was a manly young fellow, just six feet one, with a fine, +frank face, a big, explosive voice, and a half-bashful, half-bold manner +that savored of land and sea. He was as fresh and frolicsome as a sea +breeze itself, as shrewd as his father, and as simple as Linnet. + +But--Miss Prudence came back from her dreaming over the past,--would +Linnet go home with her and go to school? Perhaps John Holmes would take +Marjorie under his special tutelage for awhile, until she might come to +her, and--how queer it was for her to be planning about other people's +homes--why might he not take up his abode with the Wests, pay good board, +and not that meagre two dollars a week, take Linnet's seat at the table, +become a pleasant companion for Mr. West through the winter, and, above +all, fit Marjorie for college? And did not he need the social life? He +was left too much to his own devices at old Mrs. Devoe's. Marjorie, her +father with his ready talk, her mother, with a face that held remembrance +of all the happy events of her life, would certainly be a pleasant +exchange for Mrs. Devoe, and Dolly, her aged cat. She would go home to +her own snuggery, with Linnet to share it, with a relieved mind if John +Holmes might be taken into a family. And it was Linnet, after all, who +was to make the changes and she had only been thinking of Marjorie. + +When Linnet came to her to kiss her good night, Miss Prudence looked down +into her smiling eyes and quoted: + +"'Keep happy, sweetheart, and grow wise.'" + +The low murmur of voices reached Miss Prudence in her chamber long after +midnight, she smiled as she thought of Giant Despair and his wife +Diffidence. And then she prayed for the wanderer over the seas, that he +might go to his Father, as the prodigal did, and that, if it were not +wrong or selfish to wish it, she might hear from him once more before she +died. + +And then the voices were quiet and the whole house was still. + + + + +XI. + +GRANDMOTHER. + +"Even trouble may be made a little sweet"--_Mrs. Platt._ + + +"Here she is, grandmarm!" called out the Captain. "Run right in, Midget." + +His wife was _marm_ and his mother _grandmarm_. + +Marjorie ran in at the kitchen door and greeted the two occupants of the +roomy kitchen. Captain Rheid had planned his house and was determined +he said that the "women folks" should have room enough to move around in +and be comfortable; he believed in having the "galley" as good a place to +live in as the "cabin." + +It was a handsome kitchen, with several windows, a fine stove, a +well-arranged sink, a large cupboard, a long white pine table, three +broad shelves displaying rows of shining tinware, a high mantel with +three brass candlesticks at one end, and a small stone jar of fall +flowers at the other, the yellow floor of narrow boards was glowing with +its Saturday afternoon mopping, and the general air of freshness and +cleanliness was as refreshing as the breath of the sea, or the odor of +the fields. + +Marm and grandmarm liked it better. + +"Deary me!" ejaculated grandma, "it's an age since you were here." + +"A whole week," declared Marjorie, standing on tiptoe to hang up her sack +and hat on a hook near the shelves. + +"Nobody much comes in and it seems longer," complained the old lady. + +"I think she's very good to come once a week," said Hollis' sad-faced +mother. + +"Oh, I like to come," said Marjorie, pushing one of the wooden-bottomed +chairs to grandmother's side. + +"It seems to me, things have happened to your house all of a sudden," +said Mrs. Rheid, as she gave a final rub to the pump handle and hung up +one of the tin washbasins over the sink. + +"So it seems to us," replied Marjorie; "mother and I hardly feel at +home yet. It seems so queer at the table with Linnet gone and two +strangers--well, Mr. Holmes isn't a stranger, but he's a stranger at +breakfast time." + +"Don't you know how it all came about?" inquired grandmother, who +"admired" to get down to the roots of things. + +"No, I guess--I think," she hastily corrected, "that nobody does. We all +did it together. Linnet wanted to go with Miss Prudence and we all +wanted her to go; Mr. Holmes wanted to come and we all wanted him to +come; and then Mr. Holmes knew about Morris Kemlo, and father wanted a +boy to do the chores for winter and Morris wanted to come, because he's +been in a drug store and wasn't real strong, and his mother thought farm +work and sea air together would be good for him." + +"And you don't go to school?" said Mrs. Rheid, bringing her work, +several yards of crash to cut up into kitchen towels and to hem. Her +chair was also a hard kitchen chair; Hollis' mother had never "humored" +herself, she often said, there was not a rocking chair in her house until +all her boys were big boys; she had thumped them all to sleep in a +straight-backed, high, wooden chair. But with this her thumping had +ceased; she was known to be as lax in her government as the father was +strict in his. + +She was a little woman, with large, soft black eyes, with a dumb look of +endurance about the lips and a drawl in her subdued voice. She had not +made herself, her loving, rough boys, and her stern, faultfinding +husband, had moulded not only her features, but her character. She was +afraid of God because she was afraid of her husband, but she loved God +because she knew he must love her, else her boys would not love her. + +"Is Linnet homesick?" she questioned as her sharp shears cut through the +crash. + +"Yes, but not very much. She likes new places. She likes the school, and +the girls, so far, and she likes Miss Prudence's piano. Hollis has been +to see her, and Helen Rheid has called to see her, and invited her and +Miss Prudence to come to tea some time. Miss Prudence wrote me about +Helen, and she's _lovely_, Mrs. Rheid." + +"So Hollis said. Have you brought her picture back?" + +"Yes'm." + +Marjorie slowly drew a large envelope from her pocket, and taking the +imperial from it gazed at it long. There was a strange fascination to her +in the round face, with its dark eyes and mass of dark hair piled high on +the head. It was a vignette and the head seemed to be rising from folds +of black lace, the only ornament was a tiny gold chain on which was +placed a small gold cross. + +To Marjorie this picture was the embodiment of every good and beautiful +thing. It was somebody that she might be like when she had read all the +master's books, and learned all pretty, gentle ways. She never saw Helen +Rheid, notwithstanding Helen Rheid's life was one of the moulds in which +some of her influences were formed. Helen Rheid was as much to her as +Mrs. Browning was to Miss Prudence. After another long look she slipped +the picture back into the envelope and laid it on the table behind her. + +"You are going with Miss Prudence when Linnet is through, I suppose?" +asked Mrs. Rheid. + +"So mother says. It seems a long time to wait, but I am studying at home. +Mother cannot spare me to go to school, now, and Mr. Holmes says he would +rather hear me recite than not. So I am learning to sew and do housework +as well." + +"You need that as much as schooling," returned Mrs. Rheid, decidedly. "I +wish one of my boys could have gone to college, there's money enough to +spare, but their father said he had got his learning knocking around the +world and they could get theirs the same way." + +"Hollis studies--he's studying French now." + +"Did you bring a letter from him?" inquired his mother, eagerly. + +"Yes," said Marjorie, disappointedly, "but I wanted to keep it until the +last thing. I wanted you to have the best last." + +"If I ever do get the best it will be last!" said the subdued, sad voice. + +"Then you shall have this first," returned the bright, childish voice. + +But her watchful eyes had detected a stitch dropped in grandmother's work +and that must be attended to first. The old lady gave up her work +willingly and laid her head back to rest while Marjorie knit once around. +And then the short letter was twice read aloud and every sentence +discussed. + +"If I ever wrote to him I suppose he'd write to me oftener," said his +mother, "but I can't get my hands into shape for fine sewing or for +writing. I'd rather do a week's washing than write a letter." + +Marjorie laughed and said she could write letters all day. + +"I think Miss Prudence is very kind to you girls," said Mrs. Rheid. "Is +she a relation?" + +"Not a _real_ one," admitted Marjorie, reluctantly. + +"There must be some reason for her taking to you and for your mother +letting you go. Your mother has the real New England grit and she's proud +enough. Depend upon it, there's a reason." + +"Miss Prudence likes us, that's the reason, and we like her." + +"But that doesn't repay _money_." + +"She thinks it does. And so do we." + +"How much board does the master pay?" inquired grandmother. + +"I don't know; I didn't ask. He has brought all his books and the spare +chamber is full. He let me help him pile them up. But he says I must not +read one without asking him." + +"I don't see what you want to read them for," said the old lady sharply. +"Can't your mother find enough for you to do. In my day--" + +"But your day was a long time ago," interrupted her daughter-in-law. + +"Yes, yes, most a hundred, and girls want everything they can get now. +Perhaps the master hears your lessons to pay his board." + +"Perhaps," assented Marjorie. + +"They say bees pay their board and work for you beside," said Mrs. Rheid. +"I guess he's like a bee. I expect the Widow Devoe can't help wishing he +had stayed to her house." + +"He proposed to come himself," said Marjorie, with a proud flash of her +eyes, "and he proposed to teach me himself." + +"Oh, yes, to be sure, but she and the cat will miss him all the same." + +"It's all sudden." + +"[missing text] happen sudden, nowadays. I keep my eyes shut and things +keep whirling around." + +Grandmother was seated in an armchair with her feet resting on a +home-made foot stool, clad in a dark calico, with a little piece of gray +shawl pinned closely around her neck, every lock of hair was concealed +beneath a black, borderless silk cap, with narrow black silk strings tied +under her trembling chin, her lips were sunken and seamed, her eyelids +partly dropped over her sightless eyes, her withered, bony fingers were +laboriously pushing the needles in and out through a soft gray wool sock, +every few moments Marjorie took the work from her to pick up a dropped +stitch or two and to knit once around. The old eyes never once suspected +that the work grew faster than her own fingers moved. Once she remarked +plaintively: "Seems to me it takes you a long time to pick up one +stitch." + +"There were three this time," returned Marjorie, seriously. + +"What does the master learn you about?" asked Mrs. Rheid. + +"Oh, the school studies! And I read the dictionary by myself." + +"I thought you had some new words." + +"I want some good words," said Marjorie. + +"Now don't you go and get talking like a book," said grandmother, +sharply, "if you do you can't come and talk to me." + +"But you can talk to me," returned Marjorie, smiling, "and that is what I +want. Hollis wrote me that I mustn't say 'guess' and I do forget so +often." + +"Hollis is getting ideas," said Hollis' mother; "well, let him, I want +him to learn all he can." + +Marjorie was wondering where her own letter to Hollis would come in; +she had stowed away in the storehouse of her memory messages enough +from mother and grandmother to fill one sheet, both given with many +explanations, and before she went home Captain Rheid would come in +and add his word to Hollis. And if she should write two sheets this +time would her mother think it foolish? It was one of Mrs. West's +old-fashioned ways to ask Marjorie to let her read every letter that +she wrote. + +With her reserve Marjorie could open her heart more fully to Miss +Prudence than she could to one nearer her; it was easier to tell Miss +Prudence that she loved her than to tell her mother that she loved her, +and there were some things that she could say to Mr. Holmes that she +could not say to her father. It may be a strange kind of reserve, but it +is like many of us. Therefore, under this surveillance, Marjorie's +letters were not what her heart prompted them to be. + +If, in her own young days, her mother had ever felt thus she had +forgotten it. + +But for this Marjorie's letters would have been one unalloyed pleasure. +One day it occurred to her to send her letter to the mail before her +mother was aware that she had written, but she instantly checked the +suggestion as high treason. + +Josie Grey declared that Marjorie was "simple" about some things. A taint +of deceit would have caused her as deep remorse as her heart was capable +of suffering. + +"Grandma, please tell me something that happened when you were little," +coaxed Marjorie, as she placed the knitting back in the old fingers. +How pink and plump the young fingers looked as they touched the old +hands. + +"You haven't told me about the new boy yet," said the old lady. "How old +is he? Where did he come from? and what does he look like?" + +"_We_ want another boy," said Mrs. Rheid, "but boys don't like to stay +here. Father says I spoil them." + +"Our 'boy,'--Morris Kemlo,--don't you think it's a pretty name? It's real +funny, but he and I are twins, we were born on the same day, we were +both fourteen this summer. He is taller than I am, of course, with light +hair, blue eyes, and a perfect gentleman, mother says. He is behind in +his studies, but Mr. Holmes says he'll soon catch up, especially if he +studies with me evenings. We are to have an Academy at our house. His +mother is poor, and has other children, his father lost money in a bank, +years ago, and died afterward. It was real dreadful about it--he sold his +farm and deposited all his money in this bank, he thought it was so sure! +And he was going into business with the money, very soon. But it was lost +and he died just after Morris was born. That is, it was before Morris was +born that he lost the money, but Morris talks about it as if he knew all +about it. Mr. Holmes and Miss Prudence know his mother, and Miss Prudence +knew father wanted a boy this winter. He is crazy to go to sea, and says +he wants to go in the _Linnet_. And that's all I know about him, +grandma." + +"Is he a _good_ boy?" asked Mrs. Rheid. + +"Oh, yes," said Marjorie, "he brings his Bible downstairs and reads every +night. I like everything but doing his mending, and mother says I must +learn to do that. Now, grandma, please go on." + +"Well, Marjorie, now I've heard all the news, and Hollis' letter, if +you'll stay with grandmarm I'll run over and see Cynthy! I want to see if +her pickles are as green as mine, and I don't like to leave grandmarm +alone. You must be sure to stay to supper." + +"Thank you; I like to stay with grandma." + +"But I want hasty pudding to-night, and you won't be home in time to make +it, Hepsie," pleaded the old lady in a tone of real distress. + +"Oh, yes, I will, Marjorie will have the kettle boiling and she'll stir +it while I get supper." + +Mrs. Rheid stooped to pick up the threads that had fallen on her clean +floor, rolled up her work, took her gingham sun-bonnet from its hook, and +stepped out into the sunshine almost as lightly as Marjorie would have +done. + +"Cynthy" was African John's wife, a woman of deep Christian experience, +and Mrs. Rheid's burdened heart was longing to pour itself out to her. + +Household matters, the present and future of their children, the news of +the homes around them, and Christian experience, were the sole topics +that these simply country women touched upon. + +"Well, deary, what shall I tell you about? I must keep on knitting, for +Hollis must have these stockings at Christmas, so he can tell folks in +New York that his old grandmarm most a hundred knit them for him all +herself. Nobody helped her, she did it all herself. She did it with her +own old fingers and her own blind eyes. I'll drop too many stitches while +I talk, so I'll let you hold it for me. It seems as if it never will get +done," she sighed, dropping it from her fingers. + +"Oh, yes," said Marjorie, cheerily, "it's like your life, you know; that +has been long, but it's 'most done.'" + +"Yes, I'm most through," sighed the old lady with a long, resigned +breath, "and there's nobody to pick up the stitches I've dropped all +along." + +"Won't God?" suggested Marjorie, timidly. + +"I don't know, I don't know about things. I've never been good enough to +join the Church. I've been afraid." + +"Do you have to be _good_ enough?" asked the little church member in +affright. "I thought God was so good he let us join the Church just as he +lets us go into Heaven--and he makes us good and we try all we can, too." + +"That's an easy way to do, to let him make you good. But when the +minister talks to me I tell him I'm afraid." + +"I wouldn't be afraid," said Marjorie; "because you want to do as Christ +commands, don't you? And he says we must remember him by taking the +bread and wine for his sake, to remember that he died for us, don't you +know?" + +"I never did it, not once, and I'm most a hundred!" + +"Aren't you sorry, don't you want to?" pleaded Marjorie, laying her warm +fingers on the hard old hand. + +"I'm afraid," whispered the trembling voice. "I never was good enough." + +"Oh, dear," sighed Marjorie, her eyes brimming over, "I don't know how to +tell you about it. But won't you listen to the minister, he talks so +plainly, and he'll tell you not to be afraid." + +"They don't go to communion, my son nor his wife; they don't ask me to." + +"But they want you to; I know they want you to--before you die," +persuaded Marjorie. "You are so old now." + +"Yes, I'm old. And you shall read to me out of the Testament before you +go. Hepsie reads to me, but she gets to crying before she's half through; +she can't find 'peace,' she says." + +"I wish she could," said Marjorie, almost despairingly. + +"Now I'll tell you a story," began the old voice in a livelier tone. "I +have to talk about more than fifty years ago--I forget about other +things, but I remember when I was young. I'm glad things happened then, +for I can remember them." + +"Didn't things happen afterward?" asked Marjorie, laughing. + +"Not that I remember." + +This afternoon was a pleasant change to Marjorie from housework and +study, and she remembered more than once that she was doing something to +help pay Hollis for the Holland plate. + +"Where shall I begin?" began the dreamy, cracked voice, "as far back as I +can remember?" + +"As far back as you can," said Marjorie, eagerly. "I like old stories +best." + +"Maybe I'll get things mixed up with my mother and grandmother and not +know which is me." + +"Rip Van Winkle thought his son was himself," laughed Marjorie, "but you +will think you are your grandmother." + +"I think over the old times so, sitting here in the dark. Hepsie is no +hand to talk much, and Dennis, he's out most of the time, but bedtime +comes soon and I can go to sleep. I like to have Dennis come in, he never +snaps up his old mother as he does Hepsie and other folks. I don't like +to be in the dark and have it so still, a dog yapping is better than no +noise, at all. I say, 'Now I lay me' ever so many times a day to keep me +company." + +"You ought to live at our house, we have noisy times; mother and I sing, +and father is always humming about his work. Mr. Holmes is quiet, but +Morris is so happy he sings and shouts all day." + +"It used to be noisy enough once, too noisy, when the boys were all +making a racket together, and Will made noise enough this time he was +home. He used to read to me and sing songs. I don't wonder Hepsie is +still and mournful, like. It's a changed home to her with the boys away. +My father's house had noise enough in it; he had six wives." + +"Not all at once," cried Marjorie alarmed, confounding a hundred years +ago with the partriarchal age. + +But the old story-teller never heeded interruptions. + +"And my marm was the last wife but one. My father was a hundred years and +one day when he died. I've outlived all the children, I guess, for I +never hear from none of them--I most forget who's dead. Some of them was +married before I was born. I was the youngest, and I never remember my +own mother, but I had a good mother, all the same." + +"You had four step-mothers before you were born," said Marjorie +seriously, "and one own mother and then another step-mother. Girls don't +have so many step-mothers nowadays." + +"And our house was one story--a long house, with the eaves most touching +the ground and big chimneys at both ends. It was full of folks." + +"I should _think_ so," interposed Marjorie. + +"And Sunday nights we used to sing 'God of my childhood and my youth.' +Can you sing that? I wish you'd sing it to me. I forget what comes next." + +"I never heard of it before; I wish you _could_ remember it all, it's so +pretty." + +"Amzi used to sit next to me and sing--he was my twin brother--as loud +and clear as a bell. And when he died they put this on his tombstone: + +"'Come see ye place where I do lie +As you are now so once was I: +As I be now so you will be, +Prepare for death and follow me.'" + +"Oh," shivered Marjorie, "I don't like it. I like a Bible verse better." + +"Isn't that in the Bible?" she asked, angrily. + +"I don't believe it is." + +"'Prepare to meet thy God' is." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "that was the text last Sunday." + +"And on father's tombstone mother put this verse: + +'O, my dear wife, do think of me + Although we've from each other parted, + O, do prepare to follow me + Where we shall love forever.' + +"I wish I could remember some more." + +"I wish you could," said Marjorie. "Didn't you have all the things we +have? You didn't have sewing machines." + +"Sewing machines!" returned the old lady, indignantly, "we had our +fingers and pins and needles. But sometimes we couldn't have pins +and had to pin things together with thorns. How would you like that?" + +"I'd rather be born now," said Marjorie. "I wouldn't want to have so many +step-mothers as you had, and I'd rather be named Marjorie than +_Experience_." + +"Experience is a good name, and I'd have earned it by this time if my +mother hadn't given it to me," and the sunken lips puckered themselves +into a smile. "I could tell you some _dreadful_ things, too, but Hepsie +won't like it if I do. I'll tell you one, though. I don't like to think +about the dreadful things myself. I used to tell them to my boys and +they'd coax me to tell them again, about being murdered and such things. +A girl I knew found out after she was married that her husband had killed +a peddler, to steal his money to marry her with, and people found it out +and he was hanged and she was left a widow!" + +"Oh, dear, _dear_," exclaimed Marjorie, "have dreadful things been always +happening? Did she die with a broken heart?" + +"No, indeed, she was married afterward and had a good husband. She got +through, as people do usually, and then something good happened." + +"I'll remember that," said Marjorie, her hazel eyes full of light; "but +it was dreadful." + +"And there were robbers in those days." + +"Were there giants, too?" + +"I never saw a giant, but I saw robbers once. The women folks were alone, +not even a boy with us, and six robbers came for something to eat and +they ransacked the house from garret to cellar; they didn't hurt us at +all, but we _were_ scared, no mistake. And after they were gone we found +out that the baby was gone, Susannah's little black baby, it had died the +day before and mother laid it on a table in the parlor and covered it +with a sheet and they had caught it up and ran away with it." + +"Oh, _dear_," ejaculated Marjorie. + +"Father got men out and they hunted, but they never found the robbers or +the baby. If Susannah didn't cry nobody ever did! She had six other +children but this baby was so cunning! We used to feed it and play with +it and had cried our eyes sore the day it died. But we never found it." + +"It wasn't so bad as if it had been alive," comforted Marjorie, "they +couldn't hurt it. And it was in Heaven before they ran away with the +body. But I don't wonder the poor mother was half frantic." + +"Poor Susannah, she used to talk about it as long as she lived." + +"Was she a slave?" + +"Of course, but we were good to her and took care of her till she died. +My father gave her to me when I was married. That was years and years and +_years_ before we came to this state. I was fifteen when I was married--" + +"_Fifteen_," Marjorie almost shouted. That was queerer than having so +many step-mothers. + +"And my husband had four children, and Lucilla was just my age, the +oldest, she was in my class at school. But we got on together and kept +house together till she married and went away. Yes, I've had things +happen to me. People called it our golden wedding when we'd been married +fifty years, and then he died, the next year, and I've lived with my +children since. I've had my ups and downs as you'll have if you live to +be most a hundred." + +"You've had some _ups_ as well as downs," said Marjorie. + +"Yes, I've had some good times, but not many, not many." + +Marjorie answered indignantly: "I think you have good times now, you have +a good home and everybody is kind to you." + +"Yes, but I can't see and Hepsie don't talk much." + +"This afternoon as I was coming along I saw an old hunch-backed woman +raking sticks together to make a bonfire in a field, don't you think she +had a hard time?" + +"Perhaps she liked to; I don't believe anybody made her, and she could +_see_ the bonfire." + +Marjorie's eyes were pitiful; it must be hard to be blind. + +"Shall I read to you now?" she asked hurriedly. + +"How is the fire? Isn't it most time to put the kettle on? I shan't sleep +a wink if I don't have hasty pudding to-night and I don't like it _raw_, +either." + +"It shan't be raw," laughed Marjorie, springing up. "I'll see to the fire +and fill the kettle and then I'll read to you." + +The old lady fumbled at her work till Marjorie came back to her with the +family Bible in her hands. + +She laid the Bible on the table and moved her chair to the table. + +"Where shall I read?" + +"About Jacob and all his children and all his troubles, I never get tired +of that. He said few and evil had been his days and he was more than most +a hundred." + +"Well," said Marjorie, lingering over the word and slowly turning back to +Genesis. She had opened to John, she wanted to read to the grumbling old +heart that was "afraid" some of the comforting words of Jesus: "Let not +your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." + +"Begin about Jacob and read right on." + +With a voice that could not entirely conceal her disappointment, she +"began about Jacob and read right on" until Mrs. Rheid's light step +touched the plank at the kitchen door. There was a quiet joyfulness in +her face, but she did not say one word; she bent over to kiss Marjorie as +she passed her, hung up her gingham sun-bonnet, and as the tea kettle was +singing, poured the boiling water into an iron pot, scattered a handful +of salt in it and went to the cupboard for the Indian meal. + +"I'll stir," said Marjorie, looking around at the old lady and +discovering her head dropped towards one side and the knitting aslant in +her fingers. + +"The pudding stick is on the shelf next to the tin porringer," explained +Mrs. Rheid. + +Marjorie moved to the stove and stood a moment holding the wooden pudding +stick in her hand. + +"You may tell Hollis," said Hollis' mother, slowly dropping the meal into +the boiling water, "that I have found peace, at last." + +Majorie's eyes gave a quick leap. + +"Peace in _believing_--there is no peace anywhere else," she added. + + + + +XII. + +A BUDGET OF LETTERS. + +"The flowers have with the swallows fled, + And silent is the cricket; +The red leaf rustles overhead, + The brown leaves fill the thicket + +"With frost and storm comes slowly on + The year's long wintry night time."--_J. T. Trowbridge_ + + +"_New York, Nov_. 21, 18--. + +"MY DARLING MARJORIE: + +"You know I hate to write letters, and I do not believe I should have +begun this this evening if Miss Prudence had not made me. She looks at +me with her eyes and then I am _made_. I am to be two weeks writing this, +so it is a journal. To think I have been at school two years and am +beginning a third year. And to think I am really nineteen years old. And +you are sixteen, aren't you? Almost as old as I was when I first came. +But your turn is coming, poor dear! Miss Prudence says I may go home and +be married next summer, if I can't find anything better to do, and Will +says I can't. And I shouldn't wonder if we go to Europe on our wedding +tour. That sounds grand, doesn't it? But it only means that Captain +Will Rheid will take his wife with him if the owners' do not object too +strongly, and if they do, the captain says he will let the _Linnet_ find +another master; but I don't believe he will, or that anybody will object. +That little cabin is just large enough for two of us to turn around in, +or we would take you. Just wait till Will has command of a big East +Indiaman and you shall go all around the world with us. We are in our +snuggery this evening, as usual. I think you must know it as well as I do +by this time. The lovely white bed in the alcove, the three windows with +lace curtains dropping to the floor, the grate with its soft, bright +fire, the round table under the chandelier, with Miss Prudence writing +letters and I always writing, studying, or mending. Sometimes we do not +speak for an hour. Now my study hours are over and I've eaten three +Graham wafers to sustain my sinking spirits while I try to fill this +sheet. Somehow I can think of enough to say--how I would talk to you if +you were in that little rocker over in the corner. But I think you would +move it nearer, and you would want to do some of the talking yourself. I +haven't distinguished myself in anything, I have not taken one prize, my +composition has never once been marked T. B. R, _to be read_; to be read +aloud, that is; and I have never done anything but to try to be perfect +in every recitation and to be ladylike in deportment. I am always asked +to sing, but any bird can sing. I was discouraged last night and had a +crying time down here on the rug before the grate. Miss Prudence had gone +to hear Wendell Phillips, with one of the boarders, so I had a good long +time to cry my cry out all by myself. But it was not all out when she +came, I was still floating around in my own briny drops, so, of course, +she would know the cause of the small rain storm I was drenched in, and I +had to stammer out that--I--hadn't--improved--my time and--I knew she was +ashamed of me--and sorry she--had tried to--make anything out of me. And +then she laughed. You never heard her laugh like that--nor any one else. +I began to laugh as hard as I had been crying. And, after that, we talked +till midnight. She said lovely things. I wish I knew how to write them, +but if you want to hear them just have a crying time and she will say +them all to you. Only you can never get discouraged. She began by asking +somewhat severely: 'Whose life do you want to live?' And I was frightened +and said, 'My own, of course,' that I wouldn't be anybody else for +anything, not even Helen Rheid, or you. And she said that my training had +been the best thing for my own life, that I had fulfilled all her +expectations (not gone beyond them), and she knew just what I could do +and could not do when she brought me here. She had educated me to be a +good wife to Will, and an influence for good in my little sphere in my +down-east home; she knew I would not be anything wonderful, but she had +tried to help me make the most of myself and she was satisfied that I had +done it. I had education enough to know that I am an ignorant thing (she +didn't say _thing_, however), and I had common sense and a loving heart. +I was not to go out into the world as a bread-winner or 'on a mission,' +but I was to stay home and make a home for a good man, and to make it +such a sweet, lovely home that it was to be like a little heaven. (And +then I had to put my head down and cry again.) So it ended, and I felt +better and got up early to write it all to Will.--There's a knock at the +door and a message for Miss Prudence. + +"Later. The message was that Helen Rheid is very sick and wants her to +come to sit up with her to-night. Hollis brought the word but would not +come upstairs. And now I must read my chapter in the Bible and prepare to +retire. Poor Helen! She was here last week one evening with Hollis, +as beautiful as a picture and so full of life. She was full of plans. She +and Miss Prudence are always doing something together. + +"23d. Miss Prudence has not come home yet and I'm as lonesome as can be. +Coming home from school to-day I stopped to inquire about Helen and saw +nobody but the servant who opened the door; there were three doctors +upstairs then, she said, so I came away without hearing any more; that +tells the whole story. I wish Hollis would come and tell me. I've learned +my lessons and read my chapters in history and biography, and now I am +tired and stupid and want to see you all. I do not like it here, in this +stiff house, without Miss Prudence. Most of the boarders are gentlemen or +young married ladies full of talk among themselves. Miss Prudence says +she is going back to her Maple Street home when she takes you, and you +and she and her old Deborah are to live alone together. She is tired of +boarding and so I am, heartily tired. I am tired of school, to-night, and +everything. Your letter did not come to-day, and Will's was a short, +hurried one, and I'm homesick and good-for-nothing. + +"27th. I've been studying hard to keep up in geometry and astronomy and +have not felt a bit like writing. Will has sailed for Liverpool and I +shall not see him till next spring or later, for he may cross the +Mediterranean, and then back to England, and nobody knows where else, +before he comes home. It all depends upon "freights." As if freight were +everything. Hollis called an hour ago and stayed awhile. Helen is no +better. She scarcely speaks, but lies patient and still. He looked in at +her this morning, but she did not lift her eyes. Oh, she is so young to +die! And she has so much to _do_. She has not even begun to do yet. She +has so much of herself to do with, she is not an ignoramus like me. Her +life has been one strong, pure influence Hollis said to-night. He is sure +she will get well. He says her father and mother pray for her night and +day. And his Aunt Helen said such a beautiful thing yesterday. She was +talking to Hollis, for she knows he loves her so much. She said +something like this: (the tears were in his eyes when he told me) 'I was +thinking last night, as I stood looking at her, about that blood on the +lintel--the blood of the lamb that was to keep the first-born safe among +the children of Israel. She is our first-born and the blood of Jesus +Christ is in all our thoughts while we plead for her life--for his +sake--for the sake of his blood.' Hollis broke down and had to go away +without another word. Her life has done him good. I wish she could talk +to him before she goes away, because he is not a Christian. But he is so +good and thoughtful that he will _think_ now more than he ever did +before. Miss Prudence stays all the time. Helen notices when she is not +there and Mrs. Rheid says she can rest while Miss Prudence is in the +room. + +"I am such a poor stick myself, and Helen could do so much in the world; +and here I am, as strong and well as can be, and she is almost dying. But +I do not want to take her place. I have so much to live for--so many, I +ought to say. I thought of writing a long journal letter, but I have not +the heart to think of anything but Helen. + +"Hollis is to start next week on his first trip as a 'commercial +traveller,' and he is in agony at the thought of going and not knowing +whether Helen will live or die. I'll finish this in the morning, because +I know you are anxious to hear from us. + +"In the morning. I am all ready for school, with everything on but my +gloves. I don't half know my geometry and I shall have to copy my +composition in school. It is as stupid as it can be; it is about the +reign of Queen Anne. There isn't any heart in it, because all I care +about is the present--and the future. I'll send it to you as soon as it +is returned corrected. You will laugh at the mistakes and think, if you +are too modest to say so, that you can do better. I pity you if you +can't. I shall stop on the way to inquire about Helen, and I am afraid +to, too. + +"School, Noon Recess. I met Hollis on the walk as I stood in front of +Helen's--there was no need to ask. Black and white ribbon was streaming +from the bell handle. I have permission to go home. I have cried all the +morning. I hope I shall find Miss Prudence there. She must be so tired +and worn out. Hollis looked like a ghost and his voice shook so he could +scarcely speak. + +"With ever so much love to all, + +"YOUR SISTER LINNET. + +"P. S. Hollis said he would not write this week and wants you to tell his +mother all about it." + + * * * * * + +The next letter is dated in the early part of the following month. + +"_In my Den, Dec_. 10, 18--, + +"MY FRIEND PRUDENCE: + +"My heart was with you, as you well know, all those days and nights in +that sick chamber that proved to be the entrance to Heaven. She smiled +and spoke, lay quiet for awhile with her eyes closed, and awoke in the +presence of the Lord. May you and I depart as easily, as fearlessly. I +cannot grieve as you do; how much she is saved! To-night I have been +thinking over your life, and a woman's lot seems hard. To love so much, +to suffer so much. You see I am desponding; I am often desponding. You +must write to me and cheer me up. I am disappointed in myself. Oh how +different this monotonous life from the life I planned! I dig and +delve and my joy comes in my work. If it did not, where would it come in, +pray? I am a joyless fellow at best. There! I will not write another +word until I can give you a word of cheer. Why don't you toss me +overboard? Your life is full of cheer and hard work; but I cannot be like +you. Marjorie and Morris were busy at the dining-room table when I left +them, with their heads together over my old Euclid. We are giving them a +lift up into the sunshine and that is something. What do you want to send +Marjorie to school for? What can school do for her when I give her up to +you? Give yourself to her and keep her out of school. The child is not +always happy. Last communion Sunday she sat next to me; she was crying +softly all the time. You could have said something, but, manlike, I held +my peace. I wonder whether I don't know what to say, or don't know how to +say it. I seem to know what to say to you, but, truly Prudence, I don't +know how to say it. I have been wanting to tell you something, fourteen, +yes, fourteen years, and have not dared and do not dare to night. +Sometimes I am sure I have a right, a precious right, a sacred right, and +then something bids me forbear, and I forbear. I am forbearing now as I +sit up here in my chamber alone, crowded in among my books and the wind +is wild upon the water. I am gloomy to-night and discouraged. My book, +the book I have lost myself in so long, has been refused the fourth time. +Had it not been for your hand upon my arm awhile ago it would be now +shrivelled and curling among the ashes on my hearth. + +"Who was it that stood on London Bridge and did not throw his manuscript +over? Listen! Do you hear that grand child of yours asking who it was +that sat by his hearth and did not toss his manuscript into the fire? +Didn't somebody in the Bible toss a roll into the fire on the hearth? I +want you to come to talk to me. I want some one not wise or learned, +except learned and wise in such fashion as you are, to sit here beside +me, and look into the fire with me, and listen to the wind with me, and +talk to me or be silent with me. If my book had been accepted, and all +the world were wagging their tongues about it, I should want that unwise, +unlearned somebody. That friend of mine over the water, sitting in his +lonely bungalow tonight studying Hindoostanee wants somebody, too. Why +did you not go with him, Prudence? Shall you never go with any one; shall +you and I, so near to each other, with so much to keep us together, go +always uncomforted. But you _are_ comforted. You loved Helen, you love +Linnet and Marjorie and a host of others; you do not need me to bid you +be brave. You are a brave woman. I am not a brave man. I am not brave +to-night, with that four-times-rejected manuscript within reach of my +hand. Shall I publish it myself? I want some one to think well enough of +it to take the risk. + +"Prudence, I have asked God for something, but he gives me an answer that +I cannot understand. Write to me and tell me how that is. + +"Yours to-day and to-morrow." + +"J. H." + + * * * * * + +"_New York, Dec_. 20, 18--. + +"MY DEAR JOHN: + +"I have time but for one word to-night, and even that cannot be at +length. Linnet and I are just in from a lecture on Miss Mitford! There +were tears running down over my heart all the time that I was listening. +You call me brave; she was brave. Think of her pillowed up in bed writing +her last book, none to be kind to her except those to whom she paid +money. Linnet was delighted and intends to 'write a composition' about +her. Just let me keep my hand on your arm (will you?) when evil impulses +are about. You do not quite know how to interpret the circumstances that +seem to be in answer to your prayer? It is as if you spoke to God in +English and the answer comes in Sanscrit. I think I have received such +answers myself. And if we were brutes, with no capacity of increasing our +understanding, I should think it very queer. Sometimes it is hard work to +pray until we get an answer and then it is harder still to find out its +meaning. I imagine that Linnet and Marjorie, even Will Rheid, would not +understand that; but you and I are not led along in the easiest way. It +must be because the answer is worth the hard work: his Word and Spirit +can interpret all his involved and mystical answers. Think with a clear +head, not with any pre-formed judgment, with a heart emptied of all but a +willingness to read his meaning aright, be that meaning to shatter your +hopes or to give bountifully your desire--with a sincere and abiding +determination to take it, come what may, and you will understand as +plainly as you are understanding me. Try it and see. I have tried and I +know. There may be a wound for you somewhere, but oh, the joy of the +touch of his healing hand. And after that comes obedience. Do you +remember one a long time ago who had half an answer, only a glimmer of +light on a dark way? He took the answer and went on as far as he +understood, not daring to disobey, but he went on--something like you, +too--in 'bitterness,' in the heat of his spirit, he says; he went on as +far as he could and stayed there. That was obedience. He stayed there +'astonished' seven days. Perhaps you are in his frame of mind. Nothing +happened until the end of the seven days, then he had another word. So I +would advise you to stay astonished and wait for the end of your seven +days. In our bitterness and the heat of our spirit we are apt to think +that God is rather slow about our business. Ezekiel could have been busy +all that seven days instead of doing nothing at all, but it was the time +for him to do nothing and the time for God to be busy within him. You +have inquired of the Lord, that was your busy time, now keep still and +let God answer as slowly as he will, this is his busy time. Now Linnet +and I must eat a cracker and then say good-night to all the world, +yourself, dear John, included. + +"Yours, + +"PRUDENCE" + + * * * * * + + +"_Washington, Dec._ 21, 18--. + +"DEAR MARJORIE: + +"Aunt Helen sent me your letter; it came an hour ago. I am full of +business that I like. I have no time for sight-seeing. I wish I had! +Washington is the place for Young America to come to. But Young America +has to come on business this time. Perhaps I will come here on my wedding +trip, when there is no business to interfere. I am not ashamed to say +that if I had been a girl I would have cried over your letter. Helen was +_something_ to everybody; she used to laugh and then look grave when she +read your letters about her and the good she was to you. There will never +be another Helen. There is one who has a heartache about her and no one +knows it except himself and me. She refused him a few days before +she was taken ill. He stood a long time and looked at her in her coffin, +as if he forgot that any one was looking at him. I told him it was of no +use to ask her, but he persisted. She had told me several times that he +was disagreeable to her. Her mother wonders who will take her place to us +all, and we all say no one ever can. I thank God that she lived so long +for my sake. You and she are like sisters to me. You do me good, too. I +should miss your letters very much, for I hear from home so seldom. You +are my good little friend, and I am grateful to you. Give my best love to +every one at home and tell mother I like my business. Mother's photograph +and yours and Helen's are in my breast pocket. If I should die to-night +would I be as safe as Helen is? + +"Your true friend, + +"HOLLIS RHEID." + + * * * * * + +"_The Homestead, Jan_. 4, 18--. + +"DEAR FRIEND HOLLIS: + +"Thank you for your letter from Washington. I took it over to your mother +and read it to her and your father, all excepting about the young man who +stood and looked at Helen in her coffin. I thought, perhaps, that was in +confidence. Your father said: 'Tell Hollis when he is tired of tramping +around to come home and settle down near the old folks,' and your mother +followed me to the door and whispered: 'Tell him I cannot feel that he is +safe until I know that he has repented and been forgiven.' And now, being +through all this part, my conscience is eased and I can tell you +everything else I want to. + +"Look in and see us in a snow-storm. Mother is reading for the one +hundred and twenty-second and a half time somebody's complete works on +the New Testament, and father and Mr. Holmes are talking about--let me +see if I know--ah, yes, Mr. Holmes is saying, 'Diversity of origin,' so +you know all about it. + +"Sometimes I listen instead of studying. I would listen to this if your +letter were not due for the mail to-morrow. Father sits and smiles, and +Mr. Holmes walks up and down with his arms behind him as he used to do +during recitation in school. Perhaps he does it now, only you and I are +not there to see. I wish you were here to listen to him; father speaks +now and then, but the dialogue soon develops into a monologue and the +master entertains and instructs us all. If you do not receive this letter +on time know that it is because I am learning about the Jew; how he is +everywhere proving the truth of prophecy by becoming a resident of every +country. And yet while he is a Jew he has faces of all colors. In the +plains of the Ganges, he is black; in Syria, lighter and yet dusky; in +Poland his complexion is ruddy and his hair as light as yours. There was +a little Jewess boarding around here last summer as olive as I imagine +Rebekah and Sarah, and another as fair and rosy as a Dane. But have you +enough of this? Don't you care for what Livingstone says or Humboldt? +Don't you want to know the four proofs in support of unity of origin? +I do, and if I write them I shall remember them; 1. Bodily Structure. 2. +Language. 3. Tradition. 4. Mental Endowment. Now he is telling about the +bodily structure and I do want to listen.--And I _have_ listened and the +minute hand of the clock has been travelling on and my pen has been +still. But don't you want to know the ten conclusions that have been +established--I know you do. And if I forget, I'll nudge Morris and ask +him. Oh, I see (by looking over his shoulder) he has copied them all in +one of his exercise books. + +"You may skip them if you want to, but I know you want to see if your +experience in your extensive travels correspond with the master's +authority. Now observe and see if the people in Washington--all have the +same number of teeth, and of additional bones in their body. As that may +take some time, and seriously interfere with your 'business' and theirs, +perhaps you had better not try it. And, secondly, they all shed their +teeth in the same way (that will take time also, so, perhaps, you may +better defer it until your wedding trip, when you have nothing else to +do); and, thirdly, they all have the upright position, they walk and +look upward; and, fourthly, their head is set in every variety in the +same way; fifthly, they all have two hands; sixthly, they all have smooth +bodies with hair on the head; seventhly, every muscle and every nerve in +every variety are the same; eighthly, they all speak and laugh; ninthly, +they eat different kind of food, and live in all climates; and, _lastly_, +they are more helpless and grow more slowly than other animals. Now don't +you like to know that? And now he has begun to talk about language and I +_must_ listen, even if this letter is never finished, because language is +one of my hobbies. The longer the study of language is pursued the more +strongly the Bible is confirmed, he is saying. You ought to see Morris +listen. His face is all soul when he is learning a new thing. I believe +he has the most expressive face in the world. He has decided to be a +sailor missionary. He says he will take the Gospel to every port in the +whole world. Will takes Bibles and tracts always. Morris reads every word +of _The Sailors Magazine_ and finds delightful things in it. I have +almost caught his enthusiasm. But if I were a man I would be professor of +languages somewhere and teach that every word has a soul, and a history +because it has a soul. Wouldn't you like to know how many languages there +are? It is _wonderful_. Somebody says--Adelung (I don't know who he +is)--three thousand and sixty-four distinct languages, Balbi (Mr. Holmes +always remembers names) eight hundred languages and five thousand +dialects, and Max Müller says there are nine hundred known languages. Mr. +Holmes can write a letter in five languages and I reverence him, but what +is that where there are, according to Max Müller, eight hundred and +ninety-five that he does not know a word of? Mr. Holmes stands still and +puts his hands in front of him (where they were meant to be), and says he +will tell us about Tradition to-morrow night, as he must go up to his +den and write letters. But he does say Pandora's box is the story of the +temptation and the fall. You know she opened her box out of curiosity, +and diseases and wars leaped out to curse mankind. That is a Greek story. +The Greek myths all seem to mean something. Father says: 'Thank you for +a pleasant evening,' as Mr. Holmes takes his lamp to leave us, and _he_ +says: 'You forget what I have to thank you all for.' + +"My heart _bursts_ with gratitude to him, sometimes; I have his books and +I have him; he is always ready so gently and wisely to teach and explain +and never thinks my questions silly, and Morris says he has been and is +his continual inspiration. And we are only two out of the many whom he +stimulates. He says we are his recreation. Dull scholars are his hard +work. Morris is never dull, but I can't do anything with geometry; he +outstripped me long ago. He teaches me and I do the best I can. He has +written on his slate, 'Will you play crambo?' Crambo was known in the +time of Addison, so you must know that it is a very distinguished game. +Just as I am about to say 'I will as soon as this page is finished,' +father yawns and looks up at the clock. Mother remarks: 'It is time +for worship, one of the children will read, father.' So while father goes +to the door to look out to see what kind of a night it is and predict +to-morrow and while mother closes her book with a lingering, loving sigh, +and Morris pushes his books away and opens the Bible, I'll finish my last +page. And, lo, it is finished and you are glad that stupidity and +dullness do sometime come to an abrupt end. + +"FRIEND MARJORIE." + + * * * * * + +"_In the Schoolroom, Jan_. 23, 18--. + +"MY BLESSED MOTHER: + +"Your last note is in my breast pocket with all the other best things +from you. What would boys do without a breast pocket, I wonder. There is +a feeling of study in the very air, the algebra class are 'up' and doing +finely. The boy in my seat is writing a note to a girl just across from +us, and the next thing he will put it in a book and ask, with an +unconcerned face, 'Mr. Holmes, may I hand my arithmetic to somebody?' And +Mr. Holmes, having been a fifteen-year-old boy himself, will wink at any +previous knowledge of such connivings, and say 'Yes,' as innocently! It +isn't against the rules to do it, for Mr. Holmes, never, for a moment, +supposes such a rule a necessity. But I never do it. Because Marjorie +doesn't come to school. And a pencil is slow for all I want to say to +her. She is my talisman. I am a big, awkward fellow, and she is a zephyr +that is content to blow about me out of sheer good will to all human +kind. But, in school, I write notes to another girl, to my mother. And I +write them when I have nothing to say but that I am well and strong and +happy, content with the present, hopeful for the future, looking forward +to the day when you will see me captain of as fine a ship as ever sailed +the seas. And won't I bring you good things from every country in the +world, just because you are such a blessed mother to + +"Your unworthy boy, + +"M.K." + + * * * * * + +"_New York, Jan. 30, 18--._ + +"MY MARJORIE: + +"Your long letter has been read and re-read, and then read aloud to +Linnet. She laughed over it, and brushed her eyes over it; and then it +was laid away in my archives for future reference. It is a perfect +afternoon, the sun is shining, and the pavements are as dry as in May. +Linnet endeavored to coax me out, as it is her holiday afternoon, and +Broadway will be alive with handsome dresses and handsome faces, and +there are some new paintings to be seen. But I was proof against her +coaxing as this unwritten letter pressed on my heart, so she has +contented herself with Helen's younger sister, Nannie, and they will have +a good time together and bring their good time home to me, for Nannie is +to come home to dinner with her. Linnet looked like a veritable linnet in +her brown suit with the crimson plume in her brown hat; I believe the +girl affects grays and brown with a dash of crimson, because they remind +her of a linnet, and she _is_ like a linnet in her low, sweet voice, not +strong, but clear. She will be a lovely, symmetrical woman when she comes +out of the fire purified. How do I know she will ever be put in any +furnace? Because all God's children must suffer at some times, and then +they know they are his children. And she loves Will so vehemently, so +idolatrously, that I fear the sorrow may be sent through him; not in any +withdrawing of his love, he is too thoroughly true for that, not in any +great wickedness he may commit, he is too humble and too reliant upon the +keeping power of God to be allowed to fall into that, but--she may not +have him always, and then, I fear, her heart would really break. + +"She reminds me of my own young vehemence and trust. But the taking away +will be the least sorrow of all. Why! How sorrowfully I am writing +to-day: no, how truly I am writing of life to-day: of the life you and +she are entering--are already entered upon. But God is good, God is good, +hold to that, whatever happens. Some day, when you are quite an old woman +and I am really an old woman, I will tell you about my young days. + +"Your letter was full of questions; do not expect me to answer them all +at once. First, about reading the Bible. You poor dear child! Do you +think God keeps a book up in Heaven to put down every time you fail to +read the Bible through in a year? Because you have read it three times in +course, so many chapters a weekday, and so many a Sunday, do you think +you must keep on so or God will keep it laid up against you? + +"Well, be a law keeper if you must, but keep the whole law, and keep it +perfectly, in spirit and in letter, or you will fail! And if you fail in +one single instance, in spirit or in letter, you fail in all, and must +bear the curse. You must continue in _all things_ written in the law to +do them. Are you ready to try that? Christ could do it, and he did do it, +but can you? And, if not, what? You must choose between keeping the law +and trusting in Christ who has kept it for you. You cannot serve two +masters: the Law and Christ. Now, I know I cannot keep the law and so I +have given up; all I can do is to trust in Christ to save me, in Christ +who is able to obey all God's law for me, and so I trust him and love +him, and obey him with the strength he gives me. If we love him, we will +keep his commandments, he says. 'I can do all things through Christ +strengthening me'--even keep his commandments, which are not grievous. If +you must be a law keeper in your own strength, give up Christ and cling +to the law to save you, or else give up keeping the law for your +salvation and cling to Christ. Keep his commandments because you love +him, and not keep the old law to save your soul by your own obedience. +Read the Bible because you love it, every word. Read till you are full of +some message he gives you, and then shut it up; don't keep on, because +you must read so many chapters a day. + +"My plan is--and I tell you because it has been blessed to me--to ask him +to feed me with his truth, feed me _full_, and then I open the Book and +read. One day I was filled full with one clause: '_Because they +fainted_.' I closed it, I could read no more. At another time I read a +whole Epistle before I had all I was hungry for. One evening I read a +part of Romans and was so excited that I could not sleep for some time +that night. Don't you like that better than reading on and on because +you have set yourself to do it, and ending with a feeling of relief +because it is _done_, at last? These human hearts are naughty things and +need more grace continually. Just try my way--not my way but God's way +for me,--and see how full you will be fed with your daily reading. + +"I just bethought myself of a page in an old journal; I'll copy it for +you. It has notes of my daily reading. I wish I had kept the references, +but all I have is the thought I gathered. I'll give it to you just as I +have it. + +"'April 24, 18--. Preparation is needed to receive the truth. + +"'25. Ezekiel saw the glory before he heard the Voice. + +"'26. He permits long waiting. + +"'27. It is blessed to hear his voice, even if it be to declare +punishment. + +"'28. The word of God comes through the lips of men. + +"'29. God works with us when we work with him. + +"'30. God's work, and not man's word, is the power, + +"'May 1. Man fails us, _then_ we trust in God. + +"'2. Death is wages, Life is a gift. + +"'3. Paul must witness at Jerusalem before going to Rome. + +"'4. When God wills, it is not _to be_, it _is_. + +"'5. To man is given great power, but it is not his own power. + +"'6. Even his great love Christ _commends_ to us. + +"'7. To seek and find God all beside must be put away. + +"'11. The day of the Lord is darkness to those who do not seek him. + +"'12. For all there were so many yet was not the net broken. + +"'13. Even after Aaron's sin the Lord made him High Priest. + +"'14. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities--for Christ's sake. + +"'15. It is _spirit_ and not letter that God looks at. + +"'16. His choices rule all things. + +"'17. That which is not forbidden may be inquired about. + +"'18. Captivity is turned upon repentance and obedience. + +"'19. Rejoicing comes after understanding his words. + +"'20. A way of escape is made for sin. + +"'21. Faith waits as long as God asks it to wait. + +"'22. He strengthens our hearts through waiting to wait longer. + +"'23. Anything not contrary to the revealed will of God we may ask in +prayer.' + +"These lessons I took to my heart each day. Another might have drawn +other lessons from the same words, but these were what I needed then. +The page is written in pencil, and some words were almost erased. But I +am glad I kept them all this time; I did not know I was keeping them +for you, little girl. I have so fully consecrated myself to God that +sometimes I think he does not let any of me be lost; even my sins and +mistakes I have used to warn others, and through them I have been led to +thank him most fervently that he has not left me to greater mistakes, +greater sins. Some day your heart will almost break with thankfulness. + +"And now, childie, about your praying. You say you are _tired out_ when +your prayer is finished. I should think you would be, poor child, if you +desire each petition with all your intense nature. Often one petition +uses all my strength and I can plead no more--in words. You seem to think +that every time you kneel you must pray about every thing that can be +prayed about, the church, the world, all your friends, all your wants, +and everything that everybody wants. + +"What do you think of my short prayers? This morning all I could +ejaculate was: 'Lord, this is thy day, every minute of it.' I have had +some blessed minutes. When the sinner prayed, 'Lord, be merciful to me a +sinner,' he did not add, 'and bless my father and mother, brothers and +sisters, and all the sick and sinful and sorrowing, and send missionaries +to all parts of the world, and hasten thy kingdom in every heart.' And +when Peter was sinking he cried: 'Lord, save me, I perish,' and did not +add, 'strengthen my faith for this time and all time, and remember those +who are in the ship looking on, and wondering what will be the end of +this; teach them to profit by my example, and to learn the lesson thou +art intending to teach by this failure of mine.' And when the ship was +almost overwhelmed and the frightened disciples came to him--but why +should I go on? Child, _pour_ out your heart to him, and when, through +physical weariness, mental exhaustion, or spiritual intensity of feeling, +the heart refuses to be longer poured out, _stop_, don't pump and pump +and _pump_ at an exhausted well for water that has been all used up. +We are not heard for much speaking or long praying. Study the prayer he +gave us to pray, study his own prayer. He continued all night in prayer +but he was not hard upon his weak disciples, who through weariness and +sorrow fell asleep while he had strength to keep on praying. Your master +is not a hard master. We pray when we do not utter one word. Let the +Spirit pray in you and don't try to do it all yourself. Don't make +crosses for yourself. Before you begin to pray think of the loving, +lovely Saviour and pitiful Father you are praying to and ask the Spirit +to help you pray, and then pray and be joyful. Pray the first petition +that comes out of your heart, and then the second and the third, and +thank him for everything. + +"But here come the girls laughing upstairs and I must listen to the story +of their afternoon. Linnet will tell you about the pictures. + +"More than ever your sympathizing friend, + +"P. P." + + * * * * * + +"_Feb_. 2, 18--. + +"DEAR HOLLIS: + +"Your mother asked me to write to you while I am here, in your home, so +that it may seem like a letter from her. It is evening and I am writing +at the kitchen table with the light of one candle. How did I come to be +here at night? I came over this afternoon to see poor grandma and found +your mother alone with her; grandma had been in bed three days and the +doctor said she was dying of old age. She did not appear to suffer, she +lay very still, recognizing us, but not speaking even when we spoke to +her. + +"How I did want to say something to help her, for I was afraid she might +be troubled, she was always so 'afraid' when she thought about joining +the Church. But as I stood alone, looking down at her, I did not dare +speak. I did not like to awaken her if she were comfortably asleep. Then +I thought how wicked I was to withhold a word when she might hear it and +be comforted and her fear taken away, so I stooped over and said close +to her ear, 'Grandma,' and all she answered was, in her old way, 'Most a +hundred;' and then I said, '"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all +sin, even the sins of most a hundred years;"' and she understood, for she +moaned, 'I've been very wicked;' and all I could do was to say again, +'"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin."' She made no reply +and we think she did not speak again, for your mother's cousin, Cynthy, +was with her at the last and says she bent over her and found that she +did not breathe, and all the time she was with her she did not once +speak. + +"The house is so still, they all move around so softly and speak in +whispers. Your mother thinks you may be in Philadelphia or Baltimore when +this reaches New York, and that you will not hear in time to come to the +funeral. I hope you can come; she does _so_ want to see you. She says +once a year is so seldom to see her youngest boy. I believe I haven't +seen you since the day you brought me the plate so long, so long ago. +I've been away both times since when you were home. I have kept my +promise, I think; I do not think I have missed one letter day in writing +to you. I have come to see your mother as often as I could. Grandma will +not be buried till the fifth; they have decided upon that day hoping you +can get here by that time. Morris was to come for me if I did not get +home before dark and there's the sound of sleigh bells now. Here comes +your mother with her message. She says: 'Tell Hollis to come if he _any +way_ can; I shall look for him.' So I know you will. + +"That _is_ Morris, he is stamping the snow off his feet at the door. Why +do you write such short letters to me? Are mine too long? O, Hollis, I +want you to be a Christian; I pray for you every day. + +"Your friend, + +"MARJORIE" + + * * * * * + +"Feb 15, 18--. + +"MY DARLING LINNET: + +"Now I am settled down for a long letter to you, up here in the master's +chamber, where no one will dare interrupt me. I am sitting on the rug +before the fire with my old atlas on my lap; his desk with piles of +foolscap is so near that when my own sheet gives out, and my thoughts +and incidents are still unexhausted, all I have to do is to raise the +cover of his desk, take a fresh sheet and begin again. I want this to be +the kind of a three-volumed letter that you like; I have inspiration +enough--for I am surrounded by books containing the wisdom of all +the past. No story books, and I know you want a story letter. This room +is as cozy as the inside of an egg shell, with only the fire, the clock, +the books and myself. There is nothing but snow, snow, snow, out the +window, and promise of more in the threatening sky. I am all alone +to-day, too, and I may be alone to-night. I rather like the adventure of +staying alone; perhaps something will happen that never happened to any +one before, and I may live to tell the tale to my grandchildren. It is +early in the morning, that is, early to be writing a letter, but I shall +not have much dinner to get for myself and I want to write letters all +day. _That_ is an adventure that never happened to me before. How do you +think it happens that I am alone? Of course Morris and the master have +taken their dinners and gone to school; mother has been in Portland four +days, and father is to go for her to-day and bring her home to-morrow; +Morris is to go skating to-night and to stay in Middlefield with some of +the boys; and I told Mr. Holmes that he might go to the lecture on Turkey +and stay in Middlefield, too, if he would give my note to Josie Grey and +ask her to come down after school and stay with me. He said he would come +home unless she promised to come to stay with me, so I don't suppose I +shall have my adventurous night alone, after all. + +"I don't believe father has gone yet, I heard his step down-stairs, I'll +run down to say good-bye again and see if he wants anything, and go down +cellar and get me some apples to munch on to keep me from being lonesome. +Father will take the horses and they will not need to be fed, and I told +Morris I could feed the two cows and the hens myself, so he need not come +home just for that. But father is calling me. + +"Afternoon. Is it years and _years_ since I began this letter? My hair +has not turned white and I am not an old woman; the ink and paper look +fresh, too, fresher than the old bit of yellow paper that mother keeps so +preciously, that has written on it the invitation to her mother's wedding +that somebody returned to her. How slowly I am coming to it! But I want +to keep you in suspense. I am up in the master's chamber again, sitting +on the hearth before a snapping fire, and I haven't written one word +since I wrote you that father was calling me. + +"He did call me, and I ran down and found that he wanted an extra +shawl for mother; for it might be colder to-morrow, or it might be a +snow-storm. I stood at the window and saw him pass and listened to the +jingling of his bells until they were out of hearing, and then I lighted +a bit of a candle (ah, me, that it was not longer) and went down cellar +for my apples. I opened one barrel and then another until I found the +ones I wanted, the tender green ones that you used to like; I filled my +basket and, just then hearing the back door open and a step in the entry +over my head, I turned quickly and pushed my candlestick over, and, of +course, that wee bit of light sputtered out. I was frightened, for fear a +spark might have fallen among the straw somewhere, and spent some time +feeling around to find the candlestick and to wait to see if a spark +_had_ lighted the straw; and then, before I could cry out, I heard the +footsteps pass the door and give it a pull and turn the key! Father +always does that, but this was not father. I believe it was Captain +Rheid, father left a message for him and expected him to call, and I +suppose, out of habit, as he passed the door he shut it and locked it. I +could not shout in time, he was so quick about it, and then he went out +and shut the outside door hard. + +"I think I turned to stone for awhile, or fainted away, but when I came +to myself there I stood, with the candlestick in my hand, all in the +dark. I could not think what to do. I could not find the outside doors, +they are trap doors, you know, and have to be pushed up, and in winter +the steps are taken down, and I don't know where they are put. I had the +candle, it is true, but I had no match. I don't know what I did do. My +first thought was to prowl around and find the steps and push up one of +the doors, and I prowled and prowled and prowled till I was worn out. The +windows--small windows, too,--are filled up with straw or something in +winter, so that it was as dark as a dungeon; it _was_ a dungeon and +I was a prisoner. + +"If I hadn't wanted the apples, or if the light hadn't gone out, or if +Captain Rheid hadn't come, or if he hadn't locked the door! Would I have +to stay till Josie came? And if I pounded and screamed wouldn't she be +frightened and run away? + +"After prowling around and hitting myself and knocking myself I stood +still again and wondered what to do! I wanted to scream and cry, but that +wouldn't have done any good and I should have felt more alone than ever +afterward. Nobody could come there to hurt me, that was certain, and I +could stamp the rats away, and there were apples and potatoes and turnips +to eat? But suppose it had to last all night! I was too frightened to +waste any tears, and too weak to stand up, by this time, so I found a +seat on the stairs and huddled myself together to keep warm, and prayed +as hard as I ever did in my life. + +"I thought about Peter in prison; I thought about everything I could +think of. I could hear the clock strike and that would help me bear it, I +should know when night came and when morning came. The cows would suffer, +too, unless father had thrown down hay enough for them; and the fires +would go out, and what would father and mother think when they came home +to-morrow? Would I frighten them by screaming and pounding? Would I add +to my cold, and have quinsy sore throat again? Would I faint away and +never 'come to'? When I wrote 'adventure' upstairs by the master's fire I +did not mean a dreadful thing like this! Staying alone all night was +nothing compared to this. I had never been through anything compared to +this. I tried to comfort myself by thinking that I might be lost or +locked up in a worse place; it was not so damp or cold as it might have +been, and there was really nothing to be afraid of. I had nothing to do +and I was in the dark. I began to think of all the stories I knew about +people who had been imprisoned and what they had done. I couldn't write +a Pilgrim's Progress, I couldn't even make a few rhymes, it was too +lonesome; I couldn't sing, my voice stopped in my throat. I thought about +somebody who was in a dark, solitary prison, and he had one pin that he +used to throw about and lose and then crawl around and find it in the +dark and then lose it again and crawl around again and find it. I had +prowled around enough for the steps; that amusement had lost its +attraction for me. And then the clock struck. I counted eleven, but had I +missed one stroke? Or counted too many? It was not nine when I lighted +that candle. Well, that gave me something to reason about, and something +new to look forward to. How many things could I do in an hour? How many +could I count? How many Bible verses could I repeat? Suppose I began +with A and repeated all I could think of, and then went on to B. 'Ask, +and ye shall receive.' How I did ask God to let me out in some way, to +bring somebody to help me? To _send_ somebody. Would not Captain Rheid +come back again? Would not Morris change his mind and come home to +dinner? or at night? And would Mr. Holmes certainly go to hear that +lecture? Wasn't there anybody to come? I thought about you and how sorry +you would be, and, I must confess it, I did think that I would have +something to write to you and Hollis about. (Please let him see this +letter; I don't want to write all this over again.) + +"So I shivered and huddled myself up in a heap and tried to comfort +myself and amuse myself as best I could. I said all the Bible verses +I could think, and then I went back to my apples and brought the basket +with me to the stairs. I would not eat one potato or turnip until the +apples had given out. You think I can laugh now; so could you, after you +had got out. But the clock didn't strike, and nobody came, and I was sure +it must be nearly morning I was so faint with hunger and so dizzy from +want of sleep. And then it occurred to me to stumble up the stairs and +try to burst the door open! That lock was loose, it turned very easily! +In an instant I was up the stairs and trying the door. And, lo, and +behold, it opened easily, it was not locked at all! I had only imagined I +heard the click of the lock. And I was free, and the sun was shining, +and I was neither hungry nor dizzy. + +"I don't know whether I laughed or cried or mingled both in a state of +ecstasy. But I was too much shaken to go on with my letter, I had to find +a story book and a piece of apple pie to quiet my nerves. The fires were +not out and the clock had only struck ten. But when you ask me how long I +stayed in that cellar I shall tell you one hundred years! Now, isn't that +adventure enough for the first volume? + +"Vol. II. Evening. I waited and waited downstairs for somebody to come, +but nobody came except Josie Grey's brother, to say that her mother was +taken ill suddenly and Josie could not come. I suppose Mr. Holmes +expected her to come and so he has gone to Middlefield, and Morris +thought so, too; and so I am left out in the cold, or rather in by the +fire. Mr. Holmes' chamber is the snuggest room in the house, so full of +books that you can't be lonely in it, and then the fire on the hearth +is company. It began to snow before sun down and now the wind howls and +the snow seems to rush about as if it were in a fury. You ask what I have +read this winter. Books that you will not like: Thomson's 'Seasons,' +Cowper's 'Task,' Pollok's 'Course of Time,' Milton's 'Paradise Regained,' +Strickland's 'Queens of England,' 'Nelson on Infidelity,' 'Lady +Huntington and her Friends,' 'Lady of the Lake,' several of the +'Bridgewater Treatises,' Paley's 'Natural Theology,' 'Trench on +Miracles,' several dozens of the best story books I could find to make +sandwiches with the others, somebody's 'Travels in Iceland,' and +somebody's 'Winter in Russia,' and 'Rasselas,' and 'Boswell's Johnson,' +and I cannot remember others at this moment. Morris says I do not think +anything dry, but go right through everything. Because I have the master +to help me, and I did give 'Paradise Lost' up in despair. Mother says I +shall never make three quilts for you if I read so much, but I do get on +with the patch work and she already has one quilt joined, and Mrs. Rheid +is coming to help her quilt it next week. There is a pile of blocks on +the master's desk now and I intend to sit here in his arm chair and +sew until I am sleepy. I wonder if you will do as much for me when my +Prince comes. Mine is to be as handsome as Hollis, as good as Morris, +as learned as the master, and as devoted as your splendid Will. And if I +cannot find all these in one I will--make patch work for other brides and +live alone with Miss Prudence. And I'll begin now to make the patch work. +Oh, dear, I wish you and Miss Prudence were here. Hark! there's somebody +pounding on the outside kitchen door! Shall I go down or let them pound? +I don't believe it is Robin Hood or any of his merry men, do you? I'll +screw my courage up and go. + +"Vol. III. Next Day. I won't keep you in suspense, you dear, sympathetic +Linnet. I went down with some inward quaking but much outward boldness +as the pounding increased, and did not even ask 'Who's there?' before I +opened the door. But I _was_ relieved to find Morris, covered with snow, +looking like a storm king. He said he had heard through Frank Grey that +Josie couldn't come and he would not let me stay alone in a storm. I was +so glad, if I had been you I should have danced around him, but as it was +I and not you I only said how glad I was, and made him a cup of +steaming coffee and gave him a piece of mince pie for being so good. +To-day it snows harder than ever, so that we do not expect father and +mother; and Mr. Holmes has not come out in the storm, because Morris saw +him and told him that he was on the way home. Not a sleigh has passed, +we have not seen a single human being to-day. I could not have got out to +the stable, and I don't know what the cows and hens would have done +without Morris. He has thrown down more hay for the cows, and put corn +where the hens may find it for to-morrow, in case he cannot get out to +them. The storm has not lessened in any degree; I never knew anything +like it, but I am not the 'oldest inhabitant.' Wouldn't I have been +dreary here alone? + +"This does seem to be a kind of adventure, but nothing happens. Father is +not strong enough to face any kind of a storm, and I am sure they will +not attempt to start. Morris says we are playing at housekeeping and he +helps me do everything, and when I sit down to sew on your patch work he +reads to me. I let him read this letter to you, forgetting what I had +said about my Prince, but he only laughed and said he was glad that he +was _good_ enough for me, even if he were not handsome enough, or learned +enough, or devoted enough, and said he would become devoted forthwith, +but he could not ever expect to attain to the rest. He teases me and says +that I meant that the others were not good enough. He has had a letter +from Will promising to take him before the mast next voyage and he is +hilarious over it. His mother tries to be satisfied, but she is afraid of +the water. When so many that we know have lost father or brother or +husband on the sea it does seem strange that we can so fearlessly send +another out. Mrs. Rheid told me about a sea captain that she met when she +was on a voyage with Captain Rheid. He had been given up for lost when he +was young and when he came back he found his wife married to another man, +but she gave up the second husband and went back to the first. She was +dead when Mrs. Rheid met him; she said he was a very sad man. His ship +was wrecked on some coast, I've forgotten where, and he was made to work +in a mine until he was rescued. I think I would have remained dead to her +if she had forgotten me like that. But isn't this a long letter? Morris +has made me promise to write regularly to him; I told him he had never +given me a Holland plate two hundred years old, but he says he will go to +Holland and buy me one and that is better. + +"I am glad Hollis wrote such a long letter to his mother if he could not +come home. I wish he would write to her oftener; I do not think she is +quite satisfied to have him write to me instead. I will write to him +to-morrow, but I haven't anything to say, I have told you everything. O, +Linnet, how happy I shall be when your school days are over. Miss +Prudence shall have the next letter; I have something to ask her, as +usual. + +"The end of my story in three volumes isn't very startling. But this +snow-storm is. If we hadn't everything under cover we would have to do +without some things. + +"Yours, + +"MARJORIE" + + + + +XIII. + +A WEDDING DAY. + +"A world-without-end bargain."--_Shakespeare._ + + +A young girl stood in the doorway, shading her eyes with her hand as +she gazed down the dusty road; she was not tall or slight, but a plump, +well-proportioned little creature, with frank, steadfast eyes, a low, +smooth forehead with brown hair rippling away from it, a thoughtful mouth +that matched well with the eyes; an energetic maiden, despite the air of +study that somehow surrounded her; you were sure her voice would be +sweet, and as sure that it would be sprightly, and you were equally sure +that a wealth of strength was hidden behind the sweetness. She was only +eighteen, eighteen to-day, but during the last two years she had rapidly +developed into womanhood. The master told Miss Prudence this morning that +she was trustworthy and guileless, and as sweet and bright as she was +good; still, he believed, as of old, that she did not quite know how to +take her own part; but, as a woman, with a man to fight for her, what +need had she of fighting? He would not have been at all surprised had he +known that she had chosen, that morning, a motto, not only for her new +year, but, as she told Morris, for her lifetime: "The Lord shall fight +for you, and ye shall hold your peace." And he had said: "May I fight for +you, too, Marjorie?" But she had only laughed and answered: "We don't +live in the time of the Crusades." + +Although it was Linnet's wedding day Marjorie, the bridesmaid, was +attired in a gingham, a pretty pink and white French gingham; but there +were white roses at her throat and one nestled in her hair. The roses +were the gift of the groomsman, Hollis, and she had fastened them in +under the protest of Morris' eyes. Will and Linnet had both desired +Hollis to "stand up" with Marjorie; the bridesmaid had been very shy +about it, at first; Hollis was almost a stranger, she had seen him but +once since she was fourteen, and their letters were becoming more and +more distant. He was not as shy as Marjorie, but he was not easy and at +home with her, and never once dared to address the maiden who had so +suddenly sprung into a lovely woman with the old names, Mousie, or +Goosie. Indeed, he had nearly forgotten them, he could more readily have +said: "Miss Marjorie." + +He had grown very tall; he was the handsomest among the brothers, with an +air of refinement and courtesy that somewhat perplexed them and set him +apart from them. Marjorie still prayed for him every day, that is, for +the Hollis she knew, but this Hollis came to her to-day a stranger; her +school-boy friend was a dream, the friend she had written to so long was +only her ideal, and this tall man, with the golden-red moustache, dark, +soft eyes and deep voice, was a fascinating stranger from the outside +world. She could never write to him again; she would never have the +courage. + +And his heart quickened in its beating as he stood beside the white-robed +figure and looked down into the familiar, strange face, and he wondered +how his last letter could have been so jaunty and off-hand. How could he +ever write "Dear Marjorie" again, with this face in his memory? She was +as much a lady as Helen had been, he would be proud to take her among his +friends and say: "This is my old school friend." + +But he was busy bringing chairs across the field at this moment and +Marjorie stood alone in the doorway looking down the dusty road. This +doorway was a fitting frame for such a rustic picture as a girl in a +gingham dress, and the small house itself a fitting background. + +The house was a story and a half, with a low, projecting roof, a small +entry in the centre, and square, low-studded rooms on both sides, a +kitchen and woodshed stretched out from the back and a small barn stood +in the rear; the house was dazzling in the sun, with its fresh coat of +white paint, and the green blinds gave a cooling effect to the whole; +the door yard was simply a carpet of green with lilac bushes in one +corner and a tall pine standing near the gate; the fence rivalled the +house in its glossy whiteness, and even the barn in the rear had a new +coat of brown to boast of. Every room inside the small house was in +perfect order, every room was furnished with comfort and good taste, +but plainly as it became the house of the captain of the barque _Linnet_ +to be. It was all ready for housekeeping, but, instead of taking instant +possession, at the last moment Linnet had decided to go with her husband +to Genoa. + +"It is nonsense," Captain Rheid growled, "when the house is all ready." +But Will's mother pleaded for him and gained an ungracious consent. + +"You never run around after me so," he said. + +"Go to sea to-day and see what I will do," she answered, and he kissed +her for the first time in so many years that she blushed like a girl and +hurried away to see if the tea-kettle were boiling. + +Linnet's mother was disappointed, for she wanted to see Linnet begin her +pretty housekeeping; but Marjorie declared that it was as it should be +and quite according to the Old Testament law of the husband cheering up +his wife. + +But Marjorie did not stay very long to make a picture of herself, she ran +back to see if Morris had counted right in setting the plates on the long +dining table that was covered with a heavy cloth of grandma's own making. +There was a silk quilt of grandma's making on the bed in the "spare +room" beside. As soon as the ceremony was performed she had run away with +"the boys" to prepare the surprise for Linnet, a lunch in her own +house. The turkeys and tongue and ham had been cooked at Mrs. Rheid's, +and Linnet had seen only the cake and biscuits prepared at home, the +fruit had come with Hollis from New York at Miss Prudence's order, and +the flowers had arrived this morning by train from Portland. Cake and +sandwiches, lemonade and coffee, would do very well, Linnet said, who had +no thought of feasting, and the dining room at home was the only +banqueting hall she had permitted herself to dream of. + +Marjorie counted the chairs as Hollis brought them across the field from +home, and then her eyes filled as he drew from his pocket, to show her, +the deed of the house and ten acres of land, the wedding present from his +father to the bride. + +"Oh, he's too good," she cried. "Linnet will break down, I know she +will." + +"I asked him if he would be as good to my wife," answered Hollis, "and he +said he would, if I would please him as well as Will had done." + +"There's only one Linnet," said Marjorie. + +"But bride's have sisters," said Morris. "Marjorie, where shall I put all +this jelly? And I haven't missed one plate with a bouquet, have I? Now +count everybody up again and see if we are all right." + +"Marjorie and I," began Hollis, audaciously, pushing a chair into its +place. + +"Two," counted Morris, but his blue eyes flashed and his lip trembled. + +"And Will and Linnet, four," began Marjorie, in needless haste, and +father and mother, six, and Will's father and mother, eight, and the +minister and his wife, ten, and Herbert and his wife, twelve, and Mr. +Holmes and Miss Prudence, fourteen, and Sam and Harold, sixteen, and +Morris, seventeen. That is all. Oh, and grandfather and grandmother, +nineteen." + +"Seventeen plates! You and I are to be waiters, Marjorie," said Morris. + +"I'll be a waiter, too," said Hollis. "That will be best fun of all. I'm +glad you didn't hire anybody, Marjorie." + +"I wouldn't; I wanted to be primitive and do it all ourselves; I knew +Morris would be grand help, but I was not so sure of you." + +"Are you sure of me, now?" he laughed, like the old Hollis who used to go +to school. + +After that Marjorie would not have been surprised if he had called her +"Mousie." + +"Morris, what do you want to be a sailor for?" inquired Hollis, arranging +the white rose in his button-hole anew. + +"To sail," answered Morris seriously. "What do you want to be a salesman +for?" + +"To sell," said Hollis, as seriously, "Marjorie, what do you want to be +yourself for?" + +"To help you to be yourself," she answered promptly, and flew to the +front door where there was a sound of shouting and laughter. They were +all there, every one of the little home-made company; and the waiters +ushered them into the kitchen, where the feast was spread, with great +ceremony. + +If Linnet had not been somebody's wife she would have danced around and +clapped her hands with delight; as it was she nearly forgot her dignity, +and exclaimed with surprise and pleasure sufficient to satisfy those who +were in the secret of the feast. + +Linnet was in her gray travelling suit, but the dash of crimson this time +was in both cheeks; there was a haziness in her eyes that subdued the +brightness of her face and touched them all. The bridegroom was handsome +and proud, his own merry self, not a trifle abashed before them all on +his wedding day, everything that he said seemed to be thought worth +laughing at, and there was not a shadow on any face, except the flitting +of a shadow ever and anon across Morris Kemlo's blue eyes. + +The feast was ended, prayer offered by the pastor and the new home +dedicated to him who is the Father in every home where his children +dwell, and then kisses and congratulations and thanks mingled with the +tears that the mothers must need shed out of their joy and natural +regret. The mothers were both exultantly proud and sure that _her_ child +would not be the one to make the other unhappy. The carriages rolled +away, Will and Linnet to take the train to Portland, for if the wind +were fair the _Linnet_ would sail the next day for New York and thence to +Genoa. Linnet had promised to bring Marjorie some of the plastering of +the chamber in which Christopher Columbus was born, and if they went down +to Naples she would surely climb Mt. Vesuvius and bring her a branch of +mulberry. + +The mothers remained to wash the dishes and pack things away, to lock up +the house, and brush the last flake of dust from any of Linnet's new +possessions; Captain Rheid called to Hollis and asked him to walk over +the farm with him and see where everything was planted. Hollis was to +remain over night, but Morris was to take a late train to join the +_Linnet's_ crew, it being his first voyage as second mate. + +The mothers took off their kitchen aprons, washed their hands at Linnet's +new sink, and gave Morris the key of the front door to hang up in an +out-of-the-way corner of the wood shed. + +"It may better be here," said Mrs. Rheid, "and then any of us can get in +at any time to see how things are without troubling anybody to find the +key. The captain will see that every door and window is safe and as we +have the silver I don't believe anybody will think of troubling the +house." + +"Oh, dear no," replied Mrs. West. "I always leave my clothes out on the +line and we never think of locking a door at night." + +"Our kitchen windows look over this way and I shall always be looking +over. Now come home with me and see that quilt I haven't got finished +yet for them. I told your husband to come to our house for you, for you +would surely be there. I suppose Marjorie and Morris will walk back; we +wouldn't have minded it, either, on our eighteenth birthday." + +"Come, Marjorie, come see where I hang the key," said Morris. + +Marjorie followed him down the kitchen steps, across the shed to a corner +at the farther end; he found a nail and slipped it on and then asked her +to reach it. + +Even standing on tip toe her upstretched hand could not touch it. + +"See how I put the key of my heart out of your reach," he said, +seriously. + +"And see how I stretch after it," she returned, demurely. + +"I will come with you and reach it for you." + +"How can you when you are demolishing plaster in Christopher Columbus' +house or falling into the crater of Mt. Vesuvius? I may want to come +here that very day." + +"True; I will put it lower for you. Shall I put it under this stone so +that you will have to stoop for it?" + +"Mrs. Rheid said hang it over the window, that has been its place for +generations. They lived here when they were first married, before they +built their own house; the house doesn't look like it, does it? It is all +made over new. I am glad he gave it to Will." + +"He can build a house for Hollis," said he, watching her as he spoke. + +"Let me see you put the key there," she returned, unconcernedly. + +He hung the key on the nail over the small window and inquired if it were +done to her satisfaction. + +"Yes," she said. "I wonder how Linnet feels about going away from us all +so far." + +"She is with her husband," answered Morris. "Aren't you woman enough to +understand that?" + +"Possibly I am as much of a woman as you are." + +"You are years ahead of me; a girl at eighteen is a woman; but a boy at +eighteen is a boy. Will you tell me something out here among the wood? +This wood pile that the old captain sawed and split ten years ago shall +be our witness. Why do you suppose he gets up in winter before daylight +and splits wood--when he has a pile that was piled up twenty years ago?" + +"That is a question worthy the time and place and the wood pile shall be +our witness." + +"Oh, that isn't the question," he returned with some embarrassment, +stooping to pick up a chip and toss it from him as he lifted himself. +"Marjorie, _do_ you like Hollis better than you like me?" + +"You are only a boy, you know," she answered, roguishly. + +"I know it; but do you like me better than Hollis?" + +His eyes were on the chips at his feet, Marjorie's serious eyes were upon +him. + +"It doesn't matter; suppose I don't know; as the question never occurred +to me before I shall have to consider." + +"Marjorie, you are cruel," he exclaimed raising his eyes with a flash in +them; he was "only a boy" but his lips were as white as a man's would +have been. + +"I am sorry; I didn't know you were in such earnest," she said, +penitently. "I like Hollis, of course, I cannot remember when I did not +like him, but I am not acquainted with him." + +"Are you acquainted with me?" he asked in a tone that held a shade of +relief. + +"Oh, you!" she laughed lightly, "I know what you think before you can +speak your thought." + +"Then you know what I am thinking now." + +"Not all of it," she returned, but she colored, notwithstanding, and +stepped backward toward the kitchen. + +"Marjorie," he caught her hand and held it, "I am going away and I want +to tell you something. I am going far away this time, and I must tell +you. Do you remember the day I came? You were such a little thing, you +stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes, with your sleeves rolled back +and a big apron up to your neck, and you stopped in your work and looked +at me and your eyes were so soft and sorry. And I have loved you better +than anybody every day since. Every day I have thought: 'I will study +like Marjorie. I will be good like Marjorie. I will help everybody like +Marjorie.'" + +She looked up into his eyes, her own filled with tears. + +"I am so glad I have helped you so." + +"And will you help me further by saying that you like me better than +Hollis." + +"Oh, I do, you know I do," she cried, impulsively. "I am not acquainted +with him, and I know every thought you think." + +"Now I am satisfied," he cried, exultantly, taking both her hands in his +and kissing her lips. "I am not afraid to go away now." + +"Marjorie,"--the kitchen door was opened suddenly,--"I'm going to take +your mother home with me. Is the key in the right place." + +"Everything is all right, Mrs. Rheid," replied Morris. "You bolt that +door and we will go out this way." + +The door was closed as suddenly and the boy and girl stood silent, +looking at each other. + +"Your Morris Kemlo is a fine young man," observed Mrs. Rheid as she +pushed the bolt into its place. + +"He is a heartease to his mother," replied Mrs. West, who was sometimes +poetical. + +"Does Marjorie like him pretty well?" + +"Why, yes, we all do. He is like our own flesh and blood. But why did you +ask?" + +"Oh, nothing. I just thought of it." + +"I thought you meant something, but you couldn't when you know how Hollis +has been writing to her these four years." + +"Oh!" ejaculated Hollis' mother. + +She did not make plans for her children as the other mother did. + +The two old ladies crossed the field toward the substantial white +farmhouse that overlooked the little cottage, and the children, whose +birthday it was, walked hand in hand through the yard to the footpath +along the road. + +"Must you keep on writing to Hollis?" he asked. + +"I suppose so. Why not? It is my turn to write now." + +"That's all nonsense." + +"What is? Writing in one's turn?" + +"I don't see why you need write at all." + +"Don't you remember I promised before you came?" + +"But I've come now," he replied in a tone intended to be very convincing. + +"His mother would miss it, if I didn't write; she thinks she can't write +letters. And I like his letters," she added frankly. + +"I suppose you do. I suppose you like them better than mine," with an +assertion hardly a question in his voice. + +"They are so different. His life is so different from yours. But he is +shy, as shy as a girl, and does not tell me all the things you do. Your +letters are more interesting, but _he_ is more interesting--as a study. +You are a lesson that I have learned, but I have scarcely begun to learn +him." + +"That is very cold blooded when you are talking about human beings." + +"My brain was talking then." + +"Suppose you let your heart speak." + +"My heart hasn't anything to say; it is not developed yet." + +"I don't believe it," he answered angrily. + +"Then you must find it out for yourself. Morris, I don't want to be _in +love_ with anybody, if that's what you mean. I love you dearly, but I am +not in love with you or with anybody." + +"You don't know the difference," he said quickly. + +"How do you know the difference? Did you learn it before I was born?" + +"I love my mother, but I am in love with you; that's the difference." + +"Then I don't know the difference--and I do. I love my dear father and +Mr. Holmes and you,--not all alike, but I need you all at different +times--" + +"And Hollis," he persisted. + +"I do not know him," she insisted. "I have nothing to say about that. +Morris, I want to go with Miss Prudence and study; I don't want to be +a housekeeper and have a husband, like Linnet! I have so much to learn; I +am eager for everything. You see you _are_ older than I am." + +"Yes," he said, disappointedly, "you are only a little girl yet. Or you +are growing up to be a Woman's Rights Woman, and to think a 'career' is +better than a home and a man who is no better than other men to love you +and protect you and provide for you." + +"You know that is not true," she answered quietly; "but I have been +looking forward so long to going to school." + +"And living with Miss Prudence and becoming like her!" + +"Don't you want me to be like her?" + +"No," he burst out. "I want you to be like Linnet, and to think that +little house and house-keeping, and a good husband, good enough for you. +What is the good of studying if it doesn't make you more a perfect woman? +What is the good of anything a girl does if it doesn't help her to be a +woman?" + +"Miss Prudence is a perfect woman." + +Marjorie's tone was quiet and reasonable, but there was a fire in her +eyes that shone only when she was angry. + +"She would be more perfect if she stayed at home in Maple Street and made +a home for somebody than she is now, going hither and thither finding +people to be kind to and to help. She is too restless and she is not +satisfied. Look at Linnet; she is happier to-day with her husband that +reads only the newspapers, the nautical books, and his Bible, than Miss +Prudence with all her lectures and concerts and buying books and knowing +literary people! She couldn't make a Miss Prudence out of Linnet, but she +will make a Miss Prudence twice over out of you." + +"Linnet is happy because she loves Will, and she doesn't care for books +and people, as we do; but we haven't any Will, poor Miss Prudence and +poor Marjorie, we have to substitute people and books." + +"You might have, both of you!" he went on, excitedly; "but you want +something better, both of you,--_higher_, I suppose you think! There's +Mr. Holmes eating his heart out with being only a friend to Miss +Prudence, and you want me to go poking along and spoiling my life as he +does, because you like books and study better!" + +Marjorie laughed; the fire in Morris' blue eyes was something to see, and +the tears in his voice would have overcome her had she not laughed +instead. And he was going far away, too. + +"Morris, I didn't know you were quite such a volcano. I don't believe Mr. +Holmes stays here and _pokes_ because of Miss Prudence. I know he is +melancholy, sometimes, but he writes so much and thinks so much he can't +be light-hearted like young things like us. And who does as much good as +Miss Prudence? Isn't she another mother to Linnet and me? And if she +doesn't find somebody to love as Linnet does Will, I don't see how she +can help it." + +"It isn't in her heart or she would have found somebody; it is what is in +peoples' hearts that makes the difference! But when they keep the brain +at work and forget they have any heart, as you two do--" + +"It isn't Miss Prudence's brain that does her beautiful work. You ought +to read some of the letters that she lets me read, and then you would +see how much heart she has!" + +"And you want to be just like her," he sighed, but the sigh was almost a +groan. + +Certainly, in some experiences he had outstripped Marjorie. + +"Yes, I want to be like her," she answered deliberately. + +"And study and go around and do good and never be married?" he +questioned. + +"I don't see the need of deciding that question to-day." + +"I suppose not. You will when Hollis Rheid asks you to." + +"Morris, you are not like yourself to-day, you are quarrelling with me, +and we never quarrelled before." + +"Because you are so unreasonable; you will not answer me anything." + +"I have answered you truly; I have no other answer to give." + +"Will you think and answer me when I come home?" + +"I have answered you now." + +"Perhaps you will have another answer then." + +"Well, if I have I will give it to you. Are you satisfied?" + +"No," he said; but he turned her face up to his and looked down into her +innocent earnest eyes. + +"You are a goosie, as Linnet says; you will never grow up, little +Marjorie." + +"Then, if I am only eight, you must not talk to me as if I were eighty." + +"Or eighteen," he said. "How far on the voyage of life do you suppose +Linnet and Captain Will are." + +"Not far enough on to quarrel, I hope." + +"They will never be far enough for that, Will is too generous and Linnet +will never find anything to differ about; do you know, Marjorie, that +girl has no idea how Will loves her?" + +Marjorie stopped and faced him with the utmost gravity. + +"Do you know, Morris, that man has no idea how Linnet loves him?" + +And then the two burst into a laugh that restored them both to the +perfect understanding of themselves and each other and all the world. And +after an early supper he shook hands with them all--excepting "Mother +West," whom he kissed, and Marjorie, whom he asked to walk as far as +"Linnet's" with him on his way to the train--and before ten o'clock was +on board the _Linnet_, and congratulating again the bridegroom, who was +still radiant, and the bride, who was not looking in the least bit +homesick. + +"Will," said Linnet with the weight of tone of one giving announcement to +a mighty truth, "I wouldn't be any one beside myself for _anything_." + +"And I wouldn't have you any one beside yourself for _anything_," he +laughed, in the big, explosive voice that charmed Linnet every time +afresh. + + + + +XIV. + +A TALK AND ANOTHER TALK. + +"Life's great results are something slow."--Howells. + + +Morris had said good-bye with a look that brought sorrow enough in +Marjorie's eyes to satisfy him--almost, and had walked rapidly on, not +once turning to discover if Marjorie were standing still or moving toward +home; Mr. Holmes and Miss Prudence had promised to start out to meet her, +so that her walk homeward in the starlight would not be lonely. + +But they were not in sight yet to Marjorie's vision, and she stood +leaning over the gate looking at the windows with their white shades +dropped and already feeling that the little, new home was solitary. She +did not turn until a footstep paused behind her; she was so lost in +dreams of Linnet and Morris that she had not noticed the brisk, hurried +tread. The white rose had fallen from her hair and the one at her throat +had lost several petals; in her hand was a bunch of daisies that Morris +had picked along the way and laughingly asked her to try the childish +trick of finding out if he loved her, and she had said she was afraid +the daisies were too wise and would not ask them. + +"Haven't you been home all this time?" asked Hollis, startling her out of +her dream. + +"Oh, yes, and come back again." + +"Do you find the cottage so charming?" + +"I find it charming, but I could have waited another day to come and see +it. I came to walk part of the way with Morris." + +She colored, because when she was embarrassed she colored at everything, +and could not think of another word to say. + +Among those who understood him, rather, among those he understood, Hollis +was a ready talker; but, seemingly, he too could not think of another +word to say. + +Marjorie picked her daisies to pieces and they went on in the narrow foot +path, as she and Morris had done in the afternoon; Hollis walking on the +grass and giving her the path as her other companion had done. She could +think of everything to say to Morris, and Morris could think of +everything to say to her; but Morris was only a boy, and this tall +stranger was a gentleman, a gentleman whom she had never seen before. + +"If it were good sleighing I might take you on my sled," he remarked, +when all the daisies were pulled to pieces. + +"Is Flyaway in existence still?" she asked brightly, relieved that she +might speak at last. + +"'Stowed away,' as father says, in the barn, somewhere. Mr. Holmes is not +as strict as he used to be, is he?" + +"No, he never was after that. I think he needed to give a lesson to +himself." + +"He looks haggard and old." + +"I suppose he is old; I don't know how old he is, over forty." + +"That _is_ antiquated. You will be forty yourself, if you live long +enough." + +"Twenty-two years," she answered seriously; "that is time enough to do a +good many things in." + +"I intend to do a good many things," he answered with a proud humility in +his voice that struck Marjorie. + +"What--for example?" + +"Travel, for one thing, make money, for another." + +"What do you want money for?" she questioned. + +"What does any man want it for? I want it to give me influence, and I +want a luxurious old age." + +"That doesn't strike me as being the highest motives." + +"Probably not, but perhaps the highest motives, as you call them, do not +rule my life." + +And she had been praying for him so long. + +"Your mother seems to be a happy woman," was her reply, coming out of a +thought that she did not speak. + +"She is," he said, emphatically. "I wish poor old father were as happy." + +"Do you find many happy people?" she asked. + +"I find you and my mother," he returned smiling. + +"And yourself?" + +"Not always. I am happy enough today. Not as jubilant as old Will, +though. Will has a prize." + +"To be sure he has," said Marjorie. + +"What are you going to do next?" + +"Go to that pleasant home in Maple Street with Miss Prudence and go to +school." She was jubilant, too, today, or she would have been if Morris +had not gone away with such a look in his eyes. + +"You ought to be graduated by this time, you are old enough. Helen was +not as old as you." + +"But I haven't been at school at all, yet," she hastened to say. "And +Helen was so bright." + +"Aren't you bright?" he asked, laughing. + +"Mr. Holmes doesn't tell me that I am." + +"What will your mother do?" + +"Oh, dear," she sighed, "that is what I ask myself every day. But she +insists that I shall go, Linnet has had her 'chance' she says, and now it +is my turn. Miss Prudence is always finding somebody that needs a home, +and she has found a girl to help mother, a girl about my age, that hasn't +any friends, so it isn't the work that will trouble me; it is leaving +mother without any daughter at all." + +"She is willing to let Linnet go, she ought to be as willing to let you." + +"Oh, she is, and father is, too. I know I don't deserve such good times, +but I do want to go. I love Miss Prudence as much as I do mother, I +believe, and I am only forty miles from home. Mr. Holmes is about +leaving, too. How father will miss _him_! And Morris gone! Mother sighs +over the changes and then says changes must needs come if boys and girls +will grow up." + +"Where is Mr. Holmes going?" + +"To California. The doctor says he must go somewhere to cure his cough. +And he says he will rest and write another book. Have you read his book?" + +"No, it is too dry for me." + +"We don't think it is dry; Morris and I know it by heart." + +"That is because you know the author." + +"Perhaps it is. The book is everything but a story book. Miss Prudence +has a copy in Turkey morocco. Do you see many people that write books?" + +"No," he said, smiling at her simplicity. "New York isn't full of them." + +"Miss Prudence sees them," replied Marjorie with dignity. + +"She is a bird of their feather. I do not fly, I walk on the ground--with +my eyes on it, perhaps." + +"Like the man with the muck rake," said Marjorie, quoting from her old +love, _Pilgrims Progress_, "don't you know there was a crown held above +his head, and his eyes were on the ground and he could not see it." + +"No, I do not know it, but I perceive that you are talking an allegory at +me." + +"Not at you, _to_ you," she corrected. + +"You write very short letters to me, nowadays." + +"Your letters are not suggestive enough," she said, archly. + +"Like my conversation. As poor a talker as I am, I am a better talker +than writer. And you--you write a dozen times better than you talk." + +"I'm sorry I'm so unentertaining to-night. When Linnet writes she says: +"'I wish I could _talk_ to you,' and when I talk I think: 'I wish I could +write it all to you.'" + +"As some one said of some one who could write better than he talked, 'He +has plenty of bank notes, but he carries no small change, in his +pocket.'" + +"It is so apt to be too small," she answered, somewhat severely. + +"I see you are above talking the nonsense that some girls talk. What do +you do to get rested from your thoughts?" + +How Marjorie laughed! + +"Hollis, do talk to me instead of writing. And I'll write to you instead +of talking." + +"That is, you wish me near to you and yourself far away from me. That is +the only way that we can satisfy each other. Isn't that Miss Prudence +coming?" + +"And the master. They did not know I would have an escort home. But do +come all the way, father will like to hear you talk about the places +you have visited." + +"I travel, I don't visit places. I expect to go to London and Paris by +and by. Our buyer has been getting married and that doesn't please the +firm; he wanted to take his wife with him, but they vetoed that. They say +a married man will not attend strictly to business; see what a premium +is paid to bachelorhood. I shall understand laces well enough soon: I can +pick a piece of imitation out of a hundred real pieces now. Did Linnet +like the handkerchief and scarf?" + +"You should have seen her! Hasn't she spoken of them?" + +"No, she was too full of other things." + +"Marriage isn't all in getting ready, to Linnet," said Marjorie, +seriously, "I found her crying one day because she was so happy and +didn't deserve to be." + +"Will is a good fellow," said Hollis. "I wish I were half as good. But I +am so contradictory, so unsatisfied and so unsatisfying. I understand +myself better than I want to, and yet I do not understand myself at all." + +"That is because you are _growing_," said Marjorie, with her wise air. "I +haven't settled down into a real Marjorie yet. I shouldn't know my own +picture unless I painted it myself." + +"We are two rather dangerous people, aren't we?" laughed Hollis. "We will +steer clear of each other, as Will would say, until we can come to an +understanding." + +"Unless we can help each other," Marjorie answered. "But I don't believe +you need to be pulled apart, but only to be let alone to grow--that is, +if the germ is perfect." + +"A perfect germ!" he repeated. Hollis liked to talk about himself to any +one who would help him to self-analysis. + +But the slowly moving figures were approaching, the black figure with +bent shoulders and a slouched hat, the tall slight figure at his side in +light gray with a shawl of white wool across her shoulders and drawn up +over her hair, the fleecy whiteness softening the lines of a face that +were already softened. + +"O, Prudence, how far ahead we are of those two," exclaimed the +school-master, "and they are wiser than we, perhaps, because they do not +know so much." + +"They do not know so much of each other, surely," she replied with a low +laugh. That very day Mr. Holmes had quoted to her, giving it a personal +application: "What she suffered she shook off in the sunshine." + +He had been arguing within himself all day whether or not to destroy that +letter in his pocket or to show it to her. Would it give her something +else to shake off in the sunshine? + +Hollis was wondering if this Marjorie, with her sweet, bright face, her +graceful step and air of ladyhood, with modest and quick replies, not at +all intruding herself, but giving herself, unconsciously, could be the +same half-bashful little girl that he had walked with on a country road +four years before; the little girl who fell so far behind his ideal, the +little girl so different from city girls; and now, who among his small +circle of girlhood at home could surpass her? And she was dressed so +plainly, and there were marks of toil upon her fingers, and even freckles +hidden beneath the fresh bloom of her cheek! She would hunt eggs tomorrow +and milk the cows, she might not only weed in the garden, but when the +potatoes were dug she might pick them up, and even assist her father in +assorting them. Had he not said that Marjorie was his "boy" as well as +her mother's girl? Had she not taken the place of Morris in all things +that a girl could, and had she not taken his place with the master and +gone on with Virgil where Morris left off? + +"Marjorie, I don't see the _need_ of your going to school?" he was saying +when they joined the others. + +"Hollis, you are right," repeated the master, emphatically, "that is only +a whim, but she will graduate the first year, so it doesn't matter." + +"You see he is proud of his work," said Marjorie, "he will not give any +school the credit of me." + +"I will give you into Miss Prudence's keeping for a term of years, to +round you off, to make you more of a woman and less of a student--like +herself." + +Marjorie's eyes kindled, "I wish Morris might hear that! He has been +scolding me,--but that would satisfy him." + +After several moments of light talk, if the master ever could be said to +encourage light talk, he touched Miss Prudence, detaining her with him, +and Marjorie and Hollis walked on together. + +Marjorie and Hollis were not silent, nor altogether grave, for now and +then her laugh would ripple forth and he would join, with a ringing, +boyish laugh that made her forget that he had grown up since that day he +brought her the plate. + +But the two behind them were altogether grave; Miss Prudence was +speaking, for Mr. Holmes had asked her what kind of a day she had had. + +"To-morrow is to be one of our anniversaries, you know," she replied; +"twenty-four years ago--to-morrow--was to have been to me what to-day +is to Linnet. I wonder if I _were_ as light hearted as Linnet." + +"You were as blithe a maiden as ever trod on air," he returned smiling +sadly. "Don't I remember how you used to chase me around that old garden. +When we go back let us try another chase, shall we?" + +"We will let Marjorie run and imagine it is I." + +"Prudence, if I regain my strength out there, I am coming home to tell +you something, may I?" + +"I want you to regain your strength, but I am trembling when I think of +anything to be told. Is it anything--about--" + +"Jerome? Yes, it is about him and about my self. It is about our last +interview when we spoke of you. Do you still believe that he is living?" + +"Yes, we are living, why should he not be alive?" + +"Do yon know how old he would be?" + +"He was just twenty years older than I." + +"Then he must be sixty-four. That is not young, Prudence, and he had +grown old when I said goodbye to him on the steamer--no, it was not a +steamer, he avoided the publicity, he went in a merchant ship, there was +not even one passenger beside himself. He had a fine constitution and he +knew how to take care of himself; it was the--worry that made him look +old. He was very warm-hearted and lovable." + +"Yes," escaped Miss Prudence's lips. + +"But he was weak and lead astray--it seems strange that your silver +wedding day might be almost at hand, and that tall boy and girl in front +of you my brother's children to call me Uncle John." + +"John," she sobbed, catching her breath. + +"Poor child! Now I've brought the tears. I was determined to get that +dead look out of your eyes that was beginning to come to-night. It shall +go away to-night and you shall not awake with it in the morning. Do you +know what you want? Do you want to tell me what you pray about on your +wedding day?" + +"Yes, and you can pray with me to-morrow. I always ask repentance and +remission of sins for him and for myself that I may see him once more +and make him believe that I have forgiven him." + +"Did you ever wish that you had been his wife and might have shared his +exile?" + +"Not at first; I was too indignant; I did not forgive him, at first; but +since I have wished it; I know he has needed me." + +"But he threw you off." + +"No, he would not let me share his disgrace." + +"He did not love you well enough to keep the disgrace from you, it +seems," said John Holmes, bitterly. + +"No, I could not keep him from sin. The love of a woman is not the love +of God. I failed as many a woman has failed. But I did not desert him; I +went--but he would not see me." + +"He was sorry afterward, he tried to write to you, but he always broke +down and could not go on; you were so young and he had been a shame to +you." + +"You never told me this before." + +"Because I hated him, I hated my brother, for disgracing you and +disgracing my mother and myself; I have grown forgiving since, since God +has forgiven me. He said that last day that you must not forget him." + +"He knew I would not forget," said Miss Prudence, proudly. + +"Did you ever hate him?" + +"Yes, I think I did. I believed he hastened poor father's death; I knew +he had spoiled all my life; yes, I hated him until my heart was softened +by many sorrows--John, I loved that man who went away--so far, without +me, but I held myself bound, I thought your brother would come back and +claim [missing text] was while Jerome was in--before he went to Europe-- +and I said the shame and horror was too great, I could not become +anybody's happy wife with that man who was so nearly my husband in such a +place." + +"Have you regretted that decision since?" he questioned in a dry hard +tone. + +"Yes." + +How quiet her voice was! "I was sorry--when I read of his sudden death +two years ago--and I almost hated your brother again for keeping so much +from me--it is so hard not to hate with a bitter hatred when we have been +so wronged. How I have prayed for a forgiving heart," she sighed. + +"Have you had any comfort to-day?" + +"Yes, I found it in my reading this morning. Linnet was up and singing +early and I was sitting at my window over her head and I learned a lesson +of how God waits before he comforts in these words that were given new to +me. 'And the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen +clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.'" + +"I cannot see any comfort in that." + +There was a broken sound in the master's voice that Miss Prudence had +never heard before, a hopelessness that was something deeper than his old +melancholy. Had any confession that she had made touched him anew? Was he +troubled at that acknowledged hardness towards his brother? Or was it +sorrow afresh at the mention of her disappointments? Or was it sympathy +for the friend who had given her up and gone away without her? + +Would Miss Prudence have been burdened as she never had been burdened +before could she have known that he had lost a long-cherished hope for +himself? that he had lived his lonely life year after year waiting until +he should no longer be bound by the promise made to his brother at their +parting? The promise was this; that he should not ask Prudence, "Prue" +his brother had said, to marry him until he himself should be dead; in +pity for the brother who had educated him and had in every way been so +generous, and who now pleaded brokenly for this last mercy, he had given +the promise, rather it had been wrung out of him, and for a little time +he had not repented. And then when he forgot his brother and remembered +himself, his heart died within him and there was nothing but hard work +left to live for; this only for a time, he found God afterward and worked +hard for him. + +He had written to his brother and begged release, but no word of release +had come, and he was growing old and his health had failed under the +stress of work and the agony of his self-control, "the constant anguish +of patience." + +But the letter in his pocket was of no avail now, Prudence had loved him +only as a brother all these long years of his suspense and hope and +waiting; that friend whose sudden death had moved her so had been in her +thoughts, and he was only her dear friend and--Jerome's brother. + +It is no wonder that the bent shoulders drooped lower and that the +slouched hat was drawn over a face that fain would have hidden itself. +Prudence, his sister Prudence, was speaking to him and he had not heard a +word. How that young fellow in front was rattling on and laughing as +though hearts never ached or broke with aching, and now he was daring +Marjorie to a race, and the fleet-footed girl was in full chase, and the +two who had run their race nearly a quarter of a century before walked on +slowly and seriously with more to think about and bear than they could +find words for. + +"I found comfort in that. Shall I tell you?" she asked. + +"Yes," he said, "if you can make me understand." + +"I think you will understand, but I shall not make you; I shall speak +slowly, for I want to tell you all I thought. The Lord was dead; he +had been crucified and laid away within the sepulchre three days since, +and they who had so loved him and so trusted in his promises were +broken-hearted because of his death. Our Christ has never been dead to +us, John; think what it must have been to them to know him _dead_. 'Let +not your heart be troubled' he said; but their hearts were troubled, and +he knew it; he knew how John's heart was rent, and how he was sorrowing +with the mother he had taken into his own home; he knew how Peter had +wept his bitter tears, how Martha and Mary and Lazarus were grieving for +him, how all were watching, waiting, hoping and yet hardly daring to +hope,--oh, how little our griefs seem to us beside such grief as theirs! +And the third day since he had been taken from them. Did they expect +again to hear his footfall or his voice? He could see, all this time, the +hands outstretched in prayer, he could hear their cries, he could feel +the beating of every heart, and yet how slowly he was going forth to meet +them. How could he stay his feet? Were not Peter and John running towards +him? Was not Mary on her way to him? And yet he did not hasten; something +must first be done, such little things; the linen clothes must be laid +aside and the napkin that had been about his head must be wrapped +together in a place by itself. Such a little thing to think of, such a +little thing to do, before he could go forth to meet them! Was it +necessary that the napkin should be wrapped together in a place by +itself? As necessary as that their terrible suspense should be ended? As +necessary as that Peter and John and Martha and Mary and his mother +should be comforted one little instant sooner? Could you or I wait to +fold a napkin and lay it away if we might fly to a friend who was +wearying for us? Suppose God says: 'Fold that napkin and lay it away,' do +we do it cheerfully and submissively, choosing to do it rather than to +hasten to our friend? If a leper had stood in the way, beseeching him, if +the dead son of a widow were being carried out, we could understand the +instant's delay, if only a little child were waiting to speak to the +Lord, but to keep so many waiting just to lay the linen clothes aside, +and, most of all, to wrap together that napkin and lay it by itself. Only +the knowing that the doing this was doing the will of God reconciles me +to the waiting that one instant longer, that his mother need not have +waited but for that. So, John, perhaps you and I are waiting to do some +little thing, some little thing that we do not know the meaning of, +before God's will can be perfect concerning us. It may be as near to us +as was the napkin about the head of the Lord. I was forgetting that, +after he died for us, there was any of the Father's will left for him to +do. And I suppose he folded that napkin as willingly as he gave himself +up to the cross. John, that does help me--I am so impatient at +interruptions to what I call my 'work,' and I am so impatient for the +Lord to work for me." + +"Yes," he answered slowly, "it is hard to realize that we _must_ stop to +do every little thing. But I do not stop, I pass the small things by. +Prudence, I am burning up with impatience to-night." + +"Are you? I am very quiet." + +"If you knew something about Jerome that I do not know, and it would +disturb me to know it, would you tell me?" + +"If I should judge you by myself I should tell you. How can one person +know how a truth may affect another? Tell me what you know; I am +ready." + +But she trembled exceedingly and staggered as she walked. + +"Take my arm," he said, quietly. + +She obeyed and leaned against him as they moved on slowly; it was too +dark for them to see each other's faces clearly, a storm was gathering, +the outlines of the house they were approaching, were scarcely +distinguishable. + +"We are almost home," she said. + +"Yes, there! Our light is flashing out. Marjorie is lighting the parlor +lamp. I have in my pocket a letter from Jerome; I have had it a week; you +seemed so quiet and happy I had not the heart to disturb you. It was sent +to the old address, I told him some one there would always find me. He +has not written because he thought we did not care to hear. He has the +name of an honest man there, he says." + +"Is that all?" she questioned, her heart beating with a rapid pulsation. +How long she had waited for this. + +"He is not in Europe now, he is in California. His wife is dead and he +has a little girl ten years old. He refers to a letter written twelve +years ago--a letter that I never received; but it would have made no +difference if I had received it. I wrote to him once begging him to +release me from a promise that I made rashly out of great pity for him, +it was cruel and selfish in him to force me to it, but I was not sure of +myself then, and it was all that I could do for him. But, as I said, he +released me when he chose to do it, and it does not matter. Perhaps it is +better that I had the promise to bind me; you are happier for it, I +think, and I have not been selfish in any demand upon you." + +"John, I don't know what you mean," she said, perplexed. + +"I don't mean anything that I can tell you." + +"I hope he did not deceive her--his wife, that he told her all about +himself." + +"She died nine years ago, he writes, and now he is very ill himself and +wishes to leave his little daughter in safe hands; her mother was an +orphan, it seems, and the child has no relatives that he cares to leave +her with; her mother was an English girl, he was married in England. He +wishes me to come to him and take charge of the child." + +"That is why you so suddenly chose California instead of Minnesota for +your winter?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you written to him?" + +"Yes." + +"Is he very ill?" + +"Yes; he may never receive my letter." + +"I would like to write to him," said Miss Prudence. + +"Would you like to see the letter?" + +"No; I would rather not. You have told me all?" with a slight quiver in +the firm voice. + +"All excepting his message to you." + +After a moment she asked: "What is it?" + +"He wants you to take the guardianship of his child with me. I have not +told you all--he thinks we are married." + +The brave voice trembled in spite of his stern self-control. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Prudence, and then: "Why should he think that?" in a low, +hesitating voice. + +"Because he knew me so well. Having only each other, it was natural, was +it not?" + +"Perhaps so. Then that is all he says." + +"Isn't that enough?" + +"No, I want to know if he has repented, if he is another man. I am glad I +may write to him; I want to tell him many things. We will take care of +the little girl, John." + +"If I am West and you are East--" + +"Do you want to keep her with you?" + +"What could I do with her? She will be a white elephant to me. I am not +her father; I do not think I understand girls--or boys, or men. I hardly +understand you, Prudence." + +"Then I am afraid you never will. Isn't it queer how I always have a +little girl provided for me? Marjorie is growing up and now I have this +child, your niece, John, to be my little girl for a long time. I wonder +what her name is." + +"He did tell me that! I may have passed over something else; you might +better see the letter." + +"No; handwriting is like a voice, or a perfume to me--I could not bear it +to-night. John, I feel as if it would _kill_ me. It is so long ago--I +thought I was stronger--O, John," she leaned her head upon his arm and +sobbed convulsively like a little child. + +He laid his hand upon her head as if she were indeed the little child, +and for a long time no words were spoken. + +"Prudence, there is something else, there is the photograph of the little +girl--her mother named her Jeroma." + +"I will take that," she said, lifting her head, "and I will write to her +to-night." + +That night before she slept she wrote a long letter to the child with the +brown eyes and sunny curls, describing the home in Maple Street, and +promising to take her into her heart and keep her there always, to adopt +her for her very own little daughter for her own sake and for her +father's sake, whom she knew long ago, ending it thus: + +"You cannot come to me too soon, for I am waiting for you with a hungry +heart. I knew there was something good coming to me, and I know you +will be my blessing. + +"Your Loving Aunt Prue." + + + + +XV. + +JEROMA. + +"Whom hast them pitied? And whom forgiven I"--_Wills_. + + +The child had risen early that she might have a good time looking at the +sea lions; the huge creatures covered the rocks two hundred yards away +from her, crawling and squirming, or lying still as if as dead as the +rock itself, their pointed heads and shining bodies giving her a +delightful shiver of affright, their howling and groaning causing her to +run every now and then back to her father's chair on the veranda, and +then she would dance back again and stand and watch them--the horrible, +misshapen monsters--as they quarrelled, or suckled their young, or +furious and wild as they tumbled about and rolled off the craggy cliffs +into the sea. She left her chamber early every morning to watch them and +never grew weary of the familiar, strange Bight. Not that this sight had +been so long familiar, for her father was ever seeking new places along +the coast to rest in, or grow strong in. Nurse had told her that morning +that there was not any place for her papa to get well in. + +He had breakfasted, as usual, upon the veranda, and, the last time that +she had brought her gaze from the fascinating monsters to look back at +him, he was leaning against the cushions of his rolling chair, with his +eyes fixed upon the sea. He often sat for hours and hours looking out +upon the sea. + +Jeroma had played upon the beach every day last winter, growing ruddy and +strong, but the air had revived him only for a little time, he soon sank +back into weakness and apathy. He had dismissed her with a kiss awhile +ago, and had seemed to suffer instead of respond to her caresses. + +"Papa gets tired of loving me," she had said to Nurse last night with a +quivering of the lip. + +"Papa is very sick," Nurse had answered guardedly, "and he had letters +to-day that were too much for him." + +"Then he shouldn't have letters," said the child, decidedly. "I'll tell +him so to-morrow." + +As she danced about, her white dress and sunny curls gleaming in and out +among the heliotrope and scarlet geranium that one of the flower-loving +boarders was cultivating, her father called her name; it was a queer +name, and she did not like it. She liked her second name, Prudence, +better. But Nurse had said, when she complained to her, that the girls +would call her "Prudy" for short, and "Jerrie" was certainly a prettier +name than that. + +"Jerrie," her father called. + +The sound was so weak and broken by a cough that she did not turn her +head or answer until he had called more than twice. But she flew to him +when she was sure that he had called her, and kissed his flabby cheek and +smoothed back the thin locks of white hair. His black eyes were burning +like two fires beneath his white brows, his lips were ashy, and his +breath hot and hurried. Two letters were trembling in his hand, two open +letters, and one of them was in several fluttering sheets; this +handwriting was a lady's, Jeroma recognized that, although she could not +read even her own name in script. + +"O, papa, those are the letters that made you sick! I'll throw them away +to the lions," she cried, trying to snatch them. But he kept them in his +fingers and tried to speak. + +"I'll be rested in a moment, eat those strawberries--and then I +have--something to talk to you about." + +She surveyed the table critically, bread and fruit and milk; there was +nothing beside. + +"I've had my breakfast! O, papa, I've forgotten your flowers! Mrs. Heath +said you might have them every morning." + +"Run and get them then, and never wait for me to call you--it tires me +too much." + +"Poor papa! And I can howl almost as loud as the lions themselves." + +"Don't howl at me then, for I might want to roll off into the sea," he +said, smiling as she danced away. + +The child seemed never to walk, she was always frisking about, one hardly +knew if her feet touched the ground. + +"Poor child! happy child," he groaned, rather than murmured, as she +disappeared around the corner of the veranda. She was a chubby, +roundfaced child, with great brown eyes and curls like yellow floss; from +her childishness and ignorance of what children at ten years of age are +usually taught, she was supposed by strangers to be no more than eight +years of age; she was an imperious little lady, impetuous, untrained, +self-reliant, and, from much intercourse with strangers, not at all shy, +looking out upon the world with confiding eyes, and knowing nothing to be +afraid of or ashamed of. Nurse had been her only teacher; she could +barely read a chapter in the New Testament, and when her father gave her +ten cents and then five more she could not tell him how many cents she +held in her hand. + +"No matter, I don't want you to count money," he said. + +Before he recovered his breath and self-possession she was at his side +with the flowers she had hastily plucked--scarlet geranium, heliotrope, +sweet alyssum, the gorgeous yellow and orange poppy, and the lovely blue +and white lupine. He received them with a listless smile and laid them +upon his knee; as he bade her again to eat the strawberries she brought +them to his side, now and then coaxing a "particularly splendid" one into +his mouth, pressing them between his lips with her stained fingers. + +"Papa, your eyes shine to-day! You are almost well. Nurse doesn't know." + +"What does Nurse say?" + +"That you will die soon; and then where shall I go?" + +"Would you like to know where you will go?" + +"I don't want to go anywhere; I want to stay here with you." + +"But that is impossible, Jerrie." + +"Why! Who says so?" she questioned, fixing her wondering eyes on his. + +"God," he answered solemnly. + +"Does he know all about it?" + +"Yes." + +"Has it _got_ to be so, then?" she asked, awed. + +"Yes." + +"Well, what is the rest, then?" + +"Sit down and I'll tell you." + +"I'd rather stand, please. I never like to sit down." + +"Stand still then, dear, and lean on the arm of my chair and not on me; +you take my breath away," + +"Poor papa! Am I so big? As big as a sea lion?" + +Not heeding her--more than half the time he heard her voice without +heeding her words--he turned the sheets in his fingers, lifted them as if +to read them and then dropped his hand. + +"Jerrie, what have I told you about Uncle John who lives near the other +ocean?" + +Jerrie thought a moment: "That he is good and will love me dearly, and be +ever so kind to me and teach me things?" + +"And Prue, Aunt Prue; what do you know about her?" + +"I know I have some of her name, not all, for her name is Pomeroy; and +she is as beautiful as a queen and as good; and she will love me more +than Uncle John will, and teach me how to be a lovely lady, too." + +"Yes, that is all true; one of these letters is from her, written to +you--" + +"Oh, to me! to _me_." + +"I will read it to you presently." + +"I know which is hers, the thin paper and the writing that runs along." + +"And the other is from Uncle John." + +"To me?" she queried. + +"No, this is mine, but I will read it to you. First I want to tell you +about Aunt Prue's home." + +"Is it like this? near the sea? and can I play on the beach and see the +lions?" + +"It is near the sea, but it is not like this; her home is in a city by +the sea. The house is a large house. It was painted dark brown, years +ago, with red about the window frames, and the yard in front was full of +flowers that Aunt Prue had the care of, and the yard at the back was deep +and wide with maples in it and a swing that she used to love to swing in; +she was almost like a little girl then herself." + +"She isn't like a little girl now, is she?" + +"No, she is grown up like that lady on the beach with the children; but +she describes herself to you and promises to send her picture!" + +"Oh, good!" exclaimed the child, dancing around the chair, and coming +back to stand quietly at her father's side. + +"What is the house like inside? Like this house?" + +"No, not at all. There is a wide, old-fashioned hall, with a dark carpet +in it and a table and several chairs, and engravings on the walls, and +a broad staircase that leads to large, pleasant rooms above; and there is +a small room on the top of the house where you can go up and see vessels +entering the harbor. Down-stairs the long parlor is the room that I know +best; that had a dark carpet and dark paper on the walls and many +windows, windows in front and back and two on the side, there were +portraits over the mantel of her father and mother, and other pictures +around everywhere, and a piano that she loved to play for her father on, +and books in book cases, and, in winter, plants; it was not like any one +else's parlor, for her father liked to sit there and she brought in +everything that would please him. Her father was old like me, and sick, +and she was a dear daughter like you." + +"Did he die?" she asked. + +"Yes, he died. He died sooner than he would have died because some one he +thought a great deal of did something very wicked and almost killed his +daughter with grief. How would I feel if some one should make you so +unhappy and I could not defend you and had to die and leave you alone." + +"Would you want to kill him--the man that hurt me?" + +But his eyes were on the water and not on her face; his countenance +became ashy, he gasped and hurried his handkerchief to his lips. Jeroma +was not afraid of the bright spots that he sought to conceal by crumpling +the handkerchief in his hand, she had known a long time that when her +father was excited those red spots came on his handkerchief. She knew, +too, that the physician had said that when he began to cough he would +die, but she had never heard him cough very much, and could not believe +that he must ever die. + +"Papa, what became of the man that hurt Aunt Prue and made her father +die?" + +"He lived and was the unhappiest wretch in existence. But Aunt Prue tried +to forgive him, and she used to pray for him as she always had done +before. Jerrie, when you go to Aunt Prue I want you to take her name, +your own name, Prudence, and I will begin to-day to call you 'Prue,' so +that you may get used to it." + +"Oh, will you?" she cried in her happy voice. "I don't like to be +'Jerrie,' like the boy that takes care of the horses. When Mr. Pierce +calls so loud 'Jerry!' I'm always afraid he means me; but Nurse says that +Jerry has a _y_ in it and mine is _ie_, but it sounds like my name all +the time. But Prue is soft like Pussy and I like it. What made you ever +call me Jerrie, papa?" + +"Because your mamma named you after my name, Jerome. We used to call you +Roma, but that was long for a baby, so we began to call you Jerrie." + +"I like it, papa, because it is your name, and I could tell the girls at +Aunt Prue's that it is my father's name, and then I would be proud and +not ashamed." + +"No, dear, always write it Prudence Holmes--forget that you had any other +name. It is so uncommon that people would ask how you came by it and then +they would know immediately who your father was." + +"But I like to tell them who my father was. Do people know you in Aunt +Prue's city?" + +"Yes, they knew me once and they are not likely to forget. Promise me, +Jerrie--Prue, that you will give up your first name." + +"I don't like to, now I must, but I will, papa, and I'll tell Aunt Prue +you liked her name best, shall I?" + +"Yes, tell her all I've been telling you--always tell her +everything--never do anything that you cannot tell her--and be sure to +tell her if any one speaks to you about your father, and she will talk +to you about it." + +"Yes, papa," promised the child in an uncomprehending tone. + +"Does Nurse teach you a Bible verse every night as I asked her to do?" + +"Oh, yes, and I like some of them. The one last night was about a name! +Perhaps it meant Prue was a good name." + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"'A good name--a good name--'" she repeated, with her eyes on the floor +of the veranda, "and then something about riches, great riches, but I do +forget so. Shall I run and ask her, papa?" + +"No, I learned it when I was a boy: 'A good name is rather to be chosen +than great riches.' Is that it?" + +"Yes, that's it: 'A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.' +I shan't forget next time; I'll think about your name, Jerome, papa; that +is a good name, but I don't see how it is better than _great_ riches, do +you?" + +The handkerchief was nervously at his lips again, and the child waited +for him to speak. + +"Jerrie, I have no money to leave you, it will all be gone by the time +you and Nurse are safe at Aunt Prue's. Everything you have will come from +her; you must always thank her very much for doing so much for you, and +thank Uncle John and be very obedient to him." + +"Will he make me do what I don't want to?" she asked, her lips pouting +and her eyes moistening. + +"Not unless it is best, and now you must promise me never to disobey him +or Aunt Prue. Promise, Jerrie." + +But Jerrie did not like to promise. She moved her feet uneasily, she +scratched on the arm of his chair with a pin that she had picked up on +the floor of the veranda; she would not lift her eyes nor speak. She did +not love to be obedient; she loved to be queen in her own little realm of +Self. + +"Papa is dying--he will soon go away, and his little daughter will not +promise the last thing he asks of her?" + +Instantly, in a flood of penitent tears, her arms were flung about his +neck and she was promising over and over, "I will, I will," and sobbing +on his shoulder. + +He suffered the embrace for a few moments and then pushed her gently +aside. + +"Papa is tired now, dear. I want to teach you a Bible verse, that you +must never, never forget: 'The way of the transgressor is hard.' Say it +after me." + +The child brushed her tears away and stood upright. + +"The way of the transgressor is hard," she repeated in a sobbing voice. + +"Repeat it three times." + +She repeated it three times slowly. + +"Tell Uncle John and Aunt Prue that that was the last thing I taught you, +will you?" + +"Yes, papa," catching her breath with a little sob. + +"And now run away and come back in a hour and I will read the letters to +you. Ask Nurse to tell you when it is an hour." + +The child skipped away, and before many minutes he heard her laughing +with the children on the beach. With the letters in his hand, and the +crumpled handkerchief with the moist red spots tucked away behind him in +the chair, he leaned back and closed his eyes. His breath came easily +after a little time and he dozed and dreamed. He was a boy again and it +was a moonlight night, snow was on the ground, and he was walking home +from town besides his oxen; he had sold the load of wood that he had +started with before daylight; he had eaten his two lunches of bread and +salt beef and doughnuts, and now, cold and tired and sleepy, he was +walking back home at the side of his oxen. The stars were shining, the +ground was as hard as stone beneath his tread, the oxen labored on +slowly, it seemed as if he would never get home. His mother would have a +hot supper for him, and the boys would ask what the news was, and what +he had seen, and his little sister would ask if he had bought that piece +of ginger bread for her. He stirred and the papers rustled in his fingers +and there was a harsh sound somewhere as of a bolt grating, and his cell +was small and the bed so narrow, so narrow and so hard, and he was +suffocating and could not get out. + +"Papa! papa! It's an hour," whispered a voice in his ear. The eyelids +quivered, the eyes looked straight at her but did not see her. + +"Ah Sing! Ah Sing! Get me to bed!" he groaned. + +Frightened at the expression of his face the child ran to call Nurse and +her father's man, Ah Sing. Nurse kept her out of her father's chamber all +that day, but she begged for her letter and Nurse gave it to her. She +carried it in her hand that day and the next, at night keeping it under +her pillow. + +Before many days the strange uncle came and he led her in to her father +and let her kiss his hand, and afterward he read Aunt Prue's soiled +letter to her and told her that she and Nurse were going to Aunt Prue's +home next week. + +"Won't you go, too?" she asked, clinging to him as no one had ever clung +to him before. + +"No, I must stay here all winter--I shall come to you some time." + +She sobbed herself to sleep in his arms, with the letter held fast in her +hand; he laid her on her bed, pressing his lips to her warm, wet face, +and then went down and out on the beach, pacing up and down until the +dawn was in the sky. + + + + +XVI. + +MAPLE STREET. + +"Work for some good, be it ever so slowly."--_Mrs. Osgood_. + + +The long room with its dark carpet and dark walls was in twilight, in +twilight and in firelight, for without the rain was falling steadily, and +in the old house fires were needed early in the season. In the time of +which little Jeroma had heard, there had been a fire on the hearth in the +front parlor, but to-night, when that old time was among the legends, the +fire glowed in a large grate; in the back parlor the heat came up through +the register. Miss Prudence had a way of designating the long apartment +as two rooms, for there was an arch in the centre, and there were two +mantels and two fireplaces. Prue's father would have said to-night that +the old room was unchanged--nothing had been taken out and nothing new +brought in since that last night that he had seen the old man pacing up +and down, and the old man's daughter whirling around on the piano stool, +as full of hope and trust and enthusiasm as ever a girl could be. + +But to-night there was a solitary figure before the fire, with no +memories and no traditions to disturb her dreaming, with no memories of +other people's past that is, for there was a sad memory or a foreboding +in the very droop of her shoulders and in her listless hands. The small, +plump figure was arrayed in school attire of dark brown, with linen +collar and cuffs, buttoned boots resting on the fender, and a black silk +apron with pockets; there were books and a slate upon the rug, and a +slate pencil and lead pencil in one of the apron pockets; a sheet of note +paper had slipped from her lap down to the rug, on the sheet of paper was +a half-finished letter beginning: "Dear Morris." There was nothing in the +letter worth jotting down, she wondered why she had ever begun it. She +was nestling down now with her head on the soft arm of the chair, her +eyes were closed, but she was not asleep, for the moisture beneath the +tremulous eyelids had formed itself into two large drops and was slowly +rolling, unheeded, down her cheeks. + +The rain was beating noisily upon the window panes, and the wind was +rising higher and higher; as it lulled for a moment there was the sound +of a footfall on the carpet somewhere and the door was pushed open from +the lighted hall. + +"Don't you want to be lighted up yet, Miss Marjorie?" + +"No, Deborah, thank you! I'll light the lamps myself." + +"Young things like to sit in the dark, I guess," muttered old Deborah, +closing the door softly; adding to herself: "Miss Prudence used to, once +on a time, and this girl is coming to it." + +After that for a little time there was no sound, save the sound of the +rain, and, now and then, the soft sigh that escaped Marjorie's lips. + +How strange it was, she reasoned with herself, for her to care at all! +What if Hollis did not want to answer that last letter of hers, written +more than two months ago, just after Linnet's wedding day? That had been +a long letter; perhaps too long. But she had been so lonesome, missing +everybody. Linnet, and Morris, and Mr. Holmes, and Miss Prudence had gone +to her grandfather's for the sea bathing, and the girl had come to help +her mother, and she had walked over to his mother's and talked about +everything to her and then written that long letter to him, that long +letter that had been unanswered so long. When his letter was due she had +expected it, as usual, and had walked to the post-office, the two miles +and a half, for the sake of the letter and having something to do. She +could not believe it when the postmaster handed her only her father's +weekly paper, she stood a moment, and then asked, "Is that all?" And the +next week came, and the next, and the next, and no letter from him; and +then she had ceased, with a dull sense of loss and disappointment, to +expect any answer at all. Her mother inquired briskly every day if her +letter had come and urged her to write a note asking if he had received +it, for he might be waiting for it all this time, but shyness and pride +forbade that, and afterward his mother called and spoke of something +that he must have read in that letter. She felt how she must have +colored, and was glad that her father called her, at that moment, to help +him shell corn for the chickens. + +When she returned to the house, brightened up and laughing, her mother +told her that Mrs. Rheid had said that Hollis had begun to write to her +regularly and she was so proud of it. "She says it is because you are +going away and he wants her to hear directly from him; I guess, too, it's +because he's being exercised in his mind and thinks he ought to have +written oftener before; she says her hand is out of practice and the +Cap'n hates to write letters and only writes business letters when it's a +force put. I guess she will miss you, Marjorie." + +Marjorie thought to herself that she would. + +But Marjorie's mother did not repeat all the conversation; she did not +say that she had followed her visitor to the gate and after glancing +around to be sure that Marjorie was not near had lowered her voice and +said: + +"But I do think it is a shame, Mis' Rheid, for your Hollis to treat my +Marjorie so! After writing to her four years to give her the slip like +this! And the girl takes on about it, I can see it by her looks, although +she's too proud to say a word." + +"I'm sure I'm sorry," said Mrs. Rheid. "Hollis wouldn't do a mean thing." + +"I don't know what you call this, then," Marjorie's mother had replied +spiritedly as she turned towards the house. + +Mrs. Rheid pondered night and day before she wrote to Hollis what +Marjorie's mother had said; but he never answered that part of the +letter, and his mother never knew whether she had done harm or good. Poor +little Marjorie could have told her, with an indignation that she would +have been frightened at; but Marjorie never knew. I'm afraid she would +not have felt like kissing her mother good-night if she had known it. + +Her father looked grave and anxious that night when her mother told him, +as in duty bound she was to tell him everything, how she was arranging +things for Marjorie's comfort. + +"That was wrong, Sarah, that was wrong," he said. + +"How wrong? I don't see how it was wrong?" she had answered sharply. + +"Then I cannot explain to you, Marjorie isn't hurt any; I don't believe +she cares half as much as you do?" + +"You don't know; you don't see her all the time." + +"She misses Linnet and Morris, and perhaps she grieves about going away. +You remind me of some one in the Bible--a judge. He had thirty sons and +thirty daughters and he got them all married! It's well for your peace of +mind that you have but two." + +"It's no laughing matter," she rejoined. + +"No, it is not," he sighed, for he understood Marjorie. + +How the tears would have burned dry on Marjorie's indignant cheeks had +she surmised one tithe of her mother's remonstrance and defence; it is +true she missed his letters, and she missed writing her long letters to +him, but she did not miss him as she would have missed Morris had some +misunderstanding come between them. She was full of her home and her +studies, and she felt herself too young to think grown-up thoughts and +have grown-up experiences; she felt herself to be so much younger +than Linnet. But her pride was touched, simple-hearted as she was she +wanted Hollis to care a little for her letters. She had tried to please +him and to be thoughtful about his mother and grandmother; and this was +not a pleasant ending. Her mother had watched her, she was well aware, +and she was glad to come away with Miss Prudence to escape her mother's +keen eyes. Her father had kissed her tenderly more than once, as though +he were seeking to comfort her for something. It was _such_ a relief--and +she drew a long breath as she thought of it--to be away from both, and to +be with Miss Prudence, who never saw anything, or thought anything, or +asked any questions. A few tears dropped slowly as she cuddled in the +chair with her head on its arm, she hardly knew why; because she was +alone, perhaps, and Linnet was so far off, and it rained, and Miss +Prudence and her little girl might not come home to-night, and, it might +be, because Miss Prudence had another little girl to love. + +Miss Prudence had gone to New York, a week ago, to meet the child and to +visit the Rheids. The nurse had relatives in the city and preferred to +remain with them, but Prue would be ready to come home with Miss +Prudence, and it was possible that they might come to-night. + +The house had been so lonely with old Deborah it was no wonder that she +began to cry! And, it was foolish to remember that Holland plate in Mrs. +Harrowgate's parlor that she had seen to-day when she had stopped after +school on an errand for Miss Prudence. What a difference it had made to +her that it was that plate on the bracket and not that yellow pitcher. +The yellow pitcher was in fragments now up in the garret; she must show +it to Prue some rainy day and tell her about what a naughty little girl +she had been that day. + +That resolution helped to shake off her depression, she roused herself, +went to the window and looked out into darkness, and then sauntered as +far as the piano and seated herself to play the march that Hollis liked; +Napoleon crossing the Alps. But scarcely had she touched the keys before +she heard voices out in the rain and feet upon the piazza. + +Deborah's old ears had caught an earlier sound, and before Marjorie could +rush out the street door was opened and the travellers were in the hall. + +Exclamations and warm embraces, and then Marjorie drew the little one +into the parlor and before the fire. The child stood with her grave eyes +searching out the room, and when the light from the bronze lamp on the +centre table flashed out upon everything she walked up and down the +length of the apartment, stopping now and then to look curiously at +something. + +Marjorie smiled and thought to herself that she was a strange little +creature. + +"It's just as papa said," she remarked, coming to the rug, her survey +being ended. The childishness and sweet gravity of her tone were +striking. + +Marjorie removed the white hood that she had travelled from California +in, and, brushing back the curls that shone in the light like threads of +gold, kissed her forehead and cheeks and rosy lips. + +"I am your Cousin Marjorie, and you are my little cousin." + +"I like you, Cousin Marjorie," the child said. + +"Of course you do, and I love you. Are you Prue, or Jeroma?" + +"I'm Prue," she replied with dignity. "Don't you _ever_ call me Jeroma +again, ever; papa said so." + +Marjorie laughed and kissed her again. + +"I never, never will," she promised. + +"Aunt Prue says 'Prue' every time." + +Marjorie unbuttoned the gray cloak and drew off the gray gloves; Prue +threw off the cloak and then lifted her foot for the rubber to be pulled +off. + +"I had no rubbers; Aunt Prue bought these in New York." + +"Aunt Prue is very kind," said Marjorie, as the second little foot was +lifted. + +"Does she buy you things, too?" asked Prue. + +"Yes, ever and ever so many things." + +"Does she buy _everybody_ things?" questioned Prue, curiously. + +"Yes," laughed Marjorie; "she's everybody's aunt." + +"No, I don't buy everybody things. I buy things for you and Marjorie +because you are both my little girls." + +Turning suddenly Marjorie put both arms about Miss Prudence's neck: "I've +missed you, dreadfully, Miss Prudence; I almost cried to-night." + +"So that is the story I find in your eyes. But you haven't asked me the +news." + +"You haven't seen mother, or Linnet, or Morris,--they keep my news for +me." But she flushed as she spoke, reproaching herself for not being +quite sincere. + +Prue stood on the hearth rug, looking up at the portrait of the lady over +the mantel. + +"Don't pretend that you don't want to hear that Nannie Rheid has put +herself through," began Miss Prudence in a lively voice, "crammed to the +last degree, and has been graduated a year in advance of time that she +may be married this month. Her father was inexorable, she must be +graduated first, and she has done it at seventeen, so he has had to +redeem his promise and allow her to be married. Her 'composition'--that +is the old-fashioned name--was published in one of the literary weeklies, +and they all congratulate themselves and each other over her success. But +her eyes are big, and she looks as delicate as a wax lily; she is all +nerves, and she laughs and talks as though she could not stop herself. +What do you think of her as a school girl triumph?" + +"It isn't tempting. I like myself better. I want to be _slow_. Miss +Prudence, I don't want to hurry anything." + +"I approve of you, Marjorie. Now what is this little girl thinking +about?" + +"Is that your mamma up there?" + +"Yes." + +"She looks like you." + +"Yes, I am like her; but there is no white in her hair. It is all black, +Prue." + +"I like white in hair for old ladies." + +Marjorie laughed and Miss Prudence smiled. She was glad that being called +"an old lady" could strike somebody as comical. + +"Was papa in this room a good many times?" + +"Yes, many times." + +Miss Prudence could speak to his child without any sigh in her voice. + +"Do you remember the last time he was here?" + +"Yes," very gently. + +"He said I would like your house and I do." + +"Nannie is to marry one of Helen's friends, Marjorie; her mother thought +he used to care for Helen, but Nannie is like her." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "I remember. Hollis told me." + +"And my best news is about Hollis. He united with the Church a week or +two ago; Mrs. Rheid says he is the happiest Christian she ever saw. He +says he has not been _safe_ since Helen died--he has been thinking ever +since." + +Tears were so near to Marjorie's eyes that they brimmed over; could she +ever thank God enough for this? others may have been praying for him, +but she knew her years of prayers were being answered. She would never +feel sorrowful or disappointed about any little thing again, for what +had she so longed for as this? How rejoiced his mother must be! Oh, that +she might write to him and tell him how glad she was! But she could not +do that. She could tell God how glad she was, and if Hollis never knew it +would not matter. + +"In the spring he is to go to Europe for the firm." + +"He will like that," said Marjorie, finding her voice. + +"He is somebody to be depended on. But there is the tea-bell, and my +little traveller is hungry, for she would not eat on the train and I +tempted her with fruit and crackers." + +"Aunt Prue, I _like_ it here. May I see up stairs, too?" + +"You must see the supper table first. And then Marjorie may show you +everything while I write to Uncle John, to tell him that our little bird +has found her nest." + +Marjorie gave up her place that night in the wide, old-fashioned mahogany +bedstead beside Miss Prudence and betook herself to the room that opened +out of Miss Prudence's, a room with handsome furniture in ash, the +prevailing tint of the pretty things being her favorite shade of light +blue. + +"That is a maiden's room," Miss Prudence had said; "and when Prue has a +maiden's room it shall be in rose." + +Marjorie was not jealous, as she had feared she might be, of the little +creature who nestled close to Miss Prudence; she felt that Miss Prudence +was being comforted in the child. She was too happy to sleep that night. +In the years afterward she did not leave Hollis out of her prayers, but +she never once thought to pray that he might be brought back again to be +her friend. Her prayer for him had been answered and with that she was +well content. + + + + +XVII. + +MORRIS. + +"What I aspired to be comforts me."--_Browning_. + + +It was late one evening in November; Prue had kissed them both good-night +and ran laughing up the broad staircase to bed; Miss Prudence had +finished her evening's work and evening's pleasure, and was now sitting +opposite Marjorie, near the register in the back parlor. A round table +had been rolled up between them upon which the shaded, bronze lamp was +burning, gas not having yet been introduced into old-fashioned Maple +Street. The table was somewhat littered and in confusion, Prue's +stereoscope was there with the new views of the Yosemite at which she had +been looking that evening and asking Aunt Prue numerous questions, among +which was "Shall we go and see them some day? Shall we go everywhere some +day?" Aunt Prue had satisfied her with "Perhaps so, darling," and then +had fallen silently to wondering why she and Prue might not travel some +day, a year in Europe had always been one of her postponed intentions, +and, by and by, how her child would enjoy it. Marjorie's books and +writing desk were on the table also, for she had studied mental +philosophy and chemistry after she had copied her composition and +written a long letter to her mother. Short letters were as truly an +impossibility to Marjorie as short addresses are to some public speeches; +still Marjorie always stopped when she found she had nothing to say. To +her mother, school and Miss Prudence and Prue's sayings and doings were +an endless theme of delight. Not only did she take Marjoire's letters to +her old father and mother, but she more than a few times carried them in +her pocket when she visited Mrs. Rheid, that she might read them aloud to +her. Miss Prudence's work was also on the table, pretty sewing for Prue +and her writing materials, for it was the night for her weekly letter to +John Holmes. Mr. Holmes did not parade his letters before the neighbors, +but none the less did he pore over them and ponder them. For whom had he +in all the world to love save little Prue and Aunt Prue? + +Marjorie had closed the chemistry with a sigh, reserving astronomy for +the fresher hour of the morning. With the burden of the unlearned lesson +on her mind she opened her Bible for her usual evening reading, shrinking +from it with a distaste that she had felt several times of late and that +she had fought against and prayed about. Last evening she had compelled +herself to read an extra chapter to see if she might not read herself +into a comfortable frame of mind, and then she had closed the book with a +sigh of relief, feeling that this last task of the day was done. To-night +she fixed her eyes upon the page awhile and then dropped the book into +her lap with a weary gesture that was not unnoticed by the eyes that +never lost anything where Marjorie was concerned. It was something new to +see a fretful or fretted expression upon Marjorie's lips, but it was +certainly there to-night and Miss Prudence saw it; it might be also in +her eyes, but, if it were, the uneasy eyelids were at this moment +concealing it. "The child is very weary to-night," Miss Prudence thought, +and wondered if she were allowing her, in her ambition, to take too much +upon herself. Music, with the two hours a day practicing that she +resolutely never omitted, all the school lessons, reading and letters, +and the conscientious preparation of her lesson for Bible class, was most +assuredly sufficient to tax her mental and physical strength, and there +was the daily walk of a mile to and from school, and other things +numberless to push themselves in for her comfort and Prue's. But her step +was elastic, her color as pretty as when she worked in the kitchen at +home, and when she came in from school she was always ready for a romp +with Prue before she sat down to practice. + +When summer came the garden and trips to the islands would be good for +both her children. Miss Prudence advocated the higher education for +girls, but if Marjorie's color had faded or her spirits flagged she would +have taken her out of school and set her to household tasks and to walks +and drives. Had she not taken Linnet home after her three years course +with the country color fresh in her cheeks and her step as light upon the +stair as when she left home? + +The weariness had crept into Marjorie's face since she closed her books; +it was not when she opened the Bible. Was the child enduring any +spiritual conflicts again? Linnet had never had spiritual conflicts; what +should she do with this too introspective Marjorie? Would Prue grow up to +ask questions and need just such comforting, too? Miss Prudence's own +evening's work had begun with her Bible reading, she read and meditated +all the hour and a quarter that Marjorie was writing her letter (they had +supper so early that their evenings began at half-past six), she had read +with eagerness and a sense of deep enjoyment and appreciation. + +"It is so good," she had exclaimed as she laid the Bible aside, and +Marjorie had raised her head at the exclamation and asked what was so +good. "Peter's two letters to the Church and to me." + +Without replying Marjorie had dipped her pen again and written: "Miss +Prudence is more and more of a saint every day." + +"Marjorie, it's a snow storm." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, not opening her eyes. + +Miss Prudence looked at the bronze clock on the mantel; it was ten +o'clock. Marjorie should have been asleep an hour ago. + +Miss Prudence's fur-trimmed slippers touched the toe of Marjorie's +buttoned boot, they were both resting on the register. + +"Marjorie, I don't know what I am thinking of to let you sit up so late; +I shall have to send you upstairs with Prue after this. Linnet's hour was +nine o'clock when she was studying, and look at her and Nannie Rheid." + +"But I'm not getting through to be married, as Linnet was." + +"How do you know?" asked Miss Prudence. + +"Not intentionally, then," smiled Marjorie, opening her eyes this time. + +"I'm not the old maid that eschews matrimony; all I want is to choose for +you and Prue." + +"Not yet, please," said Marjorie, lifting her hands in protest. + +"What is it that tires you so to-night? School? + +"No," answered Marjorie, sitting upright; "school sits as lightly on my +shoulders as that black lace scarf you gave me yesterday; it is because I +grow more and more wicked every night. I am worse than I was last night. +I tried to read in the Bible just now and I did not care for it one bit, +or understand it one bit; I began to think I never should find anything +to do me good in Malachi, or in any of the old prophets." + +"Suppose you read to me awhile--not in the Bible, but in your +Sunday-school book. You told Prue that it was fascinating. 'History of +the Reformation,' isn't it?" + +"To-night? O, Aunt Prue, I'm too tired." + +"Well, then, a chapter of Walter Scott, that will rest you." + +"No, it won't; I wouldn't understand a word." + +"'The Minister's Wooing' then; you admire Mrs. Stowe so greatly." + +"I don't admire her to-night, I'm afraid. Aunt Prue, even a startling +ring at the door bell will not wake me up." + +"Suppose I play for you," suggested Miss Prudence, gravely. + +"I thought you wanted me to go to bed," said Marjorie, suppressing her +annoyance as well as she could. + +"Just see, child; you are too worn out for all and any of these things +that you usually take pleasure in, and yet you take up the Bible and +expect to feel devotional and be greatly edified, even to find that +Malachi has a special message for you. And you berate yourself for +hardheartedness and coldheartedness. When you are so weary, don't you see +that your brain refuses to think?" + +"Do you mean that I ought to read only one verse and think that enough? +Oh, if I might." + +"Have you taken more time than that would require for other things +to-day?" + +"Why, yes," said Marjorie, looking surprised. + +"Then why should you give God's book just half a minute, or not so long, +and Wayland and Legendre and every body else just as much time as the +length of your lesson claims? Could you make anything of your astronomy +now?" + +"No, I knew I could not, and that is why I am leaving it till morning." + +"Suppose you do not study it at all and tell Mr. McCosh that you were too +tired to-night." + +"He would not accept such an excuse. He would ask why I deferred it so +long. He would think I was making fun of him to give him such an excuse. +I wouldn't dare." + +"But you go to God and offer him your evening sacrifice with eyes so +blind that they cannot see his words, and brain so tired that it can find +no meaning in them. Will he accept an excuse that you are ashamed to give +your teacher?" + +"No," said Marjorie, looking startled. "I will read, and perhaps I can +think now." + +But Miss Prudence was bending towards her and taking the Bible from her +lap. + +"Let me find something for you in Malachi." + +"And help me understand," said Marjorie. + +After a moment Miss Prudence read aloud: + +"'And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if ye +offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor; +will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of +hosts.'" + +Closing the book she returned it to Marjorie's lap. + +"You mean that God will not accept my excuse for not feeling like reading +to-night?" + +"You said that Mr. McCosh would not accept such an excuse for your +astronomy." + +"Miss Prudence!" Marjorie was wide awake now. "You mean that I should +read early in the evening as you do! Is _that_ why you always read before +you do anything else in the evening?" + +"It certainly is. I tried to give my blind, tired hours to God and found +that he did not accept--for I had no blessing in reading; I excused +myself on your plea, I was too weary, and then I learned to give him my +best and freshest time." + +There was no weariness or frettedness in Marjorie's face now; the heart +rest was giving her physical rest. "I will begin to-morrow night--I can't +begin to-night--and read the first thing as you do. I am almost through +the Old Testament; how I shall enjoy beginning the New! Miss Prudence, +is it so about praying, too?" + +"What do you think?" + +"I know it is. And that is why my prayers do not comfort me, sometimes. I +mean, the short prayers do; but I do want to pray about so many things, +and I am really too tired when I go to bed, sometimes I fall asleep when +I am not half through. Mother used to tell Linnet and me that we oughtn't +to talk after we said our prayers, so we used to talk first and put our +prayers off until the last thing, and sometimes we were so sleepy we +hardly knew what we were saying." + +"This plan of early reading and praying does not interfere with prayer at +bedtime, you know; as soon as my head touches the pillow I begin to pray, +I think I always fall asleep praying, and my first thought in the morning +is prayer. My dear, our best and freshest, not our lame and blind, belong +to God." + +"Yes," assented Marjorie in a full tone. "Aunt Prue, O, Aunt Prue what +would I do without you to help me." + +"God would find you somebody else; but I'm very glad he found me for +you." + +"I'm more than glad," said Marjorie, enthusiastically. + +"It's a real snow storm," Miss Prudence went to the window, pushed the +curtain aside, and looked out. + +"It isn't as bad as the night that Morris came to me when I was alone. +Mr. Holmes did not come for two days and it was longer than that before +father and mother could come. What a grand time we had housekeeping! It +is time for the _Linnet_ to be in. I know Morris will come to see us as +soon as he can get leave. Linnet will be glad to go to her pretty little +home; the boy on the farm is to be there nights, mother said, and Linnet +will not mind through the day. Mother Rheid, as Linnet says, will run +over every day, and Father Rheid, too, I suspect. They _love_ Linnet." + +"Marjorie, if I hadn't had you I believe I should have been content with +Linnet, she is so loving." + +"And if you hadn't Prue you would be content with me!" laughed Marjorie, +and just then a strong pull at the bell sent it ringing through the +house, Marjorie sprang to her feet and Miss Prudence moved towards the +door. + +"I feel in my bones that it's somebody," cried Marjorie, following her +into the hall. + +"I don't believe a ghost could give a pull like that," answered Miss +Prudence, turning the big key. + +And a ghost certainly never had such laughing blue eyes or such light +curls sprinkled with snow and surmounted by a jaunty navy-blue sailor +cap, and a ghost never could give such a spring and catch Marjorie in its +arms and rub its cold cheeks against her warm ones. + +"O, Morris," Marjorie cried, "it's like that other night when you came in +the snow! Only I'm not frightened and alone now. This is such a surprise! +Such a splendid surprise." + +Marjorie was never shy with Morris, her "twin-brother" as she used to +call him. + +But the next instant she was escaping out of his arms and fleeing back to +the fire. Miss Prudence and Morris followed more decorously. + +"Now tell us all about it," Marjorie cried, stepping about upon the rug +and on the carpet. "And where is Linnet? And when did you get in? And +where's Will? And why didn't Linnet come with you?" + +"Because I didn't want to be overshadowed; I wanted a welcome all my own. +And Linnet is at home under her mother's sheltering wing--as I ought to +be under my mother's, instead of being here under yours. Will is on board +the _Linnet_, another place where I ought to be this minute; and we +arrived day before yesterday in New York, where we expect to load for +Liverpool, I took the captain's wife home, and then got away from Mother +West on the plea that I must see my own mother as soon as time and tide +permitted; but to my consternation I found every train stopped at the +foot of Maple Street, so I had to stop, instead of going through as I +wanted to." + +"That is a pity," said Marjorie; "but we'll send you off to your mother +to-morrow. Now begin at the beginning and tell me everything that you and +Linnet didn't write about." + +"But, first--a moment, Marjorie. Has our traveller had his supper?" +interposed Miss Prudence. + +"Yes, thank you, I had supper, a very early one, with Linnet and Mother +West; Father West had gone to mill, and didn't we turn the house upside +down when he came into the kitchen and found us. Mother West kept wiping +her eyes and Linnet put her arms around her father's neck and really +cried! She said she knew she wasn't behaving 'marriedly,' but she was so +glad she couldn't help it." + +"Dear old Linnet," ejaculated Marjorie. "When is she coming to see us?" + +"As soon as Mother West and Mother Rheid let her! I imagine the scene at +Captain Rheid's tomorrow! Linnet is 'wild,' as you girls say, to see her +house, and I don't know as she can tear herself away from that kitchen +and new tinware, and she's fairly longing for washday to come that she +may hang her new clothes on her new clothes line." + +"Oh, I wish I could go and help her!" cried Marjorie. "Miss Prudence, +that little house does almost make me want to go to housekeeping! Just +think of getting dinner with all her new things, and setting the table +with those pretty white dishes." + +"Now, Marjorie, I've caught you," laughed Morris. "That is a concession +from the girl that cared only for school books." + +"I do care for school books, but that house is the temptation." + +"I suppose another one wouldn't be." + +"There isn't another one like that--outside of a book." + +"Oh, if you find such things, in books, I won't veto the books; but, Miss +Prudence, I'm dreadfully afraid of our Marjorie losing herself in a Blue +Stocking." + +"She never will, don't fear!" reassured Miss Prudence. "She coaxes me to +let her sew for Prue, and I found her in the kitchen making cake last +Saturday afternoon." + +Miss Prudence was moving around easily, giving a touch to something here +and there, and after closing the piano slipped away; and, before they +knew it, they were alone, standing on the hearth rug looking gravely and +almost questioningly into each others' eyes. Marjorie smiled, remembering +the quarrel of that last night; would he think now that she had become +too much like Miss Prudence,--Miss Prudence, with her love of literature, +her ready sympathy and neat, housewifely ways, Prue did not know which +she liked better, Aunt Prue's puddings or her music. + +The color rose in Morris' face, Marjorie's lip trembled slightly. She +seated herself in the chair she had been occupying and asked Morris to +make himself at home in Miss Prudence's chair directly opposite. He +dropped into it, threw his head back and allowed his eyes to rove over +everything in the room, excepting that flushed, half-averted face so near +to him. She was becoming like Miss Prudence, he had decided the matter in +the study of these few moments, that attitude when standing was Miss +Prudence's, and her position at this moment, the head a little drooping, +the hands laid together in her lap, was exactly Miss Prudence's; Miss +Prudence's when she was meditating as Marjorie was meditating now. There +was a poise of the head like the elder lady's, and now and then a +stateliness and dignity that were not Marjorie's own when she was his +little friend and companion in work and study at home. In these first +moments he could discern changes better than to-morrow; to-morrow he +would be accustomed to her again; to-morrow he would find the unchanged +little Marjorie that hunted eggs and went after the cows. He could not +explain to himself why he liked that Marjorie better; he could not +explain to himself that he feared Miss Prudence's Marjorie would hold +herself above the second mate of the barque _Linnet_; a second mate whose +highest ambition to become master. Linnet had not held her self above +Captain Will, but Linnet had never loved books as Marjorie did. Morris +was provoked at himself. Did not he love books, and why then should he +quarrel with Marjorie? It was not for loving books, but for loving books +better than--anything! Had Mrs. Browning loved books better than +anything, or Mary Somerville, or Fredrika Bremer?--yes, Fredrika Bremer +had refused to be married, but there was Marjorie's favorite-- + +"Tell me all about Linnet," said Marjorie, breaking the uncomfortable +silence. + +"I have--and she has written." + +"But you never can write all. Did she bring me the branch of mulberry +from Mt. Vesuvius?" + +"Yes, and will bring it to you next week. She said she would come to you +because she was sure you would not want to leave school; and she wants to +see Miss Prudence. I told her she would wish herself a girl again, and it +was dangerous for her to come, but she only laughed. I have brought you +something, too, Marjorie," he said unsteadily. + +But Marjorie ignored it and asked questions about Linnet and her home on +shipboard. + +"Have I changed, Marjorie?" + +"No," she said. "You cannot change for the better, so why should you +change at all?" + +"I don't like that," he returned seriously; "it is rather hard to attain +to perfection before one is twenty-one. I shall have nothing to strive +for. Don't you know the artist who did kill himself, or wanted to, +because he had done his best?" + +"You are perfect as a boy--I mean, there is all manhood left to you," she +answered very gravely. + +He colored again and his blue eyes grew as cold as steel. Had he come to +her to-night in the storm to have his youth thrown up at him? + +"Marjorie, if that is all you have to say to me, I think I might better +go." + +"O, Morris, don't be angry, don't be angry!" she pleaded. "How can I look +up to somebody who was born on my birthday," she added merrily. + +"I don't want you to look up to me; but that is different from looking +down. You want me to tarry at Jericho, I suppose," he said, rubbing his +smooth chin. + +"I want you not to be nonsensical," she replied energetically. + +How that tiny box burned in his pocket! Should he toss it away, that +circlet of gold with _Semper fidelis_ engraved within it? How he used to +write on his slate: "Morris Kemlo, _Semper fidelis_" and she had never +once scorned it, but had written her own name with the same motto beneath +it. But she had given it a higher significance than he had given it; she +had never once thought of it in connection with any human love. + +"How often do you write to Hollis?" he inquired at last. + +"I do not write to him at all," she answered. + +"Why not? Has something happened?" he said, eagerly. + +"I suppose so." + +"Don't you want to tell me? Does it trouble you?" + +"Yes, I want to tell you, I do not think that it troubles me now. He has +never--answered my last letter." + +"Did you quarrel with him?" + +"Oh, no. I may have displeased him, but I have no idea how I did it." + +She spoke very easily, not flushing at all, meeting his eyes frankly; she +was concealing nothing, there was nothing to be concealed. Marjorie was +a little girl still. Was he glad or sorry? Would he find her grown up +when he came back next time? + +"Do you like school as well as you thought you would?" he asked, with a +change of tone. + +He would not be "nonsensical" any longer. + +"Better! A great deal better," she said, enthusiastically. + +"What are you getting ready for?" + +"_Semper fiddelis_. Don't you remember our motto? I am getting ready to +be always faithful. There's so much to be faithful in, Morris. I am +learning new things every day." + +He had no reply at hand. How that innocent ring burned in his pocket! And +he had thought she would accept that motto from him. + +"I am not the first fellow that has gone through this," he comforted +himself grimly. "I will not throw it overboard; she will listen next +time." + +Next time? Ah, poor Morris, if you had known about next time, would you +have spoken to-night? + +"Marjorie, I have something for you, but I would rather not give it to +you to-night," he said with some confusion. + +"Well," she said, quietly, "I can wait." + +"Do you _want_ to wait." + +"Yes. I think I do," she answered deliberately. + +Miss Prudence's step was at the front parlor door. + +"You young folks are not observing the clock, I see. Marjorie must study +astronomy by starlight to-morrow morning, and I am going to send you +upstairs, Morris. But first, shall we have family worship, together? I +like to have a priest in my house when I can." + +She laid Marjorie's Bible in his hand as she spoke. He read a short +Psalm, and then they knelt together. He had grown; Marjorie felt it in +every word of the simple heartfelt prayer. He prayed like one at home +with God. One petition she long remembered: "Lord, when thou takest +anything away from us, fill us the more with thyself." + + + + +XVIII. + +ONE DAY. + +"Education is the apprenticeship of life."--_Willmott._ + + +Marjorie did not study astronomy by starlight, but she awoke very early +and tripped with bare feet over the carpet into Miss Prudence's chamber. +Deborah kindled the wood fire early in Miss Prudence's chamber that Prue +might have a warm room to dress in. It was rarely that Marjorie studied +in the morning, the morning hours were reserved for practicing and for +fun with Prue. She said if she had guessed how delightful it was to have +a little sister she should have been all her life mourning for one. She +almost envied Linnet because she had had Marjorie. + +The fire was glowing in the airtight when she ran into the chamber, there +was a faint light in the east, but the room was so dark that she just +discerned Prue's curls close to the dark head on the pillow and the +little hand that was touching Miss Prudence's cheek. + +"This is the law of compensation," she thought as she busied herself in +dressing; "one has found a mother and the other a little girl! It isn't +quite like the old lady who said that when she had nothing to eat she had +no appetite! I wonder if Miss Prudence has _all_ her compensations!" + +She stepped noiselessly over the stairs, opened the back parlor door, and +by the dim light found a match and lighted the lamp on the centre table. + +Last night had come again. The face of the clock was the only reminder +she had left the room, the face of the clock and a certain alertness +within herself. As she settled herself near the register and took the +astronomy from the pile her eye fell on her Bible, it was on the table +where Morris had laid it last night. Miss Prudence's words came to her, +warningly. Must she also give the fresh hour of her morning to God? The +tempting astronomy was open in her hand at the chapter _Via Lactea._ +She glanced at it and read half a page, then dropped it suddenly and +reached forward for the Bible. She was afraid her thoughts would wander +to the unlearned lesson: in such a frame of mind, would it be an +acceptable offering? But who was accountable for her frame of mind? She +wavered no longer, with a little prayer that she might understand and +enjoy she opened to Malachi, and, reverently and thoughtfully, with no +feeling of being hurried, read the first and second chapters. She thought +awhile about the "blind for sacrifice," and in the second chapter found +words that meant something to her: "My covenant was with him of life and +peace." Life and peace! Peace! Had she ever known anything that was not +peace? + +Before she had taken the astronomy into her hands again the door opened, +as if under protest of some kind, and Morris stood on the threshold, +looking at her with hesitation in his attitude. + +"Come in," she invited, smiling at his attitude. + +"But you don't want to talk." + +"No; I have to study awhile. But you will not disturb; we have studied +often enough together for you to know how I study." + +"I know! Not a word in edgewise." + +Nevertheless he came to the arm-chair he had occupied last night and sat +down. + +"Did you know the master gave me leave to take as many of his books as I +wanted? He says a literary sailor is a novelty." + +"All his books are in boxes in the trunk room on the second floor." + +"I know it. I am going up to look at them. I wish you could read his +letters. He urges me to live among men, not among books; to live out in +the world and mix with men and women; to live a man's life, and not a +hermit's!" + +"Is he a hermit?" + +"Rather. Will, Captain Will, is a man out among men; no hermit or student +about him; but he has read 'Captain Cook's Voyages' with zest and asked +me for something else, so I gave him 'Mutineers of the Bounty' and he did +have a good time over that. Captain Will will miss me when I'm promoted +to be captain." + +"That will not be this voyage." + +"Don't laugh at me. I have planned it all. Will is to have a big New York +ship, an East Indiaman, and I'm to be content with the little _Linnet_." + +"Does he like that?" + +"Of course. He says he is to take Linnet around the world. Now study, +please. _Via Lactea_" he exclaimed, bending forward and taking the book +out of her hand. "What do you know about the Milky Way?" + +"I never shall know anything unless you give me the book." + +"As saucy as ever. You won't dare, some day." + +Marjorie studied, Morris kept his eyes on a book that he did not read; +neither spoke for fully three quarters of an hour. Marjorie studied with +no pretence: Master McCosh had said that Miss West studied in fifteen +minutes to more purpose than any other of her class did in an hour. She +did not study, she was absorbed; she had no existence excepting in the +lesson; just now there had been no other world for her than the wondrous +Milky Way. + +"I shall have Miss West for a teacher," he had told Miss Prudence. +Marjorie wondered if he ever would. Mrs. Browning has told us: + +"Girls would fain know the end of everything." + +And Marjorie would fain have known the end of herself. She would not be +quite satisfied with Miss Prudence's lovely life, even with this +"compensation" of Prue; there was a perfection of symmetry in Miss +Prudence's character that she was aiming at, her character made her +story, but what Marjorie would be satisfied to become she did not fully +define even to Marjorie West. + +"Now, I'm through," she exclaimed, closing the book as an exclamation +point; "but I won't bother you with what I have learned. Master McCosh +knows the face of the sky as well as I know the alphabet. You should have +heard him and seen him one night, pointing here and there and everywhere: +That's Orion, that's Job's coffin, that's Cassiopeia! As fast as he could +speak. That's the Dipper, that's the North Star!" + +"I know them all," said Morris. + +"Why! when did you see them?" + +"In my watches I've plenty of time to look at the stars! I've plenty of +time for thinking!" + +"Have you seen an iceberg?" + +"Yes, one floated down pretty near us going out--the air was chillier and +we found her glittering majesty was the cause of it." + +"Have you seen a whale?" + +"I've seen black fish; they spout like whales." + +"And a nautilus." + +"Yes." + +"And Mother Carey's chickens?" + +"Yes." + +"Morris, I won't tease you with nonsense! What troubles you this +morning?" + +"My mother," he said concisely. + +"Is she ill? Miss Prudence wrote to her last week" + +"Does she ever reply?" + +"I think so. Miss Prudence has not shown me her letters." + +"Poor mother. I suppose so. I'm glad she writes at all. You don't know +what it is to believe that God does not love you; to pray and have no +answer; to be in despair." + +"Oh, dear, no," exclaimed Marjorie, sympathetically. + +"She is sure God has not forgiven her, she weeps and prays and takes no +interest in anything." + +"I should not think she would. I couldn't." + +"She is with Delia now; the girls toss her back one to the other, and +Clara wants to put her into the Old Lady's Home. She is a shadow on the +house--they have no patience with her. They are not Christians, and their +husbands are not--they do not understand; Delia's husband contends that +she is crazy; but she is not, she is only in despair. They say she is no +help, only a hindrance, and they want to get rid of her. She will not +work about the house, she will not sew or help in anything, she says she +cannot read the Bible--" + +"How long since she has felt so?" + +"Two years now. I would not tell you to worry you, but now I must tell +some one, for something must be done. Delia has never been very kind to +her since she was married. I have no home for her; what am I to do? I +could not ask any happy home to take her in; I cannot bear to think of +the Old Lady's Home for her, she will think her children have turned her +off. And the girls have." + +"Ask Miss Prudence what to do," said Marjorie brightly, "she always +knows." + +"I intend to. But she has been so kind to us all. Indeed, that was one of +my motives in coming here. Between themselves the girls may send her +somewhere while I am gone and I want to make that impossible. When I am +captain I will take mother around the world. I will show her how good God +is everywhere. Poor mother! She is one of those bubbling-over +temperaments like Linnet's and when she is down she is all the way down. +Who would have anything to live for if they did not believe in the love +of God? Would I? Would you?" + +"I could not live; I would _die_," said Marjorie vehemently. + +"She does not live, she exists! She is emaciated; sometimes she fasts day +after day until she is too weak to move around--she says she must fast +while she prays. O, Marjorie, I'm sorry to let you know there is such +sorrow in the world." + +"Why should I not know about sorrow?" asked Marjorie, gravely. "Must I +always be joyful?" + +"I want you to be. There is no sorrow like this sorrow. I know something +about it; before I could believe that God had forgiven me I could not +sleep or eat." + +"I always believed it, I think," said Marjorie simply. + +"I want her to be with some one who loves her and understands her; the +girls scold her and find fault with her, and she has been such a good +mother to them; perhaps she let them have their own way too much, and +this is one of the results of it. She has worked while they slept, and +has taken the hardest of everything for them. And now in her sore +extremity they want to send her among strangers. I wish I had a home of +my own. If I can do no better, I will give up my position, and stay on +land and make some kind of a home for her." + +"Oh, not yet. Don't decide so hastily. Tell Miss Prudence. Telling her a +thing is the next best thing to praying about it," said Marjorie, +earnestly. + +"What now?" Miss Prudence asked. "Morris, this girl is an enthusiast!" + +She was standing behind Marjorie's chair and touched her hair as she +spoke. + +"Oh, have you heard it all?" cried Marjorie, springing up. + +"No, I came in this instant; I only heard that Morris must not decide +hastily, but tell me all about it, which is certainly good advice, and +while we are at breakfast Morris shall tell me." + +"I can't, before Prue," said Morris. + +"Then we will have a conference immediately afterward. Deborah's muffins +must not wait or she will be cross, and she has made muffins for me so +many years that I can't allow her to be cross." + +Morris made an attempt to be his usual entertaining self at the breakfast +table, then broke down suddenly. + +"Miss Prudence, I'm so full of something that I can't talk about anything +else." + +"I'm full of something too," announced Prue. "Aunt Prue, when am I going +to Marjorie's school." + +"I have not decided, dear." + +"Won't you please decide now to let me go to-day?" she pleaded. + +Miss Prudence was sure she had never "spoiled" anybody, but she began to +fear that this irresistible little coaxer might prove a notable +exception. + +"I must think about it awhile, little one." + +"Would I like it, Marjorie, at your school?" + +"I am sure of it." + +"I never went to school. The day I went with you it was ever so nice. I +want a copy-book and a pile of books, and I want the girls to call me +'Miss Holmes.'" + +"We can do that," said Miss Prudence, gravely. "Morris, perhaps Miss +Holmes would like another bit of steak." + +"That isn't it," said Prue, shaking her curls. + +"Not genuine enough? How large is your primary class, Marjorie?" + +"Twenty, I think. And they are all little ladies. It seems so comical to +me to hear the girls call the little ones 'Miss.' Alice Dodd is younger +than Prue, and Master McCosh says 'Miss Dodd' as respectfully as though +she were in the senior class." + +"Why shouldn't he?" demanded Prue. "Miss Dodd looked at me in church +Sunday; perhaps I shall sit next to her. Do the little girls come in +your room, Marjorie?" + +"At the opening of school, always, and you could come in at +intermissions. We have five minute intermissions every hour, and an hour +at noon." + +"O, Aunt Prue! When _shall_ I go? I wish I could go to-day! You say I +read almost well enough. Marjorie will not be ashamed of me now." + +"I'd never be ashamed of you," said Marjorie, warmly. + +"Papa said I must not say my name was 'Jeroma,' shall I write it _Prue_ +Holmes, Aunt Prue?" + +"Prue J. Holmes! How would that do?" + +But Miss Prudence spoke nervously and did not look at the child. Would +she ever have to tell the child her father's story? Would going out among +the children hasten that day? + +"I like that," said Prue, contentedly; "because I keep papa's name tucked +in somewhere. _May_ I go to-day, Aunt Prue?" + +"Not yet, dear. Master McCosh knows you are coming by and by. Marjorie +may bring me a list of the books you will need and by the time the +new quarter commences in February you may be able to overtake them if you +study well. I think that will have to do, Prue." + +"I would _rather_ go to-day," sobbed the child, trying to choke the tears +back. Rolling up her napkin hurriedly, she excused herself almost +inaudibly and left the table. + +"Aunt Prue! she'll cry," remonstrated Marjorie. + +"Little girls have to cry sometimes," returned Miss Prudence, her own +eyes suffused. + +"She is not rebellious," remarked Morris. + +"No, never rebellious--not in words; she told me within the first half +hour of our meeting that she had promised papa she would be obedient. +But for that promise we might have had a contest of wills. She will not +speak of school again till February." + +"How she creeps into one's heart," said Morris. + +Miss Prudence's reply was a flash of sunshine through the mist of her +eyes. + +Marjorie excused herself to find Prue and comfort her a little, promising +to ask Aunt Prue to let her go to school with her one day every week, as +a visitor, until the new quarter commenced. + +Miss Prudence was not usually so strict, she reasoned within herself; why +must she wait for another quarter? Was she afraid of the cold for +Prue? She must be waiting for something. Perhaps it was to hear from Mr. +Holmes, Marjorie reasoned; she consulted him with regard to every +new movement of Prue's. She knew that when she wrote to him she called +her "our little girl." + +While Miss Prudence and Morris lingered at the breakfast table they +caught sounds of romping and laughter on the staircase and in the hall +above. + +"Those two are my sunshine," said Miss Prudence. + +"I wish mother could have some of its shining," answered Morris. "My +sisters do not give poor mother much beside the hard side of their own +lives." + +When Miss Prudence's two sunbeams rushed (if sunbeams do rush) into the +back parlor they found her and Morris talking earnestly in low, rather +suppressed tones, Morris seemed excited, there was an air of resolution +about Miss Prudence's attitude that promised Marjorie there would be some +new plan to be talked about that night. There was no stagnation, even in +the monotony of Miss Prudence's little household. Hardly a day passed +that Marjorie did not find her with some new thing to do for somebody +somewhere outside in the ever-increasing circle of her friends. Miss +Prudence's income as well as herself was kept in constant circulation. +Marjorie enjoyed it; it was the ideal with which she had painted the +bright days of her own future. + +But then--Miss Prudence had money, and she would never have money. In a +little old book of Miss Prudence's there was a list of names,--Miss +Prudence had shown it to her,--against several names was written "Gone +home;" against others, "Done;" and against as many as a dozen, "Something +to do." The name of Morris' mother was included in the last. Marjorie +hoped the opportunity to do that something had come at last; but what +could it be? She could not influence Morris' hardhearted sisters to +understand their mother and be tender towards her: even she could not do +that. What would Miss Prudence think of? Marjorie was sure that his +mother would be comforted and Morris satisfied. She hoped Morris would +not have to settle on the "land," he loved the water with such abounding +enthusiasm, he was so ready for his opportunities and so devoted to +becoming a sailor missionary. What a noble boy he was! She had never +loved him as she loved him at this moment, as he stood there in all his +young strength and beauty, willing to give up his own planned life to +serve the mother whom his sisters had cast off. He was like that hero she +had read about--rather were not all true heroes like him? It was queer, +she had not thought of it once since;--why did she think of it now?--but, +that day Miss Prudence had come to see her so long ago, the day she found +her asleep in her chair, she had been reading in her Sunday school +library about some one like Morris, just as unselfish, just as ready to +serve Christ anywhere, and--perhaps it was foolish and childish--she +would be ashamed to tell any one beside God about it--she had asked him +to let some one love her like him, and then she had fallen asleep. Oh, +and--Morris had not given her that thing he had brought to her. Perhaps +it was a book she wanted, she was always wanting a book--or it might be +some curious thing from Italy. Had he forgotten it? She cared to have it +now more than she cared last night; what was the matter with her last +night that she cared so little? She did "look up" to him more than she +knew herself, she valued his opinion, she was more to herself because she +was so much to him. There was no one in the world that she opened her +heart to as she opened it to him; not Miss Prudence, even, sympathetic as +she was; she would not mind so very, very much if he knew about that +foolish, childish prayer. But she could not ask him what he had brought +her; she had almost, no, quite, refused it last night. How contradictory +and uncomfortable she was! She must say good-bye, now, too. + +During her reverie she had retreated to the front parlor and stood +leaning over the closed piano, her wraps all on for school and shawl +strap of books in her hand. + +"O, Marjorie, ready for school! May I walk with you? I'll come back and +see Miss Prudence afterward." + +"Will you?" she asked, demurely; "but that will only prolong the agony of +saying good-bye." + +"As it is a sort of delicious agony we do not need to shorten it. +Good-bye, Prue," he cried, catching one of Prue's curls in his fingers as +he passed. "You will be a school-girl with a shawl strap of books, by and +by, and you will put on airs and think young men are boys." + +Prue stood in the doorway calling out "goodbye" as they went down the +path to the gate, Miss Prudence's "old man" had been there early +to sweep off the piazzas and shovel paths; he was one of her +beneficiaries with a history. Marjorie said they all had histories: she +believed he had lost some money in a bank years ago, some that he had +hoarded by day labor around the wharves. + +The pavements in this northern city were covered with snow hard packed, +the light snow of last night had frozen and the sidewalks were slippery; +in the city the children were as delighted to see the brick pavement in +spring as the country children were glad to see the green grass. + +"Whew"! ejaculated Morris, as the wind blew sharp in their faces, "this +is a stiff north-wester and no mistake. I don't believe that small +Californian would enjoy walking to school to-day." + +"I think that must be why Aunt Prue keeps her at home; I suppose she +wants to teach her to obey without a reason, and so she does not give her +one." + +"That isn't a bad thing for any of us," said Morris. + +"She has bought her the prettiest winter suit! She is so warm and lovely +in it--and a set of white furs; she is a bluebird with a golden crest. +After she was dressed the first time Miss Prudence looked down at her and +said, as if excusing the expense to herself: 'But I must keep the child +warm--and it is my own money.' I think her father died poor." + +"I'm glad of it," said Morris. + +"Why?" asked Marjorie, wonderingly. + +"Miss Prudence and Mr. Holmes will take care of her; she doesn't need +money," he answered, evasively. "I wouldn't like Prue to be a rich woman +in this city." + +"Isn't it a good city to be a rich woman in?" questioned Marjorie with a +laugh. "As good as any other." + +"Not for everybody; do you know I wonder why Miss Prudence doesn't live +in New York as she did when she sent Linnet to school." + +"She wanted to be home, she said; she was tired of boarding, and she +liked Master McCosh's school for me. I think she will like it for Prue. +I'm so glad she will have Prue when I have to go back home. Mr. Holmes +isn't rich, is he? You said he would take care of Prue." + +"He has a very small income from his mother; his mother was not Prue's +father's mother." + +"Why, do you know all about them?" + +"Yes." + +"Who told you? Aunt Prue hasn't told me." + +"Mother knows. She knew Prue's father. I suspect some of the girls' +fathers in your school knew him, too." + +"I don't know. He was rich once--here--I know that. Deborah told me where +he used to live; it's a handsome house, with handsome grounds, a stable +in the rear and an iron fence in front." + +"I've seen it," said Morris, in his concisest tone. "Mr. Holmes and I +walked past one day. Mayor Parks lives there now." + +"Clarissa Parks' father!" cried Marjorie, in an enlightened tone. "She's +in our first class, and if she studied she would learn something. She's +bright, but she hasn't motive enough." + +"Do you think Mr. Holmes, will ever come home?" he asked. + +"Why not? Of course he will," she answered in astonishment. + +"That depends. Prue might bring him. I want to see him finished; there's +a fine finishment for him somewhere and I want to see it. For all that +is worth anything in me I have to thank him. He made me--as God lets one +man make another. I would like to live long enough to pass it on; to +make some one as he made me." + +It was too cold to walk slowly, their words were spoken in brief, brisk +sentences. + +There was nothing specially memorable in this walk, but Marjorie thought +of it many times; she remembered it because she was longing to ask him +what he had brought her and was ashamed to do it. It might be due to him +after her refusal last night; but still she was ashamed. She would write +about it, she decided; it was like her not to speak of it. + +"I haven't told you about our harbor mission work at Genoa; the work is +not so great in summer, but the chaplain told me that in October there +were over sixty seamen in the Bethel and they were very attentive. One +old captain told me that the average sailor had much improved since he +began to go to sea, and I am sure the harbor mission work is one cause of +it. I wish you could hear some of the old sailors talk and pray. The +_Linnet_ will be a praise meeting in itself some day; four sailors have +become Christians since I first knew the _Linnet_." + +"Linnet wrote that it was your work." + +"I worked and prayed and God blessed. Oh, the blessing! oh, the blessing +of good books! Marjorie, do you know what makes waves?" + +"No," she laughed; "and I'm too cold to remember if I did. I think the +wind must make them. Now we turn and on the next corner is our entrance." + +The side entrance was not a gate, but a door in a high wall; girls were +flocking up the street and down the street, blue veils, brown veils, gray +veils, were streaming in all directions, the wind was blowing laughing +voices all around them. + +Marjorie pushed the door open: + +"Good-bye, Morris," she said, as he caught her hand and held it last. + +"Good-bye, Marjorie,--_dear_" he whispered as a tall girl in blue brushed +past them and entered the door. + +Little Miss Dodd ran up laughing, and Marjorie could say no more; what +more could she say than "good-bye"? But she wanted to say more, she +wanted to say--but Emma Downs was asking her if it were late and Morris +had gone. + +"What a handsome young fellow!" exclaimed Miss Parks to Marjorie, hanging +up her cloak next to Marjorie's in the dressing room. "Is he your +brother?" + +"My twin-brother," replied Marjorie. + +"He doesn't look like you. He is handsome and tall." + +"And I am homely and stumpy," said Marjorie, good-humoredly. "No, he is +not my real brother." + +"I don't believe in that kind." + +"I do," said Marjorie. + +"Master McCosh will give you a mark for transgressing." + +"Oh, I forgot!" exclaimed Marjorie; "but he is so much my brother that it +is not against the rules." + +"Is he a sailor?" asked Emma Downs. + +"Yes," said Marjorie. + +"A common sailor!" + +"No, an uncommon one." + +"Is he before the mast?" she persisted. + +"Does he look so?" asked Marjorie, seriously. + +"No, he looks like a captain; only that cap is not dignified enough." + +"It's becoming," said Miss Parks, "and that's better than dignity." + +The bell rang and the girls passed into the schoolroom in twos and +threes. A table ran almost the length of the long, high apartment; it was +covered with green baize and served as a desk for the second class girls; +the first class girls occupied chairs around three sides of the room, +during recitation the chairs were turned to face the teacher, at other +times the girls sat before a leaf that served as a rest for their books +while they studied, shelves being arranged above to hold the books. The +walls of the room were tinted a pale gray. Mottoes in black and gold were +painted in one straight line above the book shelves, around the three +sides of the room. Marjorie's favorites were: + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO KNOW, IS CURIOSITY. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO BE KNOWN, IS VANITY. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO SELL YOUR KNOWLEDGE, IS COVETOUSNESS. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO EDIFY ONE'S SELF, IS PRUDENCE. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO EDIFY OTHERS, IS CHARITY. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO GLORIFY GOD, IS RELIGION. + +The words were very ancient, Master McCosh told Marjorie, the last having +been written seven hundred years later than the others. The words "TO +GLORIFY GOD" were over Marjorie's desk. + +The first class numbered thirty. Clarissa Parks was the beauty of the +class, Emma Downs the poet, Lizzie Harrowgate the mathematician, Maggie +Peet the pet, Ella Truman wrote the finest hand, Maria Denyse was the +elocutionist, Pauline Hayes the one most at home in universal history, +Marjorie West did not know what she was: the remaining twenty-two were in +no wise remarkable; one or two were undeniably dull, more were careless, +and most came to school because it was the fashion and they must do +something before they were fully grown up. + +At each recitation the student who had reached the head of the class was +marked "head" and took her place in the next recitation at the foot. +During the first hour and a half there were four recitations--history, +astronomy, chemistry, and English literature. That morning Marjorie, who +did not know what she was in the class, went from the foot through the +class, to the head three times; it would have been four times but she +gave the preference to Pauline Hayes who had written the correct date +half a second after her own was on the slate. "Miss Hayes writes more +slowly than I," she told Master McCosh. "She was as sure of it as I was." + +The replies in every recitation were written upon the slate; there was no +cheating, every slate was before the eyes of its neighbor, every word +must be exact. + +"READING MAKES A FULL MAN, CONFERENCE A READY MAN, WRITING AN EXACT MAN," +was one of the wall mottoes. + +Marjorie had an amusing incident to relate to Miss Prudence about her +first recitation in history. The question was: "What general reigned at +this time?" The name of no general occurred. Marjorie was nonplussed. +Pencils were rapidly in motion around her. "Confusion" read the head +girl. Then to her chagrin Marjorie recalled the words in the lesson: +"General confusion reigned at this time." + +It was one of the master's "catches". She found that he had an abundant +supply. + +Another thing that morning reminded her of that mysterious "vibgyor" of +the old times. + +Master McCosh told them they could _clasp_ Alexander's generals; then +Pauline Hayes gave their names--Cassander, Lysimachus, Antiognus, +Seleucus and Ptolemy. Marjorie had that to tell Miss Prudence. Miss +Prudence lived through her own school days that winter with Marjorie; the +girl's enthusiasm reminded her of her own. Master McCosh, who never +avoided personalities, observed as he marked the last recitation: + +"Miss West studies, young ladies; she has no more brains than one or two +of the rest of you, but she has something that more than half of you +woefully lack--application and conscience." + +"Perhaps she expects to teach," returned Miss Parks, in her most +courteous tone, as she turned the diamond upon her engagement finger. + +"I hope she may teach--this class," retorted the master with equal +courtesy. + +Miss Parks smiled at Marjorie with her lovely eyes and acknowledged the +point of the master's remark with a slight inclination of her pretty +head. + +At the noon intermission a knot of the girls gathered around Marjorie's +chair; Emma Downs took the volume of "Bridgewater Treatises" out of her +hand and marched across the room to the book case with it, the others +clapped their hands and shouted. + +"Now we'll make her talk," said Ella Truman. "She is a queen in the midst +of her court." + +"She isn't tall enough," declared Maria Denyse. + +"Or stately enough," added Pauline Hayes. + +"Or self-possessed enough," supplemented Lizzie Harrowgate. + +"Or imperious enough," said Clarissa Parks. + +"She would always be abdicating in favor of some one who had an equal +right to it," laughed Pauline Hayes. + +"Oh, Miss West, who was that lovely little creature with you in Sunday +school Sunday?" asked Miss Denyse. "She carries herself like a little +princess." + +"She is just the one not to do it," replied Miss Parks. + +"What do you mean?" inquired Miss Harrowgate before Marjorie could speak. + +"I mean," she began, laying a bunch of white grapes in Marjorie's +fingers, "that her name is _Holmes_." + +"Doesn't that belong to the royal line?" asked Pauline, lightly. + +"It belongs to the line of _thieves_." + +Marjorie's fingers dropped the grapes. + +"Her father spent years in state-prison when he should have spent a +lifetime there at hard labor! Ask my father. Jerome Holmes! He is famous +in this city! How dared he send his little girl here to hear all about +it!" + +"Perhaps he thought he sent her among Christians and among ladies," +returned Miss Harrowgate. "I should think you would be ashamed to bring +that old story up, Clarissa." + +Marjorie was paralyzed; she could not move or utter a sound. + +"Father has all the papers with the account in; father lost enough, he +ought to know about it." + +"That child can't help it," said Emma Downs. "She has a face as sweet and +innocent as an apple blossom." + +"I hope she will never come here to school to revive the old scandal," +said Miss Denyse. "Mother told me all about it as soon as she knew who +the child was." + +"Somebody else had the hardest of it," said Miss Parks; "_that's_ a story +for us girls. Mother says she was one of the brightest and sweetest girls +in all the city; she used to drive around with her father, and her +wedding day was set, the cards were out, and then it came out that he had +to go to state-prison instead. She gave up her diamonds and everything of +value he had given her. She was to have lived in the house we live in +now; but he went to prison and she went somewhere and has never been back +for any length of time until this year, and now she has his little girl +with her." + +Miss Prudence! Was that Miss Prudence's story? Was she bearing it like +this? Was that why she loved poor little Prue so? + +"Bring some water, quick!" Marjorie heard some one say. + +"No, take her to the door," suggested another voice. + +"Oh, I'm so sorry, so sorry!" This was Miss Parks. + +Marjorie arose to her feet, pushed some one away from her, and fled from +them all--down the schoolroom, though the cloak-room out to the fresh +air. + +She needed the stiff worth-wester to bring her back to herself. Miss +Prudence had lived through _that!_ And Prue must grow up to know! Did +Miss Prudence mean that she must decide about that before Prue could come +to school? She remembered now that a look, as if she were in pain, had +shot itself across her eyes. Oh, that she would take poor little Prue +back to California where nobody knew. If some one should tell _her_ a +story like that about her own dear honest father it would kill her! She +never could bear such shame and such disappointment in him. But Prue need +never know if Miss Prudence took her away to-day, to-morrow. But Miss +Prudence had had it to bear so long. Was that sorrow--and the blessing +with it--the secret of her lovely life? And Mr. Holmes, the master! +Marjorie was overwhelmed with this new remembrance of him. He was another +one to bear it. Now she understood his solitary life. Now she knew why he +shrank from anything like making himself known. The depth of the meaning +of some of his favorite sayings flashed over her. She even remembered one +of her own childish questions, and his brief, stern affirmative: "Mr. +Holmes, were you ever in a prison?" How much they had borne together, +these two! And now they had Prue to love and to live for. She would never +allow even a shadow of jealousy of poor little Prue again. Poor little +Prue, with such a heritage of shame. How vehemently and innocently she +had declared that she would not be called Jeroma. + +The wind blew sharply against her; she stepped back and closed the door; +she was shivering while her cheeks were blazing. She would go home, she +could not stay through the hour of the afternoon and be looked at and +commented upon. Was not Miss Prudence's shame and sorrow her own? As +she was reaching for her cloak she remembered that she must ask to be +excused, taking it down and throwing it over her arm she re-entered the +schoolroom. + +Master McCosh was writing at the table, a group of girls were clustered +around one of the registers. + +"It was mean! It was real mean!" a voice was exclaiming. + +"I don't see how you _could_ tell her, Clarissa Parks! You know she +adores Miss Pomeroy." + +"You all seemed to listen well enough," retorted Miss Parks. + +"We were spell-bound. We couldn't help it," excused Emma Downs. + +"I knew it before," said Maria Denyse. + +"I didn't know Miss Pomeroy was the lady," said Lizzie Harrowgate. "She +is mother's best friend, so I suppose she wouldn't tell me. They both +came here to school." + +Master McCosh raised his head. + +"What new gossip now, girls?" he inquired sternly. + +"Oh, nothing," answered Miss Parks. + +"You are making quite a hubbub about nothing. The next time that subject +is mentioned the young lady who does it takes her books and goes home. +Miss Holmes expects to come here among you, and the girl who does not +treat her with consideration may better stay at home. Jerome Holmes was +the friend of my boyhood and manhood; he sinned and he suffered for it; +his story does not belong to your generation. It is not through any merit +of yours that your fathers are honorable men. It becomes us all to be +humble?" + +A hush fell upon the group. Clarissa Parks colored with anger; why should +_she_ be rebuked, she was not a thief nor the daughter of a thief. + +Marjorie went to the master and standing before him with her cheeks +blazing and eyes downcast she asked: + +"May I go home? I cannot recite this afternoon." + +"If you prefer, yes," he replied in his usual tone; "but I hardly think +you care to see Miss Pomeroy just now." + +"Oh, no, I didn't think of that; I only thought of getting away from +here." + +"Getting away is not always the best plan," he replied, his pen still +moving rapidly. + +"Is it true? Is it _all_ true?" + +"It is all true. Jerome Holmes was president of a bank in this city. I +want you in moral science this afternoon." + +"Thank you," said Marjorie, after a moment. "I will stay." + +She returned to the dressing-room, taking a volume of Dick from the +book-case as she passed it; and sitting in a warm corner, half concealed +by somebody's shawl and somebody's cloak, she read, or thought she read, +until the bell for the short afternoon session sounded. + +Moral science was especially interesting to her, but the subject this +afternoon kept her trouble fresh in her mind; it was Property, the use of +the institution of Property, the history of Property, and on what the +right of Property is founded. + +A whisper from Miss Parks reached her: + +"Isn't it a poky subject? All I care to know is what is mine and what +isn't, and to know what right people have to take what isn't theirs." + +The hour was ended at last, and she was free. How could she ever enter +that schoolroom again? She hurried along the streets, grown older since +the morning. Home would be her sanctuary; but there was Miss Prudence! +Her face would tell the tale and Miss Prudence's eyes would ask for it. +Would it be better for Prue, for Aunt Prue, to know or not to know? Miss +Prudence had written to her once that some time she would tell her a +story about herself; but could she mean this story? + +As she opened the gate she saw her blue bird with the golden crest +perched on the arm of a chair at the window watching for her. + +She was at the door before Marjorie reached it, ready to spring into her +arms and to exclaim how glad she was that she had come. + +"You begin to look too soon, Kitten." + +"I didn't begin till one o'clock," she said convincingly. + +"But I don't leave school till five minutes past two, childie." + +"But I have something to tell you to-day. Something _de_-licious. Aunt +Prue has gone away with Morris. It isn't that, because I didn't want +her to go." + +Marjorie followed her into the front parlor and began to unfasten her +veil. + +"Morris' mother is coming home with her to-morrow to stay all winter, but +that isn't it. Do guess, Marjorie." + +She was dancing all around her, clapping her hands. + +"Linnet hasn't come! That isn't it!" cried Marjorie, throwing off her +cloak. + +"No; it's all about me. It is going to happen to _me_." + +"I can't think. You have nice things every day." + +"It's this. It's nicer than anything. I am going to school with you +to-morrow! Not for all the time, but to make a visit and see how I like +it." + +The child stood still, waiting for an outburst of joy at her +announcement; but Marjorie only caught her and shook her and tumbled her +curls without saying one word. + +"Aren't you _glad_, Marjorie?" + +"I'm glad I'm home with you, and I'm glad you are to give me my dinner." + +"It's a very nice dinner," answered Prue, gravely; "roast beef and +potatoes and tomatoes and pickled peaches and apple pie, unless you want +lemon pie instead. I took lemon pie. Which will you have?" + +"Lemon," said Marjorie. + +"But you don't look glad about anything. Didn't you know your lessons +to-day?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"I'll put your things on the hat-rack and you can get warm while I tell +Deborah to put your dinner on the table. I think you are cold and that is +why you can't be glad. I don't like to be cold." + +"I'm not cold now," laughed Marjorie. + +"Now you feel better! And I'm to sit up until you go to bed, and you are +to sleep with me; and _won't_ it be splendid for me to go to school and +take my lunch, too? And I can have jelly on my bread and an orange just +as you do." + +Marjorie was awake long before Deborah entered the chamber to kindle the +fire, trying to form some excuse to keep Prue from going to school +with her. How could she take her to-day of all days; for the girls to +look at her, and whisper to each other, and ask her questions, and to +study critically her dress, and to touch her hair, and pity her and kiss +her! And she would be sure to open the round gold locket she wore upon a +tiny gold chain about her neck and tell them it was "my papa who died in +California." + +She was very proud of showing "my papa." + +What excuse could she make to the child? It was not storming, and she did +not have a cold, and her heart did seem so set on it. The last thing +after she came upstairs last night she had opened the inside blinds to +look out to see if it were snowing. And she had charged Deborah to have +the fire kindled early so that she would not be late at breakfast. + +She must go herself. She could concoct no reason for remaining at home +herself; her throat had been a trifle sore last night, but not even the +memory of it could bring it back this morning. + +Deborah had a cough, if she should be taken ill--but there was the fire +crackling in the airtight in confirmation of Deborah's ability to be +about the house; or if Prue--but the child was never ill. Her cheeks were +burning last night, but that was with the excitement of the anticipation. +If somebody should come! But who? She had not stayed at home for Morris, +and Linnet would not come early enough to keep them at home, that is if +she ought to remain at home for Linnet. + +What could happen? She could not make anything happen? She could not tell +the child the naked truth, the horrible truth. And she could not tell her +a lie. And she could not break her heart by saying that she did not want +her to go. Oh, if Miss Prudence were only at home to decide! But would +she tell _her_ the reason? If she did not take Prue she must tell Miss +Prudence the whole story. She would rather go home and never go to school +any more than to do that. Oh, why must things happen all together? Prue +would soon be awake and asking if it were storming. She had let her take +it for granted last night; she could not think of anything to say. Once +she had said in aggrieved voice: + +"I think you might be glad, Marjorie." + +But was it not all selfishness, after all? She was arranging to give Prue +a disappointment merely to spare herself. The child would not understand +anything. But then, would Aunt Prue want her to go? She must do what Miss +Prudence would like; that would decide it all. + +Oh, dear! Marjorie was a big girl, too big for any nonsense, but there +were unmistakable tears on her cheeks, and she turned away from sleeping +Prue and covered her face with both hands. And then, beside this, Morris +was gone and she had not been kind to him. "Good-bye, Marjorie--_dear_" +the words smote her while they gave her a feeling of something to be very +happy about. There did seem to be a good many things to cry about this +morning. + +"Marjorie, are you awake?" whispered a soft voice, while little fingers +were in her hair and tickling her ear. + +Marjorie did not want to be awake. + +"_Marjorie_," with an appeal in the voice. + +Then the tears had to be brushed away, and she turned and put both arms +around the white soft bundle and rubbed her cheek against her hair. + +"Oh, _do_ you think it's storming?" + +"No." + +"You will have to curl my hair." + +"Yes." + +"And mustn't we get up? Shan't we be late?" + +"Listen a minute; I want to tell you something." + +"Is it something _dreadful?_ Your voice sounds so." + +"No not dreadful one bit. But it is a disappointment for a little girl I +know." + +"Oh, is it _me?_" clinging to her. + +"Yes, it is you." + +"Is it about going to school?" she asked with a quick little sob. + +"Yes." + +"_Can't_ I go, Marjorie?" + +"Not to-day, darling." + +"Oh, dear!" she moaned. "I did want to so." + +"I know it, and I'm so sorry. I am more sorry than you are. I was so +sorry that I could not talk about it last night." + +"Can't I know the reason?" she asked patiently. + +"The reason is this: Aunt Prue would not let you go. She would not let +you go if she knew about something that happened in school yesterday." + +"Was it something so bad?" + +"It was something very uncomfortable; something that made me very +unhappy, and if you were old enough to understand you would not want to +go. You wouldn't go for anything." + +"Then what makes you go?" asked Prue quickly. + +"Because I have to." + +"Will it hurt you to-day?" + +"Yes." + +"Then I wouldn't go. Tell Aunt Prue; she won't make you go." + +"I don't want to tell her; it would make her cry." + +"Then don't tell her. I'll stay home then--if I have to. But I want to +go. I can stand it if you can." + +Marjorie laughed at her resignation and resolution and rolling her over +pushed her gently out down to the carpet. Perhaps it would be better +to stay home if there were something so dreadful at school, and Deborah +might let her make molasses candy. + +"Won't you please stay home with me and make molasses candy, or +peppermint drops?" + +"We'll do it after school! won't that do? And you can stay with Deborah +in the kitchen, and she'll tell you stories." + +"Her stories are sad," said Prue, mournfully. + +"Ask her to tell you a funny one, then." + +"I don't believe she knows any. She told me yesterday about her little +boy who didn't want to go to school one day and she was washing and +said he might stay home because he coaxed so hard. And she went to find +him on the wharf and nobody could tell her where he was. And she went +down close to the water and looked in and he was there with his face up +and a stick in his hand and he was dead in the water and she saw him." + +"Is that true?" asked Marjorie, in surprise. + +"Yes, true every word. And then her husband died and she came to live +with Aunt Prue's father and mother ever so long ago. And she cried and +it was sad." + +"But I know she knows some funny stories. She will tell you about Aunt +Prue when she was little." + +"She has told me. And about my papa. He used to like to have muffins for +tea." + +"Oh, I know! Now I know! I'll take you to Lizzie Harrowgate's to stay +until I come from school. You will like that. There is a baby there +and a little girl four years old. Do you want to go?" + +"If I can't go to school, I do," in a resigned voice. + +"And you must not speak of school; remember, Prue, do not say that you +wanted to go, or that I wouldn't take you; do not speak of school at +all." + +"No, I will not," promised Prue; "and when that thing doesn't happen any +more you will take me?" + + + + +XIX. + +A STORY THAT WAS NOT VERY SAD. + +"Children have neither past nor future; and, what scarcely ever happens +to us, they enjoy the present."--_Bruyére._ + + +Prue was watching at the window with Minnie Harrowgate, and was joyfully +ready to go home to see Aunt Prue when Marjorie and Lizzie Harrowgate +appeared. + +Standing a few moments near the parlor register, while Prue ran to put on +her wraps, Marjorie's eye would wander to the Holland plate on the +bracket. She walked home under a depression that was not all caused by +the dread of meeting Miss Prudence. They found Miss Prudence on the +stairs, coming down with a tray of dishes. + +"O, Aunt Prue! Aunt Prue!" was Prue's exclamation. "I didn't go to +school, I went to Mrs. Harrowgate's instead. Marjorie said I must, +because something dreadful happened in school and I never could go until +it never happened again. But I've had a splendid time, and I want to go +again." + +Miss Prudence bent over to kiss her, and gave her the tray to take into +the kitchen. + +"You may stay with Deborah, dear, till I call you." + +Marjorie dropped her shawl-strap of books on the carpet of the hall and +stood at the hat-stand hanging up her cloak and hat. Miss Prudence +had kissed her, but they had not looked into each other's eyes. + +Was it possible that Miss Prudence suspected? Marjorie asked herself as +she took off her rubbers. She suffered her to pass into the front parlor, +and waited alone in the hall until she could gather courage to follow +her. But the courage did not come, she trembled and choked, and the slow +tears rolled over her cheeks. + +"Marjorie!" + +Miss Prudence was at her side. + +"O, Miss Prudence! O, dear Aunt Prue, I don't want to tell you," she +burst out; "they said things about her father and about you, and I can't +tell you." + +Miss Prudence's arm was about her, and she was gently drawn into the +parlor; not to sit down, for Miss Prudence began slowly to walk up and +down the long length of the room, keeping Marjorie at her side. They +paused an instant before the mirror, between the windows in the front +parlor, and both glanced in: a slight figure in gray, for she had put off +her mourning at last, with a pale, calm face, and a plump little creature +in brown, with a flushed face and full eyes--the girl growing up, and the +girl grown up. + +For fully fifteen minutes they paced slowly and in silence up and down +the soft carpet. Miss Prudence knew when they stood upon the very spot +where Prue's father--not Prue's father then--had bidden her that lifetime +long farewell. God had blessed her and forgiven him. Was it such a very +sad story then? + +Miss Prudence dropped into a chair as if her strength were spent, and +Marjorie knelt beside her and laid her head on the arm of her chair. + +"It is true, Marjorie." + +"I know it. Master McCosh heard it and he said it was true." + +"It will make a difference, a great difference. I shall take Prue away. I +must write to John to-night." + +"I'm so glad you have him, Aunt Prue. I'm so glad you and Prue have him." + +Miss Prudence knew now, herself: never before had she known how glad she +was to have him; how glad she had been to have him all her life. She +would tell him that, to-night, also. She was not the woman to withhold a +joy that belonged to another. + +Marjorie did not raise her head, and therefore did not catch the first +flash of the new life that John Holmes would see when he looked into +them. + +"He is so good, Aunt Prue," Marjorie went on. "_He_ is a Christian when +he speaks to a dog." + +"Don't you want to go upstairs and see Morris' mother? She was excited a +little, and I promised her that she should not come down-stairs +to-night." + +"But I don't know her," said Marjorie rising. + +"I think you do. And she knows you. She has come here to learn how good +God is, and I want you to help me show it to her." + +"I don't know how." + +"Be your sweet, bright self, and sing all over the house all the +comforting hymns you know." + +"Will she like that?" + +"She likes nothing so well. I sung her to sleep last night." + +"I wish mother could talk to her." + +"Marjorie! you have said it. Your mother is the one. I will send her to +your mother in the spring. Morris and I will pay her board, and she +shall keep close to your happy mother as long as they are both willing." + +"Will Morris let you help pay her board?" + +"Morris cannot help himself. He never resists me. Now go upstairs and +kiss her, and tell her you are her boy's twin-sister." + +Before the light tap on her door Mrs. Kemlo heard, and her heart was +stirred as she heard it, the pleading, hopeful, trusting strains of +"Jesus, lover of my soul." + +Moving about in her own chamber, with her door open, Marjorie sang it all +before she crossed the hall and gave her light tap on Mrs. Kemlo's door. + +When Marjorie saw the face--the sorrowful, delicate face, and listened to +the refined accent and pretty choice of words, she knew that Morris Kemlo +was a gentleman because his mother was a lady. + +Prue wandered around the kitchen, looking at things and asking questions. +Deborah was never cross to Prue. + +It was a sunny kitchen in the afternoon, the windows faced west and south +and Deborah's plants throve. Miss Prudence had taken great pleasure in +making Deborah's living room a room for body and spirit to keep strong +in. Old Deborah said there was not another room in the house like the +kitchen; "and to think that Miss Prudence should put a lounge there for +my old bones to rest on." + +Prue liked the kitchen because of the plants. It was very funny to see +such tiny sweet alyssum, such dwarfs of geranium, such a little bit of +heliotrope, and only one calla among those small leaves. + +"Just wait till you go to California with us, Deborah," she remarked this +afternoon. "I'll show you flowers." + +"I'm too old to travel, Miss Prue." + +"No, you are not. I shall take you when I go. I can wait on Morris' +mother, can't I? Marjorie said she and I were to help you if she came." + +"Miss Marjorie is good help." + +"So am I," said Prue, hopping into the dining-room and amusing herself by +stepping from one green pattern in the carpet to another green one, and +then from one red to another red one, and then, as her summons did not +come, from a green to a red and a red to a green, and still Aunt Prue did +not call her. Then she went back to Deborah, who was making lemon jelly, +at one of the kitchen tables, in a great yellow bowl. She told Prue that +some of it was to go to a lady in consumption, and some to a little boy +who had a hump on his back. Prue said that she would take it to the +little boy, because she had never seen a hump on a boy's back; she had +seen it on camels in a picture. + +Still Aunt Prue did not come for her, and she counted thirty-five bells +on the arbutilon, and four buds on the monthly rose, and pulled off three +drooping daisies that Deborah had not attended to, and then listened, and +"Prue! Prue!" did not come. + +Aunt Prue and Marjorie must be talking "secrets." + +"Deborah," standing beside her and looking seriously up into the kindly, +wrinkled face, "I wish you knew some secrets." + +"La! child, I know too many." + +"Will you tell me one. Just one. I never heard a secret in my life. +Marjorie knows one, and she's telling Aunt Prue now." + +"Secrets are not for little girls." + +"I would never, never tell," promised Prue, coaxingly. + +"Not even me!" cried Marjorie behind her. "Now come upstairs with me and +see Morris' mother. Aunt Prue is not ready for you yet awhile." + +Mrs. Kemlo's chamber was the guest chamber; many among the poor and +suffering whom Miss Prudence had delighted to honor had "warmed both +hands before the fire of life" in that luxurious chamber. + +Everything in the room had been among her father's wedding presents to +herself--the rosewood furniture, the lace curtains, the rare engravings, +the carpet that was at once perfect to the tread and to the eye, the +ornaments everywhere: everything excepting the narrow gilt frame over the +dressing bureau, enclosing on a gray ground, painted in black, crimson, +and gold the words: "I HAVE SEEN THY TEARS." Miss Prudence had placed it +there especially for Mrs. Kemlo. + +Deborah had never been alone in the house in the years when her mistress +was making a home for herself elsewhere. + +Over the mantel hung an exquisite engraving of the thorn-crowned head of +Christ. The eyes that had wept so many hopeless tears were fixed upon +it as Marjorie and Prue entered the chamber. + +"This is Miss Prudence's little girl Prue," was Marjorie's introduction. + +Prue kissed her and stood at her side waiting for her to speak. + +"That is the Lord," Prue said, at last, breaking the silence after +Marjorie had left them; "our dear Lord." + +Mrs. Kemlo kept her eyes upon it, but made no response. + +"What makes him look so sorry, Morris' mother?" + +"Because he is grieving for our sins." + +"I thought the thorns hurt his head." + +"Not so much as our sins pierced his heart." + +"I'm sorry if I have hurt him. What made our sins hurt him so?" + +"His great love to us." + +"Nobody's sins ever hurt me so." + +"You do not love anybody well enough." + +The spirit of peace was brooding, at last, over the worn face. Morris had +left her with his heart at rest, for the pain on lip and brow began to +pass away in the first hour of Miss Prudence's presence. + +Prue was summoned after what to her seemed endless waiting, and, nestling +in Aunt Prue's lap, with her head on her shoulder and her hand in hers, +she sat still in a content that would not stir itself by one word. + +"Little Prue, I want to tell you a story." + +"Oh, good!" cried Prue, nestling closer to express her appreciation. + +"What kind of stories do you like best?" + +"Not sad ones. Don't let anybody die." + +"This story is about a boy. He was like other boys, he was bright and +quick and eager to get on in the world. He loved his mother and his +brother and sister, and he worked for them on the farm at home. And then +he came to the city and did so well that all his friends were proud of +him; everybody liked him and admired him. He was large and fine looking +and a gentleman. People thought he was rich, for he soon had a handsome +house and drove fine horses. He had a lovely wife, but she died and left +him all alone. He always went to church and gave money to the church; but +he never said that he was a Christian. I think he trusted in himself, +people trusted him so much that he began to trust himself. They let him +have their money to take care of; they were sure he would take good care +of it and give it safe back, and he was sure, too. And he did take good +care of it, and they were satisfied. He was generous and kind and loving. +But he was so sure that he was strong that he did not ask God to keep him +strong, and God let him become weaker and weaker, until temptation became +too great for him and he took this money and spent it for himself; this +money that belonged to other people. And some belonged to widows who had +no husbands to take care of them, and to children who had no fathers, and +to people who had worked hard to save money for their children and to +take care of themselves in their old age; but he took it and spent it +trying to make more money for himself, and instead of making more money +always he lost their money that he took away from them. He meant to give +their money back, he did not mean to steal from any one, but he took what +was not his own and lost it and the people had to suffer, for he had no +money to pay them with." + +"That is sad," said Prue. + +"Yes, it was very sad, for he had done a dreadful thing and sinned +against God. Do you think he ought to be punished?" + +"Yes, if he took poor people's money and little children's money and +could not give it back." + +"So people thought, and he was punished: he was sent to prison." + +"To _prison_! Oh, that was dreadful." + +"And he had to stay there for years and work hard, with other wicked +men." + +"Wasn't he sorry?" + +"He was very sorry. It almost killed him. He would gladly have worked to +give the money back but he could not earn so much. He saw how foolish +and wicked he had been to think himself so strong and trustworthy and +good when he was so weak. And when he saw how wicked he was he fell down +before God and asked God to forgive him. His life was spoiled, he could +not be happy in this world; but, as God forgave him, he could begin +again and be honest and trustworthy, and be happy in Heaven because he +was a great sinner and Christ had died for him." + +"Did his sins _hurt_ Christ?" Prue asked. + +"Yes." + +"I'm sorry he hurt Christ," said Prue sorrowfully. + +"He was sorry, too." + +"Is that all?" + +"Yes, he died, and we hope he is in Heaven tonight, praising God for +saving sinners." + +"I don't think that is such a sad story. It would be sad if God never did +forgive him. It was bad to be in prison, but he got out and wasn't wicked +any more. Did you ever see him, Aunt Prue?" + +"Yes, dear, many times." + +"Did you love him?" + +"I loved him better than I loved anybody, and Uncle John loved him." + +"Was he ever in this room?" + +"Yes. He has been many times in this chair in which you and I are +sitting; he used to love to hear me play on that piano; and we used to +walk in the garden together, and he called me 'Prue' and not Aunt Prue, +as you do." + +"Aunt Prue!" the child's voice was frightened. "I know who your story is +about." + +"Your dear papa!" + +"Yes, my dear papa!" + +"And aren't you glad he is safe through it all, and God his forgiven +him?" + +"Yes, I'm glad; but I'm sorry he was in that prison." + +"He was happy with you, afterward, you know. He had your mamma and she +loved him, and then he had you and you loved him." + +"But I'm sorry." + +"So am I, darling, and so is Uncle John; we are all sorry, but we are +glad now because it is all over and he cannot sin any more or suffer any +more. I wanted to tell you while you were little, so that somebody would +not tell you when you grow up. When you think about him, thank God that +he forgave him,--that is the happy part of it." + +"Why didn't papa tell me?" + +"He knew I would tell you some day, if you had to know. I would rather +tell you than have any one else in the world tell you." + +"I won't tell anybody, ever. I don't want people to know my papa was in a +prison. I asked him once what a prison was like and he would not tell +me much." + +She kept her head on Miss Prudence's shoulder and rubbed her fingers over +Miss Prudence's hand. + +There were no tears in her eyes, Miss Prudence's quiet, hopeful voice +had kept the tears from coming. Some day she would understand it, but +to-night it was a story that was not very sad, because he had got out of +the prison and God had forgiven him. It would never come as a shock to +her; Miss Prudence had saved her that. + + + + +XX. + +"HEIRS TOGETHER." + +"Oh, for a mind more clear to see, +A hand to work more earnestly, +For every good intent."--_Phebe Cary_. + + +"Aunt Prue," began Marjorie, "I can't help thinking about beauty." + +"I don't see why you should, child, when there are so many beautiful +things for you to think about." + +It was the morning after Prue had heard the story of her father; it was +Saturday morning and she was in the kitchen "helping Deborah bake." +Mrs. Kemlo was resting in a steamer chair near the register in the back +parlor, resting and listening; the listening was in itself a rest. It was +a rest not to speak unless she pleased; it was a rest to listen to the +low tones of cultured voices, to catch bits of bright talk about things +that brought her out of herself; it was a rest, above all, to dwell in a +home where God was in the midst; it was a rest to be free from the care +of herself. Was Miss Prudence taking care of her? Was not God taking care +of her through the love of Miss Prudence? + +Marjorie was busy about her weekly mending, sitting at one of the front +windows. It was pleasant to sit there and see the sleighs pass and hear +the bells jingle; it was pleasant to look over towards the church and the +parsonage; and pleasantest of all to bring her eyes into Miss Prudence's +face and work basket and the work in her lap for Prue. + +"But I mean--faces," acknowledged Marjorie. "I mean faces--too. I don't +see why, of all the beautiful things God has made, faces should be +ignored. The human face, with the love of God in it, is more glorious +than any painting, more glorious than any view of mountain, lake, or +river." + +"I don't believe I know what beauty is." + +"You know what you think it is." + +"Yes; Prue is beautiful to me, and you are, and Linnet, and mother,--you +see how confused I am. The girls think so much of it. One of them hurts +her feet with three and a half shoes when she ought to wear larger. And +another laces so tight! And another thinks so much of being slight and +slender that she will not dress warmly enough in the street; she always +looks cold and she has a cough, too. And another said she would rather +have tubercles on her lungs than sores on her face! We had a talk about +personal beauty yesterday and one girl said she would rather have it than +anything else in the world. But _do_ you think so much depends upon +beauty?" + +"How much?" + +"Why, ever so much? Friends, and being loved, and marriage." + +"Did you ever see a homely girl with plenty of friends? And are wives +always beautiful?" + +"Why, no." + +"One of the greatest favorites I know is a middle-aged lady,--a maiden +lady,--not only with a plain face, but with a defect in the upper lip. +She is loved; her company is sought. She is not rich; she has only an +ordinary position--she is a saleswoman down town. She is not educated. +Some of your school girl friends are very fond of her. She is attractive, +and you look at her and wonder why; but you hear her speak, and you +wonder no longer. She always has something bright to say. I do not know +of another attraction that she has, beside her willingness to help +everybody." + +"And she's neither young nor pretty." + +"No; she is what you girls call an old maid." + +Marjorie was mending the elbow of her brown school dress; she wore that +dress in all weathers every day, and on rainy Sundays. Some of the +girls said that she did not care enough about dress. She forgot that she +wore the same dress every day until one of the dressy little things in +the primary class reminded her of the fact. And then she laughed. + +"In the Bible stories Sarah and Rebekah and Esther and Abigail are spoken +of as being beautiful." + +"Does their fortune depend upon their beautiful faces?" + +"Didn't Esther's?" + +"She was chosen by the king on account of her beauty, but I think it was +God who brought her into favor and tender love, as he did Daniel; and +rather more depended upon her praying and fasting than upon her beautiful +face." + +"Then you mean that beauty goes for a great deal with the world and not +with God?" + +"One of Jesse's sons was so tall and handsome that Samuel thought surely +the Lord had chosen him to be king over his people. Do you remember +what the Lord said about that?" + +"Not quite." + +"He said: 'Look not on his countenance or the height of his stature, +because I have refused him; for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man +looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart!'" + +"Then it does make a difference to man." + +"It seems as if it made a difference to Samuel; and the Lord declares +that man is influenced by the outward appearance. Well, now, taking it +for granted from the Lord's own words, what then?" + +"Then it is rather hard not to be beautiful, isn't it?" + +"Genius makes a difference; is it rather hard not to be a genius? Money +makes a difference; is it rather hard not to be rich? Position makes a +difference; is it rather hard not to be noble?" + +"I never thought about those things. They give you advantage in the +world; but beauty makes people love you." + +"What kind of beauty?" + +"Lovable beauty," confessed Marjorie, smiling, feeling that she was being +cornered. + +"What makes lovable beauty?" + +"A lovable heart, I suppose." + +"Then I shouldn't wonder if you might have it as well as another. Is +Clarissa Parks more loved than any one in your class?" + +"Oh, no. She is not a favorite at all." + +"Then, child, I don't see that you are proving your assertion." + +"I know I'm not," laughed Marjorie. "Clarissa Parks is engaged; but so is +Fanny Hunting, and Fanny is the plainest little body. But I did begin by +really believing that beautiful faces had the best of it in the world, +and I was feeling rather aggrieved because somebody described me +yesterday as 'that girl in the first class who is always getting up head; +she is short and rather stout and wears her hair in a knot at the back of +her head?' Now wasn't that humiliating? Not a word about my eyes or +complexion or manner!" + +Miss Prudence laughed at her comically aggrieved tone. + +"It is hard to be nothing distinctive but short and stout and to wear +your hair in a knot, as your grandmother does! But the getting up head is +something." + +"It doesn't add to my beauty. Miss Prudence, I'm afraid I'll be a homely +blue stocking. And if I don't teach, how shall I use my knowledge? I +cannot write a book, or even articles for the papers; and I must do +something with the things I learn." + +"Every educated lady does not teach or write." + +"You do not," answered Marjorie, thoughtfully; "only you teach Prue. And +I think it increases your influence, Miss Prudence. How much you have +taught Linnet and me!" + +"I'm thinking about two faces I saw the other night at Mrs. Harrowgate's +tea table. Both were strangers to me. As the light fell over the face of +one I thought I never saw anything so exquisite as to coloring: the hair +was shining like threads of gold; the eyes were the azure you see in the +sky; lips and cheeks were tinted; the complexion I never saw excelled for +dazzling fairness,--we see it in a child's face, sometimes. At her side +sat a lady: older, with a quiet, grave face; complexion dark and not +noticeable; hair the brown we see every day; eyes brown and expressive, +but not finer than we often see. Something about it attracted me from her +bewitching neighbor, and I looked and compared. One face was quiet, +listening; the other was sparkling as she talked. The grave dark face +grew upon me; it was not a face, it was a soul, a human life with a +history. The lovely face was lovely still, but I do not care to see it +again; the other I shall not soon forget." + +"But it was beauty you saw," persisted Marjorie. + +"Not the kind you girls were talking about. A stranger passing through +the room would not have noticed her beside the other. The lovely face has +a history, I was told after supper, and she is a girl of character." + +"Still--I wish--story books would not dwell so much on attitudes; and how +the head sets on the shoulders; and the pretty hands and slender figures. +It makes girls think of their hands and their figures. It makes this girl +I know not wrap up carefully for fear of losing her 'slender' figure. And +the eyelashes and the complexion! It makes us dissatisfied with +ourselves." + +"The Lord knew what kind of books would be written when he said that man +looketh on the out ward appearance--" + +"But don't Christian writers ever do it?" + +"Christian writers fall into worldly ways. There are lovely girls and +lovely women in the world; we meet them every day. But if we think of +beauty, and write of it, and exalt it unduly, we are making a use of it +that God does not approve; a use that he does not make of it himself. How +beauty and money are scattered everywhere. God's saints are not the +richest and most beautiful. He does not lavish beauty and money upon +those he loves the best. I called last week on an Irish washerwoman and I +was struck with the beauty of her girls--four of them, the eldest +seventeen, the youngest six. The eldest had black eyes and black curls; +the second soft brown eyes and soft brown curls to match; the third curls +of gold, as pretty as Prue's, and black eyes; the youngest blue eyes and +yellow curls. I never saw such a variety of beauty in one family. The +mother was at the washtub, the oldest daughter was ironing, the second +getting supper of potatoes and indian meal bread, the third beauty was +brushing the youngest beauty's hair. As I stood and looked at them I +thought, how many girls in this city would be vain if they owned their +eyes and hair, and how God had thrown the beauty down among them who had +no thought about it. He gives beauty to those who hate him and use it to +dishonor him, just as he gives money to those who spend it in sinning. I +almost think, that he holds cheaply those two things the world prizes so +highly; money and beauty." + +After a moment Marjorie said: "I do not mean to live for the world." + +"And you do not sigh for beauty?" smiled Miss Prudence. + +"No, not really. But I do want to be something beside short and stout, +with my hair in a knot." + +The fun in her eyes did not conceal the vexation. + +"Miss Prudence, it's hard to care only for the things God cares about," +she said, earnestly. + +"Yes, very hard." + +"I think _you_ care only for such things. You are not worldly one single +bit." + +"I do not want to be--one single bit." + +"I know you do give up things. But you have so much; you have the best +things. I don't want things you have given up. I think God cares for the +things you care for." + +"I hope he does," said Miss Prudence, gently. "Marjorie, if he has given +you a plain face give it back to him to glorify himself with; if a +beautiful face, give that back to him to glorify himself with. You are +not your own; your face is not yours; it is bought with a price." + +Marjorie's face was radiant just then. The love, the surprise, the joy, +made it beautiful. + +Miss Prudence could not forbear, she drew the beautiful face down to kiss +it. + +"People will always call you plain, dear, but keep your soul in your +face, and no matter." + +"Can I help Deborah now? Or isn't there something for me to do upstairs? +I can study and practice this afternoon." + +"I don't believe you will. Look out in the path." + +Marjorie looked, then with a shout that was almost like Linnet's she +dropped her work, and sprang towards the door. + +For there stood Linnet herself, in the travelling dress Marjorie had seen +her last in; not older or graver, but with her eyes shining like stars, +ready to jump into Marjorie's arms. + +How Miss Prudence enjoyed the girls' chatter. Marjorie wheeled a chair to +the grate for Linnet, and then, having taken her wraps, kneeled down +on the rug beside her and leaned both elbows on the arm of her chair. + +How fast she asked questions, and how Linnet talked and laughed and +brushed a tear away now and then! Was there ever so much to tell before? +Miss Prudence had her questions to ask; and Morris' mother, who had been +coaxed to come in to the grate, steamer chair and all, had many questions +to ask about her boy. + +Marjorie was searching her through and through to discover if marriage +and travel had changed her; but, no, she was the same happy, laughing +Linnet; full of bright talk and funny ways of putting things, with the +same old attitudes and the same old way of rubbing Marjorie's fingers as +she talked. Marriage had not spoiled her. But had it helped her? That +could not be decided in one hour or two. + +When she was quiet there was a sweeter look about her mouth than there +had ever used to be; and there was an assurance, no, it was not so +strong as that, there was an ease of manner, that she had brought home +with her. Marjorie was more her little sister that ever. + +Marjorie laughed to herself because everything began with Linnet's +husband and ended in him: the stories about Genoa seemed to consist in +what Will said and did; Will was the attraction of Naples and the summit +of Mt. Vesuvius; the run down to Sicily and the glimpse of Vesuvius were +somehow all mingled with Will's doings; the stories about the priest at +Naples were all how he and Will spent hours and hours together comparing +their two Bibles; and the tract the priest promised to translate into +Italian was "The Amiable Louisa" that Will had chosen; and, when the +priest said he would have to change the title to suit his readers, Will +had suggested "A Moral Tale." This priest was confessor to a noble family +in the suburbs; and once, when driving out to confess them, had taken +Will with him, and both had stayed to lunch. The priest had given them +his address, and Will had promised to write to him; he had brought her +what he called his "paintings," from his "studio," and she had pinned +them up in her little parlor; they were painted on paper and were not +remarkable evidences of genius. Not quite the old masters, although +painted in Italy by an Italian. His English was excellent; he was +expecting to come to America some day. A sea captain in Brooklyn had a +portrait of him in oil, and when Miss Prudence went to New York she must +call and see it; Morris and he were great friends. That naughty Will had +asked him one day if he never wished to marry, and he had colored so, +poor fellow, and said, 'It is better to live for Christ.' And Will had +said he hoped he lived for Christ, too. The priest had a smooth face and +a little round spot shaven on top of his head. She used to wish Marjorie +might see that little round spot. + +And the pilot, they had such a funny pilot! When anything was passed him +at the table, or you did him a favor, he said "thank you" in Italian +and in English. + +And how they used to walk the little deck! And the sunsets! She had to +confess that she did not see one sunrise till they were off Sandy Hook +coming home. But the moonlight on the water was most wonderful of all! +That golden ladder rising and falling in the sea! They used to look at it +and talk about home and plan what she would do in that little house. + +She used to be sorry for Morris; but he did not seem lonesome: he was +always buried in a book at leisure times; and he said he would be sailing +over the seas with his wife some day. + +"Morris is so _good_" she added. "Sometimes he has reminded me of the +angels who came down to earth as young men." + +"I think he was a Christian before he was seven years old," said his +mother. + +At night Marjorie said, when she conducted Linnet up to her chamber, that +they would go back to the blessed old times, and build castles, and +forget that Linnet was married and had crossed the ocean. + +"I'm living in my castle now," returned Linnet. "I don't want to build +any more. And this is lovelier than any we ever built." + +Marjorie looked at her, but she did not speak her thought; she almost +wished that she might "grow up," and be happy in Linnet's way. + +With a serious face Linnet lay awake after Marjorie had fallen asleep, +thinking over and over Miss Prudence's words when she bade her +goodnight:-- + +"It is an experience to be married, Linnet; for God holds your two lives +as one, and each must share his will for the other; if joyful, it is +twice as joyful; if hard, twice as hard." + +"Yes," she had replied, "Will says we are _heirs together_ of the grace +of life." + + + + +XXI. + +MORRIS AGAIN. + +"Overshadow me, O Lord, +With the comfort of thy wings." + + +Marjorie stood before the parlor grate; it was Saturday afternoon, and +she was dressed for travelling--not for a long journey, for she was only +going home to remain over Sunday and Monday, Monday being Washington's +Birthday, and a holiday. She had seen Linnet those few days that she +visited them on her return from her voyage, and her father and mother not +once since she came to Maple Street in September. She was hungry for +home; she said she was almost starving. + +"I wish you a very happy time," said Miss Prudence as she opened +Marjorie's pocketbook to drop a five-dollar bill into its emptiness. + +"I know it will be a happy time," Marjorie affirmed; "but I shall think +of you and Prue, and want to be here, too." + +"I wish I could go, too," said Prue, dancing around her with Marjorie's +shawl strap in her hand. + +There was a book for her father in the shawl strap, "The Old Bibie and +the New Science"; a pretty white cap for her mother, that Miss Prudence +had fashioned; a cherry-silk tie for Linnet; and a couple of white aprons +for Annie Grey, her mother's handmaiden, these last being also Miss +Prudence's handiwork. + +"Wait till next summer, Prue. Aunt Prue wants to bring you for the sea +bathing." + +"Don't be too sure, Marjorie; if Uncle John comes home he may have other +plans for her." + +"Oh, _is_ he coming home?" inquired Marjorie. + +"He would be here to-day if I had not threatened to lock him out and keep +him standing in a snowdrift until June. He expects to be here the first +day of summer." + +"And what will happen then?" queried Prue. "Is it a secret?" + +"Yes, it's a secret," said Miss Prudence, stepping behind Marjorie to +fasten her veil. + +"Does Marjorie know?" asked Prue anxiously. + +"I never can guess," said Marjorie. "Now, Kitten, good-bye; and sing to +Mrs. Kemlo while I am gone, and be good to Aunt Prue." + +"Marjorie, dear, I shall miss you," said Miss Prudence. + +"But you will be so glad that I am taking supper at home in that dear old +kitchen. And Linnet will be there; and then I am to go home with her to +stay all night. I don't see how I ever waited so long to see her keep +house. Will calls the house Linnet's Nest. I'll come back and tell you +stories about everything." + +"Don't wait any longer, dear; I'm afraid you'll lose the train. I must +give you a watch like Linnet's for a graduating present." + +Marjorie stopped at the gate to toss back a kiss to Prue watching at the +window. Miss Prudence remembered her face years afterward, flushed and +radiant, round and dimpled; such an innocent, girlish face, without one +trace of care or sorrow. Not a breath of real sorrow had touched her in +all her eighteen years. Her laugh that day was as light hearted as +Prue's. + +"That girl lives in a happy world," Mrs. Kemlo had said to Miss Prudence +that morning. + +"She always will," Miss Prudence replied; "she has the gift of living in +the sunshine." + +Miss Prudence looked at the long mirror after Marjorie had gone down the +street, and wished that it might always keep that last reflection of +Marjorie. The very spirit of pure and lovely girlhood! But the same +mirror had not kept her own self there, and the self reflected now was +the woman grown out of the girlhood; would she keep Marjorie from +womanhood? + +Miss Prudence thought in these days that her own youth was being restored +to her; but it had never been lost, for God cannot grow old, neither +can any of himself grow old in the human heart which is his temple. + +Marjorie's quick feet hurried along the street. She found herself at the +depot with not one moment to lose. She had brought her "English +Literature" that she might read Tuesday's lesson in the train. She opened +it as the train started, and was soon so absorbed that she was startled +at a voice inquiring, "Is this seat engaged?" + +"No," she replied, without raising her eyes. But there was something +familiar in the voice; or was she thinking of somebody? She moved +slightly as a gentleman seated himself beside her. Her veil was shading +her face; she pushed it back to give a quick glance at him. The voice had +been familiar; there was still something more familiar in the hair, the +contour of the cheek, and the blonde moustache. + +"Hollis!" she exclaimed, as his eyes looked into hers. She caught her +breath a little, hardly knowing whether she were glad or sorry. + +"Why, Marjorie!" he returned, surprise and embarrassment mingled in his +voice. He did not seem sure, either, whether to be glad or sorry. + +For several moments neither spoke; both were too shy and too conscious of +something uncomfortable. + +"It isn't so very remarkable to find you here, I suppose," he remarked, +after considering for some time an advertisement in a daily paper which +he held in his hand. + +"No, nor so strange to encounter you." + +"You have not been home for some time." + +"Not since I came in September." + +"And I have not since Will's wedding day. There was a shower that night, +and your mother tried to keep me; and I wished she had more than a few +times on my dark way home." + +"It is almost time to hear from Will." Marjorie had no taste for +reminiscences. + +"I expect to hear every day." + +"So do we. Mrs. Kemlo watches up the street and down the street for the +postman." + +"Oh, yes. Morris. I forgot. Does he like the life?" + +"He is enthusiastic." + +She turned a leaf, and read a page of extracts from Donald Grant +Mitchell; but she had not understood one word, so she began again and +read slowly, trying to understand; then she found her ticket in her +glove, and examined it with profound interest, the color burning in her +cheeks; then she gazed long out of the window at the snow and the bare +trees and the scattered farmhouses; then she turned to study the lady's +bonnet in front of her, and to pity the mother with the child in front of +_her_; she looked before and behind and out the windows; she looked +everywhere but at the face beside her; she saw his overcoat, his black +travelling bag, and wondered what he had brought his mother; she looked +at his brown kid gloves, at his black rubber watch chain, from which a +gold anchor was dangling; but it was dangerous to raise her eyes higher, +so they sought his boots and the newspaper on his knee. Had he spoken +last, or had she? What was the last remark? About Morris? It was +certainly not about Donald Grant Mitchell. Yes, she had spoken last; she +had said Morris was-- + +Would he speak of her long unanswered letter? Would he make an excuse for +not noticing it? A sentence in rhetoric was before her eyes: "Any letter, +not insulting, merits a reply." Perhaps he had never studied rhetoric. +Her lips were curving into a smile; wouldn't it be fun to ask him? + +"I am going to London next week. I came home to say good-bye to mother." + +"Will you stay long?" was all that occurred to her to remark. Her voice +was quite devoid of interest. + +"Where? In London, or at home?" + +"Both," she said smiling. + +"I must return to New York on Monday; and I shall stay in London only +long enough to attend to business. I shall go to Manchester and to Paris. +My route is not all mapped out for me yet. Do you like school as well as +you expected to?" + +"Oh, yes, indeed." + +"You expect to finish this year?" + +"I suppose I shall leave school." + +"And go home?" + +"Oh, yes. What else should I do?" + +"And learn housekeeping from Linnet." + +"It is not new work to me." + +"How is Miss Prudence?" + +"As lovely as ever." + +"And the little girl?" + +"Sweet and good and bright." + +"And Mrs. Kemlo?" + +"She is--happier." + +"Hasn't she always been happy?" + +"No; she was like your mother; only hers has lasted so long. I am so +sorry for such--unhappiness." + +"So am I. I endured enough of it at one time." + +"I cannot even think of it. She is going home with me in June. Morris +will be glad to have her with mother." + +"When is Mr. Holmes coming here?" + +"In June." + +"June is to be a month of happenings in your calendar." + +"Every month is--in my calendar." + +He was bending towards her that she might listen easily, as he did not +wish to raise his voice. + +"I haven't told you about my class in Sunday school." + +"Oh, have you a class?" + +"Yes, a class of girls--girls about fourteen. I thought I never could +interest them. I don't know how to talk to little girls; but I am full of +the lesson, and so are they, and the time is up before we know it." + +"I'm very glad. It will be good for you," said Marjorie, quite in Miss +Prudence's manner. + +"It is, already," he said gravely and earnestly "I imagine it is better +for me than for them." + +"I don't believe that" + +"Our lesson last Sunday was about the Lord's Supper; and one of them +asked me if Christ partook of the Supper with his disciples. I had not +thought of it. I do not know. Do you?" + +"He ate the passover with them." + +"But this was afterward. Why should he do it in remembrance of his own +death? He gave them the bread and the cup." + +Marjorie was interested. She said she would ask her father and Miss +Prudence; and her mother must certainly have thought about it. + +The conductor nudged Hollis twice before he noticed him and produced his +ticket; then the candy boy came along, and Hollis laid a paper of +chocolate creams in Marjorie's lap. It was almost like going back to the +times when he brought apples to school for her. If he would only explain +about the letter-- + +The next station would be Middlefield! What a short hour and a half! She +buttoned her glove, took her shawl strap into her lap, loosening the +strap so that she might slip her "English Literature" in, tightened it +again, ate the last cream drop, tossed aside the paper, and was ready for +Middlefield. + +As the train stopped he took the shawl strap from her hand. She followed +him through the car, gave him her hand to assist her to the platform, and +then there was a welcome in her ears, and Linnet and her father seemed to +be surrounding her. Captain Rheid had brought Linnet to the train, +intending to take Hollis back. Linnet was jubilant over the news of +Will's safe arrival; they had found the letter at the office. + +"Father has letters too," she said to Hollis; "he will give you his +news." + +As the sleigh containing Linnet, her father, and Marjorie sped away +before them, Captain Rheid said to Hollis:-- + +"How shall I ever break it to them? Morris is dead." + +"Dead!" repeated Hollis. + +"He died on the voyage out. Will gives a long account of it for his +mother and Marjorie. It seems the poor fellow was engaged to her, and has +given Will a parting present for her." + +"How did it happen?" + +Will has tried to give details; but he is rather confusing. He is in +great trouble. He wanted to bring him home; but that was impossible. They +came upon a ship in distress, and laid by her a day and a night in foul +weather to take them off. Morris went to them with a part of the crew, +and got them all safely aboard the _Linnet_; but he had received some +injury, nobody seemed to know how. His head was hurt, for he was +delirious after the first night. He sent his love to his mother, and +gave Will something for Marjorie, and then did not know anything after +that. Will is heartbroken. He wants me to break it to Linnet; but I +didn't see how I can. Your mother will have to do it. The letter can go +to his mother; Miss Prudence will see to that. + +"But Marjorie," said Hollis slowly. + +"Yes, poor little Marjorie!" said the old man compassionately. "It will +go hard with her." + +"Linnet or her mother can tell her." + +The captain touched his horse, and they flew past the laughing +sleighload. Linnet waved her handkerchief, Marjorie laughed, and their +father took off his hat to them. + +"Oh, _dear_," groaned the captain. + +"Lord, help her; poor little thing," prayed Hollis, with motionless lips. + +He remembered that last letter of hers that he had not answered. His +mother had written to him that she surmised that Marjorie was engaged +to Morris; and he had felt it wrong--"almost interfering," he had put it +to himself--to push their boy and girl friendship any further. And, +again--Hollis was cautious in the extreme--if she did not belong to +Morris, she might infer that he was caring with a grown up feeling, which +he was not at all sure was true--he was not sure about himself in +anything just then; and, after he became a Christian, he saw all things +in a new light, and felt that a "flirtation" was not becoming a disciple +of Christ. He had become a whole-hearted disciple of Christ. His Aunt +Helen and his mother were very eager for him to study for the ministry; +but he had told them decidedly that he was not "called." + +"And I _am_ called to serve Christ as a businessman. Commercial +travellers, as a rule, are men of the world; but, as I go about, I want +to go about my Father's business." + +"But he would be so enthusiastic," lamented Aunt Helen. + +"And he has such a nice voice," bewailed his mother; "and I did hope to +see one of my five boys in the pulpit." + + + + +XXII. + +TIDINGS. + +"He giveth his beloved sleep." + + +Sunday in the twilight Linnet and Marjorie were alone in Linnet's little +kitchen. Linnet was bending over the stove stirring the chocolate, and +Marjorie was setting the table for two. + +"Linnet!" she exclaimed, "it's like playing house." + +"I feel very much in earnest." + +"So do I. That chocolate makes me feel so. Have you had time to watch the +light over the fields? Or is it too poor a sight after gazing at the +sunset on the ocean?" + +"Marjorie!" she said, turning around to face her, and leaving the spoon +idle in the steaming pot, "do you know, I think there's something the +matter?" + +"Something the matter? Where?" + +"I don't know where. I was wondering this afternoon if people always had +a presentiment when trouble was coming." + +"Did you ever have any trouble?" asked Marjorie seriously. + +"Not real, dreadful trouble. But when I hear of things happening +suddenly, I wonder if it is so sudden, really; or if they are not +prepared in some way for the very thing, or for something." + +"We always know that our friends may die--that is trouble. I feel as if +it would kill me for any one I love to die." + +"Will is safe and well," said Linnet, "and father and mother." + +"And Morris--I shall find a letter for me at home, I expect. I suppose +his mother had hers last night. How she lives in him! She loves him +more than any of us. But what kind of a feeling have you?" + +"I don't know." + +"You are tired and want to go to sleep," said Marjorie, practically. +"I'll sing you to sleep after supper. Or read to you! We have 'Stepping +Heavenward' to read. That will make you forget all your nonsense." + +"Hollis' face isn't nonsense." + +"He hasn't talked to me since last night. I didn't see him in church." + +"I did. And that is what I mean. I should think his trouble was about +Will, if I hadn't the letter. And Father Rheid! Do you see how fidgety +he is? He has been over here four times to-day." + +"He is always stern." + +"No; he isn't. Not like this. And Mother Rheid looked so--too." + +"How?" laughed Marjorie. "O, you funny Linnet." + +"I wish I could laugh at it. But I heard something, too. Mother Rheid was +talking to mother after church this afternoon, and I heard her say, +'distressing.' Father Rheid hurried me into the sleigh, and mother put +her veil down; and I was too frightened to ask questions." + +"She meant that she had a distressing cold," said Marjorie lightly. +"'Distressing' is one of her pet words. She is distressed over the +coldness of the church, and she is distressed when all her eggs do not +hatch. I wouldn't be distressed about that, Linnet. And mother put her +veil down because the wind was blowing I put mine down, too." + +Linnet stirred the chocolate; but her face was still anxious. Will had +not spoken of Morris. Could it be Morris? It was not like Will not to +speak of Morris. + +"Will did not speak of Morris. Did you notice that?" + +"Does he always? I suppose Morris has spoken for himself." + +"If Hollis doesn't come over by the time we are through tea, I'll go over +there. I can't wait any longer." + +"Well, I'll go with you to ease your mind. But you must eat some supper." + +As Linnet placed the chocolate pot on the table, Marjorie exclaimed, +"There they are! Mother Rheid and Hollis. They are coming by the road; +of course the field is blocked with snow. Now your anxious heart shall +laugh at itself. I'll put on plates for two more. Is there chocolate +enough? And it won't seem so much like playing house." + +While Marjorie put on the extra plates and cut a few more slices of +sponge cake, Linnet went to the front door, and stood waiting for them. + +Through the open kitchen door Marjorie heard her ask, "Is anything the +matter?" + +"Hush! Where's Marjorie?" asked Hollis' voice. + +Was it her trouble? Was it Miss Prudence? Or Prue--it could not be her +father and mother; she had seen them at church. Morris! _Morris!_ Had +they not just heard from Will? He went away, and she was not kind to him. + +Who was saying "dead"? Was somebody dead? + +She was trembling so that she would have fallen had she not caught at the +back of a chair for support. There was a buzzing in her ears; she was +sinking down, sinking down. Linnet was clinging to her, or holding her +up. Linnet must be comforted. + +"Is somebody--dead?" she asked, her dry lips parting with an effort. + +"Yes, dear; it's Morris," said Mrs. Rheid. "Lay her down flat, Linnet. +It's the shock? Hollis, bring some water." + +"Oh, no, no," shivered Marjorie, "don't touch me. What shall I say to his +mother? His mother hasn't any one else to care for her. Where is he? +Won't somebody tell me all about it?" + +"Oh, dear; I can't," sobbed Mrs. Rheid. + +Hollis drew her into a chair and seated himself beside her, keeping her +cold hand in his. + +"I will tell you, Marjorie." + +But Marjorie did not hear; she only heard, "Good-bye, Marjorie--_dear_." + +"Are you listening, Marjorie?" + +"Oh, yes." + +Linnet stood very white beside her. Mrs. Rheid was weeping softly. + +"They were near a ship in distress; the wind was high, and they could not +go to her for many hours; at last Morris went in a boat, with some of the +crew, and helped them off the wreck; he saved them all, but he was hurt +in some way,--Will does not know how; the men tried to tell him, but they +contradicted themselves,--and after getting safe aboard his own ship--do +you understand it all?" + +"Yes. Morris got back safe to the _Linnet_, but he was injured--" + +"And then taken very ill, so ill that he was delirious. Will did +everything for his comfort that he could do; he was with him night and +day; he lived nine days. But, before he became delirious, he sent his +love to his mother, and he gave Will something to give to you." + +"Yes. I know," said Marjorie. "I don't deserve it. I refused it when he +wanted to give it to me. I wasn't kind to him." + +"Yes, you were," said Linnet, "you don't know what you are saying. You +were always kind to him, and he loved you." + +"Yes; but I might have been kinder," she said. "Must I tell his mother?" + +"No; Miss Prudence will do that," answered Hollis. "I have Will's letter +for you to take to her." + +"Where is he? Where _is_ Morris?" + +"Buried in England. Will could not bring him home," said Hollis. + +"His mother! What will she do?" moaned Marjorie. + +"Marjorie, you talk as if there was no one to comfort her," rebuked Mrs. +Rheid. + +"You have all your boys, Mrs. Rheid, and she had only Morris," said +Marjorie. + +"Yes; that is true; and I cannot spare one of them. Do cry, child. Don't +sit there with your eyes so wide open and big." + +Marjorie closed her eyes and leaned back against Linnet. Morris had gone +to God. + +It was hours before the tears came. She sobbed herself to sleep towards +morning. She did not deserve it; but she would keep the thing he had sent +to her. Another beautiful life was ended; who would do his work on the +earth. Would Hollis? Could she do a part of it? She would love his +mother. Oh, how thankful she was that he had known that rest had begun to +come to his mother, that he had known that she was safe with Miss +Prudence. + +It was like Marjorie, even in her first great sorrow, to fall asleep +thanking God. + + + + +XXIII. + +GOD'S LOVE. + +"As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." + + +Marjorie opened her "English Literature." She must recite to-morrow. She +had forgotten whom she had studied about Saturday afternoon. + +Again Hollis was beside her in the train. Her shawl strap was at her +feet; her ticket was tucked into her glove; she opened at the same place +in "English Literature." Now she remembered "Donald Grant Mitchell." His +"Dream Life" was one of Morris' favorites. They had read it together one +summer under the apple-tree. He had coaxed her to read aloud, saying that +her voice suited it. She closed the book; she could not study; how +strange it would be to go among the girls and hear them laugh and talk; +would any of them ask her if she were in trouble? They would remember her +sailor boy. + +Was it Saturday afternoon? Hollis wore those brown kid gloves, and there +was the anchor dangling from his black chain. She was not too shy to look +higher, and meet the smile of his eyes to-day. Was she going home and +expecting a letter from Morris? There was a letter in her pocket; but it +was not from Morris. Hollis had said he expected to hear from Will; and +they had heard from Will. He would be home before very long, and tell +them all the rest. The train rushed on; a girl was eating peanuts behind +her, and a boy was studying his Latin Grammar in front of her. She was +going to Morris' mother; the rushing train was hurrying her on. How could +she say to Miss Prudence, "Morris is dead." + +"Marjorie." + +"Well," she answered, rousing herself. + +"Are you comfortable?" + +The voice was sympathetic; tears started, she could only nod in reply. + +There seemed to be nothing to talk about to-day. + +She had replied in monosyllables so long that he was discouraged with his +own efforts at conversation, and lapsed into silence. But it was a +silence that she felt she might break at any moment. + +The train stopped at last; it had seemed as if it would never stop, and +then as if it would stop before she could catch her breath and be ready +to speak. If she had not refused that something he had brought her this +would not have been so hard. Had he cared so very much? Would she have +cared very much if he had refused those handkerchiefs she had marked for +him? But Hollis had taken her shawl strap, and was rising. + +"You will not have time to get out." + +"Did you think I would leave you anywhere but with your friends? Have you +forgotten me so far as that?" + +"I was thinking of your time." + +"Never mind. One has always time for what he wants to do most." + +"Is that an original proverb?" + +"I do not know that it is a quotation." + +She dropped her veil over her face, and walked along the platform at his +side. There were no street cars in the small city, and she had protested +against a carriage. + +"I like the air against my face." + +That last walk with Morris had been so full of talk; this was taken in +absolute silence. The wind was keen and they walked rapidly. Prue was +watching at the window, loving little Prue, as Marjorie knew she would +be. + +"There's a tall man with Marjorie, Aunt Prue." + +Aunt Prue left the piano and followed her to the door. Mrs. Kemlo was +knitting stockings for Morris in her steamer chair. + +Marjorie was glad of Prue's encircling arms. She hid her face in the +child's hair while Hollis passed her and spoke to Miss Prudence. + +Miss Prudence would be strong. Marjorie did not fear anything for her. It +might be cowardly, but she must run away from his mother. She laid Will's +letter in Hollis' hand, and slipping past him hastened up the stairway. +Prue followed her, laughing and pulling at her cloak. + +She could tell Prue; it would relieve her to talk to Prue. + +They were both weeping, Prue in Marjorie's arms, when Miss Prudence found +them in her chamber an hour later. The only light in the room came +through the open door of the airtight. + +"Does she know?" asked Marjorie, springing up to greet Miss Prudence. + +"Yes; she is very quiet, I have prayed with her twice; and we have talked +about his life and his death. She says that it was unselfish to the end." + +"He sent his love to her; did Hollis tell you?" + +"I read the letter--I read it twice. She holds it in her hand now." + +"Has the tall man gone?" asked Prue. + +"Yes, he did not stay long. Marjorie, you did not bid him good-night." + +"I know it; I did not think." + +"Marjorie, dear;" Miss Prudence opened her arms, and Marjorie crept into +them. + +"Oh, Aunt Prue, I would not be so troubled, but he wanted to give me +something--some little thing he had brought me--because he always did +remember me, and I would not even look at it. I don't know what it was. I +refused it; and I know he was so hurt. I was almost tempted to take it +when I saw his eyes; and then I wanted to be true." + +"Were you true?" + +"I tried to be." + +"Then there is nothing to be troubled about. He is comforted for it now. +Don't you want to go down and see his mother?" + +"I'm afraid to see her." + +"She will comfort you. She is sure now that God loves her. I have been +trying to teach her, and now God has taught her so that she can rejoice +in his love. Whom the Lord loveth, she says, he chastens; and he knows +how he has chastened her. If it were not for his love, Marjorie, what +would keep our hearts from breaking?" + +"Papa died, too," said Prue. + +Marjorie went down to the parlor. Mrs. Kemlo was sitting at the grate, +leaning back in her steamer chair. Marjorie kissed her without a word. + +"Marjorie! The girls ought to know. I don't believe I can write." + +"I can. I will write to-night." + +"And copy this letter; then they will know it just as it is. He was with +you so long they will not miss him as we do. They were older, and they +loved each other, and left him to me. And, Marjorie--" + +"Yes'm." + +"Tell them I am going to your mother's as soon as warm weather comes, +unless one of them would rather take me home; tell them Miss Prudence has +become a daughter to me; I am not in need of anything. Give them my love, +and say that when they love their little ones, they must think of how +I loved them." + +"I will," said Marjorie, "You and mother will enjoy each other so much." + +Marjorie wrote the letters that evening, her eyes so blinded with tears +that she wrote very crookedly. No one would ever know what she had lost +in Morris. He had been a part of herself that even Linnet had never been. +She was lost without him, and for months wandered in a new world. She +suffered more keenly upon the anniversary of the day of the tidings of +his death than she suffered that day. Then, she could appreciate more +fully what God had taken from her. But the letters were written, and +mailed on her way to school in the morning; her recitations were gone +through with; and night came, when she could have the rest of sleep. The +days went on outwardly as usual. Prue was daily becoming more and more a +delight to them all. Mrs. Kemlo's sad face was sweet and chastened; and +Miss Prudence's days were more full of busy doings, with a certain +something of a new life about them that Marjorie did not understand. She +could almost imagine what Miss Prudence had been twenty years ago. +Despite her lightness of foot, her inspiriting voice, and her _young_ +interest in every question that pertained to life and work and study, +Miss Prudence seemed old to eighteen-years-old Marjorie. Not as old as +her mother; but nearly forty-five was very old. When she was forty-five, +she thought, her life would be almost ended; and here was Miss Prudence +always _beginning again_. + +Answers to her letters arrived duly. They were not long; but they were +conventionally sympathetic. + +One daughter wrote: "Morris took you away from us to place you with +friends whom he thought would take good care of you; if you are satisfied +to stay with them, I think you will be better off than with me. Business +is dull, and Peter thinks he has enough on his hands." + +The other wrote: "I am glad you are among such kind friends. If Miss +Pomeroy thinks she owes you anything, now is her time to repay it. But +she could pay your board with me as well as with strangers, and you could +help me with the children. I am glad you can be submissive, and that you +are in a pleasanter frame of mind. Henry sends love, and says you never +shall want a home while he has a roof over his own head." + +The mother sighed over both letters. They both left so much unsaid. They +were wrapped up in their husbands and children. + +"I hope their children will love them when they are old," was the only +remark she made about the letters. + +"I am your child, too," said Marjorie. "Won't you take me instead--no, +not instead of Morris, but _with_ him?" + +In April Will came home. He spent a night in Maple Street, and almost +satisfied the mother's hungry heart with the comfort he gave her. +Marjorie listened with tears. She went away by herself to open the tiny +box that Will placed in her hand. Kissing the ring with loving and +reverent lips, she slipped it on the finger that Morris would have +chosen, the finger on which Linnet wore her wedding ring. "_Semper +fidelis._" She could see the words now as he used to write them on the +slate. If he might only know that she cared for the ring! If he might +only know that she was waiting for him to come back to bring it to her. +If he might only know--But he had God now; he was in the presence of +Jesus Christ. There was no marrying or giving in marriage in the +presence of Christ in Heaven. Giving in marriage and marrying had been in +his presence on the earth; but where fullness of joy was, there was +something better. Marriage belonged to the earth. She belonged to the +earth; but he belonged to Heaven. The ring did not signify that she was +married to him--I think it might have meant that to her, if she had read +the shallow sentimentalism of some love stories; but Miss Prudence had +kept her from false ideas, and given her the truth; the truth, that +marriage was the symbol of the union of Christ and his people; a pure +marriage was the type of this union. Linnet's marriage was holier and +happier because of Miss Prudence's teaching. Miss Prudence was an old +maid; but she had helped others beside Linnet and Marjorie towards the +happiest marriage. Marjorie had not one selfish, or shallow, or false +idea with regard to marriage. And why should girls have, who have good +mothers and the Old and New Testaments? + +With no shamefacedness, no foolish consciousness, she went down among +them with Morris' ring upon her finger. She would as soon have been +ashamed to say that an angel had spoken to her. Perhaps she was not a +modern school-girl, perhaps she was as old-fashioned as Miss Prudence +herself. + + + + +XXIV. + +JUST AS IT OUGHT TO BE. + +"I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would +wear well."--_Goldsmith._ + + +"Prudence!" + +"Well, John," she returned, as he seemed to hesitate. + +"Have we arranged everything?" + +"Everything! And you have been home three hours." + +"Three and a half, if you please; it is now six o'clock." + +"Then the tea-bell will ring." + +"No; I told Deborah to ring at seven to-night." + +"She will think you are putting on the airs of the master." + +"Don't you think it is about time? Or, it will be at half past six." + +"Why, in half an hour?" + +"Half an hour may make all the difference in the world." + +"In some instances, yes?" + +They were walking up and down the walk they had named years ago "the +shrubbery path." He had found her in the shrubbery path in the old days +when she used to walk up and down and dream her girlish dreams. Like +Linnet she liked her real life better than anything she had dreamed. + +Mr. Holmes had returned with his shoulders thrown back, the lines of care +softened into lines of thought, and the slouched hat replaced by a +broad-brimmed panama; his step was quick, his voice had a ring in it, the +stern, determined expression was altogether gone; there was a loveliness +in his face that was not in Miss Prudence's own; when his sterner and +stronger nature became sweet, it was very sweet. Life had been a long +fight; in yielding, he had conquered. He bubbled over into nonsense now +and then. Twenty years ago he had walked this path with Prudence Pomeroy, +when there was hatred in his heart and an overwhelming sorrow in hers. +There always comes a time when we are _through_. He believed that +tonight. Prue was not lighter of heart than he. + +"Twenty years is a large piece out of a man's lifetime; but I would have +waited twice twenty for this hour, Prudence." + +"I wish I deserved my happiness as much as you do yours, John." + +"Perhaps you haven't as much to deserve." + +"I'm glad I don't deserve it. I want it to be all God's gift and his +goodness." + +"It is, dear." + +"I wish we might take Marjorie with us," she said, after a moment; "she +would have such an unalloyed good time." + +"Any one else?" + +"Mrs. Kemlo." + +"Is that all?" + +"There's Deborah." + +"Prudence, you ought to be satisfied with me. You don't know how to be +married." + +"Suppose I wait twenty years longer and learn." + +"No, it is like learning to swim; the best way is to plunge at once. And +at once will be in about twenty minutes, instead of twenty years." + +"What do you mean?" she asked, standing still in unfeigned astonishment. + +"I mean that your neighbor across the way has been invited to call at +half past six this evening to marry me, and I supposed you were willing +to be married at the same time." + +"John Holmes!" + +"Do you want to send me off again?" + +"But I never thought of such a thing." + +"It wasn't necessary; one brilliant mind is enough to plan. What did you +ask me to come home for?" + +"But not now--not immediately." + +"Why not?" he asked, gravely. + +"Because," she smiled at her woman's reason, "I'm not ready." + +"Don't you know whether you are willing or not?" + +"Yes, I know that." + +"Aren't you well enough acquainted with me? Haven't you proved me long +enough?" + +"O, John," her eyes filling with tears. + +"What else can you mean by 'ready'?" + +She looked down at her dress; a gray flannel--an iron gray flannel--a +gray flannel and linen collar and cuffs to be married in. But was it not +befitting her gray locks? + +"John, look at me!" + +"I am looking at you." + +"What do you see?" + +"You were never so lovely in your life." + +"You were never so obstinate in your life." + +"I never had such a good right before. Now listen to reason. You say this +house is to be sold; and the furniture, for future housekeeping, is to be +packed and stored; that you and Prue are to sail for Havre the first +steamer in July; and who beside your husband is to attend to this, and to +get you on board the steamer in time?" + +"But, John!" laying her hand in expostulation upon his arm. + +"But, Prudence!" he laughed. "Is Deborah to go with us? Shall we need her +in our Italian palace, or are we to dwell amid ruins?" + +"Nothing else would make her old heart so glad." + +"Marjorie and Mrs. Kemlo expect to go home to-morrow." + +"Yes." + +"Don't you want Marjorie to stay and help you?" + +"With such a valiant husband at the front! I suspect you mean to create +emergencies simply to help me out of them." + +"I'm creating one now; and all I want you to do is to be helped out--or +in." + +"But, John, I must go in and fix my hair." + +"Your hair looks as usual." + +"But I don't want it to look as usual. Do you want the bride to forget +her attire and her ornaments?" + +A blue figure with curls flying and arms outstretched was flying down +towards them from the upper end of the path. + +"O, Aunt Prue! Mr. March has come over--without Mrs. March, and he asked +for you. I told him Uncle John had come home, and he smiled, and said he +could not get along without him." + +"John, you should have asked Mrs. March, too." + +"I forgot the etiquette of it. I forgot she was your pastor's wife. But +it's too late now." + +"Prue!" Miss Prudence laid her hand on Prue's head to keep her quiet. +"Ask Marjorie and Mrs. Kemlo and Deborah to come into the parlor." + +"We are to be married, Prue!" said John Holmes. + +"_Who_ is?" asked Prue. + +"Aunt Prue and I. Don't you want papa and mamma instead of Uncle John and +Aunt Prue?" + +"Yes; I do! Wait for us to come. I'll run and tell them," she answered, +fleeing away. + +"John, this is a very irregular proceeding!" + +"It quite befits the occasion, however," he answered gravely. Very slowly +they walked toward the house. + +All color had left Miss Prudence's cheeks and lips. Deborah was sure she +would faint; but Mrs. Kemlo watched her lips, and knew by the firm lines +that she would not. + +No one thought about the bridegroom, because no one ever does. Prue kept +close to Miss Prudence, and said afterward that she was mamma's +bridesmaid. Marjorie thought that Morris would be glad if he could know +it; he had loved Mr. Holmes. + +The few words were solemnly spoken. + +Prudence Pomeroy and John Holmes were husband and wife. + +"What God hath joined--" + +Oh, how God had joined them. She had belonged to him so long. + +The bridegroom and bride went on their wedding tour by walking up and +down the long parlor in the summer twilight. Not many words were spoken. + +Deborah went out to the dining-room to change the table cloth for one of +the best damasks, saying to herself, "It's just as it ought to be! Just +as it ought to be! And things do happen so once in a while in this +crooked world." + + + + +XXV. + +THE WILL OF GOD. + +"To see in all things good and fair, +Thy love attested is my prayer."--_Alice Cary._ + + +"Linnet is happy enough," said their mother; "but there's Marjorie!" + +Yes; there was Marjorie! She was not happy enough. She was twenty-one +this summer, and not many events had stirred her uneventful life since we +left her the night of Miss Prudence's marriage. She came home the next +day bringing Mrs. Kemlo with her, and the same day she began to take the +old household steps. She had been away but a year, and had not fallen out +of the old ways as Linnet had in her three years of study; and she had +not come home to be married as Linnet had; she came home to do the next +thing, and the next thing had even been something for her father and +mother, or Morris' mother. + +Annie Grey went immediately, upon the homecoming of the daughter of the +house, to Middlefield to learn dressmaking, boarding with Linnet and +"working her board." Linnet was lonely at night; she began to feel lonely +as dusk came on; and the arrangement of board for one and pleasant +companionship for the other, was satisfactory to both. Not that there was +very much for Annie to do, beside staying at home Monday mornings to help +with the washing, and ironing Monday evening or early Tuesday. Linnet +loved her housekeeping too well to let any other fingers intermeddle. +Will decided that she must stay, for company, especially through the +winter nights, if he had to pay her board. + +Therefore Marjorie took the place that she left vacant in the farmhouse, +and more than filled it, but she did not love housekeeping for its own +comfortable sake, as Linnet did; she did it as "by God's law." + +Her father's health failed signally this first summer. He was weakened by +several hemorrhages, and became nervous and unfitted even to superintend +the work of the "hired man." That general superintendence fell to Mrs. +West, and she took no little pride in the flourishing state of the few +acres. Now she could farm as she wanted to; Graham had not always +listened to her. The next summer he died. That was the summer Marjorie +was twenty. The chief business of the nursing fell to Marjorie; her +mother was rather too energetic for the comfort of the sickroom, and +there was always so much to be attended to outside that quiet chamber. + +"Marjorie knows her father's way," Mrs. West apologized to Mrs. Kemlo. +"He never has to tell her what he wants; but I have to make him explain. +There are born nurses, and I'm not one of them. I'll keep things running +outside, and that's for his comfort. He is as satisfied as though he were +about himself. If one of us must be down, he knows that he'd better be +the one." + +During their last talk--how many talks Marjorie and her father had!--he +made one remark that she had not forgotten, and would never forget:-- + +"My life has been of little account, as the world goes; but I have sought +to do God's will, and that is success to a man on his death-bed." + +Would not her life be a success, then? For what else did she desire but +the will of God. + +The minister told Marjorie that there was no man in the church whose life +had had such a resistless influence as her father's. + +The same hired man was retained; the farm work was done to Mrs. West's +satisfaction. The farm was her own as long as she lived; and then it was +to belong equally to the daughters. There were no debts. + +The gentle, patient life was missed with sore hearts; but there was no +outward difference within doors or without. Marjorie took his seat at +table; Mrs. Kemlo sat in his armchair at the fireside; his wife read his +_Agriculturist_; and his daughter read his special devotional books. His +wife admitted to herself that Graham lacked force of character. She +herself was a _pusher_. She did not understand his favorite quotation: +"He that believeth shall not make haste." + +Marjorie had her piano--this piano was a graduating present from Miss +Prudence; more books than she could read, from the libraries of Mr. and +Mrs. Holmes; her busy work in the household; an occasional visit to the +farmhouse on the sea shore, to read to the old people and sing to them, +and even to cut and string apples and laugh over her childish abhorrence +of the work. She never opened the door of the chamber they still called +"Miss Prudence's," without feeling that it held a history. How different +her life would have been but for Miss Prudence. And Linnet's. And +Morris's! And how many other lives, who knew? There were, beside, her +class in Sunday school; and her visits to Linnet, and exchanging visits +with the school-girls,--not with the girls at Master McCosh's; she had +made no intimate friendships among them. And then there were letters from +Aunt Prue, and childish, affectionate notes from dear little Prue. + +Marjorie's life was not meagre; still she was not "happy enough." She +wrote to Aunt Prue that she was not "satisfied." + +"That's a girl's old story," Mrs. Holmes said to her husband. "She must +_evolve_, John. There's enough in her for something to come out of her." + +"What do girls want to _do_?" he asked, looking up from his writing. + +"Be satisfied," laughed his wife. + +"Did you go through that delusive period?" + +"Was I not a girl?" + +"And here's Prue growing up, to say some day that she isn't satisfied." + +"No; to say some day that she is." + +"_When_ were you satisfied?" + +"At what age? You will not believe that I was thirty-five, before I was +satisfied with my life. And then I was satisfied, because I was willing +for God to have his way with me. If it were not for that willingness, I +shouldn't be satisfied yet." + +"Then you can tell Marjorie not to wait until she is half of three score +and ten before she gives herself up." + +"Her will is more yielding than mine; she doesn't seek great things for +herself." + +The letter from Switzerland about being "satisfied" Marjorie read again +and again. There was only one way for childhood, girlhood, or womanhood +to be satisfied; and that one way was to acknowledge God in every thing, +and let him direct every step. Then if one were not satisfied, it was +dissatisfaction with God's will; God's will was not enough. + +Hollis had made short visits at home twice since she had left school. The +first time, she had been at her grandfather's and saw him but half an +hour; the second time, they met not at all, as she was attending to some +business for Mrs. Holmes, and spending a day and night with Mrs. +Harrowgate. + +This twenty-first summer she was not happy; she had not been happy for +months. It was a new experience, not to be happy. She had been born +happy. I do not think any trial, excepting the one she was suffering, +would have so utterly unsettled her. It was a strange thing--but, no, I +do not know that it was a strange thing; but it may be that you are +surprised that she could have this kind of trial; as she expressed it, +she was not sure that she was a Christian! All her life she had thought +about God; now, when she thought about herself, she began to fear and +doubt and tremble. + +No wonder that she slept fitfully, that she awoke in the night to weep, +that she ate little and grew pale and thin. It was a strange thing to +befall my happy Marjorie. Her mother could not understand it. She tempted +her appetite in various ways, sent her to her grandfather's for a change, +and to Linnet's; but she came home as pale and dispirited as she went. + +"She works too hard," thought the anxious mother; and sent for a woman to +wash and iron, that the child might be spared. Marjorie protested, saying +that she was not ill; but as the summer days came, she did not grow +stronger. Then a physician was called; who pronounced the malady nervous +exhaustion, prescribed a tonic--cheerful society, sea bathing, horseback +riding--and said he would be in again. + +Marjorie smiled and knew it would do no good. If Aunt Prue were near her +she would open her heart to her; she could have told her father all +about it; but she shrank from making known to her mother that she was not +ill, but grieving because she was not a Christian. Her mother would +give her energetic advice, and bid her wrestle in prayer until peace +came. Could her mother understand, when she had lived in the very +sunshine of faith for thirty years? + +She had prayed--she prayed for hours at a time; but peace came not. She +had fasted and prayed, and still peace did not come. + +Her mother was as blithe and cheery as the day was long. Linnet was as +full of song as a bird, because Will was on the passage home. In Mrs. +Kemlo's face and voice and words and manner, was perfect peace. Aunt +Prue's letters were overflowing with joy in her husband and child, and +joy in God. Only Marjorie was left outside. Mrs. Rheid had become zealous +in good works. She read extracts from Hollis' letters to her, where he +wrote of his enjoyment in church work, his Bible class, the Young Men's +Christian Association, the prayer-meeting. But Marjorie had no heart for +work. She had attempted to resign as teacher in Sunday school; but the +superintendent and her class of bright little girls persuaded her to +remain. She had sighed and yielded. How could she help them to be what +she was not herself? No one understood and no one helped her. For the +first time in her life she was tempted to be cross. She was weary at +night with the effort all day to keep in good humor. + +And she was a member of the church? Had she a right to go to the +communion? Was she not living a lie? She stayed at home the Sabbath of +the summer communion, and spent the morning in tears in her own chamber. + +Her mother prayed for her, but she did not question her. + +"Marjorie, dear," Morris' mother said, "can you not feel that God loves +you?" + +"I _know_ he does," she replied, bursting into tears; "but I don't love +him." + +In August of this summer Captain Will was loading in Portland for Havana. +She was ready for sea, but the wind was ahead. After two days of +persistent head wind Saturday night came, and it was ahead still. Captain +Will rushed ashore and hurried out to Linnet. He would have one Sunday +more at home. + +Annie was spending a week in Middlefield, and Linnet was alone. She had +decided not to go home, but to send for Marjorie; and was standing at the +gate watching for some one to pass, by whom she might send her message, +when Will himself appeared, having walked from the train. + +Linnet shouted; he caught her in his arms and ran around the house with +her, depositing her at last in the middle of the grass plat in front of +the house. + +"One more Sunday with you, sweetheart! Have you been praying for a head +wind?" + +"Suppose I should pray for it to be ahead as long as we live!" + +"Poor little girl! It's hard for you to be a sailor's wife, isn't it?" + +"It isn't hard to be your wife. It would be hard not to be," said +demonstrative Linnet. + +"You are going with me next voyage, you have promised." + +"Your father has not said I might." + +"He won't grumble; the _Linnet_ is making money for him." + +"You haven't had any supper, Will! And I am forgetting it." + +"Have you?" + +"I didn't feel like eating, but I did eat a bowl of bread and milk." + +"Do you intend to feed me on that?" + +"No; come in and help, and I'll get you the nicest supper you ever had." + +"I suppose I ought to go over and see father." + +"Wait till afterward, and I'll go with you. O, Will! suppose it is fair +to-morrow, will he make you sail on Sunday?" + +"I never _have_ sailed on Sunday." + +"But he has! He says it is all nonsense not to take advantage of the +wind." + +"I have been in ships that did do it. But I prefer not to. The _Linnet_ +is ready as far as she can be, and not be in motion; there will not be as +much to do as there is often in a storm at sea; but this is not an +emergency, and I won't do it if I can help it." + +"But your father is so determined." + +"So am I," said Will in a determined voice. + +"But you do not own a plank in her," said Linnet anxiously. "Oh, I hope +it _won't_ be fair to-morrow." + +"It isn't fair to-night, at any rate. I believe you were to give a hungry +traveller some supper." + +Linnet ran in to kindle the fire and make a cup of tea; Will cut the cold +boiled ham and the bread, while Linnet brought the cake and sugared the +blueberries. + +"Linnet, we have a precious little home." + +"Thanks to your good father." + +"Yes, thanks to my father. I ought not to displease him," Will returned +seriously. + +"You do please him; you satisfy him in everything. He told Hollis so." + +"Why, I didn't tell you that Hollis came in the train with me. See how +you make me forget everything. He is to stay here a day or so, and then +go on a fishing excursion with some friends, and then come back here for +another day or so. What a fine fellow he is. He is the gentleman among us +boys." + +"I would like to know what you are," said Linnet indignantly. + +"A rough old tar," laughed Will, for the sake of the flash in his wife's +eyes. + +"Then I'm a rough old tar too," said Linnet decidedly. + +How short the evening was! They went across the fields to see Hollis, and +to talk over affairs with the largest owner of the _Linnet_. Linnet +wondered when she knelt beside Will that night if it would be wrong to +ask God to keep the wind ahead until Monday morning. Marjorie moaned in +her sleep in real trouble. Linnet dreamed that she awoke Sunday morning +and the wind had not changed. + +But she did not awake until she heard a heavy rap on the window pane. It +was scarcely light, and Will had sprung out of bed and had raised the +window and was talking to his father. + +"I'll be here in an hour or less time to drive you into Portland. Hollis +won't drive you; but I'll be here on time." + +"But, father," expostulated Will. He had never resisted his father's will +as the others had done. He inherited his mother's peace-loving +disposition; he could only expostulate and yield. + +"The Linnet must sail, or I'll find another master," said his father in +his harshest voice. + +Linnet kept the tears back bravely for Will's sake; but she clung to him +sobbing at the last, and he wept with her; he had never wept on leaving +her before; but this time it was so hard, so hard. + +"Will, how _can_ I let you go?" + +"Keep up, sweetheart. It isn't a long trip--I'll soon be home. Let us +have a prayer together before I go." + +It was a simple prayer, interrupted by Linnet's sobbing. He asked only +that God would keep his wife safe, and bring him home safe to her, for +Jesus' sake. And then his father's voice was shouting, and he was gone; +and Linnet threw herself across the foot of the bed, sobbing like a +little child, with quick short breaths, and hopeless tears. + +"It isn't _right_" she cried vehemently; "and Will oughtn't to have gone; +but he never will withstand his father." + +All day she lived on the hope that something might happen to bring him +back at night; but before sundown Captain Rheid drove triumphantly into +his own yard, shouting out to his wife in the kitchen doorway that the +_Linnet_ was well on her way. + +At dusk, Linnet's lonely time, Marjorie stepped softly through the entry +and stood beside her. + +"O, Marjorie! I'm _so_ glad," she exclaimed, between laughing and crying. +"I've had a miserable day." + +"Didn't you know I would come?" + +"How bright you look!" said Linnet, looking up into the changed face; for +Marjorie's trouble was all gone, there was a happy tremor about the lips, +and peace was shining in her eyes. + +"I _am_ bright." + +"What has happened to you?" + +"I can tell you about it now. I have been troubled--more than troubled, +almost in despair--because I could not feel that I was a Christian. I +thought I was all the more wicked because I professed to be one. And +to-day it is all gone--the trouble. And in such a simple way. As I was +coming out of Sunday school I overheard somebody say to Mrs. Rich, 'I +know I'm not a Christian.' 'Then,' said Mrs. Rich, 'I'd begin this very +hour to be one, if I were you.' And it flashed over me why need I bemoan +myself any longer; why not begin this very hour; _and I did._" + +"I'm very glad," said Linnet, in her simple, hearty way. "I never had +anything like that on my mind, and I know it must be dreadful." + +"Dreadful?" repeated Marjorie. "It is being lost away from Christ." + +"Mrs. Rheid told Hollis that you were going into a decline, that mother +said so, and Will and I were planning what we could do for you." + +"Nobody need plan now," smiled Marjorie. "Shall we have some music? We'll +sing Will's hymns." + +"How your voice sounds!" + +"That's why I want to sing. I want to pour it all out." + +The next evening Hollis accompanied Linnet on her way to Marjorie's to +spend the evening. Marjorie's pale face and mourning dress had touched +him deeply. He had taught a class of boys near her class in Sunday +school, and had been struck with the dull, mechanical tone in which she +had questioned the attentive little girls who crowded around her. + +It was not Marjorie; but it was the Marjorie who had lost Morris and her +father. Was she so weak that she sank under grief? In his thought she was +always strong. But it was another Marjorie who met him at the gate the +next evening; the cheeks were still thin, but they were tinted and there +was not a trace of yesterday's dullness in face or voice; it was a joyful +face, and her voice was as light-hearted as a child's. Something had +wrought a change since yesterday. + +Such a quiet, unobtrusive little figure in a black and white gingham, +with a knot of black ribbon at her throat and a cluster of white roses in +her belt. Miss Prudence had done her best with the little country girl, +and she was become only a sweet and girlish-looking woman; she had not +marked out for herself a "career"; she had done nothing that no other +girl might do. But she was the lady that some other girls had not become, +he argued. + +The three, Hollis, Linnet, and Marjorie, sat in the moon lighted parlor +and talked over old times. Hollis had begun it by saying that his father +had shown him "Flyaway" stowed away in the granary chamber. + +He was sitting beside Linnet in a good position to study Marjorie's face +unobserved. The girl's face bore the marks of having gone through +something; there was a flutter about her lips, and her soft laugh and the +joy about the lips was almost contradicted by the mistiness that now and +then veiled the eyes. She had planned to go up to her chamber early, and +have this evening alone by herself,--alone on her knees at the open +window, with the stars above her and the rustle of the leaves and the +breath of the sea about her. It had been a long sorrow; all she wanted +was to rest, as Mary did, at the feet of the Lord; to look up into his +face, and feel his eyes upon her face; to shed sweetest tears over the +peace of forgiven sin. + +She had written to Aunt Prue all about it that afternoon. She was tempted +to show the letter to her mother, but was restrained by her usual shyness +and timidity. + +"Marjorie, why don't you talk?" questioned Linnet. + +Marjorie was on the music stool, and had turned from them to play the air +of one of the songs they used to sing in school. + +"I thought I had been talking a great deal. I am thinking of so many +things and I thought I had spoken of them all." + +"I wish you would," said Hollis. + +"I was thinking of Morris just then. But he was not in your school days, +nor in Linnet's. He belongs to mine." + +"What else? Go on please," said Hollis. + +"And then I was thinking that his life was a success, as father's was. +They both did the will of the Lord." + +"I've been trying all day to submit to that will," said Linnet, in a +thick voice. + +"Is that all we have to do with it--submit to it?" asked Hollis with a +grave smile. "Why do we always groan over 'Thy will be done,' as though +there never was anything pleasant in it?" + +"That's true," returned Linnet emphatically. "When Will came Saturday, I +didn't rejoice and say 'It is the Lord's will,' but Sunday morning I +thought it was, because it was so hard! All the lovely things that happen +to us _are_ his will of course." + +"Suppose we study up every time where the Lord speaks of his father's +will, and learn what that will is. Shall we, Marjorie?" proposed Hollis. + +"Oh, yes; it will be delightful!" she assented. + +"And when I come back from my fishing excursion we will compare notes, +and give each other our thoughts. I must give that topic in our +prayer-meeting and take it in my Bible class." + +"We know the will of God is our sanctification," said Marjorie slowly. "I +don't want to sigh, 'Thy will be done,' about that." + +"Hollis, I mean to hold on to that--every happy thing is God's will as +well as the hard ones," said Linnet. + +"And here come the mothers for some music," exclaimed Marjorie. "They +cannot go to sleep without it." + +And Marjorie's mother did not go to sleep with it. Hollis had invited +himself to remain all night, saying that he was responsible for Linnet +and could not go home unless she went home. + + + + +XXVI. + + +MARJORIE'S MOTHER. + +"Leave to Heaven the measure and the choice."--_Johnson_. + + +Marjorie fell asleep as happy as she wanted to be; but her mother did not +close her eyes in sleep all that night. She closed them in prayer, +however, and told Miss Prudence afterward that she "did not catch one +wink of sleep." All night long she was asking the Lord if she might +intermeddle between Marjorie and Hollis. As we look at them there was +nothing to intermeddle with. Marjorie herself did not know of anything. +Perhaps, more than anything, she laid before the Lord what she wanted him +to do. She told him how Marjorie looked, and how depressed she had been, +and her own fear that it was disappointment that was breaking her heart. +The prayer was characteristic. + +"Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest the hearts of both, and what +is in thy will for both; but thou dost choose means, thou hast chosen +means since the world began; and if thou hast chosen me, make me ready to +speak. Soften the heart of the young man; show him how ill he has done; +and knit their hearts to each other as thou didst the hearts of David and +Jonathan. Make her willing as thou didst make Rebekah willing to go with +the servant of Abraham. Give her favor in his eyes, as thou gavest favor +to Abigail in the eyes of David. Bring her into favor and tender love, as +thou broughtest Daniel. Let it not be beneath thy notice; the sparrows +are not, and she is more than many sparrows to thee. Give me words to +speak, and prepare his heart to listen. The king's heart is in thine +hand, and so is his heart. If we acknowledge thee in all our ways, thou +wilt direct our steps. I do acknowledge thee. Oh, direct my steps and +my words." + +With variety of phrasing, she poured out this prayer all through the +hours of the night; she spread the matter before the Lord as Hezekiah +did the letter that troubled him. Something must be _done_. She forgot +all the commands to _wait_, to _sit still_ and see the salvation of the +Lord; she forgot, or put away from her, the description of one who +believeth: "He that believeth shall not make haste." And she was making +haste with all her might. + +In the earliest dawn she arose, feeling assured that the Lord had heard +her cry and had answered her; he had given her permission to speak to +Hollis. + +That he permitted her to speak to Hollis, I know; that it was his will, I +do not know; but she was assured that she knew, and she never changed +her mind. It may be that it was his will for her to make a mistake and +bring sorrow upon Marjorie; the Lord does not shrink from mistakes; he +knows what to do with them. + +Before the house was astir, Hollis found her in the kitchen; she had +kindled the fire, and was filling the tea-kettle at the pump in the sink. + +"Good morning, Mrs. West. Excuse my early leave; but I must meet my +friends to-day." + +"Hollis!" + +She set the tea-kettle on the stove, and turned and looked at him. The +solemn weight of her eye rooted him to the spot. + +"Hollis, I've known you ever since you were born." + +"And now you are going to find fault with me!" he returned, with an easy +laugh. + +"No, not to find fault, but to speak with great plainness. Do you see how +changed Marjorie is!" + +"Yes. I could not fail to notice it. Has she been ill?" + +"Yes, very ill. You see the effect of something." + +"But she is better. She was so bright last night." + +"Yes, last night," she returned impressively, setting the lid of the +tea-kettle firmly in its place. "Did you ever think that you did wrong in +writing to her so many years and then stopping short all of a sudden, +giving her no reason at all?" + +"Do you mean _that_ has changed her, and hurt her?" he asked, in extreme +surprise. + +"I do. I mean that. I mean that you gained her affections and then left +her," she returned with severity. + +Hollis was now trembling in every limb, strong man as he was; he caught +at the back of a chair, and leaned on his two hands as he stood behind +it gazing into her face with mute lips. + +"And now, what do you intend to do?" + +"I never did that! It was not in my heart to do that! I would scorn to do +it!" he declared with vehemence. + +"Then what did you do?" she asked quietly. + +"We were good friends. We liked to write to each other. I left off +writing because I thought it not fair to interfere with Morris." + +"Morris! What did he have to do with it?" + +"She wears his ring," he said in a reasoning voice. + +"She wears it as she would wear it if a brother had given it to her. They +were brother and sister." + +Hollis stood with his eyes upon the floor. Afterward Mrs. West told Miss +Prudence that when it came to that, she pitied him with all her heart, +"he shook all over and looked as if he would faint." + +"Mrs. West!" he lifted his eyes and spoke in his usual clear, manly +voice, "I have never thought of marrying any one beside Marjorie. I gave +that up when mother wrote me that she cared for Morris. I have never +sought any one since. I have been waiting--if she loved Morris, she could +not love me. I have been giving her time to think of me if she wanted +to--" + +"I'd like to know how. You haven't given her the first sign." + +"She does not know me; she is shy with me. I do not know her; we do not +feel at home with each other." + +"How are you going to get to feel at home with each other five hundred +miles apart?" inquired the practical mother. + +"It will take time." + +"Time! I should think it would." Mrs. West pushed a stick of wood into +the stove with some energy. + +"But if you think it is because--" + +"I do think so." + +"Then she must know me better than I thought she did," he continued, +thoughtfully. + +"Didn't she go to school with you?" + +"Not with me grown up." + +"That's a distinction that doesn't mean anything." + +"It means something to me. I am more at home with Linnet than I am with +her. She has changed; she keeps within herself." + +"Then you must bring her out." + +"How can she care, if she thinks I have trifled with her?" + +"I didn't say she thought so, I said _I_ thought so!" + +"You have hastened this very much. I wanted her to know me and trust me. +I want my wife to love me, Mrs. West." + +"No doubt of that, Master Hollis," with a sigh of congratulation to +herself. "All you have to do is to tell her what you have told me. She +will throw you off." + +"Has she _said_ so?" he inquired eagerly. + +"Do you think she is the girl to say so?" + +"I am sure not," he answered proudly. + +"Hollis, this is a great relief," said Marjorie's mother. + +"Well, good-bye," he said, after hesitating a moment with his eyes on the +kitchen floor, and extending his hand. "I will speak to her when I come +back." + +"The Lord bless you," she answered fervently. + +Just then Marjorie ran lightly down-stairs singing a morning hymn, +entering the kitchen as he closed the door and went out. + +"Hollis just went," said her mother. + +"Why didn't he stay to breakfast?" she asked, without embarrassment. + +"He had to meet his friends early," replied her mother, averting her face +and busying herself at the sink. + +"He will have to eat breakfast somewhere; but perhaps he expects to take +a late breakfast on the fish he has caught. Mother, Linnet and I are to +be little girls, and go berrying." + +"Only be happy, children; that's all I want," returned Mrs. West, her +voice breaking. + +While Marjorie fried the fish for breakfast her mother went to her +chamber to kneel down and give thanks. + + + + +XXVII. + +ANOTHER WALK AND ANOTHER TALK. + +"We are not to lead events but to follow them."--_Epictetus_. + + +Marjorie was so happy that she trembled with the joy of it. The relief +from her burden, at times, was almost harder to bear than the burden +itself. She sang all day hymns that were the outpouring of her soul in +love to Christ. + +"What a child you are, Marjorie," her mother said one day. "You were as +doleful as you could be, and now you are as happy as a bird." + +"Do you remember what Luther says?" + +"Luther says several wise and good things." + +"And this is one of them; it is one of Aunt Prue's favorite sayings: 'The +Christian should be like a little bird, which sits on its twig and sings, +and lets God think for it.'" + +"That's all very well for a bird; but we have to _do_," replied her +mother sharply. + +"We have to _do_ what God _thinks_, though," returned Marjorie quickly. + +"Child, you are your father all over again; he always wanted to wait and +see; but mine was the faith that acted." + +"But now can we act, until we wait and see?" persisted Marjorie. "I want +to be sure that God means for us to do things." + +"Many a thing wouldn't have happened if I hadn't pushed through--why, +your father would have been willing for Linnet to be engaged years +and years." + +"So would I," said Marjorie seriously. + +A week later, one afternoon towards dusk, Marjorie was walking home from +her grandfather's. Her happy face was shaded by a brown straw hat, her +hands were sunburned, and her fingers were scratched with numerous +berrying expeditions. There was a deepened color in the roundness of +her cheeks; she was a country maiden this afternoon, swinging an empty +basket in her hand. She was humming to herself as she walked along, +hurrying her steps a little as she remembered that it was the mail for +her long, foreign letter. This afternoon she was as happy as she wanted +to be. Within half a mile of home she espied a tall figure coming towards +her,--a figure in a long linen duster, wearing a gray, low-crowned, felt +hat. After an instant she recognized Hollis and remembered that to-day he +was expected home. She had not thought of it all day. + +"Your mother sent me to meet you," he said, without formal greeting. +Instantly she detected a change in his manner towards her; it was as +easy as if he were speaking to Linnet. + +"I've been off on one of my long walks." + +"Do you remember our walk together from your grandfather's--how many +years ago?" + +"When I appealed to your sympathies and enlisted you in my behalf?" + +"You were in trouble, weren't you? I believe it is just seven years ago." + +"Physiologists tell us we are made over new every seven years, therefore +you and I are another Hollis and another Marjorie." + +"I hope I am another Hollis," he answered gravely. + +"And I am _sure_ I am another Marjorie," she said more lightly. "How you +lectured me then!" + +"I never lectured any one." + +"You lectured me. I never forgot it. From that hour I wanted to be like +your cousin Helen." + +"You do not need to copy any one. I like you best as yourself." + +"You do not know me." + +"No; I do not know you; but I want to know you." + +"That depends upon yourself as well as upon me." + +"I do not forget that. I am not quick to read and you are written in many +languages." + +"Are you fond of the study--of languages? Did you succeed in French?" + +"Fairly. And I can express my wants in German. Will you write to me +again?" + +There was a flush now that was not sunburn; but she did not speak; she +seemed to be considering. + +"Will you, Marjorie?" he urged, with gentle persistence. + +"I--don't know." + +"Why don't you know." + +"I have not thought about it for so long. Let me see--what kind of +letters did you write. Were they interesting?" + +"_Yours_ were interesting. Were you hurt because--" + +It happened so long ago that she smiled as she looked up at him. + +"I have never told you the reason. I thought Morris Kemlo had a prior +claim." + +"What right had you to think that?" + +"From what I heard--and saw." + +"I am ignorant of what you could hear or see. Morris was my twin-brother; +he was my blessing; he _is_ my blessing." + +"Is not my reason sufficient?" + +"Oh, yes; it doesn't matter. But see that sumach. I have not seen +anything so pretty this summer; mother must have them. You wouldn't think +it, but she is very fond of wild flowers." + +She stepped aside to pluck the sumach and sprays of goldenrod; they were +growing beside a stone wall, and she crossed the road to them. He stood +watching her. She was as unconscious as the goldenrod herself. + +What had her mother meant? Was it all a mistake? Had his wretched days +and wakeful nights been for nothing? Was there nothing for him to be +grieved about? He knew now how much he loved her--and she? He was not a +part of her life, at all. Would he dare speak the words he had planned to +speak? + +"Then, Marjorie, you will not write to me," he began afresh, after +admiring the sumach. + +"Oh, yes, I will! If you want to! I love to write letters; and my life +isn't half full enough yet. I want new people in it." + +"And you would as readily take me as another," he said, in a tone that +she did not understand. + +"More readily than one whom I do not know. I want you to hear extracts +from one of Mrs. Holmes' delicious letters to-night." + +"You are as happy as a lark to-day. + +"That is what mother told me, only she did not specify the bird. Morris, +I _am_ happier than I was Sunday morning." + +He colored over the name. She smiled and said, "I've been thinking about +him to-day, and wanting to tell him how changed I am." + +"What has changed you?" he asked. + +Her eyes filled before she could answer him. In a few brief sentences, +sentences in which each word told, she gave him the story of her dark +year. + +"Poor little Mousie," he said tenderly. "And you bore the dark time all +by yourself." + +"That's the way I have my times. But I do not have my happy times by +myself, you see." + +"Did nothing else trouble you?" + +"No; oh, no! Nothing like that. Father's death was not a trouble. I went +with him as far as I could--I almost wanted to go all the way." + +"And there was nothing else to hurt you?" he asked very earnestly. + +"Oh, no; why should there be?" she answered, meeting his questioning eyes +frankly. "Do you know of anything else that should have troubled me?" + +"No, nothing else. But girls do have sometimes. Didn't your mother help +you any? She helps other people." + +"I could not tell her. I could not talk about it. She only thought I was +ill, and sent for a physician. Perhaps I did worry myself into feeling +ill." + +"You take life easily," he said. + +"Do I? I like to take it as God gives it to me; not before he gives it to +me. This slowness--or faith--or whatever it is, is one of my inheritances +from my blessed father. Who is it that says, 'I'd see to it pretty sharp +that I didn't hurry Providence.' That has helped me." + +"I wish it would some one else," he said grimly. + +"I wish it would help _every one_ else. Everything is helping me now; if +I were writing to you I could tell you some of them." + +"I like to hear you talk, Marjorie." + +"Do you?" she asked wonderingly. "Linnet does, too, and Mrs. Kemlo. As I +shall never write a book, I must learn to talk, and talk myself all out. +Aunt Prue is living her book." + +"Tell me something that has helped you," he urged. + +She looked at the goldenrod in her hand, and raised it to her lips. + +"It is coming to me that Christ made everything. He made those lilies of +which he said, 'Consider the lilies.' Isn't it queer that we will not let +him clothe us as he did the lilies? What girl ever had a white dress of +the texture and whiteness and richness of the lily?" + +"But the lily has but one dress; girls like a new dress for every +occasion and a different one." + +"'Shall he not much more clothe you?' But we do not let him clothe us. +When one lily fades, he makes another in a fresh dress. I wish I could +live as he wants me to. Not think about dress or what we eat or drink? +Only do his beautiful work, and not have to worry and be anxious about +things." + +"Do you _have_ to be?" he asked smiling. + +"My life is a part of lives that are anxious about these things. But I +don't think about dress as some girls do. I never like to talk about it. +It is not a temptation to me. It would not trouble me to wear one dress +all my life--one color, as the flowers do; it should be a soft gray--a +cashmere, and when one was soiled or worn out I would have another like +it--and never spend any more thought about it. Aunt Prue loves gray--she +almost does that--she spends no thought on dress. If we didn't have to +'take thought,' how much time we would have--and how our minds would be +at rest--to work for people and to study God's works and will." + +Hollis smiled as he looked down at her. + +"Girls don't usually talk like that," he said. + +"Perhaps I don't--usually. What are you reading now?" + +"History, chiefly--the history of the world and the history of the +church." + +They walked more and more slowly as they drifted into talk about books +and then into his life in New York and the experiences he had had in his +business tours and the people whom he had met. + +"Do you like your life?" she asked. + +"Yes, I like the movement and the life: I like to be 'on the go.' I +expect to take my third trip across the ocean by and by. I like to mingle +with men. I never could settle down into farming; not till I am old, at +any rate." + +They found Marjorie's mother standing in the front doorway, looking for +them. She glanced at Hollis, but he was fastening the gate and would not +be glanced at. Marjorie's face was no brighter than when she had set out +for her walk. Linnet was setting the tea-table and singing, "A life on +the ocean wave." + +After tea the letter from Switzerland was read and discussed. Miss +Prudence, as Mrs. West could not refrain from calling her, always gave +them something to talk about. To give people something to think about +that was worth thinking about, was something to live for, she had said +once to Marjorie. + +And then there was music and talk. Marjorie and Hollis seemed to find +endless themes for conversation. And then Hollis and Linnet went home. +Hollis bade them good-bye; he was to take an early train in the morning. +Marjorie's mother scanned Marjorie's face, and stood with a lighted +candle in her hand at bedtime, waiting for her confidence; but +unconscious Marjorie closed the piano, piled away the sheets of music, +arranged the chairs, and then went out to the milkroom for a glass of +milk. + +"Good-night, mother," she called back. "Are you waiting for anything?" + +"Did you set the sponge for the bread?" + +"Oh, yes," in a laughing voice. + +And then the mother went slowly and wonderingly up the stairs, muttering +"Well! well! Of all things!" + +Marjorie drew Aunt Prue's letter from her pocket to think it all over +again by herself. Mr. Holmes was buried in manuscript. Prue was studying +with her, beside studying French and German with the pastor's daughter in +the village, and she herself was full of many things. They were coming +home by and by to choose a home in America. + +"When I was your age, Marjorie, and older, I used to fall asleep at night +thinking over the doings of the day and finding my life in them; and +in the morning when I awoke, my thought was, 'What shall I _do_ to-day?' +And now when I awake--now, when my life is at its happiest and as full +of doings as I can wish, I think, instead, of Christ, and find my joy in +nearness to him, in doing all with his eye upon me. You have not come to +this yet; but it is waiting for you. Your first thought to-morrow morning +may be of some plan to go somewhere, of some one you expect to see, of +something you have promised to-day; but, by and by, when you love him as +you are praying to love him, your first thought will be that you are with +him. You can imagine the mother awaking with joy at finding her child +asleep beside her, or the wife awaking to another day with her husband; +but blessed more than all is it to awake and find the Lord himself near +enough for you to speak to." + +Marjorie went to sleep with the thought in her heart, and awoke with it; +and then she remembered that Hollis must be on his way to the train, and +then that she and Linnet were to drive to Portland that day on a small +shopping excursion and to find something for the birthday present of +Morris' mother. + +Several days afterward when the mail was brought in Mrs. West beckoned +Marjorie aside in a mysterious manner and laid in her hand a letter from +Hollis. + +"Yes," said Marjorie. + +"Did you expect it?" + +"Oh, yes." + +Mrs. West waited until Marjorie opened it, and felt in her pocket for her +glasses. In the other time she had always read his letters. But Marjorie +moved away with it, and only said afterward that there was no "news" in +it. + +It was not like the letters of the other time. He had learned to write as +she had learned to talk. Her reply was as full of herself as it would +have been to Morris. Hollis could never be a stranger again. + + + + +XXVIII. + +THE LINNET. + +"He who sends the storm steers the vessel."--_Rev. T. Adams_ + + +August passed and September was almost through and not one word had been +heard of the _Linnet_. Linnet lived through the days and through the +nights, but she thought she would choke to death every night. Days before +she had consented, her mother had gone to her and urged her with every +argument at her command to lock up her house and come home until they +heard. At first, she resented the very thought of it; but Annie Grey was +busy in Middlefield, Marjorie was needed at home, and the hours of the +days seemed never to pass away; at last, worn out with her anguish, she +allowed Captain Rheid to lift her into his carriage and take her to her +mother. + +As the days went on Will's father neither ate nor slept; he drove into +Portland every day, and returned at night more stern and more pale than +he went away in the morning. + +Linnet lay on her mother's bed and wept, and then slept from exhaustion, +to awake with the cry, "Oh, why didn't I die in my sleep?" + +One evening Mrs. Rheid appeared at the kitchen door; her cap and +sunbonnet had fallen off, her gray hair was roughened over her forehead, +her eyes were wild, her lips apart. Her husband had brought her, and sat +outside in his wagon too stupefied to remember that he was leaving his +old wife to stagger into the house alone. + +Mrs. West turned from the table, where she was reading her evening +chapter by candle light, and rising caught her before she fell into her +arms. The two old mothers clung to each other and wept together; it +seemed such a little time since they had washed up Linnet's dishes and +set her house in order on the wedding day. Mrs. Rheid thrust a newspaper +into her hand as she heard her husband's step, and went out to meet him +as Mrs. West called Marjorie. Linnet was asleep upon her mother's bed. + +"My baby, my poor baby!" cried her mother, falling on her knees beside +the bed, "must you wake up to this?" + +She awoke at midnight; but her mother lay quiet beside her, and she did +not arouse her. In the early light she discerned something in her +mother's face, and begged to know what she had to tell. + +Taking her into her arms she told her all she knew. It was in the +newspaper. A homeward-bound ship had brought the news. The _Linnet_ +had been seen; wrecked, all her masts gone, deserted, not a soul on +board--the captain supposed she went down that night; there was a storm, +and he could not find her again in the morning. He had tried to keep near +her, thinking it worth while to tow her in. Before she ended, the child +was a dead weight in her arms. For an hour they all believed her dead. A +long illness followed; it was Christmas before she crossed the chamber, +and in April Captain Rheid brought her downstairs in his arms. + +His wife said he loved Linnet as he would have loved an own daughter. His +heart was more broken than hers. + +"Poor father," she would say, stroking his grizzly beard with her thin +fingers; "poor father." + +"Cynthy," African John's wife, had a new suggestion every time she was +allowed to see Linnet. Hadn't she waited, and didn't she know? Mightn't +an East Indian have taken him off and carried him to Madras, or somewhere +there, and wasn't he now working his passage home as she had once heard +of a shipwrecked captain doing! Or, perhaps some ship was taking him +around the Horn--it took time to go around that Horn, as everybody +knew--or suppose a whaler had taken him off and carried him up north, +could he expect to get back in a day, and did she want him to find her in +such a plight? + +So Linnet hoped and hoped. His mother put on mourning, and had a funeral +sermon preached; and his father put up a grave-stone in the churchyard, +with his name and age engraved on it, and underneath, "Lost at sea." +There were, many such in that country churchyard. + +It was two years before Linnet could be persuaded to put on her widow's +mourning, and then she did it to please the two mothers. The color +gradually came back to her cheeks and lips; she moved around with a grave +step, but her hands were never idle. After two years she insisted upon +going back to Will's home, where the shutters had been barred so long, +and the only signs of life were the corn and rye growing in the fields +about it. + +Annie Grey was glad to be with her again. She worked at dressmaking; and +spent every night at home with Linnet. + +The next summer the travellers returned from abroad; Mr. Holmes, more +perfectly his developed self; little Prue growing up and as charming a +girl as ever papa and mamma had hoped for, prayed for, and worked for; +and Mrs. Holmes, or "Miss Prudence" and "Aunt Prue," as she was called, +a lady whose slight figure had become rounded and whose white hair shaded +a fair face full of peace. + +There was no resisting such persuasions as those of Mrs. Kemlo, the +girls' mother, and the "girls" themselves; and almost before they had +decided upon it they found themselves installed at Mrs. West's for the +summer. Before the first snow, however, a house was rented in New York +City, the old, homelike furniture removed to it, and they had but to +believe it to feel themselves at home in the long parlor in Maple Street. + +Linnet was taken from her lonely home by loving force, and kept all +winter. She could be at rest with Miss Prudence; she could be at rest and +enjoy and be busy. It was wonderful how many things she became busied +about and deeply interested in. Her letters to Marjorie were as full of +life as in her school days. She was Linnet, Mrs. Holmes wrote to her +mother; but she was Linnet chastened and sanctified. + +And all this time Hollis and Marjorie had written to each other, and had +seen each other for two weeks every day each year. + +During the winter Linnet spent in New York the firm for which he +travelled became involved; the business was greatly decreased; changes +were made: one of the partners left the firm; the remaining head had a +nephew, whom he preferred to his partner's favorite, Hollis Rheid; and +Hollis Rheid found himself with nothing to do but to look around for +something to do. + +"Come home," wrote his father. "I will build you a house, and give you +fifty acres of good land." + +With the letter in his pocket, he sought his friends, the Holmes'. He was +not so averse to a farmer's life as he had been when he once spoke of it +to Marjorie. + +He found Prue practicing; papa was in the study, she said, and mamma and +Linnet had gone to the train to meet Marjorie. + +"Marjorie did not tell me that she was coming." + +"It was to be your surprise, and now I've spoiled it." + +"Nothing can spoil the pleasure of it," he returned. + +Prue stationed herself at the window, as when she was a little girl, to +watch for Marjorie. She was still the blue bird with the golden crest. + + + + +XXIX. + +ONE NIGHT. + +"We are often prophets to others only because we are our own +historians."--_Madame Swetchine_. + + +The evening before Marjorie started for New York she was sitting alone in +her father's arm chair before the sitting-room fire. Her mother had left +her to go up to Mrs. Kemlo's chamber for her usual evening chat. Mrs. +Kemlo was not strong this winter, and on very cold days did not venture +down-stairs to the sitting-room. Marjorie, her mother, and the young +farmer who had charge of the farm, were often the only ones at the table, +and the only occupants of the sitting-room during the long winter +evenings. Marjorie sighed for Linnet, or she would have sighed for her, +if she had been selfish; she remembered the evenings of studying with +Morris, and the master's tread as he walked up and down and talked to her +father. + +Now she was alone in the dim light of two tallow candles. It was so cold +that the small wood stove did not sufficiently heat the room, and she +had wrapped the shawl about her that Linnet used to wear to school when +Mr. Holmes taught. She hid herself in it, gathering her feet up under +the skirt of her dress, in a position very comfortable and lazy, and very +undignified for a maiden who would be twenty-five on her next birthday. + +The last letter from Hollis had stated that he was seeking a position in +the city. He thought he understood his business fairly, and the outlook +was not discouraging. He had a little money well invested; his life was +simple; and, beyond the having nothing to do, he was not anxious. He had +thought of farming as a last resort; but there was rather a wide +difference between tossing over laces and following the plow. + +"Not that I dread hard work, but I do not love the _solitude_ of country +life. 'A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone,' Swift +writes; but I am not a wise man, nor a wild beast. I love men and the +homes of men, the business of men, the opportunities that I find among +men." + +She had not replied to this letter; what a talk they would have over it! +She had learned Hollis; she knew him by heart; she could talk to him now +almost as easily as she could write. These years of writing had been a +great deal to both of them. They had educated each other. + +The last time Mrs. West had seen Hollis she had wondered how she had ever +dared speak to him as she had spoken that morning in the kitchen. Had +she effected anything? She was not sure that they were engaged; she had +"talked it over" with his mother, and that mother was equally in the +dark. + +"I know what his intentions are," confided Marjorie's mother "I know he +means to have her, for he told me so." + +"He has never told me so," said Hollis' mother. + +"You haven't asked him," suggested Mrs. West comfortably. + +"Have _you_?" + +"I made an opportunity for it to be easy for him to tell me." + +"I don't know how to make opportunities," returned Mrs. Rheid with some +dignity. + +"Everybody doesn't," was the complacent reply. + +Marjorie had had a busy day arranging household matters for her mother +while she should be gone, and was dozing with her head nestled in the +soft folds of the shawl when her mother's step aroused her. + +"Child, you are asleep and letting the fire go down." + +"Am I?" she asked drowsily, "the room _is_ cold." + +She wrapped the shawl about her more closely and nestled into it again. + +"Perhaps Hollis will come home with you," her mother began, drawing her +own especial chair nearer the fire and settling down as if for a long +conversation. + +"Mother, you will be chilly;" and, with the instinct that her mother must +be taken care of, she sprang up with her eyes still half asleep and +attended to the fire. + +The dry chips soon kindled a blaze, and she was wide awake with the flush +of sleep in her cheeks. + +"Why do you think he will?" she asked. + +"It looks like it. Mrs. Rheid ran over to-day to tell me that the Captain +had offered to give him fifty acres and build him a house, if he would +come home for good." + +"I wonder if he will like it." + +"You ought to know," in a suggestive tone. + +"I am not sure. He does not like farming." + +"A farm of his own may make a difference. And a house of his own. I +suppose the Captain thinks he is engaged to you." + +Mrs. West was rubbing her thumb nail and not looking at Marjorie. +Marjorie was playing with a chip, thrusting it into the fire and bringing +it out lighted as she and Linnet used to like to do. + +"Marjorie, _is_ he?" + +"No, ma'am," answered Marjorie, the corners of her lips twitching. + +"I'd like to know why he isn't," with some asperity. + +"Perhaps he knows," suggested Marjorie, looking at her lighted chip. It +was childish; but she must be doing something, if her mother would insist +upon talking about Hollis. + +"Do _you_ know?" + +Marjorie dropped her chip into the stove and looked up at the broad +figure in the wooden rocker--a figure in a black dress and gingham apron, +with a neat white cap covering her gray hair, a round face, from which +Marjorie had taken her roundness and dimples, a shrewd face with a +determined mouth and the kindliest eyes that ever looked out upon the +world. Marjorie looked at her and loved her. + +"Mother, do you want to know? I haven't anything to tell you." + +"Seems to me he's a long time about it." + +Marjorie colored now, and, rising from her seat in front of the fire, +wrapped the shawl again around her. + +"Mother, dear, I'm not a child now; I am a woman grown." + +"Too old to be advised," sighed her mother. + +"I don't know what I need to be advised about." + +"People never do. It is more than three years ago that he told me that he +had never thought of any one but you." + +"Why should he tell you that?" Marjorie's tone could be sharp as well as +her mother's. + +"I was talking about you. I said you were not well--I was afraid you were +troubled--and he told me--that." + +"Troubled about _what_?" Marjorie demanded. + +"About his not answering your letter," in a wavering voice. + +The words had to come; Mrs. West knew that Marjorie would have her +answer. + +"And--after that--he asked me--to write to him. Mother, mother, you do +not know what you have done!" + +Marjorie fled away in the dark up to her own little chamber, threw +herself down on the bed without undressing, and lay all night, moaning +and weeping. + +She prayed beside; she could not be in trouble and not give the first +breath of it to the Lord. Hollis had asked her to write because of what +her mother had said to him. He believed--what did he believe? + +"O, mother! mother!" she moaned, "you are so good and so lovely, and yet +you have hurt me so. How could you? How could you?" + +While the clock in Mrs. Kemlo's room was striking six, a light flashed +across her eyes. Her mother stood at the bedside with a lighted candle in +her hand. + +"I was afraid you would oversleep. Why, child! Didn't you undress? +Haven't you had anything but that quilt over you?" + +"Mother, I am not going; I never want to see Hollis again," cried +Marjorie weakly. + +"Nonsense child," answered her mother energetically. + +"It is not nonsense. I will not go to New York." + +"What will they all think?" + +"I will write that I cannot come. I could not travel to-day; I have not +slept at all." + +"You look so. But you are very foolish. Why should he not speak to me +first?" + +"It was your speaking to him first. What must he think of me! O, mother, +mother, how could you?" + +The hopeless cry went to her mother's heart. + +"Marjorie, I believe the Lord allows us to be self-willed. I have not +slept either; but I have sat up by the fire. Your father used to say that +we would not make haste if we trusted, and I have learned that it is so. +All I have done is to break your heart." + +"Not quite that, poor mother. But I shall never write to Hollis again." + +Mrs. West turned away and set the candle on the bureau. "But I can," she +said to herself. + +"Come down-stairs where it is warm, and I'll make you a cup of coffee. +I'm afraid you have caught your death of cold." + +"I _am_ cold," confessed Marjorie, rising with a weak motion. + +Her new gray travelling dress was thrown over a chair, her small trunk +was packed, even her gloves were laid out on the bureau beside her +pocket-book. + +"Linnet has counted on it so," sighed her mother. + +"Mother!" rising to her feet and standing by the bedside. "I will go. +Linnet shall not be disappointed." + +"That's a good child! Now hurry down, and I'll hurry you off," said her +mother, in her usual brisk tone. + +An hour and a half later Mrs. West kissed Marjorie's pale lips, and bade +her stay a good while and have a good time. And before she washed up the +breakfast dishes she put on a clean apron, burnished her glasses, and sat +down to write to Hollis. The letter was as plain as her talk had been. He +had understood then, he should understand now. But with Marjorie would be +the difficulty; could he manage her? + + + + +XXX. + +THE COSEY CORNER. + +"God takes men's hearty desires and will instead of the deed where they +have not the power to fulfill it; but he never took the bare deed instead +of the will."--_Richard Baxter_. + + +Prue opened the door, and sprang into Marjorie's arms in her old, +affectionate way; and Marjorie almost forgot that she was not in Maple +Street, when she was led into the front parlor; there was as much of the +Maple Street parlor in it as could be well arranged. Hollis was there on +the hearth rug, waiting modestly in the background for his greeting; +he had not been a part of Maple Street. The greeting he waited for was +tardy in coming, and was shy and constrained, and it seemed impossible to +have a word with her alone all the evening: she was at the piano, or +chatting in the kitchen with old Deborah, or laughing with Prue, or +asking questions of Linnet, and when, at last, Mr. Holmes took her +upstairs to show her his study, he said good night abruptly and went +away. + +Marjorie chided herself for her naughty pride and passed another +sleepless night; in the morning she looked so ill that the plans for the +day were postponed, and she was taken into Mrs. Holmes own chamber to be +petted and nursed to sleep. She awoke in the dusk to find Aunt Prue's +dear face beside her. + +"Aunt Prue," she said, stretching up her hands to encircle her neck, "I +don't know what to do." + +"I do. Tell me." + +"Perhaps I oughtn't to. It's mother's secret." + +"Suppose I know all about it." + +"You can't! How can you?" + +"Lie still," pushing her back gently among the pillows, "and let me tell +you." + +"I thought I was to tell you." + +"A while ago the postman brought me a note from your mother. She told me +that she had confessed to you something she told me last summer." + +"Oh," exclaimed Marjorie, covering her face with both hands, "isn't it +too dreadful!" + +"I think your mother saw clearly that she had taken your life into her +own hands without waiting to let God work for you and in you. I assured +her that I knew all about that dark time of yours, and she wept some very +sorrowful tears to think how heartbroken you would be if you knew. +Perhaps she thought you ought to know it; she is not one to spare +herself; she is even harder upon herself than upon other sinners." + +"But, Aunt Prue, what ought I to do now? What can I do to make it right?" + +"Do you want to meddle?" + +"No, oh no; but it takes my breath away. I'm afraid he began to write to +me again because he thought I wanted him to." + +"Didn't you want him to?" + +"Yes--but not--but not as mother thought I did. I never once asked God to +give him back to me; and I should if I had wanted it very much, because I +always ask him for everything." + +"Your pride need not be wounded, poor little Marjorie! Do you remember +telling Hollis about your dark time, that night he met you on your way +from your grandfather's?" + +"Yes; I think I do. Yes, I know I told him; for he called me 'Mousie,' +and he had not said that since I was little; and with it he seemed to +come back to me, and I was not afraid or timid with him after that." + +"You wrote me about the talk, and he has told me about it since. To be +frank, Marjorie, he told me about the conversation with your mother, and +how startled he was. After that talk with you he was assured that she was +mistaken--but, child, there was no harm, no sin--even if it had been +true. The only sin I find was your mother's want of faith in making +haste. And she sees it now and laments it. She says making haste has been +the sin of her lifetime. Her unbelief has taken that form. You were very +chilly to Hollis last night." + +"I couldn't help it," said Marjorie. "I would not have come if I could +have stayed at home." + +"Is that proud heart satisfied now?" + +"Perhaps it oughtn't to be--if it is proud." + +"We will not argue about it now as there's somebody waiting for you +down-stairs." + +"I don't want to see him--now." + +"Suppose he wants to see you." + +"Aunt Prue! I wish I could be selfish just a few minutes." + +"You may. A whole hour. You may be selfish up here all by yourself until +the dinner bell rings." + +Marjorie laughed and drew the lounge afghan up about her shoulders. She +was so happy that she wanted to go to sleep;--to go to sleep and be +thankful. But the dinner bell found her in the parlor talking to Linnet; +Prue and Hollis were chattering together in French. Prue corrected his +pronunciation and promised to lend him books. + +The most inviting corner in the house to Marjorie was a cosey corner in +the library; she found her way thither after dinner, and there Hollis +found her, after searching parlors, dining-room, and halls for her. The +cosey corner itself was an arm-chair near the revolving bookcase; Prue +said that papa kept his "pets" in that bookcase. + +Marjorie had taken a book into her hand and was gathering a thought here +and there when Hollis entered; he pushed a chair to her side, and, +seating himself, took the book from her fingers. + +"Marjorie, I have come to ask you what to do?" + +"About your father's offer?" + +"Yes. I should have written to-day. I fancy how he watches the mail. But +I am in a great state of indecision. My heart is not in his plan." + +"Is your heart in buying and selling laces?" + +"I don't see why you need put it that way," he returned, with some +irritation. "Don't you like my business?" + +"Do you?" + +"I like what it gives me to do." + +"I should not choose it if I were a man." + +"What would you choose?" + +"I have not considered sufficiently to choose, I suppose. I should want +to be one of the mediums through which good passed to my neighbor." + +"What would you choose for me to do?" + +"The thing God bids you do." + +"That may be to buy and sell laces." + +"It may be. I hope it was while you were doing it." + +"You mean that through this offer of father's God may be indicating his +will." + +"He is certainly giving you an opportunity to choose." + +"I had not looked upon it in that light. Marjorie, I'm afraid the thought +of his will is not always as present with me as with you." + +"I used to think I needed money, like Aunt Prue, if I would bless my +neighbor; but once it came to me that Christ through his _poverty_ made +us rich: the world's workers have not always been the men and the women +with most money. You see I am taking it for granted that you do not +intend to decide for yourself, or work for yourself." + +"No; I am thinking of working for you." + +"I am too small a field." + +"But you must be included." + +"I can be one little corner; there's all Middlefield beside. Isn't there +work for you as a citizen and as a Christian in our little town? Suppose +you go to Middlefield with the same motives that you would go on a +mission to India, Africa, or the Isles of the Sea! You will not be sent +by any Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, but by him who has +sent you, his disciple, into the world. You have your experience, you +have your strength, you have your love to Christ and your neighbor, to +give them. They need everything in Middlefield. They need young men, +Christian young men. The village needs you, the Church needs you. It +seems too bad for all the young men to rush away from their native place +to make a name, or to make money. Somebody must work for Middlefield. Our +church needs a lecture room and a Sunday school room; the village needs a +reading room--the village needs more than I know. It needs Christian +_push_. Perhaps it needs Hollis Rheid." + +"Marjorie, it will change all my life for me." + +"So it would if you should go West, as you spoke last night of doing. If +you should study law, as you said you had thought of doing, that would +change the course of your life. You can't do a new thing and keep to the +old ways." + +"If I go I shall settle down for life." + +"You mean you will settle down until you are unsettled again." + +"What will unsettle me?" + +"What unsettled you now?" + +"Circumstances." + +"Circumstances will keep on being in existence as long as we are in +existence. I never forget a motto I chose for my birthday once on a time. +'The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.'" + +"He commands us to fight, sometimes." + +"And then we must fight. You seem to be undergoing some struggles now. +Have you any opening here?" + +"I answered an advertisement this morning, but we could not come to +terms. Marjorie, what you say about Middlefield is worth thinking of." + +"That is why I said it," she said archly. + +"Would _you _like that life better?" + +"Better for you?" + +"No, better for yourself." + +"I am there already, you know," with rising color. + +"I believe I will write to father and tell him I will take his kindness +into serious consideration." + +"There is no need of haste." + +"He will want to begin to make plans. He is a great planner. Marjorie! I +just thought of it. We will rent Linnet's house this summer--or board +with her, and superintend the building of our own, Do you agree to that?" + +"You haven't taken it into serious consideration yet." + +"Will it make any difference to you--my decision? Will you share my +life--any way?" + +Prue ran in at that instant, Linnet following. Hollis arose and walked +around among the books. Prue squeezed herself into Marjorie's broad +chair; and Linnet dropped herself on the hassock at Marjorie's feet, and +laid her head in Marjorie's lap. + +There was no trouble in Linnet's face, only an accepted sorrow. + +"Marjorie, will you read to us?" coaxed Prue. "Don't you know how you +used to read in Maple Street?" + +"What do you feel like listening to?" + +"Your voice," said Prue, demurely. + + + + +XXXI. + +AND WHAT ELSE? + +"What is the highest secret of victory and peace? +To will what God wills."--_W.R. Alger_. + + +And now what further remains to be told? + +Would you like to see Marjorie in her new home, with Linnet's chimneys +across the fields? Would you like to know about Hollis' success as a +Christian and a Christian citizen in his native town? Would you like to +see the proud, indulgent grandmothers the day baby Will takes his +first steps? For Aunt Linnet named him, and the grandfather declares "she +loves him better than his mother, if anything!" + +One day dear Grandma West came to see the baby, and bring him some +scarlet stockings of her own knitting; she looked pale and did not feel +well, and Marjorie persuaded her to remain all night. + +In the morning Baby went into her chamber to awaken her with a kiss; but +her lips were cold, and she would not open her eyes. She had gone home, +as she always wanted to go, in her sleep. + +That summer Mrs. Kemlo received a letter from her elder daughter; she was +ill and helpless; she wanted her mother, and the children wanted her. + +"They _need_ me now," she said to Marjorie, with a quiver of the lip, +"and nobody else seems to. When one door is shut another door is opened." + +And then the question came up, what should Linnet and Marjorie do with +their father's home? And then the Holmeses came to Middlefield for +the summer in time to solve the problem. Mrs. Holmes would purchase it +for their summer home; and, she whispered to Marjorie, "When Prue marries +the medical student that papa admires so much, we old folks will settle +down here and be grandpa and grandma to you all." + +In time Linnet gave up "waiting for Will," and began to think of him as +waiting for her. And, in time, they all knew God's will concerning them; +as you may know if you do the best you can before you see it clearly. + +THE END. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Miss Prudence, by Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS PRUDENCE *** + +***** This file should be named 10322-8.txt or 10322-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/2/10322/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/10322-8.zip b/old/10322-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e723291 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10322-8.zip diff --git a/old/10322.txt b/old/10322.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4bd0541 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10322.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13831 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Miss Prudence, by Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Miss Prudence + A Story of Two Girls' Lives. + +Author: Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin + +Release Date: November 27, 2003 [EBook #10322] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS PRUDENCE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + +Note: There are three lines of text missing from the original printed +book. These are marked with: [missing text]. + + + + + MISS PRUDENCE + + A STORY OF TWO GIRLS' LIVES + + By JENNIE M. DRINKWATER + + 1883 + + +"We are not to lead events but to follow them."--_Epictetus_. + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP + + I. AFTER SCHOOL + + II. EVANGELIST + + III. WHAT "DESULTORY" MEANS + + IV. A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE + + V. TWO PROMISES + + VI. MARJORIE ASLEEP AND AWAKE + + VII. UNDER THE APPLE-TREE + + VIII. BISCUITS AND OTHER THINGS + + IX. JOHN HOLMES + + X. LINNET + + XI. GRANDMOTHER + + XII. A BUDGET OF LETTERS + + XIII. A WEDDING DAY + + XIV. A TALK AND ANOTHER TALK + + XV. JEROMA + + XVI. MAPLE STREET + + XVII. MORRIS + + XVIII. ONE DAY + + XIX. A STORY THAT WAS NOT VERY SAD + + XX. "HEIRS TOGETHER" + + XXI. MORRIS AGAIN + + XXII. TIDINGS + + XXIII. GOD'S LOVE + + XXIV. JUST AS IT OUGHT TO BE + + XXV. THE WILL OF GOD + + XXVI. MARJORIE'S MOTHER + + XXVII. ANOTHER WALK AND ANOTHER TALE + + XXVIII. THE LINNET + + XXIX. ONE NIGHT + + XXX. THE COSEY CORNER + + XXXI. AND WHAT ELSE? + + + + +MISS PRUDENCE. + + + + +I. + +AFTER SCHOOL. + +"Our content is our best having."--_Shakespeare_. + + +Nobody had ever told Marjorie that she was, as somebody says we all +are, three people,--the Marjorie she knew herself, the Marjorie other +people knew, and the Marjorie God knew. It was a "bother" sometimes to +be the Marjorie she knew herself, and she had never guessed there was +another Marjorie for other people to know, and the Marjorie God knew +and understood she did not learn much about for years and years. At +eleven years old it was hard enough to know about herself--her naughty, +absent-minded, story-book-loving self. Her mother said that she loved +story-books entirely too much, that they made her absent-minded and +forgetful, and her mother's words were proving themselves true this very +afternoon. She was a real trouble to herself and there was no one near to +"confess" to; she never could talk about herself unless enveloped in the +friendly darkness, and then the confessor must draw her out, step by +step, with perfect frankness and sympathy; even then, a sigh, or sob, or +quickly drawn breath and half inarticulate expression revealed more than +her spoken words. + +She was one of the children that are left to themselves. Only Linnet knew +the things she cared most about; even when Linnet laughed at her, she +could feel the sympathetic twinkle in her eye and the sympathetic +undertone smothered in her laugh. + +It was sunset, and she was watching it from the schoolroom window, the +clouds over the hill were brightening and brightening and a red glare +shone over the fields of snow. It was sunset and the schoolroom clock +pointed to a quarter of five. The schoolroom was chilly, for the fire had +died out half an hour since. Hollis Rheid had shoved big sticks into the +stove until it would hold no more and had opened the draft, whispering to +her as he passed her seat that he would keep her warm at any rate. But +now she was shivering, although she had wrapped herself in her coarse +green and red shawl, and tapped her feet on the bare floor to keep them +warm; she was hungry, too; the noon lunch had left her unsatisfied, for +she had given her cake to Rie Blauvelt in return for a splendid Northern +Spy, and had munched the apple and eaten her two sandwiches wishing all +the time for more. Leaving the work on her slate unfinished, she had +dived into the depths of her home-made satchel and discovered two crumbs +of molasses cake. That was an hour ago. School had closed at three +o'clock to-day because it was Friday and she had been nearly two hours +writing nervously on her slate or standing at the blackboard making +hurried figures. For the first time in her life Marjorie West had been +"kept in." And that "Lucy" book hidden in her desk was the cause of it; +she had taken it out for just one delicious moment, and the moment had +extended itself into an hour and a half, and the spelling lesson was +unlearned and the three hard examples in complex fractions unworked. +She had not been ignorant of what the penalty would be. Mr. Holmes had +announced it at the opening of school: "Each word in spelling that is +missed, must be written one hundred times, and every example not brought +in on the slate must be put on the blackboard after school." + +She had smiled in self-confidence. Who ever knew Marjorie West to miss in +spelling? And had not her father looked over her examples last night and +pronounced them correct? But on her way to school the paper on which the +examples were solved had dropped out of her Geography, and she had been +wholly absorbed in the "Lucy" book during the time that she had expected +to study the test words in spelling. And the overwhelming result was +doing three examples on the board, after school, and writing seven +hundred words. Oh, how her back ached and how her wrist hurt her and how +her strained eyes smarted! Would she ever again forget _amateur, abyss, +accelerate, bagatelle, bronchitis, boudoir_ and _isosceles_? + +Rie Blauvelt had written three words one hundred times, laughed at her, +and gone home; Josie Grey had written _isosceles_ one hundred times, and +then taken up a slate to help Marjorie; before Marjorie was aware Josie +had written _abyss_ seventy-five times, then suspecting something by the +demureness of Josie's eyes she had snatched her slate and erased the +pretty writing. + +"You're real mean," pouted Josie; "he said he would take our word for it, +and you could have answered some way and got out of it." + +Marjorie's reply was two flashing eyes. + +"You needn't take my head off," laughed Josie; "now I'll go home and +leave you, and you may stay all night for all I care." + +"I will, before I will deceive anybody," resented Marjorie stoutly. + +Without another word Josie donned sack and hood and went out, leaving the +door ajar and the cold air to play about Marjorie's feet. + +But five o'clock came and the work was done! + +More than one or two tears fell slowly on the neat writing on Marjorie's +slate; the schoolroom was cold and she was shivering and hungry. It would +have been such a treat to read the last chapter in the "Lucy" book; she +might have curled her feet underneath her and drawn her shawl closer; but +it was so late, and what would they think at home? She was ashamed to go +home. Her father would look at her from under his eyebrows, and her +mother would exclaim, "Why, Marjorie!" She would rather that her father +would look at her from under his eyebrows, than that her mother would +say, "Why, _Marjorie!_" Her mother never scolded, and sometimes she +almost wished she would. It would be a relief if somebody would scold her +tonight; she would stick a pin into herself if it would do any good. + +_Her_ photograph would not be in the group next time. She looked across +at the framed photograph on the wall; six girls in the group and herself +the youngest--the reward for perfect recitations and perfect deportment +for one year. Her father was so proud of it that he had ordered a copied +picture for himself, and, with a black walnut frame, it was hanging in +the sitting-room at home. The resentment against herself was tugging away +at her heart and drawing miserable lines on her brow and lips--on her +sweet brow and happy lips. + +It was a bare, ugly country schoolroom, anyway, with the stained floor, +the windows with two broken panes, and the unpainted desks with +innumerable scars made by the boys' jack-knives, and Mr. Holmes was +unreasonable, anyway, to give her such a hard punishment, and she didn't +care if she had been kept in, anyway! + +In that "anyway" she found vent for all her crossness. Sometimes she +said, "I don't care," but when she said, "I don't care, _anyway_!" +then everybody knew that Marjorie West was dreadful. + +"I'm _through_," she thought triumphantly, "and I didn't cheat, and I +wasn't mean, and nobody has helped me." + +Yes, somebody had helped her. She was sorry that she forgot to think that +God had helped her. Perhaps people always did get through! If they didn't +help themselves along by doing wrong and--God helped them. The sunshine +rippled over her face again and she counted the words on her slate for +the second time to assure herself that there could be no possible +mistake. Slowly she counted seven hundred, then with a sudden impulse +seized her pencil and wrote each of the seven words five times more to be +"_sure_ they were all right." + +Josie Grey called her "horridly conscientious," and even Rie Blauvelt +wished that she would not think it wicked to "tell" in the class, and to +whisper about something else when they had permission to whisper about +the lessons. + +By this time you have learned that my little Marjorie was strong and +sweet. I wish you might have seen her that afternoon as she crouched over +the wooden desk, snuggled down in the coarse, plaid shawl, her elbows +resting on the hard desk, her chin dropped in her two plump hands, with +her eyes fixed on the long, closely written columns of her large slate. +She was not sitting in her own seat, her seat was the back seat on the +girls' side, of course, but she was sitting midway on the boys' side, and +her slate was placed on the side of the double desk wherein H.R. was cut +in deep, ugly letters. She had fled to this seat as to a refuge, when she +found herself alone, with something of the same feeling, that once two or +three years ago when she was away from home and homesick she used to +kneel to say her prayers in the corner of the chamber where her valise +was; there was home about the valise and there was protection and safety +and a sort of helpfulness about this desk where her friend Hollis Rheid +had sat ever since she had come to school. This was her first winter at +school, her mother had taught her at home, but in family council this +winter it had been decided that Marjorie was "big" enough to go to +school. + +The half mile home seemed a long way to walk alone, and the huge +Newfoundland at the farmhouse down the hill was not always chained; he +had sprung out at them this morning and the girls had huddled together +while Hollis and Frank Grey had driven him inside his own yard. Hollis +had thrown her an intelligent glance as he filed out with the boys, and +had telegraphed something back to her as he paused for one instant at the +door. Not quite understanding the telegraphic signal, she was waiting for +him, or for something. His lips had looked like: "Wait till I come." If +the people at home were not anxious about her she would have been willing +to wait until midnight; it would never occur to her that Hollis might +forget her. + +Her cheeks flushed as she waited, and her eyes filled with tears; it was +a soft, warm, round face, with coaxing, kissable lips, a smooth, low brow +and the gentlest of hazel eyes: not a pretty face, excepting in its +lovely childishness and its hints of womanly graces; some of the girls +said she was homely. Marjorie thought herself that she was very homely; +but she had comforted herself with, "God made my face, and he likes it +this way." Some one says that God made the other features, but permits us +to make the mouth. Marjorie's sweetness certainly made her mouth. But +then she was born sweet. Josie Grey declared that she would rather see a +girl "get mad" than cry, as Marjorie did when the boys washed her face in +the snow. + +Mr. Holmes had written to a friend that Marjorie West, his favorite among +the girls, was "almost too sweet." He said to himself that he feared she +"lacked character." Marjorie's quiet, observant father would have smiled +at that and said nothing. The teacher said that she did not know how to +take her own part. Marjorie had been eleven years in this grasping world +and had not learned that she had any "part" to take. + +Since her pencil had ceased scribbling the room was so still that a tiny +mouse had been nibbling at the toe of her shoe. Just then as she raised +her head and pinned her shawl more securely the door opened and something +happened. The something happened in Marjorie's face. Hollis Rheid thought +the sunset had burst across it. She did not exclaim, "Oh, I am so glad!" +but the gladness was all in her eyes. If Marjorie had been more given to +exclamations her eyes would not have been so expressive. The closed lips +were a gain to the eyes and her friends missed nothing. The boy had +learned her eyes by heart. How stoutly he would have resisted if some one +had told him that years hence Marjorie's face would be a sealed volume to +him. + +But she was making her eyes and mouth to-day and years hence she made +them, too. Perhaps he had something to do with it then as he certainly +had something to do with it now. + +"I came back with my sled to take you home. I gave Sam my last ten cents +to do the night work for me. It was my turn, but he was willing enough. +Where's your hood, Mousie? Any books to take?" + +"Yes, my Geography and Arithmetic," she answered, taking her fleecy white +hood from the seat behind her. + +"Now you look like a sunbeam in a cloud," he said poetically as she tied +it over her brown head. "Oh, ho!" turning to the blackboard, "you do make +handsome figures. Got them all right, did you?" + +"I knew how to do them, it was only that--I forgot." + +"I don't think you'll forget again in a hurry. And that's a nice looking +slate, too," he added, stepping nearer. "Mother said it was too much of a +strain on your nervous system to write all that." + +"I guess I haven't much of a nervous system," returned Marjorie, +seriously; "the girls wrote the words they missed fifty times last Friday +and he warned us about the one hundred to-day. I suppose it will be one +hundred and fifty next Friday. I don't believe I'll _ever_ miss again," +she said, her lips trembling at the mention of it. + +"I think I'll have a word or two to say to the master if you do. I wonder +how Linnet would have taken it." + +"She wouldn't have missed." + +"I'll ask Mr. Holmes to put you over on the boys side if you miss next +week," he cried mischievously, "and make you sit with us all the +afternoon." + +"I'd rather write each word five hundred times," she cried vehemently. + +"I believe you would," he said good humoredly. "Never mind, Mousie, I +know you won't miss again." + +"I'll do my examples to-night and father will help me if I can't do them. +He used to teach in this very schoolhouse; he knows as much as Mr. +Holmes." + +"Then he must be a Solomon," laughed the boy. + +The stamp of Hollis' boots and the sound of his laughter had frightened +the mouse back into its hiding-place in the chimney; Marjorie would not +have frightened the mouse all day long. + +The books were pushed into her satchel, her desk arranged in perfect +order, her rubbers and red mittens drawn on, and she stood ready, satchel +in hand, for her ride on the sled down the slippery hill where the boys +and girls had coasted at noon and then she would ride on over the snowy +road half a mile to the old, brown farmhouse. Her eyes were subdued a +little, but the sunshine lingered all over her face. She knew Hollis +would come. + +He smiled down at her with his superior fifteen-year-old smile, she was +such a wee mousie and always needed taking care of. If he could have a +sister, he would want her to be like Marjorie. He was very much like +Marjorie himself, just as shy, just as sensitive, hardly more fitted to +take his own part, and I think Marjorie was the braver of the two. He was +slow-tempered and unforgiving; if a friend failed him once, he never took +him into confidence again. He was proud where Marjorie was humble. He +gave his services; she gave herself. He seldom quarrelled, but never was +the first to yield. They were both mixtures of reserve and frankness; +both speaking as often out of a shut heart as an open heart. But when +Marjorie could open her heart, oh, how she opened it! As for Hollis, I +think he had never opened his; demonstrative sympathy was equally the key +to the hearts of both. + +But here I am analyzing them before they had learned they had any self to +analyze. But they existed, all the same. + +Marjorie was a plain little body while Hollis was noticeably handsome +with eloquent brown eyes and hair with its golden, boyish beauty just +shading into brown; his sensitive, mobile lips were prettier than any +girl's, and there was no voice in school like his in tone or culture. Mr. +Holmes was an elocutionist and had taken great pains with Hollis Rheid's +voice. There was a courteous gentleness in his manner all his own; if +knighthood meant purity, goodness, truth and manliness, then Hollis Rheid +was a knightly school-boy. The youngest of five rough boys, with a stern, +narrow-minded father and a mother who loved her boys with all her heart +and yet for herself had no aims beyond kitchen and dairy, he had not +learned his refinement at home; I think he had not _learned_ it anywhere. +Marjorie's mother insisted that Hollis Rheid must have had a praying +grandmother away back somewhere. The master had written to his friend, +Miss Prudence Pomeroy, that Hollis Rheid was a born gentleman, and had +added with more justice and penetration than he had shown in reading +Marjorie, "he has too little application and is too mischievous to become +a real student. But I am not looking for geniuses in a country school. +Marjorie and Hollis are bright enough for every purpose in life excepting +to become leaders." + +"Are you going to church, to-night?" Hollis inquired as she seated +herself carefully on the sled. + +"In the church?" she asked, bracing her feet and tucking the ends of her +shawl around them. + +"Yes; an evangelist is going to preach." + +"Evangelist!" repeated Marjorie in a voice with a thrill in it. + +"Don't you know what that is?" asked Hollis, harnessing himself into the +sled. + +"Oh, yes, indeed," said she. "I know about him and Christian." + +Hollis looked perplexed; this must be one of Marjorie's queer ways of +expressing something, and the strange preacher certainly had something to +do with Christians. + +"If it were not for the fractions I suppose I might go. I wish I wasn't +stupid about Arithmetic." + +"It's no matter if girls are stupid," he said consolingly. "Are you sure +you are on tight? I'm going to run pretty soon. You won't have to earn +your living by making figures." + +"Shall you?" she inquired with some anxiety. + +"Of course, I shall. Haven't I been three times through the Arithmetic +and once through the Algebra that I may support myself and somebody else, +sometime?" + +This seemed very grand to child Marjorie who found fractions a very +Slough of Despond. + +"I'm going to the city as soon as Uncle Jack finds a place for me. I +expect a letter from him every night." + +"Perhaps it will come to-night," said Marjorie, not very hopefully. + +"I hope it will. And so this may be your last ride on Flyaway. Enjoy it +all you can, Mousie." + +Marjorie enjoyed everything all she could. + +"Now, hurrah!" he shouted, starting on a quick run down the hill. "I'm +going to turn you over into the brook." + +Marjorie laughed her joyous little laugh. "I'm not afraid," she said in +absolute content. + +"You'd better be!" he retorted in his most savage tone. + +The whole west was now in a glow and the glorious light stretched across +fields of snow. + +"Oh, how splendid," Marjorie exclaimed breathlessly as the rapid motion +of the sled and the rush of cold air carried her breath away. + +"Hold on tight," he cried mockingly, "we're coming to the brook." + +Laughing aloud she held on "tight." Hollis was her true knight; she would +not have been afraid to cross the Alps on that sled if he had asked her +to! + +She was in a talkative mood to-night, but her horse pranced on and would +not listen. She wanted to tell him about _vibgyor_. The half mile was +quickly travelled and he whirled the sled through the large gateway and +around the house to the kitchen door. The long L at the back of the house +seemed full of doors. + +"There, Mousie, here you are!" he exclaimed. "And don't you miss your +lesson to-morrow." + +"To-morrow is Saturday! oh, I had forgotten. And I can go to see +Evangelist to-night." + +"You haven't said 'thank you' for your last ride on Flyaway." + +"I will when I'm sure that it is," she returned with her eyes laughing. + +He turned her over into a snowdrift and ran off whistling; springing up +she brushed the snow off face and hands and with a very serious face +entered the kitchen. The kitchen was long and low, bright with the sunset +shining in at two windows and cheery with its carpeting of red, yellow +and green mingled confusingly in the handsome oilcloth. + +Unlike Hollis, Marjorie was the outgrowth of home influences; the kitchen +oilcloth had something to do with her views of life, and her mother's +broad face and good-humored eyes had a great deal more. Good-humor in the +mother had developed sweet humor in the child. + +Now I wonder if you understand Marjorie well enough to understand all she +does and all she leaves undone during the coming fifteen or twenty years? + + + + +II. + +EVANGELIST. + +"The value of a thought cannot be told."--_Bailey_. + + +Her mother's broad, gingham back and the twist of iron gray hair low in +her neck greeted her as she opened the door, then the odor of hot +biscuits intruded itself, and then there came a shout from somebody +kneeling on the oilcloth near the stove and pushing sticks of dry wood +through its blazing open door. + +"Oh, Marjie, what happened to you?" + +"Something _didn't_ happen. I didn't have my spelling or my examples. I +read the "Lucy" book in school instead," she confessed dolefully. + +"Why, _Marjie_!" was her mother's exclamation, but it brought the color +to Marjorie's face and suffused her eyes. + +"We are to have company for tea," announced the figure kneeling on the +oilcloth as she banged the stove door. "A stranger; the evangelist Mr. +Horton told us about Sunday." + +"I know," said Marjorie. "I've read about him in _Pilgrim's Progress_; he +showed Christian the way to the Wicket Gate." + +Linnet jumped to her feet and shook a chip from her apron. "O, Goosie! +Don't you know any better?" + +Fourteen-year-old Linnet always knew better. + +"Where is he?" questioned Marjorie. + +"In the parlor. Go and entertain him. Mother and I must get him a good +supper: cold chicken, canned raspberries, currant jelly, ham, hot +biscuit, plain cake and fruit cake and--butter and--tea." + +"I don't know how," hesitated Marjorie. + +"Answer his questions, that's all," explained Linnet promptly. "I've told +him all I know and now it's your turn." + +"I don't like to answer questions," said Marjorie, still doubtfully. + +"Oh, only your age and what you study and--if--you are a Christian." + +"And he tells you how if you don't know how," said Marjorie, eagerly; +"that's what he's for." + +"Yes," replied her mother, approvingly, "run in and let him talk to you." + +Very shyly glad of the opportunity, and yet dreading it inexpressibly, +Marjorie hung her school clothing away and laid her satchel on the shelf +in the hall closet, and then stood wavering in the closet, wondering if +she dared go in to see Evangelist. He had spoken very kindly to +Christian. She longed, oh, how she longed! to find the Wicket Gate, but +would she dare ask any questions? Last Sabbath in church she had seen a +sweet, beautiful face that she persuaded herself must be Mercy, and now +to have Evangelist come to her very door! + +What was there to know any better about? She did not care if Linnet had +laughed. Linnet never cared to read _Pilgrim's Progress_. + +It is on record that the first book a child reads intensely is the book +that will influence all the life. + +At ten Marjorie had read _Pilgrim's Progress_ intensely. Timidly, with +shining eyes, she stood one moment upon the red mat outside the parlor +door, and then, with sudden courage, turned the knob and entered. At a +glance she felt that there was no need of courage; Evangelist was seated +comfortably in the horse-hair rocker with his feet to the fire resting on +the camp stool; he did not look like Evangelist at all, she thought, +disappointedly; he reminded her altogether more of a picture of Santa +Claus: massive head and shoulders, white beard and moustache, ruddy +cheeks, and, as the head turned quickly at her entrance, she beheld, +beneath the shaggy, white brows, twinkling blue eyes. + +"Ah," he exclaimed, in an abrupt voice, "you are the little girl they +were expecting home from school." + +"Yes, sir." + +He extended a plump, white hand and, not at all shyly, Marjorie laid her +hand in it. + +"Isn't it late to come from school? Did you play on the way home?" + +"No sir; I'm too big for that" + +"Doesn't school dismiss earlier?" + +"Yes, sir," flushing and dropping her eyes, "but I was kept in." + +"Kept in," he repeated, smoothing the little hand. "I'm sure it was not +for bad behavior and you look bright enough to learn your lessons." + +"I didn't know my lessons," she faltered. + +"Then you should have done as Stephen Grellet did," he returned, +releasing her hand. + +"How did he do?" she asked. + +Nobody loved stories better than Marjorie. + +Pushing her mother's spring rocker nearer the fire, she sat down, +arranged the skirt of her dress, and, prepared herself, not to +"entertain" him, but to listen. + +"Did you never read about him?" + +"I never even heard of him." + +"Then I'll tell you something about him. His father was an intimate +friend and counsellor of Louis XVI. Stephen was a French boy. Do you +know who Louis XVI was?" + +"No, sir." + +"Do you know the French for Stephen?" + +"No, sir." + +"Then you don't study French. I'd study everything if I were you. My wife +has read the Hebrew Bible through. She is a scholar as well as a good +housewife. It needn't hinder, you see." + +"No, sir," repeated Marjorie. + +"When little Etienne--that's French for Stephen--was five or six years +old he had a long Latin exercise to learn, and he was quite +disheartened." + +Marjorie's eyes opened wide in wonder. Six years old and a long Latin +exercise. Even Hollis had not studied Latin. + +"Sitting alone, all by himself, to study, he looked out of the window +abroad upon nature in all her glorious beauty, and remembered that God +made the gardens, the fields and the sky, and the thought came to him: +'Cannot the same God give me memory, also?' Then he knelt at the foot of +his bed and poured out his soul in prayer. The prayer was wonderfully +answered; on beginning to study again, he found himself master of his +hard lesson, and, after that, he acquired learning with great readiness." + +It was wonderful, Marjorie thought, and beautiful, but she could not say +that; she asked instead: "Did he write about it himself?" + +"Yes, he has written all about himself." + +"When I was six I didn't know my small letters. Was he so bright because +he was French?" + +The gentleman laughed and remarked that the French were a pretty bright +nation. + +"Is that all you know about him?" + +"Oh, no, indeed; there's a large book of his memoirs in my library. He +visited many of the crowned heads of Europe." + +There was another question forming on Marjorie's lips, but at that +instant her mother opened the door. Now she would hear no more about +Stephen Grellet and she could not ask about the Wicket Gate or Mercy or +the children. + +Rising in her pretty, respectful manner she gave her mother the spring +rocker and pushed an ottoman behind the stove and seated herself where +she might watch Evangelist's face as he talked. + +How the talk drifted in this direction Marjorie did not understand; she +knew it was something about finding the will of the Lord, but a story was +coming and she listened with her listening eyes on his face. + +"I had been thinking that God would certainly reveal his will if we +inquired of him, feeling sure of that, for some time, and then I had this +experience." + +Marjorie's mother enjoyed "experiences" as well as Marjorie enjoyed +stories. And she liked nothing better than to relate her own; after +hearing an experience she usually began, "Now I will tell you mine." + +Marjorie thought she knew every one of her mother's experiences. But it +was Evangelist who was speaking. + +The little girl in the brown and blue plaid dress with red stockings and +buttoned boots, bent forward as she sat half concealed behind the stove +and drank in every word with intent, wondering, unquestioning eyes. + +Her mother listened, also, with eyes as intent and believing, and years +afterward, recalled this true experience, when she was tempted to take +Marjorie's happiness into her own hands, her own unwise, haste-making +hands. + +"My wife had been dead about two years," began Evangelist again, speaking +in a retrospective tone. "I had two little children, the elder not eight +years old, and my sister was my housekeeper. She did not like +housekeeping nor taking care of children. Some women don't. She came to +me one day with a very serious face. 'Brother,' said she, 'you need a +wife, you must have a wife. I do not know how to take care of your +children and you are almost never at home.' She left me before I could +reply, almost before I could think what to reply. I was just home from +helping a pastor in Wisconsin, it was thirty-six degrees below zero the +day I left, and I had another engagement in Maine for the next week. I +_was_ very little at home, and my children did need a mother. I had not +thought whether I needed a wife or not; I was too much taken up with the +Lord's work to think about it. But that day I asked the Lord to find me a +wife. After praying about it three days it came to me that a certain +young lady was the one the Lord had chosen. Like Peter, I drew back and +said, 'Not so, Lord.' My first wife was a continual spiritual help to me; +she was the Lord's own messenger every day; but this lady, although a +church member, was not particularly spiritually minded. Several years +before she had been my pupil in Hebrew and Greek. I admired her +intellectual gifts, but if a brother in the ministry had asked me if she +would be a helpful wife to him, I should have hesitated about replying +in the affirmative. And, yet here it was, the Lord had chosen her for me. +I said, 'Not so, Lord,' until he assured me that her heart was in his +hand and he could fit her to become my wife and a mother to my children. +After waiting until I knew I was obeying the mind of my Master, I asked +her to marry me. She accepted, as far as her own heart and will were +concerned, but refused, because her father, a rich and worldly-minded +man, was not willing for her to marry an itinerant preacher. + +"I had not had a charge for three years then. I was so continually called +to help other pastors that I had no time for a charge of my own. So it +kept on for months and months; her father was not willing, and she would +not marry me without his consent. My sister often said to me, 'I don't +see how you can want to marry a woman that isn't willing to have you,' +but I kept my own counsel. I knew the matter was in safe hands. I was not +at all troubled; I kept about my Master's business and he kept about +mine. Therefore, when she wrote to say that suddenly and unexpectedly her +father had withdrawn all opposition, I was not in the least surprised. +My sister declared I was plucky to hold on, but the Lord held on for me; +I felt as if I had nothing to do with it. And a better wife and mother +God never blessed one of his servants with. She could do something beside +read the Bible in Hebrew; she could practice it in English. For forty +years [missing text] my companion and counsellor and dearest +friend. So you see"--he added in his bright, convincing voice, "we may +know the will of the Lord about such things and everything else." + +"I believe it," responded Marjorie's mother, emphatically. + +"Now tell me about all the young people in your village. How many have +you that are unconverted?" + +Was Hollis one of them? Marjorie wondered with a beating heart. Would +Evangelist talk to him? Would he kiss him, and give him a smile, and bid +him God speed? + +But--she began to doubt--perhaps there was another Evangelist and this +was not the very one in _Pilgrim's Progress_; somehow, he did not seem +just like that one. Might she dare ask him? How would she say it? Before +she was aware her thought had become a spoken thought; in the interval +of quiet while her mother was counting the young people in the village +she was very much astonished to hear her own timid, bold, little voice +inquire: + +"Is there more than one Evangelist?" + +"Why, yes, child," her mother answered absently and Evangelist began to +tell her about some of the evangelists he was acquainted with. + +"Wonderful men! Wonderful men!" he repeated. + +Before another question could form itself on her eager lips her father +entered and gave the stranger a cordial welcome. + +"We have to thank scarlet fever at the Parsonage for the pleasure of your +visit with us, I believe," he said. + +"Yes, that seems to be the bright side of the trouble." + +"Well, I hope you have brought a blessing with you." + +"I hope I have! I prayed the Lord not to bring me here unless he came +with me." + +"I think the hush of the Spirit's presence has been in our church all +winter," said Mrs. West. "I've had no rest day or night pleading for our +young people." + +The words filled Marjorie with a great awe; she slipped out to unburden +herself to Linnet, but Linnet was setting the tea-table in a frolicsome +mood and Marjorie's heart could not vent itself upon a frolicsome +listener. + +From the china closet in the hall Linnet had brought out the china, one +of her mother's wedding presents and therefore seldom used, and the glass +water pitcher and the small glass fruit saucers. + +"Can't I help?" suggested Marjorie looking on with great interest. + +"No," refused Linnet, decidedly, "you might break something as you did +the night Mrs. Rheid and Hollis were here." + +"My fingers were too cold, then." + +"Perhaps they are too warm, now," laughed Linnet. + +"Then I can tell you about the primary colors; I suppose I won't break +_them_," returned Marjorie with her usual sweet-humor. + +Linnet moved the spoon holder nearer the sugar bowl with the air of a +house wife, Marjorie stood at the table leaning both elbows upon it. + +"If you remember _vibgyor_, you'll remember the seven primary colors!" +she said mysteriously. + +"Is it like cutting your nails on Saturday without thinking of a fox's +tail and so never have the toothache?" questioned Linnet. + +"_No_; this is earnest. It isn't a joke; it's a lesson," returned +Marjorie, severely. "Mr. Holmes said a professor told it to him when he +was in college." + +"You see it's a joke! I remember _vibgyor_, but now I don't know the +seven primary colors. You are always getting taken in, Goosie! I hope +you didn't ask Mr. Woodfern if he is the man in _Pilgrim's Progress_." + +"I know he isn't," said Marjorie, seriously, "there are a good many of +them, he said so. I guess _Pilgrim's Progress_ happened a long time ago. +I shan't look for Great-heart, any more," she added, with a sigh. + +Linnet laughed and scrutinized the white handled knives to see if there +were any blemishes on the blades; her mother kept them laid away in old +flannel. + +"Now, Linnet, you see it isn't a joke," began Marjorie, protestingly; +"the word is made of all the first letters of the seven colors,--just +see!" counting on her fingers, "violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, +orange, red! Did you see how it comes right?" + +"I didn't see, but I will as soon as I get time. You were not taken in +that time, I do believe. Did Mr. Woodfern ask you questions?" + +"Not _that_ kind! And I'm glad he didn't. Linnet, I haven't any +'experience' to talk about." + +"You are not old enough," said Linnet, wisely. + +"Are you?" + +"Yes, I have a little bit." + +"Shall you tell him about it?" asked Marjorie curiously. + +"I don't know." + +"I wish I had some; how do you get it?" + +"It comes." + +"From where?" + +"Oh, I don't know." + +"Then you can't tell me how to get it," pleaded Marjorie. + +"No," said Linnet, shaking her sunshiny curls, "perhaps mother can." + +"When did you have yours?" Marjorie persisted. + +"One day when I was reading about the little girl in the Sandwich +Islands. Her father was a missionary there, and she wrote in her journal +how she felt and I felt so, too," + +"Did you put it in your journal?" + +"Some of it." + +"Did you show it to mother?" + +"Yes." + +"Was she glad?" + +"Yes, she kissed me and said her prayers were answered." + +Marjorie looked very grave. She wished she could be as old as Linnet and +have "experience" to write in her journal and have her mother kiss her +and say her prayers were answered. + +"Do you have it all the time?" she questioned anxiously as Linnet hurried +in from the kitchen with a small platter of sliced ham in her hand. + +"Not every day; I do some days." + +"I want it every day." + +"You call them to tea when I tell you. And you may help me bring things +in." + +When Marjorie opened the parlor door to call them to tea she heard Mr. +Woodfern inquire: + +"Do all your children belong to the Lord?" + +"The two in heaven certainly do, and I think Linnet is a Christian," her +mother was saying. + +"And Marjorie," he asked. + +"You know there are such things; I think Marjorie's heart was changed in +her cradle." + +With the door half opened Marjorie stood and heard this lovely story +about herself. + +"It was before she was three years old; one evening I undressed her and +laid her in the cradle, it was summer and she was not ready to go to +sleep; she had been in a frolic with Linnet and was all in a gale of +mischief. She arose up and said she wanted to get out; I said 'no,' very +firmly, 'mamma wants you to stay.' But she persisted with all her might, +and I had to punish her twice before she would consent to lie still; I +was turning to leave her when I thought her sobs sounded more rebellious +than subdued, I knelt down and took her in my arms to kiss her, but she +drew back and would not kiss me. I saw there was no submission in her +obedience and made up my mind not to leave her until she had given up her +will to mine. If you can believe it, it was two full hours before she +would kiss me, and then she couldn't kiss me enough. I think when she +yielded to my will she gave up so wholly that she gave up her whole being +to the strongest and most loving will she knew. And as soon as she knew +God, she knew--or I knew--that she had submitted to him." + +"Come to tea," called Marjorie, joyfully, a moment later. + +This lovely story about herself was only one of the happenings that +caused Marjorie to remember this day and evening: this day of small +events stood out clearly against the background of her childhood. + +That evening in the church she had been moved to do the hardest, happiest +thing she had ever done in her hard and happy eleven years. At the close +of his stirring appeal to all who felt themselves sinners in God's sight, +Evangelist (he would always be Evangelist to Marjorie) requested any to +rise who had this evening newly resolved to seek Christ until they found +him. A little figure in a pew against the wall, arose quickly, after an +undecided, prayerful moment, a little figure in a gray cloak and broad, +gray velvet hat, but it was such a little figure, and the radiant face +was hidden by such a broad hat, and the little figure dropped back into +its seat so hurriedly, that, in looking over the church, neither the +pastor nor the evangelist noticed it. Her heart gave one great jump when +the pastor arose and remarked in a grieved and surprised tone: "I am +sorry that there is not one among us, young or old, ready to seek our +Saviour to-night." + +The head under the gray hat drooped lower, the radiant face became for +one instant sorrowful. As they were moving down the aisle an old lady, +who had been seated next to Marjorie, whispered to her, "I'm sorry they +didn't see you, dear." + +"Never mind," said the bright voice, "God saw me." + +Hollis saw her, also, and his heart smote him. This timid little girl had +been braver than he. From the group of boys in the gallery he had looked +down at her and wondered. But she was a girl, and girls did not mind +doing such things as boys did; being good was a part of Marjorie's life, +she wouldn't be Marjorie without it. There was a letter in his pocket +from his uncle bidding him to come to the city without delay; he pushed +through the crowd to find Marjorie, "it would be fun to see how sorry she +would look," but her father had hurried her out and lifted her into the +sleigh, and he saw the gray hat in the moonlight close to her father's +shoulder. + +As he was driving to the train the next afternoon, he jumped out and ran +up to the door to say good-bye to her. + +Marjorie opened the door, arrayed in a blue checked apron with fingers +stained with peeling apples. + +"Good-bye, I'm off," he shouted, resisting the impulse to catch her in +his arms and kiss her. + +"Good-bye, I'm so glad, and so sorry," she exclaimed with a shadowed +face. + +"I wish I had something to give you to remember me by," he said suddenly. + +"I think you _have_ given me lots of things." + +"Come, Hol, don't stand there all day," expostulated his brother from the +sleigh. + +"Good-bye, then," said Hollis. + +"Good-bye," said Marjorie. And then he was off and the bells were +jingling down the road and she had not even cautioned him "Be a good +boy." She wished she had had something to give him to remember _her_ by; +she had never done one thing to help him remember her and when he came +back in years and years they would both be grown up and not know each +other. + +"Marjie, you are taking too thick peels," remonstrated her mother. For +the next half hour she conscientiously refrained from thinking of any +thing but the apples. + +"Oh, Marjie," exclaimed Linnet, "peel one whole, be careful and don't +break it, and throw it over your right shoulder and see what letter +comes." + +"Why?" asked Magorie, selecting a large, fair apple to peel. + +"I'll tell you when it comes," answered Linnet, seriously. + +With an intent face, and slow, careful fingers, Marjorie peeled the +handsome apple without breaking the coils of the skin, then poised her +hand and gave the shining, green rings a toss over her shoulder to the +oilcloth. + +"_S! S!_ Oh! what a handsome _S!_" screamed Linnet. + +"Well, what does it mean?" inquired Marjorie, interestedly. + +"Oh, nothing, only you will marry a man whose name begins with _S_," said +Linnet, seriously. + +"I don't believe I will!" returned Marjorie, contentedly. "Do you believe +I will, mother?" + +Mrs. West was lifting a deliciously browned pumpkin pie from the oven, +she set it carefully on the table beside Marjorie's yellow dish of +quartered apples and then turned to the oven for its mate. + +"Now cut one for me," urged Linnet gleefully. + +"But I don't believe it," persisted Marjorie, picking among the apples in +the basket at her feet; "you don't believe it yourself." + +"I never _knew_ it to come true," admitted Linnet, sagely, "but _S_ is a +common letter. There are more Smiths in the world than any one else. A +woman went to an auction and bought a brass door plate with _Smith_ on it +because she had six daughters and was sure one of them would marry a +Smith." + +"And _did_ one?" asked Maijorie, in her innocent voice. Linnet was sure +her lungs were made of leather else she would have burst them every day +laughing at foolish little Marjorie. + +"The story ended there," said Linnet. + +"Stories always leave off at interesting places," said Marjorie, guarding +Linnet's future with slow-moving fingers. "I hope mine won't." + +"It will if you die in the middle of it," returned Linnet + +Linnet was washing the baking dishes at the sink. + +"No, it wouldn't, it would go on and be more interesting," said Marjorie, +in her decided way; "but I do want to finish it all." + +"Be careful, don't break mine," continued Linnet, as Marjorie gave the +apple rings a toss. "There! you have!" she cried disappointedly. "You've +spoiled my fortune, Marjie." + +"Linnet! Linnet!" rebuked her mother, shutting the oven door, "I thought +you were only playing. I wouldn't have let you go on if I had thought you +would have taken it in earnest." + +"I don't really," returned Linnet, with a vexed laugh, "but I did want to +see what letter it would be." + +"It's _O_," said Marjorie, turning to look over her shoulder. + +"Rather a crooked one," conceded Linnet, "but it will have to do." + +"Suppose you try a dozen times and they all come different," suggested +practical Marjorie. + +"That proves it's all nonsense," answered her mother. + +"And suppose you don't marry anybody," Marjorie continued, spoiling +Linnet's romance, "some letter, or something _like_ a letter has to come, +and then what of it?" + +"Oh, it's only fun," explained Linnet. + +"I don't want to know about my _S_" confessed Marjorie. "I'd rather wait +and find out. I want my life to be like a story-book and have surprises +in the next chapter." + +"It's sure to have that," said her mother. "We mustn't _try_ to find out +what is hidden. We mustn't meddle with our lives, either. Hurry +providence, as somebody says in a book." + +"And we can't ask anybody but God," said Marjorie, "because nobody else +knows. He could make any letter come that he wanted to." + +"He will not tell us anything that way," returned her mother. + +"I don't want him to," said Marjorie. + +"Mother, I was in fun and you are making _serious_," cried Linnet with a +distressed face. + +"Not making it dreadful, only serious," smiled her mother. + +"I don't see why the letter has to be about your husband," argued +Marjorie, "lots of things will happen to us first" + +"But that is exciting," said Linnet, "and it is the most of things in +story-books." + +"I don't see why," continued Marjorie, unconvinced, turning an apple +around in her fingers, "isn't the other part of the story worth +anything?" + +"Worth anything!" repeated Linnet, puzzled. + +"Doesn't God care for the other part?" questioned the child. "I've got to +have a good deal of the other part." + +"So have all unmarried people," said her mother, smiling at the quaint +gravity of Marjorie's eyes. + +"Then I don't see why--" said Marjorie. + +"Perhaps you will by and by," her mother replied, laughing, for Marjorie +was looking as wise as an owl; "and now, please hurry with the apples, +for they must bake before tea. Mr. Woodfern says he never ate baked apple +sauce anywhere else." + +Marjorie hoped he would not stay a whole week, as he proposed, if she had +to cut the apples. And then, with a shock and revulsion at herself, she +remembered that her father had read at worship that morning something +about giving even a cup of cold water to a disciple for Christ's sake. + +Linnet laughed again as she stooped to pick up the doubtful _O_ and +crooked _S_ from the oilcloth. + +But the letters had given Marjorie something to think about. + +I had decided to hasten over the story of Marjorie's childhood and bring +her into her joyous and promising girlhood, but the child's own words +about the "other part" that she must have a "good deal" of have changed +my mind. Surely God does care for the "other part," too. + +And I wonder what it is in you (do you know?) that inclines you to hurry +along and skip a little now and then, that you may discover whether +Marjorie ever married Hollis? Why can't you wait and take her life as +patiently as she did? + +That same Saturday evening Marjorie's mother said to Marjorie's father, +with a look of perplexity upon her face, + +"Father, I don't know what to make of our Marjorie." + +He was half dozing over the _Agriculturist_; he raised his head and asked +sharply, "Why? What has she done now?" + +Everybody knew that Marjorie was the apple of her father's eye. + +"Nothing new! Only everything she does _is_ new. She is two Marjories, +and that's what I can't make out. She is silent and she is talkative; +she is shy, very shy, and she is as bold as a little lion; sometimes she +won't tell you anything, and sometimes she tells you everything; +sometimes I think she doesn't love me, and again she loves me to death; +sometimes I think she isn't as bright as other girls, and then again I'm +sure she is a genius. Now Linnet is always the same; I always know what +she will do and say; but there's no telling about Marjorie. I don't know +what to make of her," she sighed. + +"Then I wouldn't try, wife," said Marjorie's father, with his shrewd +smile. "I'd let somebody that knows." + +After a while, Marjorie's mother spoke again: + +"I don't know that you help me any." + +"I don't know that I can; girls are mysteries--you were a mystery once +yourself. Marjorie can respond, but she will not respond, unless she has +some one to respond _to_, or some _thing_ to respond to. Towards myself I +never find but one Marjorie!" + +"That means that you always give her something to respond to!" + +"Well, yes, something like it," he returned in one of Marjorie's +contented tones. + +"She'll have a good many heart aches before she's through, then," decided +Mrs. West, with some sharpness. + +"Probably," said Marjorie's father with the shadow of a smile on his thin +lips. + + + + +III. + +WHAT "DESULTORY" MEANS. + +"A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded." + + +"Miss Prudence! O, Miss Prudence!" + +It was summer time and Marjorie was almost fourteen years old. Her soul +was looking out of troubled eyes to-day. Just now life was all one +unanswered question. + +"Marjorie! O, Marjorie!" mimicked Miss Prudence. + +"I don't know what _desultory_ means," said Marjorie. + +"And you don't know where to find a dictionary?" + +"Mustn't I ask you questions when I can find the answer myself?" asked +Marjorie, straightforwardly. + +"I think it's rather impertinent, don't you?" + +"Yes," considered Marjorie, "rather." + +Miss Prudence was a fair vision in Marjorie's eyes and Marjorie was a +radiant vision in Miss Prudence's eyes. The radiant vision was not +clothed in gorgeous apparel; the radiance was in the face and voice and +in every motion; the apparel was simply a stiffly starched blue muslin, +that had once belonged to Linnet and had been "let down" for Marjorie, +and her head was crowned with a broad-brimmed straw hat, around the crown +of which was tied a somewhat faded blue ribbon, also a relic of Linnet's +summer days; her linen collar was fastened with an old-fashioned pin of +her mother's; her boots were new and neatly fitting, her father had made +them especially for herself. + +Her sense of the fitness of things was sometimes outraged; one of the +reasons why she longed to grow up was that she might have things of her +own; things bought for her and made for her as they always were for +Linnet. But Linnet was pretty and good and was going away to school! + +The fair vision was clothed in white, a soft white, that fell in folds +and had no kinship with starch. Marjorie had never seen this kind of +white dress before; it was a part of Miss Prudence's loveliness. The face +was oval and delicate, with little color in the lips and less in the +cheeks, smooth black hair was brushed away from the thoughtful forehead +and underneath the heavily pencilled black brows large, believing, gray +eyes looked unquestioningly out upon the world. Unlike Marjorie, Miss +Prudence's questions had been answered. She would have told Marjorie that +it was because she had asked her questions of One who knew how to answer. +She was swinging in her hammock on the back porch; this back porch looked +over towards the sea, a grass plat touched the edge of the porch and then +came the garden; it was a kitchen garden, and stretched down to the flat +rocks, and beyond the flat rocks were the sand and the sea. + +Marjorie had walked two miles and a half this hot afternoon to spend two +or three hours with her friend, Miss Prudence. Miss Prudence was boarding +at Marjorie's grandfather's; this was the second summer that she had been +at this farmhouse by the sea. She was the lady of whom Marjorie had +caught a glimpse so long ago in church, and called her Mercy. Throwing +aside her hat, Marjorie dropped down on the floor of the porch, so near +the gently swaying hammock that she might touch the soft, white drapery, +and in a position to watch Miss Prudence's face. + +"I don't see the use of learning somethings," Marjorie began; that is, if +she could be said to begin anything with Miss Prudence, the beginning of +all her questions had been so long ago. So long ago to Marjorie; long ago +to Miss Prudence was before Marjorie was born. + +There were no books or papers in the hammock. Miss Prudence had settled +herself comfortably, so comfortably that she was not conscious of +inhabiting her body when Marjorie had unlatched the gate. + +"Which one of the things, for instance?" + +In the interested voice there was not one trace of the delicious reverie +she had been lost in. + +"Punctuation," said Marjorie, promptly; "and Mr. Holmes says we must be +thorough in it. I can't see the use of anything beside periods, and, of +course, a comma once in a while." + +A gleam of fun flashed into the gray eyes. Miss Prudence was a born +pedagogue. + +"I'll show you something I learned when I was a little girl; and, after +this, if you don't confess that punctuation has its work in the world, I +have nothing more to say about it." + +Marjorie had been fanning herself with her broad brim, she let it fall in +her eagerness and her eyes were two convincing arguments against the +truth of her own theory, for they were two emphasized exclamation points; +sometimes when she was very eager she doubled herself up and made an +interrogation point of herself. + +"Up in my room on the table you will find paper and pencil; please bring +them to me." + +Marjorie flew away and Miss Prudence gave herself up to her interrupted +reverie. To-day was one of Miss Prudence's hard-working days; that is, it +was followed by the effect of a hard-working day; the days in which she +felt too weak to do anything beside pray she counted the successful days +of her life. She said they were the only days in her life in which she +accomplished anything. + +Marjorie was at home in every part of her grandfather's queer old house; +Miss Prudence's room was her especial delight. It was a low-studded +chamber, with three windows looking out to the sea, the wide fireplace +was open, filled with boughs of fragrant hemlock; the smooth yellow +floor with its coolness and sweet cleanliness invited you to enter; there +were round braided mats spread before the bureau and rude washstand, and +more pretentious ones in size and beauty were laid in front of the red, +high-posted bedstead and over the brick hearth. There were, beside, in +the apartment, two tables, an easy-chair with arms, its cushions covered +with red calico, a camp stool, three rush-bottomed chairs, a Saratoga +trunk, intruding itself with ugly modernness, also, hanging upon hooks, +several articles of clothing, conspicuously among them a gray flannel +bathing suit. The windows were draperied in dotted swiss, fastened back +with green cord; her grandmother would never have been guilty of those +curtains. Marjorie was sure they had intimate connection with the +Saratoga trunk. Sunshine, the salt-breath of the sea and the odor of pine +woods as well! + +There were rollicking voices outside the window, Marjorie looked out and +spied her five little cousins playing in the sand. Three of them held in +their hands, half-eaten, the inevitable doughnut; morning, noon, and +night those children were to be found with doughnuts in their hands. + +She laughed and turned again to the contemplation of the room; on the +high mantel was a yellow pitcher, that her grandmother knew was a hundred +years old, and in the centre of the mantel were arranged a sugar bowl and +a vinegar cruet that Miss Prudence had coaxed away from the old lady; her +city friends would rave over them, she said. The old lady had laughed, +remarking that "city folks" had ways of their own. + +"I've given away a whole set of dishes to folks that come in the yachts," +she said. "I should think you would rather have new dishes." + +Miss Prudence never dusted her old possessions; she told Marjorie that +she had not the heart to disturb the dust of ages. + +Marjorie was tempted to linger and linger; in winter this room was closed +and seemed always bare and cold when she peeped into it; there was no +temptation to stay one moment; and now she had to tear herself away. It +must be Miss Prudence's spirit that brooded over it and gave it sweetness +and sunshine. This was the way Marjorie put the thought to herself. The +child was very poetical when she lived alone with herself. Miss +Prudence's wicker work-basket with its dainty lining of rose-tinted silk, +its shining scissors and gold thimble, with its spools and sea-green silk +needlebook was a whole poem to the child; she thought the possession of +one could make any kind of sewing, even darning stockings, very +delightful work. "Stitch, stitch, stitch," would not seem dreadful, at +all. + +How mysterious and charming it was to board by the seashore with +somebody's grandfather! And then, in winter, to go back to some +bewildering sort of a fairyland! To some kind of a world where people did +not talk all the time about "getting along" and "saving" and "doing +without" and "making both ends meet." How Marjorie's soul rebelled +against the constant repetition of those expressions! How she thought she +would never _let_ her little girls know what one of them meant! If she +and her little girls had to be saving and do without, how brave they +would be about it, and laugh over it, and never ding it into anybody's +ears! And she would never constantly be asking what things cost! Miss +Prudence never asked such questions. But she would like to know if that +gold pen cost so very much, and that glass inkstand shaped like a +pyramid, and all that cream note-paper with maple tassels and autumn +leaves and butterflies and ever so many cunning things painted in its +left corners. And there was a pile of foolscap on the table, and some +long, yellow envelopes, and some old books and some new books and an +ivory paper-cutter; all something apart from the commonplace world she +inhabited. Not apart from the world her thoughts and desires revelled +in; not her hopes, for she had not gotten so far as to hope to live in a +magical world like Miss Prudence. And yet when Miss Prudence did not wear +white she was robed in deep mourning; there was sorrow in Miss Prudence's +magical world. + +It was some few moments before the roving eyes could settle themselves +upon the paper and pencil she had been sent for; she would have liked to +choose a sheet of the thick cream-paper with the autumn leaves painted on +it, but that was not for study, and Miss Prudence certainly intended +study, although there was fun in her eyes. She selected carefully a sheet +of foolscap and from among the pen oils a nicely sharpened Faber number +three. With the breath of the room about her, and the beauty and +restfulness of it making a glory in her eyes, she ran down to the broad, +airy hall. + +Glancing into the sitting-room as she passed its partly opened door she +discovered her grandfather asleep in his arm-chair and her grandmother +sitting near him busy in slicing apples to be strung and hung up in the +kitchen to dry! With a shiver of foreboding the child passed the door on +tiptoe; suppose her grandmother _should_ call her in to string those +apples! The other children never strung them to suit her and she +"admired" Marjorie's way of doing them. Marjorie said once that she hated +apple blossoms because they turned into dried apples. But that was when +she had stuck the darning needle into her thumb. + +I'm afraid you will think now that Marjorie is not as sweet as she used +to be. + +She presented the paper, congratulating herself upon her escape, and Miss +Prudence lifted herself in the hammock and took the pencil, holding it in +her fingers while she meditated. What a little girl she was when her +whiteheaded old teacher had bidden her write this sentence on the +blackboard. She wrote it carefully, Marjorie's attentive eyes following +each movement of the pencil. + +"The persons inside the coach were Mr Miller a clergyman his son a lawyer +Mr Angelo a foreigner his lady and a little child" In the entire sentence +there was not one punctuation mark. + +"Read it, please." + +Marjorie began to read, then stopped and laughed. + +"I can't." + +"You wouldn't enjoy a book very much written in that style, would you?" + +"I couldn't enjoy it at all. I wouldn't read it" + +"Well, if you can't read it, explain it to me. How many persons are in +the coach?" + +"That's easy enough! There's Mr. Miller, that's one; there's the +clergyman, that's two!" + +"Perhaps that is only one; Mr. Miller may be a clergyman." + +"So he may. But how can I tell?" asked Marjorie, perplexed. "Well, then, +his son makes two." + +"Whose son?" + +"Why, Mr. Miller's!" + +"Perhaps he was the clergyman's son," returned Miss Prudence seriously. + +"Well, then," declared Marjorie, "I guess there were eight people! Mr. +Miller, the clergyman, the son, the lawyer, Mr. Angelo, a foreigner, a +lady, and a child!" + +"Placing a comma after each there are eight persons," said Miss Prudence +making the commas. + +"Yes," assented Marjorie, watching her. + +Beneath it Miss Prudence wrote the sentence again, punctuating thus: + +"The persons inside the conch were Mr. Miller, a clergyman; his son, a +lawyer; Mr. Angelo, a foreigner, his lady; and a little child." + +"Now how many persons are there inside this coach?" + +"Three gentlemen, a lady and child," laughed Marjorie--"five instead of +eight. Those little marks have caused three people to vanish." + +"And to change occupations." + +"Yes, for Mr. Miller is a clergyman, his son a lawyer, and Mr. Angelo has +become a foreigner." + +The pencil was moving again and the amused, attentive eyes were +steadfastly following. + +"The persons inside the coach were Mr. Miller; a clergyman, his son; a +lawyer, Mr. Angelo; a foreigner, his lady, and a little child." + +Marjorie uttered an exclamation; it was so funny! + +"Now, Mr. Miller's son is a clergyman instead of himself, Mr. Angelo is a +lawyer, and nobody knows whether he is a foreigner or not, and we don't +know the foreigner's name, and he has a wife and child." + +Miss Prudence smiled over the young eagerness, and rewrote the sentence +once again causing Mr. Angelo to cease to be a lawyer and giving the +foreigner a wife but no little child. + +"O, Miss Prudence, you've made the little thing an orphan all alone in a +stage-coach all through the change of a comma to be a semi-colon!" +exclaimed Marjorie in comical earnestness. "I think punctuation means +ever so much; it isn't dry one bit," she added, enthusiastically. + +"You couldn't enjoy Mrs. Browning very well without it," smiled Miss +Prudence. + +"I never would know what the 'Cry of the Children' meant, or anything +about Cowper's grave, would I? And if I punctuated it myself, I might +not get all _she_ meant. I might make a meaning of my own, and that would +be sad." + +"I think you do," said Miss Prudence; "when I read it to you and the +children, there were tears in your eyes, but the others said all they +liked was my voice." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "but if somebody had stumbled over every line I +shouldn't have felt it so. I know the good there is in studying +elocution. When Mr. Woodfern was here and read 'O, Absalom, my son! My +son, Absalom!' everybody had tears in their eyes, and I had never seen +tears about it before. And now I know the good of punctuation. I guess +punctuation helps elocution, too." + +"I shouldn't wonder," replied Miss Prudence, smiling at Marjorie's air of +having discovered something. "Now, I'll give you something to do while I +close my eyes and think awhile." + +"Am I interrupting you?" inquired Marjorie in consternation. "I didn't +know how I could any more than I can interrupt--" + +"God" was in her thought, but she did not give it utterance. + +"I shall not allow you," returned Miss Prudence, quietly. "You will work +awhile, and I will think and when I open my eyes you may talk to me about +anything you please. You are a great rest to me, child." + +"Thank you," said the child, simply. + +"You may take the paper and change the number of people, or relationship, +or professions again. I know it may be done." + +"I don't see how." + +"Then it will give you really something to do." + +Seating herself again on the yellow floor of the porch, within range of +Miss Prudence's vision, but not near enough to disturb her, Marjorie bit +the unsharpened end of her pencil and looked long at the puzzling +sentences on the foolscap. With the attitude of attentiveness she was not +always attentive; Mr. Holmes told her that she lacked concentration and +that she could not succeed without it. Marjorie was very anxious to +"succeed." She scribbled awhile, making a comma and a dash, a +parenthesis, an interrogation point, an asterisk and a line of asterisks! +But the sense was not changed; there was nobody new in the stage-coach +and nobody did anything new. Then she rewrote it again, giving the little +child to the foreigner and lady; she wanted the child to have a father +and mother, even if the father were a foreigner and did not speak +English; she called the foreigner Mr. Angelo, and imagined him to be a +brother of the celebrated Michael Angelo; making a dive into the shallow +depths of her knowledge of Italian nomenclature she selected a name for +the child, a little girl, of course--Corrinne would do, or it might be a +boy and named for his uncle Michael. In what age of the world had Michael +Angelo lived? At the same time with Petrarch and Galileo, and Tasso +and--did she know about any other Italians? Oh, yes. Silvio +Pellico,--wasn't he in prison and didn't he write about it? And was not +the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy? Was that one of the Seven Wonders of +the World? And weren't there Seven Wise Men of Greece? And wasn't there a +story about the Seven Sleepers? But weren't they in Asia? And weren't the +churches in Revelation in Asia? And wasn't the one at Laodicea lukewarm? +And did people mix bread with lukewarm water in summer as well as winter? +And wasn't it queer--why how had she got there? But it _was_ queer for +the oriental king to refuse to believe and say it wasn't so--that water +couldn't become hard enough for people to walk on it! And it was funny +for the East Indian servant to be alarmed because the butter was +"spoiled," just because when they were up in the mountains it became hard +and was not like oil as it was down in Calcutta! And that was where Henry +Martyn went, and he dressed all in white, and his face was so lovely and +pure, like an angel's; and angels _were_ like young men, for at the +resurrection didn't it say they were young men! Or was it some other +time? And how do you spell _resurrection_? Was that the word that had one +_s_ and two _r's_ in it? And how would you write two _r's?_ Would +punctuation teach you that? Was _B_ a word and could you spell it? + +"Well, Marjorie?" + +"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Marjorie. "I've been away off! I always do go +away off! I don't remember what the last thing I thought of was. I never +shall be concentrated," she sighed. "I believe I could go right on and +think of fifty other things. One thing always reminds me of some thing +else." + +"And some day," rebuked Miss Prudence, "when you must concentrate your +thoughts you will find that you have spoiled yourself." + +"I have found it out now," acknowledged Marjorie humbly. + +"I have to be very severe with myself." + +"I ought to be," Marjorie confessed with a rueful face, "for it spoils my +prayers so often. I wouldn't dare tell you all the things I find myself +thinking of. Why, last night--you know at the missionary meeting they +asked us to pray for China and so I thought I'd begin last night, and I +had hardly begun when it flashed into my mind--suppose somebody should +make me Empress of China, and give me supreme power, of course. And I +began to make plans as to how I should make them all Christians. I +thought I wouldn't _force_ them or destroy their temples, but I'd have +all my officers real Christians; Americans, of course; and I thought I +_would_ compel them to send the children to Christian schools. I'd have +such grand schools. I had you as principal for the grandest one. And I'd +have the Bible and all our best books, and all our best Sunday School +books translated into Chinese and I _would_ make the Sabbath a holy day +all over the land. I didn't know what I would do about that room in every +large house called the Hall of Ancestors. You know they worship their +grandparents and great-great-grandparents there. I think I should have to +let them read the old books. Isn't it queer that one of the proverbs +should be like the Bible? 'God hates the proud and is kind to the +humble.' Do you know all about Buddha?" + +"Is that as far as you got in your prayer?" asked Miss Prudence, gravely. + +"About as far. And then I was so contrite that I began to pray for myself +as hard as I could, and forgot all about China." + +"Do you wander off in reading the Bible, too?" + +"Oh, no; I can keep my attention on that. I read Genesis and Exodus last +Sunday. It is the loveliest story-book I know. I've begun to read it +through. Uncle James said once, that when he was a sea-captain, he +brought a passenger from Germany and he used to sit up all night and read +the Bible. He told me last Sunday because he thought I read so long. I +told him I didn't wonder. Miss Prudence," fixing her innocent, +questioning eyes upon Miss Prudence's face, "why did a lady tell mother +once that she didn't want her little girl to read the Bible through until +she was grown up? It was Mrs. Grey,--and she told mother she ought not to +let me begin and read right through." + +"What did your mother say?" + +"She said she was glad I wanted to do it." + +"I think Mrs. Grey meant that you might learn about some of the sin there +is in the world. But if you live in the world, you will be kept from the +evil, because Christ prayed that his disciples might be thus kept; but +you must know the sin exists. And I would rather my little girl would +learn about the sins that God hates direct from his lips than from any +other source. As soon as you learn what sin is, you will learn to hate +it, and that is not sure if you learn it in any other way. I read the +Bible through when I was about your age, and I think there are some forms +of sin I never should have hated so intensely if I had not learned about +them in the way God thinks best to teach us his abhorrence of them. I +never read any book in which a sin was fully delineated that I did not +feel some of the excitement of the sin--some extenuation, perhaps, some +glossing over, some excuse for the sinner,--but in the record God gives I +always intensely hate the sin and feel how abominable it is in his sight. +The first book I ever cried over was the Bible and it was somebody's sin +that brought the tears. I would like to talk to Mrs. Grey!" cried Miss +Prudence, her eyes kindling with indignation. "To think that God does not +know what is good for his children." + +"I wish you would," said Marjorie with enthusiasm, "for I don't know how +to say it. Mother knows a lady who will not read Esther on Sunday because +God isn't in it" + +"The name of God, you mean," said Miss Prudence smiling. "I think Esther +and Mordecai and all the Jews thought God was in it." + +"I will try not to build castles," promised Marjorie often a silent half +minute. "I've done it so much to please Linnet. After we go to bed at +night she says, 'Shut your eyes, Marjie, and tell me what you see,' Then +I shut my eyes and see things for us both. I see ourselves grown up and +having a splendid home and a real splendid husband, and we each have +three children. She has two boys and one girl, and I have two girls and +one boy. And we educate them and dress them so nice, and they do lovely +things. We travel all around the world with them, and I tell Linnet all +we see in Europe and Asia. Our husbands stay home and send us money. They +have to stay home and earn it, you know," Marjorie explained with a +shrewd little smile. "Would you give that all up?" she asked +disappointedly. + +"Yes, I am sure I would. You are making a disappointment for yourself; +your life may not be at all like that. You may never marry, in the first +place, and you may marry a man who cannot send you to Europe, and I think +you are rather selfish to spend his money and not stay home and be a good +wife to him," said Miss Prudence, smiling. + +"Oh. I write him splendid long letters!" said Marjorie quickly. "They are +so splendid that he thinks of making a book of them." + +"I'm afraid they wouldn't take," returned Miss Prudence seriously, "books +of travel are too common nowadays." + +"Is it wrong to build castles for any other reason than for making +disappointments?" Marjorie asked anxiously. + +"Yes, you dwell only on pleasant things and thus you do not prepare +yourself, or rather un-prepare yourself for bearing trial. And why should +a little girl live in a woman's world?" + +"Oh, because it's so nice!" cried Marjorie. + +"And are you willing to lose your precious childhood and girlhood?" + +"Why no," acknowledged the child, looking startled. + +"I think you lose a part of it when you love best to look forward to +womanhood; I should think every day would be full enough for you to live +in." + +"To-day is full enough; but some days nothing happens at all." + +"Now is your study time; now is the time for you to be a perfect little +daughter and sister, a perfect friend, a perfect helper in every way that +a child may help. And when womanhood comes you will be ready to enjoy it +and to do its work. It would be very sad to look back upon a lost or +blighted or unsatisfying childhood." + +"Yes," assented Marjorie, gravely. + +"Perhaps you and Linnet have been reading story-books that were not +written for children." + +"We read all the books in the school library." + +"Does your mother look over them?" + +"No, not always." + +"They may harm you only in this way that I see. You are thinking of +things before the time. It would be a pity to spoil May by bringing +September into it." + +"All the girls like the grown-up stories best" excused Marjorie. + +"Perhaps they have not read books written purely for children. Think of +the histories and travels and biographies and poems piled up for you to +read!" + +"I wish I had them. I read all I could get." + +"I am sure you do. O, Marjorie, I don't want you to lose one of your +precious days. I lost so many of mine by growing up too soon. There are +years and years to be a woman, but there are so few years to be a child +and a girl." + +Marjorie scribbled awhile thinking of nothing to say. Had she been +"spoiling" Linnet, too? But Linnet was two years older, almost old enough +to think about growing up. + +"Marjorie, look at me!" + +Marjorie raised her eyes and fixed them upon the glowing eyes that were +reading her own. Miss Prudence's lips were white and tremulous. + +"I have had some very hard things in my life and I fully believe I +brought many of them upon myself. I spoiled my childhood and early +girlhood by light reading and castle-building; I preferred to live among +scenes of my own imagining, than in my own common life, and oh, the +things I left up done! The precious girlhood I lost and the hard +womanhood I made for myself." + +The child's eyes were as full of tears as the woman's. + +"Please tell me what to do," Marjorie entreated. "I don't want to lose +anything. I suppose it is as good to be a girl as a woman." + +"Get all the sweetness out of every day; _live_ in to-day, don't plan or +hope about womanhood; God has all that in his safe hands. Read the kind +of books I have spoken of and when you read grown-up stories let some one +older and wiser choose them for you. By and by your taste will be so +formed and cultivated that you will choose only the best for yourself. I +hope the Bible will spoil some other books for you." + +"I _devour_ everything I can borrow or find anywhere." + +"You don't eat everything you can borrow or find anywhere. If you choose +for your body, how much more ought you to choose for your mind." + +"I do get discontented sometimes and want things to happen as they do in +books; something happens in every chapter in a book," acknowledged +Marjorie. + +"There's nothing said about the dull, uneventful days that come between; +if the author should write only about the dull days no one would read the +book." + +"It wouldn't be like life, either," said Marjorie, quickly, "for +something does happen, sometimes nothing has happened yet to me, though. +But I suppose something will, some day." + +"Then if I should write about your thirteen years the charm would have to +be all in the telling." + +"Like Hector in the Garden," said Marjorie, brightly. "How I do love +that. And he was only nine years old." + +"But how far we've gotten away from punctuation!" + +Next to prayer children were Miss Prudence's most perfect rest. They were +so utterly unconscious of what she was going through. It seemed to Miss +Prudence as if she were always going through and never getting through. + +"Are you fully satisfied that punctuation has its work in the world?" + +"Yes, ever so fully. I should never get along in the Bible without it." + +"That reminds me; run upstairs and bring me my Bible and I'll show you +something. + +"And, then, after that will you show me the good of remembering _dates_. +They are so hard to remember. And I can't see the good. Do you suppose +you _could_ make it as interesting as punctuation?" + +"I might try. The idea of a little girl who finds punctuation so +interesting having to resort to castle-building to make life worth +living," laughed Miss Prudence. + +"Mother said to-day that she was afraid I was growing deaf, for she spoke +three times before I answered; I was away off somewhere imagining I had a +hundred dollars to spend, so she went down cellar for the butter +herself." + +Marjorie walked away with a self-rebuked air; she did dread to pass that +open sitting-room door; Uncle James had come in in his shirt sleeves, +wiping his bald head with his handkerchief and was telling her +grandfather that the hay was poor this year; Aunt Miranda was brushing +Nettie's hair and scolding her for having such greasy fingers; and her +grandmother had a pile, _such_ a pile of sliced apple all ready to be +strung. Her head was turning, yes, she would see her and then she could +not know about dates or have a lesson in reading poetry! Tiptoing more +softly still and holding the skirt of her starched muslin in both hands +to keep it from rustling, she at last passed the ordeal and breathed +freely as she gained Miss Prudence's chamber. The spirit of handling +things seemed to possess her this afternoon, for, after finding the +Bible, she went to the mantel and took into her hands every article +placed upon it; the bird's nest with the three tiny eggs, the bunch of +feathers that she had gathered for Miss Prudence with their many shades +of brown, the old pieces of crockery, handling these latter very +carefully until she seized the yellow pitcher; Miss Prudence had paid her +grandmother quite a sum for the pitcher, having purchased it for a +friend; Marjorie turned it around and around in her hands, then, +suddenly, being startled by a heavy, slow step on the stairs which +she recognized as her grandmother's, and having in fear those apples to +be strung, in attempting to lift it to the high mantel, it fell short of +the mantel edge and dropped with a crash to the hearth. + +For an instant Marjorie was paralyzed with horror; then she stifled a +shriek and stood still gazing down through quick tears upon the yellow +fragments. Fortunately her grandmother, being very deaf, had passed the +door and heard no sound. What would have happened to her if her +grandmother had looked in! + +How disappointed Miss Prudence would be! It belonged to her friend and +how could she remedy the loss? + +Stooping, with eyes so blinded with tears that she could scarcely see the +pieces she took into her hand, she picked up each bit, and then on the +spur of the moment hid them among the thick branches of hemlock. Now what +was she to do next? Could she earn money to buy another hundred-years-old +yellow pitcher? And if she could earn the money, where could she find the +pitcher? She would not confess to Miss Prudence until she found some way +of doing something for her. Oh, dear! This was not the kind of thing that +she had been wishing would happen! And how could she go down with such a +face to hear the rest about punctuation? + +"Marjorie! Marjorie!" shouted Uncle James from below, "here's Cap'n Rheid +at the gate, and if you want to catch a ride you'd better go a ways with +him." + +The opportunity to run away was better than the ride; hastening down to +the hammock she laid the Bible in Miss Prudence's lap. + +"I have to go, you see," she exclaimed, hurriedly, averting her face. + +"Then our desultory conversation must be finished another time." + +"If that's what it means, it means delightful!" said Marjorie. "Thank +you, and good-bye." + +The blue muslin vanished between the rows of currant bushes. She was +hardly a radiant vision as she flew down to the gate; in those few +minutes what could have happened to the child? + + + + +IV. + +A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE. + +"Children always turn toward the light" + + +"Well, Mousie!" + +The old voice and the old pet name; no one thought of calling her +"Mousie" but Hollis Rheid. + +Her mother said she was noisier than she used to be; perhaps he would not +call her Mousie now if he could hear her sing about the house and run up +and down stairs and shout when she played games at school. That time when +she was so quiet and afraid of everybody seemed ages ago; ages ago before +Hollis went to New York. He had returned home once since, but she had +been at her grandfather's and had not seen him. Springing to the ground, +he caught her in his arms, this tall, strange boy, who had changed so +much, and yet who had not changed at all, and lifted her into the back of +the open wagon. + +"Will you squeeze in between us--there's but one seat you see, and +father's a big man, or shall I make a place for you in the bottom among +the bags?" + +"I'd rather sit with the bags," said Marjorie, her timidity coming back. +She had always been afraid of Hollis' father; his eyes were the color of +steel, and his voice was not encouraging. He thought he was born to +command. People said old Captain Rheid acted as if he were always on +shipboard. His wife said once in the bitterness of her spirit that he +always marched the quarter-deck and kept his boys in the forecastle. + +"You don't weigh more than that bag of flour yourself, not as much, and +that weighs one hundred pounds." + +"I weigh ninety pounds," said Marjorie. + +"And how old are you?" + +"Almost fourteen," she answered proudly. + +"Four years younger than I am! Now, are you comfortable? Are you afraid +of spoiling your dress? I didn't think of that?" + +"Oh, no; I wish I was," laughed Marjorie, glancing shyly at him from +under her broad brim. + +It was her own bright face, yet, he decided, with an older look in it, +her eyelashes were suspiciously moist and her cheeks were reddened with +something more than being lifted into the wagon. + +Marjorie settled herself among the bags, feeling somewhat strange and +thinking she would much rather have walked; Hollis sprang in beside his +father, not inclined to make conversation with him, and restrained, by +his presence, from turning around to talk to Marjorie. + +Oh, how people misunderstand each other! How Captain Rheid misunderstood +his boys and how his boys misunderstood him! The boys said that Hollis +was the Joseph among them, his father's favorite; but Hollis and his +father had never opened their hearts to each other. Captain Rheid often +declared that there was no knowing what his boys would do if they were +not kept in; perhaps they had him to thank that they were not all in +state-prison. There was a whisper among the country folks that the old +man himself had been in prison in some foreign country, but no one had +ever proved it; in his many "yarns" at the village store, he had not even +hinted at such a strait. If Marjorie had not stood quite so much in fear +of him she would have enjoyed his adventures; as it was she did enjoy +with a feverish enjoyment the story of thirteen days in an open boat on +the ocean. His boys were fully aware that he had run away from home when +he was fourteen, and had not returned for fourteen years, but they were +not in the least inclined to follow his example. Hollis' brothers had all +left home with the excuse that they could "better" themselves elsewhere; +two were second mates on board large ships, Will and Harold, Sam was +learning a trade in the nearest town, he was next to Hollis in age, and +the eldest, Herbert, had married and was farming on shares within ten +miles of his father's farm. But Captain Rheid held up his head, declaring +that his boys were good boys, and had always obeyed him; if they had left +him to farm his hundred and fifty acres alone, it was only because their +tastes differed from his. In her lonely old age, how his wife sighed for +a daughter!--a daughter that would stay at home and share her labors, and +talk to her, and read to her on stormy Sundays, and see that her collar +was on straight, and that her caps were made nice. Some mothers had +daughters, but she had never had much pleasure in her life! + +"Like to come over to your grandfather's, eh?" remarked Captain Rheid, +looking around at the broad-brimmed hat among the full bags. + +"Yes, sir," said Marjorie, denting one of the full bags with her +forefinger and wondering what he would do to her if she should make a +hole in the bag, and let the contents out. + +She rarely got beyond monosyllables with Hollis' father. + +"Your uncle James isn't going to stay much longer, he tells me," + +"No, sir," said Marjorie, obediently. + +"Wife and children going back to Boston, too?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Her forefinger was still making dents. + +"Just come to board awhile, I suppose?" + +"I thought they _visited_" said Marjorie. + +"Visited? Humph! _Visit_ his poor old father with a wife and five +children!" + +Marjorie wanted to say that her grandfather wasn't poor. + +"Your grandfather's place don't bring in much, I reckon." + +"I don't know," Marjorie answered. + +"How many acres? Not more'n fifty, and some of that _made_ land. I +remember when some of your grandfather's land was water! I don't see what +your uncle James had to settle down to business in Boston for--_that's_ +what comes of marrying a city girl! Why didn't he stay home and take care +of his old father?" + +Marjorie had nothing to say. Hollis flushed uncomfortably. + +"And your mother had to get married, too. I'm glad I haven't a daughter +to run away and get married?" + +"She didn't run away," Marjorie found voice to answer indignantly. + +"O, no, the Connecticut schoolmaster had to come and make a home for +her." + +Marjorie wondered what right he had to be so disagreeable to her, and why +should he find fault with her mother and her uncle, and what right had he +to say that her grandfather was poor and that some of his land had once +been water? + +"Hollis shan't grow up and marry a city girl if I can help it," he +growled, half good-naturedly. + +Hollis laughed; he thought he was already grown up, and he did admire +"city girls" with their pretty finished manners and little ready +speeches. + +Marjorie wished Hollis would begin to talk about something pleasant; +there were two miles further to ride, and would Captain Rheid talk all +the way? + +If she could only have an errand somewhere and make an excuse to get out! +But the Captain's next words relieved her perplexity; "I can't take you +all the way, Sis, I have to branch off another road to see a man about +helping me with the hay. I would have let Hollis go to mill, but I +couldn't trust him with these horses." + +Hollis fidgeted on his seat; he had asked his father when they set out to +let him take the lines, but he had replied ungraciously that as long as +he had hands he preferred to hold the reins. + +Hollis had laughed and retorted: "I believe that, father." + +"Shall I get out now?" asked Marjorie, eagerly. "I like to walk. I +expected to walk home." + +"No; wait till we come to the turn." + +The horses were walking slowly up the hill; Marjorie made dents in the +bag of flour, in the bag of indian meal, and in the bag of wheat bran, +and studied Hollis' back. The new navy-blue suit was handsome and +stylish, and the back of his brown head with its thick waves of brownish +hair was handsome also--handsome and familiar; but the navy-blue suit was +not familiar, and the eyes that just then turned and looked at her were +not familiar either. Marjorie could get on delightfully with _souls_, but +bodies were something that came between her soul and their soul; the +flesh, like a veil, hid herself and hid the other soul that she wanted to +be at home with. She could have written to the Hollis she remembered many +things that she could not utter to the Hollis that she saw today. +Marjorie could not define this shrinking, of course. + +"Hollis has to go back in a day or two," Captain Rheid announced; "he +spent part of his vacation in the country with Uncle Jack before he came +home. Boys nowadays don't think of their fathers and mothers." + +Hollis wondered if _he_ thought of his mother and father when he ran away +from them those fourteen years: he wished that his father had never +revealed that episode in his early life. He did not miss it that he did +not love his father, but he would have given more than a little if he +might respect him. He knew Marjorie would not believe that he did not +think about his mother. + +"I wonder if your father will work at his trade next winter," continued +Captain Rheid. + +"I don't know," said Marjorie, hoping the "turn" was not far off. + +"I'd advise him to--summers, too, for that matter. These little places +don't pay. Wants to sell, he tells me." + +"Yes, sir." + +"Real estate's too low; 'tisn't a good time to sell. But it's a good time +to buy; and I'll buy your place and give it to Hollis if he'll settle +down and work it." + +"It would take more than _that_ farm to keep me here," said Hollis, +quickly; "but, thank you all the same, father; Herbert would jump at the +chance." + +"Herbert shan't have it; I don't like his wife; she isn't respectful to +Herbert's father. He wants to exchange it for city property, so he can go +into business, he tells me." + +"Oh, does he?" exclaimed Marjorie. "I didn't know that." + +"Girls are rattlebrains and chatterboxes; they can't be told everything," +he replied shortly. + +"I wonder what makes you tell me, then," said Marjorie, demurely, in the +fun of the repartee forgetting for the first time the bits of yellow ware +secreted among the hemlock boughs. + +Throwing back his head Captain Rheid laughed heartily, he touched the +horses with the whip, laughing still. + +"I wouldn't mind having a little girl like you," he said, reining in the +horses at the turn of the road; "come over and see marm some day." + +"Thank you," Marjorie said, rising. + +Giving the reins to Hollis, Captain Rheid climbed out of the wagon that +he might lift the child out himself. + +"Jump," he commanded, placing her hands on his shoulders. + +Marjorie jumped with another "thank you." + +"I haven't kissed a little girl for twenty years--not since my little +girl died--but I guess I'll kiss you." + +Marjorie would not withdraw her lips for the sake of the little girl that +died twenty years ago. + +"Good-bye, Mousie, if I don't see you again," said Hollis. + +"Good-bye," said Marjorie. + +She stood still till the horses' heads were turned and the chains had +rattled off in the distance, then, very slowly, she walked on in the +dusty road, forgetting how soft and green the grass was at the wayside. + +"She's a proper nice little thing," observed Hollis' father; "her father +wouldn't sell her for gold. I'll exchange my place for his if he'll throw +her in to boot. Marm is dreadful lonesome." + +"Why don't she adopt a little girl?" asked Hollis. + +"I declare! That _is_ an idea! Hollis, you've hit the nail on the head +this time. But I'd want her willing and loving, with no ugly ways. And +good blood, too. I'd want to know what her father had been before her." + +"Are your boys like _you_, father?" asked Hollis. + +"God forbid!" answered the old man huskily. "Hollis, I want you to be a +better man than your father. I pray every night that my boys may be +Christians; but my time is past, I'm afraid. Hollis, do you pray and read +your Bible, regular?" + +Hollis gave an embarrassed cough. "No, sir," he returned. + +"Then I'd see to it that I did it. That little girl joined the Church +last Sunday and I declare it almost took my breath away. I got the Bible +down last Sunday night and read a chapter in the New Testament. If you +haven't got a Bible, I'll give you money to buy one." + +"Oh, I have one," said Hollis uneasily. + +"Git up, there!" shouted Captain Rheid to his horses, and spoke not +another word all the way home. + +After taking a few slow steps Marjorie quickened her pace, remembering +that Linnet did not like to milk alone; Marjorie did not like to milk at +all; at thirteen there were not many things that she liked to do very +much, except to read and think. + +"I'm afraid she's indolent," sighed her mother; "there's Linnet now, +she's as spry as a cricket" + +But Linnet was not conscious of very many things to think about and +Marjorie every day discovered some new thought to revel in. At this +moment, if it had not been for that unfortunate pitcher, she would have +been reviewing her conversation with Miss Prudence. It _was_ wonderful +about punctuation; how many times a day life was "wonderful" to the +growing child! + +Along this road the farmhouses were scattered at long distances, there +was one in sight with the gable end to the road, but the next one was +fully quarter of a mile away; she noted the fact, not that she was afraid +or lonely, but it gave her something to think of; she was too thoroughly +acquainted with the road to be afraid of anything by night or by day; she +had walked to her grandfather's more times than she could remember ever +since she was seven years old. She tried to guess how far the next house +was, how many feet, yards or rods; she tried to guess how many quarts of +blueberries had grown in the field beyond; she even wondered if anybody +could count the blades of grass all along the way if they should try! But +the remembrance of the broken pitcher persisted in bringing itself +uppermost, pushing through the blades of grass and the quarts of +blueberries; she might as well begin to plan how she was to earn another +pitcher! Or, her birthday was coming--in a month she would be fourteen; +her father would certainly give her a silver dollar because he was glad +that he had had her fourteen years. A quick, panting breath behind her, +and the sound of hurrying feet, caused her to turn her head; she fully +expected to meet the gaze of some big dog, but instead a man was close +upon her, dusty, travel-stained, his straw hat pushed back from a +perspiring face and a hand stretched out to detain her. + +On one arm he carried a long, uncovered basket in which were arranged +rows and piles of small bottles; a glance at the basket reassured her, +every one knew Crazy Dale, the peddler of essences, cough-drops and quack +medicines. + +"It's lonesome walking alone; I've been running to overtake you; I tried +to be in time to catch a ride; but no matter, I will walk with you, if +you will kindly permit." + +She looked up into his pleasant countenance; he might have been handsome +years ago. + +"Well," she assented, walking on. + +"You don't know where I could get a girl to work for me," he asked in a +cracked voice. + +"No sir." + +"And you don't want a bottle of my celebrated mixture to teach you how to +discern between the true and the false! Rub your head with it every +morning, and you'll never believe a lie." + +"I don't now," replied Marjorie, taking very quick steps. + +"How do you know you don't?" he asked keeping step with her. "Tell me how +to tell the difference between a lie and the truth!" + +"Rub your head with your mixture," she said, laughing. + +But he was not disconcerted, he returned in a simple tone. + +"Oh, _that's_ my receipt, I want yours. Yours may be better than mine." + +"I think it is." + +"Tell me, then, quick." + +"Don't you want to go into that house and sell something?" she asked, +pointing to the house ahead of them. + +"When I get there; and you must wait for me, outside, or I won't go in." + +"Don't you know the way yourself?" she evaded. + +"I've travelled it ever since the year 1, I ought to know it," he +replied, contemptuously. "But you've got to wait for me." + +"Oh, dear," sighed Marjorie, frightened at his insistence; then a quick +thought came to her: "Perhaps they will keep you all night." + +"They won't, they always refuse. They don't believe I'm an angel +unawares. That's in the Bible." + +"I'd ask them, if I were you," said Marjorie, in a coaxing, tremulous +voice; "they're nice, kind people." + +"Well, then, I will," he said, hurrying on. + +She lingered, breathing more freely; he would certainly overtake her +again before she could reach the next house and if she did not agree +with everything he proposed he might become angry with her. Oh, dear! how +queerly this day was ending! She did not really want anything to happen; +the quiet days were the happiest, after all. He strode on before her, +turning once in a while, to learn if she were following. + +"That's right; walk slow," he shouted in a conciliatory voice. + +By the wayside, near the fence opposite the gate he was to enter, there +grew a dense clump of blackberry vines; as the gate swung behind him, she +ran towards the fence, and, while he stood with his back towards her in +the path talking excitedly to a little boy who had come to meet him, she +squeezed herself in between the vines and the fence, bending her head and +gathering the skirt of her dress in both hands. + +He became angry as he talked, vociferating and gesticulating; every +instant she the more congratulated herself upon her escape; some of the +girls were afraid of him, but she had always been too sorry for him to be +much afraid; still, she would prefer to hide and keep hidden half the +night rather than be compelled to walk a long, lonely mile with him. Her +father or mother had always been within the sound of her voice when he +had talked with her; she had never before had to be a protection to +herself. Peering through the leaves, she watched him, as he turned again +towards the gate, with her heart beating altogether too rapidly for +comfort: he opened the gate, strode out to the road and stood looking +back. + +He stood a long, long time, uttering no exclamation, then hurried on, +leaving a half-frightened and very thankful little girl trembling among +the leaves of the blackberry vines. But, would he keep looking back? And +how could she ever pass the next house? Might he not stop there and be +somewhere on the watch for her? If some one would pass by, or some +carriage would only drive along! The houses were closer together a mile +further on, but how dared she pass that mile? He would not hurt her, he +would only look at her out of his wild eyes and talk to her. Answering +Captain Rheid's questions was better than this! Staying at her +grandfather's and confessing about the pitcher was better than this! + +Suddenly--or had she heard it before, a whistle burst out upon the air, a +sweet and clear succession of notes, the air of a familiar song: "Be it +ever so humble, there's no place like home." + +Some one was at hand, she sprang through the vines, the briers catching +the old blue muslin, extricating herself in time to run almost against +the navy-blue figure that she had not yet become familiar with. + +The whistle stopped short--"Well, Mousie! Here you are!" + +"O, Hollis," with a sobbing breath, "I'm so glad!" + +"So am I. I jumped off and ran after you. Why, did I frighten you? Your +eyes are as big as moons." + +"No," she laughed, "I wasn't frightened." + +"You look terribly like it." + +"Perhaps some things are _like_--" she began, almost dancing along by his +side, so relieved that she could have poured out a song for joy. + +"What do you do nowadays?" he asked presently. "You are more of a _live_ +mouse than you used to be! I can't call you Mousie any more, only for the +sake of old times." + +"I like it," said Marjorie. + +"But what do you do nowadays?" + +"I read all the time--when I can, and I work, different kinds of work. +Tell me about the little city girls." + +"I only know my cousins and one or two others, their friends." + +"What do they look like?" + +"Like girls! Don't you know how girls look?" + +"Not city girls." + +"They are pretty, most of them, and they dress older than you and have a +_manner;_ they always know how to reply and they are not awkward and too +shy; they know how to address people, and introduce people, and sometimes +to entertain them, they seem to know what to talk about, and they are +bright and wide-awake. They play and sing and study the languages and +mathematics. The girls I know are all little ladies." + +Marjorie was silent; her cheeks were burning and her eyes downcast. She +never could be like that; she never could be a "little lady," if a little +lady meant all those unattainable things. + +"Do they talk differently from us--from country girls?" she asked after a +long pause. + +"Yes, I think they do. Mira Crane--I'll tell you how the country girls +talk--says 'we am,' and 'fust rate,' and she speaks rudely and abruptly +and doesn't look directly at a person when she speaks, she says 'good +morning' and 'yes' and 'no' without 'sir' or 'ma'am' or the person's +name, and answers 'I'm very well' without adding 'thank you.'" + +"Yes," said Marjorie, taking mental note of each expression. + +"And Josie Grey--you see I've been studying the difference in the girls +since I came home--" + +Had he been studying _her_? + +"Is there so much difference?" she asked a little proudly. + +"Yes. The difference struck me. It is not city or country that makes the +difference, it is the _homes_ and the _schools_ and every educating +influence. Josie Grey has all sorts of exclamations like some old +grandmother, and she says 'I tell you,' and 'I declare,' and she hunches +all up when she sits or puts her feet out into the middle of the room." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, again, intently. + +"And Nettie Trevor colors and stammers and talks as if she were afraid of +you. My little ladies see so many people that they become accustomed to +forgetting themselves and thinking of others. They see people to admire +and imitate, too." + +"So do I," said Marjorie, spiritedly. "I see Miss Prudence and I see Mrs. +Proudfit, our new minister's wife, and I see--several other people." + +"I suppose I notice these things more than some boys would. When I left +home gentleness was a new language to me; I had never heard it spoken +excepting away from home. I was surprised at first that a master could +command with gentleness and that those under authority could obey with +gentleness." + +Marjorie listened with awe; this was not like Hollis; her old Hollis was +gone, a new, wise Hollis had come instead. She sighed a little for the +old Hollis who was not quite so wise. + +"I soon found how much I lacked. I set myself to reading and studying. +From the first of October all through the winter I attend evening school +and I have subscribed to the Mercantile Library and have my choice among +thousands of books. Uncle Jack says I shall be a literary business man." + +A "literary business man" sounded very grand to Marjorie. Would she stay +home and be ignorant and never be or do anything? At that instant a +resolve was born in her heart; the resolve to become a scholar and a +lady. But she did not speak, if possible she became more quiet. Hollis +should not be ashamed of being her friend. + +"Mousie! Why don't you talk to me?" he asked, at last. + +"Which of your cousins do you like best?" + +"Helen," he said unhesitatingly. + +"How old is she?" she asked with a sinking at her heart. + +"Seventeen. _She's_ a lady, so gentle and bright, she never rustles or +makes a noise, she never says anything to hurt any one's feelings: and +how she plays and sings. She never once laughed at me, she helps me in +everything; she wanted me to go to evening school and she told me about +the Mercantile Library. She's a Christian, too. She teaches in a mission +school and goes around among poor people with Aunt Helen. She paints and +draws and can walk six miles a day. I go everywhere with her, to lectures +and concerts and to church and Sunday school." + +How Marjorie's eyes brightened! She had found her ideal; she would give +herself no rest until she had become like Helen Rheid. But Helen Rheid +had everything to push her on, every one to help her. For the first time +in her life Marjorie was disheartened. But, with a reassuring conviction, +flashed the thought--there were years before _she_ would be seventeen. + +"Wouldn't you like to see her, Mousie?" + +"Indeed, I would," said Marjorie, enthusiastically. + +"I brought her photograph to mother--how she looked at me when 'marm' +slipped out one day. The boys always used to say 'Marm,'" he said +laughing. + +Marjorie remembered that she had been taught to say "grandmarm," but as +she grew older she had softened it to "grandma." + +"I'll bring you her photograph when I come to-morrow to say good-bye. +Now, tell me what you've been looking sad about." + +Is it possible that she was forgetting? + +"Oh, perhaps you can help me!" + +"Help you! Of course I will." + +"How did you know I was troubled?" she asked seriously, looking up into +his eyes. + +"Have I eyes?" he answered as seriously. "Father happened to think that +mother had an errand for him to do on this road, so I jumped off and ran +after you." + +"No, you ran after your mother's errand," she answered, jealously. + +"Well, then, I found you, my precise little maiden, and now you must tell +me what you were crying about." + +"Not spilt milk, but only a broken milk pitcher! _Do_ you think you can +find me a yellow pitcher, with yellow figures--a man, or a lion, or +something, a hundred or two hundred years old?" + +"In New York? I'm rather doubtful. Oh, I know--mother has some old ware, +it belonged to her grandmother, perhaps I can beg a piece of it for you. +Will it do if it isn't a pitcher?" + +"I'd rather have a pitcher, a yellow pitcher. The one I broke belongs to +a friend of Miss Prudence." + +"Prudence! Is she a Puritan maiden?" he asked. + +Marjorie felt very ignorant, she colored and was silent. She supposed +Helen Rheid would know what a Puritan maiden was. + +"I won't tease you," he said penitently. "I'll find you something to make +the loss good, perhaps I'll find something she'll like a great deal +better." + +"Mr. Onderdonk has a plate that came from Holland, it's over two hundred +years old he told Miss Prudence; oh, if you _could_ get that!" cried +Marjorie, clasping her hands in her eagerness. + +"Mr. Onderdonk? Oh, the shoemaker, near the schoolhouse. Well, Mousie, +you shall have some old thing if I have to go back a century to get it. +Helen will be interested to know all about it; I've told her about you." + +"There's nothing to tell about me," returned Marjorie. + +"Then I must have imagined it; you used to be such a cunning little +thing." + +"_Used to be!_" repeated sensitive Marjorie, to herself. She was sure +Hollis was disappointed in her. And she thought he was so tall and wise +and handsome and grand! She could never be disappointed in him. + +How surprised she would have been had she known that Helen's eyes had +filled with tears when Hollis told her how his little friend had risen +all alone in that full church! Helen thought she could never be like +Marjorie. + +"I wish you had a picture of how you used to look for me to show Helen." + +Not how she looked to-day! Her lips quivered and she kept her eyes on her +dusty shoes. + +"I suppose you want the pitcher immediately." + +Two years ago Hollis would have said "right away." + +After that Marjorie never forgot to say "immediately." + +"Yes, I would," she said, slowly. "I've hidden the pieces away and nobody +knows it is broken." + +"That isn't like you," Hollis returned, disappointedly. + +"Oh, I didn't do it to deceive; I couldn't. I didn't want her to be sorry +about it until I could see what I could do to replace it" + +"That sounds better." + +Marjorie felt very much as if he had been finding fault with her. + +"Will you have to pay for it?" + +"Not if mother gives it to me, but perhaps I shall exact some return from +you." + +She met his grave eyes fully before she spoke. "Well, I'll give you all I +can earn. I have only seventy-three cents; father gives me one tenth of +the eggs for hunting them and feeding the chickens, and I take them to +the store. That's the only way I can earn money," she said in her sweet +half-abashed voice. + +A picture of Helen taking eggs to "the store" flashed upon Hollis' +vision; he smiled and looked down upon his little companion with +benignant eyes. + +"I could give you all I have and send you the rest. Couldn't I?" she +asked. + +"Yes, that would do. But you must let me set my own price," he returned +in a business like tone. + +"Oh I will. I'd do anything to get Miss Prudence a pitcher," she said +eagerly. + +The faded muslin brushed against him; and how odd and old-fashioned her +hat was! He would not have cared to go on a picnic with Marjorie in this +attire; suppose he had taken her into the crowd of girls among which his +cousin Helen was so noticeable last week, how they would have looked at +her! They would think he had found her at some mission school. Was her +father so poor, or was this old dress and broad hat her mother's taste? +Anyway, there was a guileless and bright face underneath the flapping +hat and her voice was as sweet as Helen's even it there was such an +old-fashioned tone about it. One word seemed to sum up her dress and +herself--old-fashioned. She talked like some little old grandmother. +She was more than quaint--she was antiquated. That is, she was antiquated +beside Helen. But she did not seem out of place here in the country; he +was thinking of her on a city pavement, in a city parlor, or among a +group of fluttering, prettily dressed city girls, with their modulated +voices, animated gestures and laughing, bright replies. There was light +and fire about them and Marjorie was such a demure little mouse. + +"Don't fret about it any more," he said, kindly, with his grown-up air, +patting her shoulder with a light, caressing touch. "I will take it into +my hands and you need not think of it again." + +"Oh, thank you! thank you!" she cried, her eyes brimming over. + +It was the old Hollis, after all; he could do anything and everything she +wanted. + +Forgetting her shyness, after that home-like touch upon her shoulder, she +chatted all the way home. And he did not once think that she was a quiet +little mouse. + +He did not like "quiet" people; perhaps because his own spirit was so +quiet that it required some effort for him to be noisy. Hollis admired +most characteristics unlike his own; he did not know, but he _felt_ that +Marjorie was very much like himself. She was more like him than he was +like her. They were two people who would be very apt to be drawn together +under all circumstances, but without special and peculiar training could +never satisfy each other. This was true of them even now, and, if +possible with the enlarged vision of experience, became truer as they +grew older. If they kept together they might grow together; but, the +question is, whether of themselves they would ever have been drawn very +close together. They were close enough together now, as Marjorie chatted +and Hollis listened; he had many questions to ask about the boys and +girls of the village and Marjorie had many stories to relate. + +"So George Harris and Nell True are really married!" he said. "So young, +too!" + +"Yes, mother did not like it. She said they were too young. He always +liked her best at school, you know. And when she joined the Church she +was so anxious for him to join, too, and she wrote him a note about it +and he answered it and they kept on writing and then they were married." + +"Did he join the Church?" asked Hollis, + +"He hasn't yet." + +"It is easier for girls to be good than for boys," rejoined Hollis in an +argumentative tone, + +"Is it? I don't see how." + +"Of course you don't. We are in the world where the temptations are; what +temptations do _you_ have?" + +"I have enough. But I don't want to go out in the world where more +temptations are. Don't you know--" She colored and stopped, + +"Know what?" + +"About Christ praying that his disciples might be kept from the evil that +was in the world, not that they might be taken out of the world. They +have _got_ to be in the world." + +"Yes." + +"And," she added sagely, "anybody can be good where no temptations are." + +"Is that why girls are good?" + +"I don't think girls are good." + +"The girls I know are." + +"You know city girls," she said archly. "We country girls have the world +in our own hearts." + +There was nothing of "the world" in the sweet face that he looked down +into, nothing of the world in the frank, true voice. He had been wronging +her; how much there was in her, this wise, old, sweet little Marjorie! + +"Have you forgotten your errand?" she asked, after a moment. + +"No, it is at Mr. Howard's, the house beyond yours." + +"I'm glad you had the errand." + +"So am I. I should have gone home and not known anything about you." + +"And I should have stayed tangled in the black berry vines ever so long," +she laughed. + +"You haven't told me why you were there." + +"Because I was silly," she said emphatically. + +"Do silly people always hide in blackberry vines?" he questioned, +laughing. + +"Silly people like me," she said. + +At that moment they stopped in front of the gate of Marjorie's home; +through the lilac-bushes--the old fence was overgrown with lilacs--Hollis +discerned some bright thing glimmering on the piazza. The bright thing +possessed a quick step and a laugh, for it floated towards them and when +it appeared at the gate Hollis found that it was only Linnet. + +There was nothing of the mouse about Linnet. + +"Why, Marjie, mother said you might stay till dark." + +Linnet was seventeen, but she was not too grown up for "mother said" to +be often on her lips. + +"I didn't want to," said Marjorie. "Good-bye, Hollis. I'm going to hunt +eggs." + +"I'd go with you, it's rare fun to hunt eggs, only I haven't seen +Linnet--yet." + +"And you must see Linnet--yet," laughed Linnet, "Hollis, what a big boy +you've grown to be!" she exclaimed regarding him critically; the new +suit, the black onyx watch-chain, the blonde moustache, the full height, +and last of all the friendly brown eyes with the merry light in them. + +"What a big girl you've grown to be, Linnet," he retorted surveying her +critically and admiringly. + +There was fun and fire and changing lights, sauciness and defiance, with +a pretty little air of deference, about Linnet. She was not unlike his +city girl friends; even her dress was more modern and tasteful than +Marjorie's. + +"Marjorie is so little and doesn't care," she often pleaded with their +mother when there was not money enough for both. And Marjorie looked on +and held her peace. + +Self-sacrifice was an instinct with Marjorie. + +"I am older and must have the first chance," Linnet said. + +So Marjorie held back and let Linnet have the chances. + +Linnet was to have the "first chance" at going to school in September. +Marjorie stayed one moment looking at the two as they talked, proud of +Linnet and thinking that Hollis must think she, at least, was something +like his cousin Helen, and then she hurried away hoping to return with +her basket of eggs before Hollis was gone. Hollis was almost like some +one in a story-book to her. I doubt if she ever saw any one as other +people saw them; she always saw so much. She needed only an initial; it +was easy enough to fill out the word. She hurried across the yard, opened +the large barn-yard gate, skipped across the barn-yard, and with a little +leap was in the barn floor. Last night she had forgotten to look in the +mow; she would find a double quantity hidden away there to-night. She +wondered if old Queen Bess were still persisting in sitting on nothing in +the mow's far dark corner; tossing away her hindering hat and catching up +an old basket, she ran lightly up the ladder to the mow. She never +remembered that she ran up the ladder. + +An hour later--Linnet knew that it was an hour later--Marjorie found +herself moving slowly towards the kitchen door. She wanted to see her +mother. Lifting the latch she staggered in. + +She was greeted with a scream from Linnet and with a terrified +exclamation from her mother. + +"Marjorie, what _is_ the matter?" cried her mother catching her in her +arms. + +"Nothing," said Marjorie, wondering. + +"Nothing! You are purple as a ghost!" exclaimed Linnet, "and there's a +lump on your forehead as big as an egg." + +"Is there?" asked Marjorie, in a trembling voice. + +"Did you fall? Where did you fall?" asked her mother shaking her gently. +"Can't you speak, child?" + +"I--didn't--fall," muttered Marjorie, slowly. + +"Yes, you did," said Linnet. "You went after eggs." + +"Eggs," repeated Marjorie in a bewildered voice. + +"Linnet, help me quick to get her on to the sitting-room lounge! Then get +pillows and a comforter, and then run for your father to go for the +doctor." + +"There's nothing the matter," persisted the child, smiling weakly. "I can +walk, mother. Nothing hurts me." + +"Doesn't your head ache?" asked Linnet, guiding her steps as her head +rested against her mother's breast. + +"No." + +"Don't you ache _anywhere?_" questioned her mother, as they led her to +the lounge. + +"No, ma'am. Why should I? I didn't fall." + +Linnet brought the pillow and comforter, and then ran out through the +back yard calling, "Father! Father!" + +Down the road Hollis heard the agonized cry, and turning hastened back to +the house. + +"Oh, go for the doctor quick!" cried Linnet, catching him by the arm; +"something dreadful has happened to Marjorie, and she doesn't know what +it is." + +"Is there a horse in the stable?" + +"Oh, no, I forgot. And mother forgot Father has gone to town." + +"I'll get a horse then--somewhere on the road--don't be so frightened. +Dr. Peck will be here in twenty minutes after I find him." + +Linnet flew back to satisfy her mother that the doctor had been sent for, +and found Marjorie reiterating to her mother's repeated inquiries: + +"I don't ache anywhere; I'm not hurt at all." + +"Where were you, child." + +"I wasn't--anywhere," she was about to say, then smiled, for she knew she +must have been somewhere. + +"What happened after you said good-bye to Hollis?" questioned Linnet, +falling on her knees beside her little sister, and almost taking her into +her arms. + +"Nothing." + +"Oh, dear, you're crazy!" sobbed Linnet. + +Marjorie smiled faintly and lifted her hand to stroke Linnet's cheeks. + +"I won't hurt _you_," she comforted tenderly. + +"I know what I'll do!" exclaimed Mrs. West suddenly and emphatically, "I +can put hot water on that bump; I've heard that's good." + +Marjorie closed her eyes and lay still; she was tired of talking about +something that had not happened at all. She remembered afterward that the +doctor came and opened a vein in her arm, and that he kept the blood +flowing until she answered "Yes, sir," to his question, "Does your head +hurt you _now_?" She remembered all their faces--how Linnet cried and +sobbed, how Hollis whispered, "I'll get a pitcher, Mousie, if I have to +go to China for it," and how her father knelt by the lounge when he came +home and learned that it had happened and was all over, how he knelt and +thanked God for giving her back to them all out of her great danger. That +night her mother sat by her bedside all night long, and she remembered +saying to her: + +"If I had been killed, I should have waked up in Heaven without knowing +that I had died. It would have been like going to Heaven without dying." + + + + +V. + +TWO PROMISES. + +"He who promiseth runs in debt." + + +Hollis held a mysterious looking package in his hand when he came in the +next day; it was neatly done up in light tissue paper and tied with +yellow cord. It looked round and flat, not one bit like a pitcher, unless +some pitchers a hundred years ago _were_ flat. + +Marjorie lay in delicious repose upon the parlor sofa, with the green +blinds half closed, the drowsiness and fragrance of clover in the air +soothed her, rather, quieted her, for she was not given to nervousness; +a feeling of safety enwrapped her, she was _here_ and not very much hurt, +and she was loved and petted to her heart's content. And that is saying a +great deal for Marjorie, for _her_ heart's content was a very large +content. Linnet came in softly once in a while to look at her with +anxious eyes and to ask, "How do you feel now?" Her mother wandered in +and out as if she could rest in nothing but in looking at her, and her +father had given her one of his glad kisses before he went away to the +mowing field. Several village people having heard of the accident through +Hollis and the doctor had stopped at the door to inquire with a +sympathetic modulation of voice if she were any better. But the safe +feeling was the most blessed of all. Towards noon she lay still with her +white kitten cuddled up in her arms, wondering who would come next; +Hollis had not come, nor Miss Prudence, nor the new minister, nor +grandma, nor Josie Grey; she was wishing they would all come to-day when +she heard a quick step on the piazza and a voice calling out to somebody. + +"I won't stay five minutes, father." + +The next instant the handsome, cheery face was looking in at the parlor +door and the boisterous "vacation" voice was greeting her with, + +"Well, Miss Mousie! How about the tumble down now?" + +But her eyes saw nothing excepting the mysterious, flat, round parcel in +his hand. + +"Oh, Hollis, I'm so glad!" she exclaimed, raising herself upon one elbow. + +The stiff blue muslin was rather crumpled by this time, and in place of +the linen collar and old-fashioned pin her mother had tied a narrow scarf +of white lace about her throat; her hair was brushed back and braided in +two heavy braids and her forehead was bandaged in white. + +"Well, Marjorie, you _are_ a picture, I must say," he cried, bounding in. +"Why don't you jump up and take another climb?" + +"I want to. I want to see the swallow's nest again; I meant to have fed +the swallows last night" + +"Where are they?" + +"Oh, up in the eaves. Linnet and I have climbed up and fed them." + +As he dropped on his knees on the carpet beside the sofa she fell back on +her pillow. + +"Father is waiting for me to go to town with him and I can't stay. You +will soon be climbing up to see the swallows again and hunting eggs and +everything as usual." + +"Oh, yes, indeed," said Marjorie, hopefully. + +Watching her face he laid the parcel in her hand. "Don't open it till I'm +gone. I had something of a time to get it. The old fellow was as +obstinate as a mule when he saw that my heart was set on it. Mother +hadn't a thing old enough--I ransacked everywhere--if I'd had time to go +to grandmother's I might have done better. She's ninety-three, you know, +and has some of her grandmother's things. This thing isn't a beauty to +look at, but it's old, and that's the chief consideration. Extreme old +age will compensate for its ugliness; which is an extenuation that I +haven't for mine. I'm going to-morrow." + +"Oh, I want to see it," she exclaimed, not regarding his last remark. + +"That's all you care," he said, disappointedly. "I thought you would be +sorry that I'm going." + +"You know I am," she returned penitently, picking at the yellow cord. + +"Perhaps when I am two hundred years old you'll be as anxious to look at +me as you are to look at that!" + +"Oh, Hollis, I do thank you so." + +"But you must promise me two things or you can't have it!" + +"I'll promise twenty." + +"Two will do until next time. First, will you go and see my mother as +soon as you get well, and go often?" + +"That's too easy; I want to do something _hard_ for you," she answered +earnestly. + +"Perhaps you will some day, who knows? There are hard enough things to do +for people, I'm finding out. But, have you promised?" + +"Yes, I have promised." + +"And I know you keep your promises. I'm sure you won't forget. Poor +mother isn't happy; she's troubled." + +"About you?" + +"No, about herself, because she isn't a Christian." + +"That's enough to trouble anybody," said Marjorie, wisely. + +"Now, one more promise in payment. Will you write to me every two weeks?" + +"Oh, I couldn't," pleaded Marjorie. + +"Now you've found something too hard to do for me," he said, +reproachfully. + +"Oh, I'll do it, of course; but I'm afraid." + +"You'll soon get over that. You see mother doesn't write often, and +father never does, and I'm often anxious about them, and if you write and +tell me about them twice a month I shall be happier. You see you are +doing something for me." + +"Yes, thank you. I'll do the best I can. But I can't write like your +cousin Helen," she added, jealously. + +"No matter. You'll do; and you will be growing older and constantly +improving and I shall begin to travel for the house by and by and my +letters will be as entertaining as a book of travels." + +"Will you write to me? I didn't think of that." + +"Goosie!" he laughed, giving her Linnet's pet name. "Certainly I will +write as often as you do, and you mustn't stop writing until your last +letter has not been answered for a month." + +"I'll remember," said Marjorie, seriously. "But I wish I could do +something else. Did you have to pay money for it?" + +Marjorie was accustomed to "bartering" and that is the reason that she +used the expression "pay money." + +"Well, yes, something," he replied, pressing his lips together. + +He was angry with the shoemaker about that bargain yet. + +"How much? I want to pay you." + +"Ladies never ask a gentleman such a question when they make them a +present," he said, laughing as he arose. "Imagine Helen asking me how +much I paid for the set of books I gave her on her birthday." + +The tears sprang to Marjorie's eyes. Had she done a dreadful thing that +Helen would not think of doing? + +Long afterward she learned that he gave for the plate the ten dollars +that his father gave him for a "vacation present." + +"Good-bye, Goosie, keep both promises and don't run up a ladder again +until you learn how to run down." + +But she could not speak yet for the choking in her throat. + +"You have paid me twice over with those promises," he said. "I am glad +you broke the old yellow pitcher." + +So was she even while her heart was aching. Her fingers held the parcel +tightly; what a hearts-ease it was! It had brought her peace of mind that +was worth more hard promises than she could think of making. + +"He said his father's great-grandfather had eaten out of that plate over +in Holland and he had but one more left to bequeath to his little +grandson." + +"I'm glad the great-grandfather didn't break it," said Marjorie. + +Hollis would not disturb her serenity by remarking that the shoemaker +_might_ have added a century to the age of his possession; it looked two +hundred years old, anyway. + +"Good-bye, again, if you don't get killed next time you fall you may live +to see me again. I'll wear a linen coat and smell of cheese and smoke a +pipe too long for me to light myself by that time--when I come home from +Germany." + +"Oh, don't," she exclaimed, in a startled voice. + +"Which? The coat or the cheese or the pipe." + +"I don't care about the cheese or the coat--" + +"You needn't be afraid about the pipe; I promised mother to-day that I +would never smoke or drink or play cards." + +"That's good," said Marjorie, contentedly. + +"And so she feels safe about me; safer than I feel about myself, I +reckon. But it _is_ good-bye this time. I'll tell Helen what a little +mouse and goose you are!" + +"Hollis! _Hollis!_" shouted a gruff voice, impatiently. + +"Aye, aye, sir," Hollis returned. "But I must say good-bye to your mother +and Linnet." + +Instead of giving him a last look she was giving her first look to her +treasure. The first look was doubtful. It was not half as pretty as the +pitcher. It was not very large and there were innumerable tiny cracks +interlacing each other, there were little raised figures on the broad rim +and a figure in the centre, the colors were buff and blue. But it was a +treasure, twofold more a treasure than the yellow pitcher, for it was +twice as old and had come from Holland. The yellow pitcher had only come +from England. Miss Prudence would be satisfied that she had not hidden +the pitcher to escape detection, and perhaps her friend might like this +ancient plate a great deal better and be glad of what had befallen the +pitcher. But suppose Miss Prudence did believe all this time that she had +hidden the broken pieces and meant, never to tell! At that, she could not +forbear squeezing her face into the pillow and dropping a few very +sorrowful tears. Still she was glad, even with a little contradictory +faint-heartedness, for Hollis would write to her and she would never lose +him again. And she could _do_ something _for_ him, something hard. + +Her mother, stepping in again, before the tears were dried upon her +cheek, listened to the somewhat incoherent story of the naughty thing she +had done and the splendid thing Hollis had done, and of how she had paid +him with two promises. + +Mrs. West examined the plate critically. "It's old, there's no sham about +it. I've seen a few old things and I know. I shouldn't wonder if he gave +five dollars for it" + +"Five dollars!" repeated Marjorie in affright "Oh, I hope not." + +"Well, perhaps not, but it is worth it and more, too, to Miss Prudence's +friend." + +"And I'll keep my promises," said Marjorie's steadfast voice. + +"H'm," ejaculated her mother. "I rather think Hollis has the best of it." + +"That depends upon me," said wise little Marjorie. + + + + +VI. + +MARJORIE ASLEEP AND AWAKE. + +"She was made for happy thoughts."--_Mary Howlet._ + + +I wonder if there is anything, any little thing I should have said, that +tries a woman more than the changes in her own face, a woman that has +just attained two score and--an unmarried woman. Prudence Pomeroy was +discovering these changes in her own face and, it may be undignified, it +may be unchristian even, but she was tried. It was upon the morning of +her fortieth birthday, that, with considerable shrinking, she set out +upon a voyage of discovery upon the unknown sea of her own countenance. +It was unknown, for she had not cared to look upon herself for some +years, but she bolted her chamber door and set herself about it with grim +determination this birthday morning. It was a weakness, it may be, but we +all have hours of weakness within our bolted chamber doors. + +She had a hard early morning all by herself; but the battle with herself +did not commence until she shoved that bolt, pushed back the white +curtains, and stationed herself in the full glare of the sun light with +her hand-glass held before her resolute face. It was something to go +through; it was something to go through to read the record of a score of +birthdays past: but she had done that before the breakfast bell rang, +locked the old leathern bound volume in her trunk and arranged herself +for breakfast, and then had run down with her usual tripping step and +kept them all amused with her stories during breakfast time. But that was +before the door was bolted. She gazed long at the reflection of the face +that Time had been at work upon for forty years; there were the tiniest +creases in her forehead, they were something like the cracks in the plate +two hundred years old that Marjorie had sent to her last night, there +were unmistakable lines under her eyes, the pale tint of her cheek did +not erase them nor the soft plumpness render them invisible, they stared +at her with the story of relentless years; at the corners of her lips the +artistic fingers of Time had chiselled lines, delicate, it is true, but +clearly defined--a line that did not dent the cheeks of early maidenhood, +a line that had found no place near her own lips ten years ago; and above +her eyes--she had not discerned that, at first--there was a lack of +fullness, you could not name it hollowness; that was new, at least new to +her, others with keener eyes may have noticed it months ago, and there +was a yellowness--she might as well give it boldly its right name--at the +temple, decrease of fairness, she might call it, but that it was a +positive shade of that yellowness she had noticed in others no older than +herself; and, then, to return to her cheeks, or rather her chin, there +was a laxity about the muscles at the sides of her mouth that gave her +chin an elderly outline! No, it was not only the absence of youth, it was +the presence of age--her full forty years. And her hair! It was certainly +not as abundant as it used to be, it had wearied her, once, to brush out +its thick glossy length; it was becoming unmistakably thinner; she was +certainly slightly bald about the temples, and white hairs were +straggling in one after another, not attempting to conceal themselves. A +year ago she had selected them from the mass of black and cut them short, +but now they were appearing too fast for the scissors. It was a sad face, +almost a gloomy one, that she was gazing into: for the knowledge that her +forty years had done their work in her face as surely, and perhaps not as +sweetly as in her life had come to her with a shock. She was certainly +growing older and the signs of it were in her face, nothing could hide +it, even her increasing seriousness made it more apparent; not only +growing older, but growing old, the girls would say. Twenty years ago, +when she first began to write that birthday record, she had laughed at +forty and called it "old" herself. As she laid the hand-glass aside with +a half-checked sigh, her eyes fell upon her hand and wrist; it was +certainly losing its shapeliness; the fingers were as tapering as ever +and the palm as pink, but--there was a something that reminded her of +that plate of old china. She might be like a bit of old china, but she +was not ready to be laid upon the shelf, not even to be paid a price for +and be admired! She was in the full rush of her working days. Awhile ago +her friends had all addressed her as "Prudence," but now, she was not +aware when it began or how, she was "Miss Prudence" to every one who was +not within the nearest circle of intimacy. Not "Prudie" or "Prue" any +more. She had not been "Prudie" since her father and mother died, and not +"Prue" since she had lost that friend twenty years ago. + +In ten short years she would be fifty years old, and fifty was half a +century: old enough to be somebody's grandmother. Was she not the bosom +friend of somebody's grandmother to-day? Laura Harrowgate, her friend +and schoolmate, not one year her senior, was the grandmother of +three-months-old Laura. Was it possible that she herself did not belong +to "the present generation," but to a generation passed away? She had no +daughter to give place to, as Laura had, no husband to laugh at her +wrinkles and gray hairs, as Laura had, and to say, "We're growing old +together." If it were only "together" there would be no sadness in it. +But would she want it to be such a "together" as certain of her friends +shared? + +Laura Harrowgate was a grandmother, but still she would gush over that +plate from Holland two centuries old, buy a bracket for it and exhibit it +to her friends. A hand-glass did not make _her_ dolorous. A few years +since she would have rebelled against what the hand-glass revealed; but, +to-day, she could not rebel against God's will; assuredly it _was_ his +will for histories to be written in faces. Would she live a woman's life +and adorn herself with a baby's face? Had not her face been moulded by +her life? Had she stopped thinking and working ten years ago she might, +to-day, have looked at the face she looked at ten years ago. No, she +demurred, not a baby's face, but--then she laughed aloud at herself--was +not her fate the common fate of all? Who, among her friends, at forty +years of age, was ever taken, or mistaken, for twenty-five or thirty? And +if _she_ were, what then? Would her work be worth more to the world? +Would the angels encamp about her more faithfully or more lovingly? And, +then, was there not a face "marred"? Did he live his life upon the earth +with no sign of it in his face? Was it not a part of his human nature to +grow older? Could she be human and not grow old? If she lived she must +grow old; to grow old or to die, that was the question, and then she +laughed again, this time more merrily. Had she made the changes herself +by fretting and worrying; had she taken life too hard? Yes; she had taken +life hard. Another glance into the glass revealed another fact: her neck +was not as full and round and white as it once was: there was a +suggestion of old china about that, too. She would discard linen collars +and wear softening white ruffles; it would not be deceitful to hide +Time's naughty little tracery. She smiled this time; she _was_ coming to +a hard place in her life. She had believed--oh, how much in vain!--that +she had come to all the hard places and waded through them, but here +there was looming up another, fully as hard, perhaps harder, because it +was not so tangible and, therefore, harder to face and fight. The +acknowledging that she had come to this hard place was something. She +remembered the remark of an old lady, who was friendless and poor: "The +hardest time of my life was between forty and forty-five; I had to accept +several bitter facts that after became easier to bear." Prudence Pomeroy +looked at herself, then looked up to God and accepted, submissively, even +cheerfully, his fact that she had begun to grow old, and then, she +dressed herself for a walk and with her sun-umbrella and a volume of +poems started out for her tramp along the road and through the fields to +find her little friend Marjorie. The china plate and pathetic note last +night had moved her strangely. Marjorie was in the beginning of things. +What was her life worth if not to help such as Marjorie live a worthier +life than her own two score years had been? + +A face flushed with the long walk looked in at the window upon Marjorie +asleep. The child was sitting near the open window in a wooden rocker +with padded arms and back and covered with calico with a green ground +sprinkled over with butterflies and yellow daisies; her head was thrown +back against the knitted tidy of white cotton, and her hands were resting +in her lap; the blue muslin was rather more crumpled than when she had +seen it last, and instead of the linen collar the lace was knotted about +her throat. The bandage had been removed from her forehead, the swelling +had abated but the discolored spot was plainly visible; her lips were +slightly parted, her cheeks were rosy; if this were the "beginning of +things" it was a very sweet and peaceful beginning. + +Entering the parlor with a soft tread Miss Prudence divested herself of +hat, gloves, duster and umbrella, and, taking a large palm leaf fan from +the table, seated herself near the sleeper, gently waving the fan to and +fro as a fly lighted on Marjorie's hands or face. On the window seat were +placed a goblet half filled with lemonade, a small Bible, a book that had +the outward appearance of being a Sunday-school library book, and a copy +in blue and gold of the poems of Mrs. Hemans. Miss Prudence remembered +her own time of loving Mrs. Hemans and had given this copy to Marjorie; +later, she had laid her aside for Longfellow, as Marjorie would do by and +by, and, in his turn, she had given up Longfellow for Tennyson and Mrs. +Browning, as, perhaps, Marjorie would never do. She had brought Jean +Ingelow with her this morning to try "Brothers and a Sermon" and the +"Songs of Seven" with Marjorie. Marjorie was a natural elocutionist; Miss +Prudence was afraid of spoiling her by unwise criticism. The child must +thoroughly appreciate a poem, forget herself, and then her rendering +would be more than Miss Prudence with all her training could perfectly +imitate. + +"Don't teach her too much; she'll want to be an actress," remonstrated +Marjorie's father after listening to Marjorie's reading one day. + +Miss Prudence laughed and Marjorie looked perplexed. + +"Marjorie is to comfort with her reading as some do by singing," she +replied. "Wait till you are old and she reads the Bible to you!" + +"She reads to me now," he said. "She read 'The Children of the Lord's +Supper' to me last night." + +Miss Prudence moved the fan backward and forward and studied the +sleeping, innocent face. I had almost written "sweet" again; I can +scarcely think of her face, as it was then, without writing sweet. It +would be long, Miss Prudence mused, before lines and creases intruded +here and there in that smooth forehead, and in the tinted cheeks that +dimpled at the least provocation; but life would bring them in time, and +they would add beauty if there were no bitterness nor hardness in them. +If the Holy Spirit dwelt in the temple of the body were not the lines +upon the face his handwriting? She knew more than one old face that +was growing more attractive with each year of life. + +The door was pushed open and Mrs. West's broad shoulders and motherly +face appeared. Miss Prudence smiled and laid her finger on her lips and, +smiling, too, the mother moved away. Linnet, in her kitchen apron, and +with the marks of the morning's baking on her fingers, next looked in, +nodded and ran away. After awhile, the sleeping eyelids quivered and +lifted themselves; a quick flush, a joyous exclamation and Marjorie +sprang into her friend's arms. + +"I _felt_ as if I were not alone! How long have you been here? Oh, why +_didn't_ you speak to me or touch me?" + +"I wanted to have the pleasure all on my side. I never saw you asleep +before." + +"I hope I didn't keep my mouth open and snore." + +"Oh, no, your lips were gently apart and you breathed regularly as they +would say in books!" + +Marjorie laughed, released Miss Prudence from the tight clasp and went +back to her chair. + +"You received my note and the plate," she said anxiously. + +"Both in perfect preservation. There was not one extra crack in the +plate, it was several hours older than when it left your hands, but that +only increases its value." + +"And did you think I was dreadful not to confess before?" asked Marjorie, +tremulously. + +"I thought you were dreadful to run away from me instead of _to_ me." + +"I was so sorry; I wanted to get something else before you knew about it. +Did you miss it?" + +"I missed something in the room, I could not decide what it was." + +"Will the plate do, do you think? Is it handsome enough?" + +"It is old enough, that is all the question. Do you know all about +Holland when that plate first came into existence?" + +"No; I only know there _was_ a Holland." + +"That plate will be a good point to begin with. You and I will study up +Holland some day. I wonder what you know about it now." + +"Is that why your friend wants the plate, because she knows about Holland +two hundred years ago?" + +"No; I'm afraid not. I don't believe she knows more than you do about it. +But she will delight in the plate. Which reminds me, your uncle has +promised to put the unfortunate pitcher together for me. And in its +mended condition it will appear more ancient than ever. I cannot say that +George Washington broke it with his little hatchet; but I can have a +legend about you connected with it, and tell it to your grandchildren +when I show it to them fifty years hence. Unto them I will discover--not +a swan's nest among the reeds, as Mrs. Browning has it, but an old yellow +pitcher that their lovely grandmother was in trouble about fifty years +ago." + +"It will be a hundred and fifty years old then," returned Marjorie, +seriously, "and I think," she added rebukingly, "that _you_ were building +castles then." + +"I had you and the pitcher for the foundation," said Miss Prudence, in a +tone of mock humility. + +"Don't you think--" Marjorie's face had a world of suggestion in +it--"that 'The Swan's Nest' is bad influence for girls? Little Ellie sits +alone and builds castles about her lover, even his horse is 'shod in +silver, housed in azure' and a thousand serfs do call him master, and he +says 'O, Love, I love but thee.'" + +"But all she looks forward to is showing him the swan's nest among the +reeds! And when she goes home, around a mile, as she did daily, lo, the +wild swan had deserted and a rat had gnawed the reeds. That was the end +of her fine castle!" + +"'If she found the lover, ever, + Sooth, I know not, but I know +She could never show him, never, + That swan's nest among the reeds,'" + +quoted Marjorie. "So it did all come to nothing." + +"As air-castles almost always do. But we'll hope she found something +better." + +"Do people?" questioned Marjorie. + +"Hasn't God things laid up for us better than we can ask or think or +build castles about?" + +"I _hope_ so," said Marjorie; "but Hollis Rheid's mother told mother +yesterday that her life was one long disappointment." + +"What did your mother say?" + +"She said 'Oh, Mrs. Rheid, it won't be if you get to Heaven, at last.'" + +"I think not." + +"But she doesn't expect to go to Heaven, she says. Mother says she's +almost in 'despair' and she pities her so!" + +"Poor woman! I don't see how she can live through despair. The old +proverb 'If it were not for hope, the heart would break,' is most +certainly true." + +"Why didn't you come before?" asked Marjorie, caressing the hand that +still played with the fan. + +"Perhaps you never lived on a farm and cannot understand. I could not +come in the ox-cart because the oxen were in the field, and every day +since I heard of your accident your uncle has had to drive your aunt to +Portland on some business. And I did not feel strong enough to walk until +this morning." + +"How good you are to walk!" + +"As good as you are to walk to see me." + +"Oh, but I am young and strong, and I wanted to see you so, and ask you +questions so." + +"I believe the latter," said Miss Prudence smiling. + +"Well, I'm happy now," Marjorie sighed, with the burden of her trouble +still upon her. "Suppose I had been killed when I fell and had not told +you about the pitcher nor made amends for it." + +"I don't believe any of us could be taken away without one moment to make +ready and not leave many things undone--many tangled threads and rough +edges to be taken care of. We are very happy if we have no sin to +confess, no wrong to make right." + +"I think Hollis would have taken care of the plate for me," said +Marjorie, simply; "but I wanted to tell you myself. Mother wants to go +home as suddenly as that would have been for me, she says. I shouldn't +wonder if she prays about it--she prays about everything. Do people have +_that_ kind of a prayer answered?" + +"I have known more than one instance--and I read about a gentleman who +had desired to be taken suddenly and he was killed by lightning while +sitting on his own piazza." + +"Oh!" said Marjorie. + +"That was all he could have wished. And the mother of my pastor at home, +who was over ninety, was found dead on her knees at her bedside, and she +had always wished to be summoned suddenly." + +"When she was speaking to him, too," murmured Marjorie. "I like old +people, don't you? Hollis' grandmother is at his house and Mrs. Rheid +wants me to go to see her; she is ninety-three and blind, and she loves +to tell stories about herself, and I am to stay all day and listen to her +and take up her stitches when she drops them in her knitting work and +read the Bible to her. She won't listen to anything but the Bible; she +says she's too old to hear other books read." + +"What a treat you will have!" + +"Isn't it lovely? I never had _that_ day in my air-castles, either. Nor +you coming to stay all day with me, nor writing to Hollis. I had a letter +from him last night, the funniest letter! I laughed all the time I was +reading it. He begins: 'Poor little Mousie,' and ends, 'ours, till next +time.' I'll show it to you. He doesn't say much about Helen. I shall tell +him if I write about his mother he must write about Helen. I'm sorry to +tell him what his mother said yesterday about herself but I promised and +I must be faithful." + +"I hope you will have happy news to write soon." + +"I don't know; she says the minister doesn't do her any good, nor reading +the Bible nor praying. Now what can help her?" + +"God," was the solemn reply. "She has had to learn that the minister and +Bible reading and prayer are not God. When she is sure that God will do +all the helping and saving, she will be helped and saved. Perhaps she has +gone to the minister and the Bible instead of to God, and she may have +thought her prayers could save her instead of God." + +"She said she was in despair because they did not help her and she did +not know where to turn next," said Marjorie, who had listened with +sympathetic eyes and aching heart. + +"Don't worry about her, dear, God is teaching her to turn to himself." + +"I told her about the plate, but she did not seem to care much. What +different things people _do_ care about!" exclaimed Marjorie, her eyes +alight with the newness of her thought. + +"Mrs. Harrowgate will never be perfectly satisfied until she has a +memorial of Pompeii. I've promised when I explore underground I'll find +her a treasure. Your Holland plate is something for her small collection; +she has but eighty-seven pieces of china, while a friend of hers has +gathered together two hundred." + +"What do _you_ care for most, Miss Prudence? + +"In the way of collections? I haven't shown you my penny buried in the +lava of Mt. Vesuvius; I told my friend that savored of Pompeii, the only +difference is one is above ground and the other underneath, but I +couldn't persuade her to believe it." + +"I don't mean collecting coins or things; I mean what do you care for +_most_?" + +"If you haven't discovered, I cannot care very much for what I care for +most." + +Marjorie laughed at this way of putting it, then she answered gravely: "I +do know. I think you care most--" she paused, choosing her phrase +carefully--"to help people make something out of themselves." + +"Thank you. That's fine. I never put it so excellently to myself." + +"I haven't found out what I care most for." + +"I think I know. You care most to make something out of yourself." + +"Do I? Isn't that selfish? But I don't know how to help any one else, not +even Linnet." + +"Making the best of ourselves is the foundation for making something out +of others." + +"But I didn't say _that_" persisted Marjorie. "You help people to do it +for themselves." + +"I wonder if that is my work in the world," rejoined Miss Prudence, +musingly. "I could not choose anything to fit me better--I had no thought +that I have ever succeeded; I never put it to myself in that way." + +"Perhaps I'll begin some day. Helen Rheid helps Hollis. He isn't the same +boy; he studies and buys books and notices things to be admired in +people, and when he is full of fun he isn't rough. I don't believe I ever +helped anybody." + +"You have some work to do upon yourself first. And I am sure you have +helped educate your mother and father." + +Marjorie pulled to pieces the green leaf that had floated in upon her lap +and as she kept her eyes on the leaf she pondered. + +Her companion was "talking over her head" purposely to-day; she had a +plan for Marjorie and as she admitted to herself she was "trying the +child to see what she was made of." + +She congratulated herself upon success thus far. + +"That children do educate their mothers is the only satisfactory reason I +have found when I have questioned why God does give children to _some_ +mothers." + +"Then what becomes of the children?" asked Marjorie, alarmed. + +"The Giver does not forget them; he can be a mother himself, you know." + +Marjorie did not know; she had always had her mother. Had she lost +something, therefore, in not thus finding out God? Perhaps, in after life +she would find his tenderness by losing--or not having--some one else. It +was not too bad, for it would be a great pity if there were not such +interruptions, but at this instant Linnet's housewifely face was pushed +in at the door, and her voice announced: "Dinner in three minutes and a +half! Chicken-pie for the first course and some new and delicious thing +for dessert." + +"Oh, splendid!" cried Marjorie, hopping up. "And we'll finish everything +after dinner, Miss Prudence." + +"As the lady said to the famous traveller at a dinner party: 'We have +five minutes before dinner, please tell me all about your travels,'" said +Miss Prudence, rising and laughing. + +"You remember you haven't told me what you sent me for the Bible to show +me that unhappy--no, happy time--I broke the picture," reminded Marjorie, +leading the way to the dining-room. + + + + +VII. + +UNDER THE APPLE-TREE. + +"Never the little seed stops in its growing."--_Mrs. Osgood._ + + +Linnet moved hither and thither, after the dinner dishes were done, all +through the house, up stairs and down, to see that everything was in +perfect order before she might dress and enjoy the afternoon. Linnet was +pre-eminently a housekeeper, to her mother's great delight, for her +younger daughter was not developing according to her mind in housewifely +arts. + +"That will come in time," encouraged Marjorie's father when her mother +spoke faultfindingly of some delinquency in the kitchen. + +"I should like to know _what_ time!" was the sharp reply. + +It was queer about Marjorie's mother, she was as sharp as she was +good-humored. + +"Linnet has no decided tastes about anything but housekeeping and +fancy-work, and Marjorie has some other things to be growing in," said +her father. + +"I wish she would grow to some purpose then," was the energetic reply. + +"As the farmer said about his seed before it was time for it to sprout," +laughed the children's father. + +This father and mother could not talk confidentially together five +minutes without bringing the "children" in. + +Their own future was every day; but the children had not begun to live in +theirs yet; their golden future, which was to be all the more golden +because of their parents' experiences. + +This mother was so very old-fashioned that she believed that there was no +career open to a girl beside marriage; the dreadful alternative was +solitary old-maidenhood. She was a good mother, in many respects a wise +mother; but she would not have slept that night had she believed that +either of her daughters would attain to thirty years unmarried. This may +have been owing to a defect of education, or it may have been that she +was so happily married to a husband six years her junior--whom she could +manage. And she was nearly thirty when she was married herself and had +really begun to believe that she should never be married at all. She +believed marriage to be so honorable in all, that the absence of it, as +in Miss Prudence's case, was nearly dishonorable. She was almost a Jewish +mother in her reverence for marriage and joyfulness for the blessing of +children. This may have been the result of her absorbed study of the Old +Testament Scriptures. Marjorie had wondered why her mother in addressing +the Lord had cried, "O, Lord God of Israel," and instead of any other +name nearer New Testament Christians, she would speak of him as "The Holy +One of Israel." Sometimes I have thought that Marjorie's mother began her +religious life as a Jew, and that instead of being a Gentile Christian +she was in reality a converted Jew, something like what Elizabeth would +have been if she had been more like Marjorie's mother and Graham West's +wife. This type of womanhood is rare in this nineteenth century; for +aught I know, she is not a representative woman, at all; she is the only +one I ever knew, and perhaps you never saw any one like her. She has no +heresies, she can prove every assertion from the Bible, her principles +are as firm as adamant and her heart as tender as a mother's. Still, +marriage and motherhood have been her education; if the Connecticut, +school-teacher had not realized her worth, she might have become what she +dreaded her own daughters becoming--an old maid with uncheerful views of +life. In planning their future she looked into her own heart instead of +into theirs. + +The children were lovely blossomings of the seed in the hearts of both +parents; of seeds, that in them had not borne abundant fruitage. + +"How did two such cranky old things ever have such happy children!" she +exclaimed one day to her husband. + +"Perhaps they will become what we stopped short of being," he replied. + +Graham West was something of a philosopher; rather too much of a +philosopher for his wife's peace of mind. To her sorrow she had learned +that he had no "business tact," he could not even scrape a comfortable +living off his scrubby little farm. + +But I began with Linnet and fell to discoursing about her mother; it was +Linnet, as she appeared in her grayish brown dress with a knot of crimson +at her throat, running down the stairway, that suggested her mother's +thought to me. + +"Linnet is almost growing up," she had said to herself as she removed her +cap for her customary afternoon nap. This afternoon nap refreshed her +countenance and kept her from looking six years older than her husband. +Mrs. West was not a worldly woman, but she did not like to look six years +older than her husband. + +Linnet searched through parlor and hall, then out on the piazza, then +looked through the front yard, and, finally, having explored the garden, +found Marjorie and her friend in camp-chairs on the soft green turf under +the low hanging boughs of an apple-tree behind the house. There were two +or three books in Marjorie's lap, and Miss Prudence was turning the +leaves of Marjorie's Bible. She was answering one of Marjorie's questions +Linnet supposed and wondered if Marjorie would be satisfied with the +answer; she was not always satisfied, as the elder sister knew to her +grievance. For instance: Marjorie had said to her yesterday, with that +serious look in her eyes: "Linnet, father says when Christ was on earth +people didn't have wheat ground into fine flour as we do;--now when it is +so much nicer, why do you suppose he didn't tell them about grinding it +fine?" + +"Perhaps he didn't think of it," she replied, giving the first thought +that occurred to her. + +"That isn't the reason," returned Marjorie, "for he could think of +everything he wanted to." + +"Then--for the same reason why didn't he tell them about chloroform and +printing and telegraphing and a thousand other inventions?" questioned +Linnet in her turn. + +"That's what I want to know," said Marjorie. + +Linnet settled herself on the turf and drew her work from her pocket; she +was making a collar of tatting for her mother's birthday and working at +it at every spare moment. It was the clover leaf pattern, that she had +learned but a few weeks ago; the thread was very fine and she was doing +it exquisitely. She had shown it to Hollis because he was in the lace +business, and he had said it was a fine specimen of "real lace." To make +real lace was one of Linnet's ambitions. The lace around Marjorie's neck +was a piece that their mother had made towards her own wedding outfit. +Marjorie's mother sighed and feared that Marjorie would never care to +make lace for her wedding outfit. + +Linnet frowned over her clover leaf and Marjorie watched Miss Prudence as +she turned the leaves. Marjorie did not care for the clover leaf, only as +she was interested in everything that Linnet's fingers touched, but +Linnet did care for the answer to Marjorie's question. She thought +perhaps it was about the wheat. + +The Bible leaves were still, after a second Miss Prudence read: + +"'For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even +weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.'" + +_That_ was not the answer, Linnet thought. + +"What does that mean to you, Marjorie?" asked Miss Prudence. + +"Why--it can't mean anything different from what it says. Paul was so +sorry about the people he was writing about that he wept as he told +them--he was so sorry they were enemies of the cross of Christ." + +"Yes, he told them even weeping. But I knew an old gentleman who read the +Bible unceasingly--I saw one New Testament that he had read through +fifteen times--and he told me once that some people were so grieved +because they were the enemies of the cross of Christ that they were +enemies even weeping. I asked 'Why did they continue enemies, then?' and +he said most ingenuously that he supposed they could not help it. Then I +remembered this passage, and found it, and read it to him as I read it to +you just now. He was simply astounded. He put on his spectacles and read +it for himself. And then he said nothing. He had simply put the comma in +the wrong place. He had read it in this way: 'For many walk, of whom I +have told you often and now tell you, even weeping that they are the +enemies of the cross of Christ.'" + +"Oh," cried Marjorie, drawing an astonished long breath, "what a +difference it does make." + +"Now I know, it's punctuation you're talking about," exclaimed Linnet. +"Marjorie told me all about the people in the stage-coach. O, Miss +Prudence, I don't love to study; I want to go away to school, of course, +but I can't see the _use_ of so many studies. Marjorie _loves_ to study +and I don't; perhaps I would if I could see some use beside 'being like +other people.' Being like other people doesn't seem to me to be a _real_ +enough reason." + +Linnet had forgotten her clover leaf, she was looking at Miss Prudence +with eyes as grave and earnest as Marjorie's ever were. She did not love +to study and it was one of the wrong doings that she had confessed in her +prayers many a time. + +"Well, don't you see the reason now for studying punctuation?" + +"Yes, I do," she answered heartily. "But we don't like dates, either of +us." + +"Did you ever hear about Pompeii, the city buried long ago underground?" + +Linnet thought that had nothing to do with her question. + +"Oh, yes," said Marjorie, "we have read about it. 'The Last Days of +Pompeii' is in the school library. I read it, but Linnet didn't care for +it." + +"Do you know _when_ it was buried?" + +"No," said Linnet, brightening. + +"Have you any idea?" + +"A thousand years ago?" guessed Marjorie. + +"Then you do not know how long after the Crucifixion?" + +"No," they replied together. + +"You know when the Crucifixion was, of course?" + +"Why--yes," admitted Linnet, hesitatingly. + +"Christ was thirty-three years old," said Marjorie, "so it must have been +in the year 33, or the beginning of 34." + +"Of course I know _Anno Domini_," said Linnet; "but I don't always know +what happened before and after." + +"Suppose we were walking in one of the excavated streets of Pompeii and I +should say, 'O, girls! Look at that wall!' and you should see a rude +cross carved on it, what would you think?" + +"I should think they knew about Christ," answered Linnet. + +The clover leaf tatting had fallen into her lap and the shuttle was on +the grass. + +"Yes, and is that all?" + +"Why, yes," she acknowledged. + +"Pompeii wasn't so far, so very far from Jerusalem and--they could hear," +said Marjorie. + +"And you two would pass on to a grand house with a wonderful mosaic floor +and think no more about the cross." + +"I suppose we would," said Linnet "Wouldn't you?" + +"But I should think about the cross. I should think that the city was +destroyed in 79 and be rejoiced that the inhabitants had heard of the +Cross and knew its story before swift destruction overtook them. It was +destroyed about forty-five years after the Crucifixion." + +"I _like_ to know that," said Marjorie. "Perhaps some of the people in it +had seen St. Paul and heard him tell about the Cross." + +"I see some use in that date," said Linnet, picking up her shuttle. + +"Suppose I should tell you that once on a time a laborer would have to +work fifteen years to earn enough to buy a Bible and then the Bible must +be in Latin, wouldn't you like to know when it was." + +"I don't know when the Bible was printed in English," confessed Marjorie. + +"If you did know and knew several other things that happened about that +time you would be greatly interested. Suppose I should tell you about +something that happened in England, you would care very much more if you +knew about something that was linked with it in France, and in Germany. +If I say 1517 I do not arouse your enthusiasm; you don't know what was +happening in Germany then; and 1492 doesn't remind you of anything--" + +"Yes, it does," laughed Marjorie, "and so does 1620." + +"Down the bay on an island stand the ruins of a church, and an old lady +told me it was built in 1604. I did not contradict her, but I laughed +all to myself." + +"I know enough to laugh at that," said Linnet. + +"But I have seen in America the spot where Jamestown stood and that dates +almost as far back. Suppose I tell you that Martin Luther read _Pilgrims +Progress_ with great delight, do you know whether I am making fun or not? +If I say that Queen Elizabeth wrote a letter to Cleopatra, do you know +whether I mean it or not? And if I say that Richard the Third was +baptized by St. Augustine, can you contradict it? And Hannah More wrote a +sympathetic letter to Joan of Arc, and Marie Antoinette danced with +Charlemagne, and George Washington was congratulated on becoming +President by Mary Queen of Scots." + +The girls could laugh at this for they had an idea that the Queen of +Scots died some time before the first president of the United States was +born; but over the other names and incidents they looked at each other +gravely. + +"Life is a kind of conglomeration without dates," said Linnet. + +"I wonder if you know how long ago the flood was!" suggested Miss +Prudence, "or if Mahomet lived before the flood or after," she added, +seriously. + +Marjorie smiled, but Linnet was serious. + +"You confuse me so," said Linnet. "I believe I don't know when anything +_was_. I don't know how long since Adam was made. Do you, Marjorie?" + +"No," in the tone of one dreadfully ashamed. + +"And now I'll tell you a lovely thought out of the Bible that came +through dates. I did not discover it myself, of course." + +"I don't see why 'of course,'" Marjorie said in a resentful tone. "You +_do_ discover things." + +"I discover little girls once in a while," returned Miss Prudence with a +rare softening of lips and eyes. + +If it had not been for a few such discoveries the lines about Miss +Prudence's lips might have been hard lines. + +"Of course you both remember the story of faithful old Abraham, how he +longed and longed for a son and hoped against hope, and, after waiting +so long, Isaac was born at last. He had the sure promise of God that in +his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Do you know +how many nations Abraham knew about? Did he know about France and England +and America, the Empire of Russia and populous China?" + +Linnet looked puzzled; Marjorie was very grave. + +"Did he know that the North American Indians would be blessed in him? Did +he know they would learn that the Great Spirit had a Son, Jesus Christ? +And that Jesus Christ was descended from him?" + +"I--don't--know," said Marjorie, doubtfully. "I get all mixed up." + +"It was because all the world would be blessed that he was so anxious to +have a son. And, then, after Isaac was born and married for years and +years the promise did not seem to come true, for he had no child. Must +the faithful, hopeful old father die with his hope deferred? We read that +Abraham died in a good old age, an old man, full of years, and Isaac and +Ishmael buried him, and farther on in the same chapter we find that the +twin boys are born, Jacob and Esau. But their old grandfather was dead. +He knew now how true God is to his promises, because he was in Heaven, +but we can't help wishing he had seen those two strong boys from one of +whom the Saviour of the whole world was to descend. But if we look at +Abraham's age when he died, and comparing it with Isaac's when the twins +were born, we find that the old man, truly, had to wait twenty years +before they were born, but that he really lived to see them seventeen or +eighteen years of age. He lived to tell them with his own lips about that +wonderful promise of God." + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" cried Marjorie, enthusiastically. + +"He had another long time to wait, too," said Linnet. + +"Yes, he had hard times all along," almost sighed Miss Prudence. + +Forty years old did not mean to her that her hard times were all over. + +"But he had such a good time with the boys," said Marjorie, who never +could see the dark side of anything. "Just to think of _dates_ telling us +such a beautiful thing." + +"That's all you hate, dates and punctuation," Linnet declared; "but I +can't see the use of ever so many other things." + +"If God thought it worth while to make the earth and people it and +furnish it and govern it with laws, don't you think it worth your poor +little while to learn what he has done?" queried Miss Prudence, gently. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Linnet, "is _that_ it?" + +"Just it," said Miss Prudence, smiling, "and some day I will go over with +you each study by itself and show you how it will educate you and help +you the better to do something he asks you to do." + +"Oh, how splendid!" cried Linnet. "Before I go to school, so the books +won't seem hard and dry?" + +"Yes, any day that you will come to me. Marjorie may come too, even +though she loves to study." + +"I wonder if you can find any good in Natural Philosophy," muttered +Linnet, "and in doing the examples in it. And in remembering the signs +of the Zodiac! Mr. Holmes makes us learn everything; he won't let us +skip." + +"He is a fine teacher, and you might have had, if you had been so minded, +a good preparation for your city school." + +"I haven't," said Linnet. "If it were not for seeing the girls and +learning how to be like city girls, I would rather stay home." + +"Perhaps that knowledge would not improve you. What then?" + +"Why, Miss Prudence!" exclaimed Marjorie, "don't you think we country +girls are away behind the age?" + +"In the matter of dates! But you need not be. With such a teacher as you +have you ought to do as well as any city girl of your age. And there's +always a course of reading by yourself." + +"It isn't always," laughed Linnet, "it is only for the studiously +disposed." + +"I was a country girl, and when I went to the city to school I did not +fail in my examination." + +"Oh, _you_!" cried Linnet. + +"I see no reason why you, in your happy, refined, Christian home, with +all the sweet influences of your healthful, hardy lives, should not be as +perfectly the lady as any girl I know." + +Marjorie clapped her hands. Oh, if Hollis might only hear this! And Miss +Prudence _knew_. + +"I thought I had to go to a city school, else I couldn't be refined and +lady-like," said Linnet. + +"That does not follow. All city girls are not refined and lady-like; they +may have a style that you haven't, but that style is not always to their +advantage. It is true that I do not find many young ladies in your little +village that I wish you to take as models, but the fault is in them, as +well as in some of their surroundings. You have music, you have books, +you have perfection of beauty in shore and sea, you have the Holy Spirit, +the Educator of mankind." + +The girls were awed and silent. + +"I have been shocked at the rudeness of city girls, and I have been +charmed with the tact and courtesy of more than one country maiden. +Nowadays education and the truest culture may be had everywhere." + +"Even in Middlefield," laughed Marjorie her heart brimming over with the +thought that, after all, she might be as truly a lady as Helen Rheid. + +If Linnet had been as excited as Marjorie was, at that moment, she would +have given a bound into the grass and danced all around. But Marjorie +only sat still trembling with a flush in eyes and cheeks. + +"I think I'll keep a list of the books I read," decided Marjorie after a +quiet moment. + +"That's a good plan. I'll show you a list I made in my girlhood, some +day. But you mustn't read as many as an Englishman read,--Thomas Henry +Buckle,--his library comprised twenty-two thousand." + +"He didn't read them _all,_" cried Linnet. + +"He read parts of all, and some attentively, I dare say. He was a rapid +reader and had the rare faculty of being able to seize on what he needed +to use. He often read three volumes a day. But I don't advise you to copy +him. I want you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. He could +absorb, but, we'll take it for granted that you must plod on steadily, +step by step. He read through Johnson's Dictionary to enlarge his +vocabulary." + +"Vocabulary!" repeated Linnet. + +"His stock of words," exclaimed Marjorie. "Miss Prudence!" with a new +energy in her voice, "I'm going to read Webster through." + +"Well," smiled Miss Prudence. + +"Don't you believe I _can?_" + +"Oh, yes." + +"Then I will. I'll be like Buckle in one thing. I'll plan to read so many +pages a day. We've got a splendid one; mother got it by getting +subscriptions to some paper. Mother will do _anything_ to help us on, +Miss Prudence." + +"I have learned that. I have a plan to propose to her by and by." + +"Oh, can't you tell us?" entreated Linnet, forgetting her work. + +"Not yet." + +"Does it concern _us?_" asked Marjorie. + +"Yes, both of you." + +Two hours since it had "concerned" only Marjorie, but in this hour under +the apple-tree Miss Prudence had been moved to include Linnet, also. +Linnet was not Marjorie, she had mentally reasoned, but she was Linnet +and had her own niche in the world. Was she not also one of her little +sisters that were in the world and not of it? + +"When may we know?" questioned Linnet + +"That depends. Before I leave your grandfather's, I hope." + +"I know it is something good and wonderful, because you thought of it," +said Marjorie. "Perhaps it is as good as one of our day-dreams coming +true." + +"It may be something very like one of them, but the time may not be yet. +It will not do you any harm to know there's something pleasant ahead, +if it can be arranged." + +"I do like to know things that are going to happen to us," Linnet +confessed. "I used to wish I could dream and have the dreams come true." + +"Like the wicked ancients who used to wrap themselves in skins of beasts +and stay among the graves and monuments to sleep and dream--and in the +temples of the idols, thinking the departed or the idols would foretell +to them in dreams. Isaiah reproves the Jews for doing this. And Sir +Walter Scott, in his notes to 'The Lady of the Lake,' tells us something +about a similar superstition among the Scotch." + +"I like to know about superstitions," said Linnet, "but I'd be afraid to +do that." + +"Miss Prudence, I haven't read 'The Lady of the Lake'!" exclaimed +Marjorie. + +"No, imitator of Buckle, you haven't. But I'll send it to you when I go +home." + +"What did Buckle _do_ with all his learning?" inquired Marjorie. + +"I haven't told you about half of his learning. He wrote a work of great +learning, that startled the world somewhat, called 'The History of +Civilization,' in which he attempted to prove that the differences +between nations and peoples were almost solely to be attributed to +physical causes that food had more to do with the character of a +nation than faith." + +"Didn't the Israelites live on the same food that the Philistines did?" +asked Marjorie, "and didn't--" + +"Are you getting ready to refute him? The Jews could not eat pork, you +remember." + +"And because they didn't eat pork they believed in one true God!" +exclaimed Marjorie, indignantly. "I don't like his book, Miss Prudence." + +"Neither do I. And we need not read it, even if he did study twenty-two +thousand books and Johnson's Dictionary to help him write it." + +"Why didn't he study Webster?" asked Linnet. + +"Can't you think and tell me?" + +"No." + +"Can you not, Marjorie?" + +"Because he was English, I suppose, and Johnson wrote the English +Dictionary and Webster the American." + +"An Irish lady told me the other day that Webster was no authority. I +wish I could tell you all about Johnson; I love him, admire him, and pity +him." + +Marjorie laughed and squeezed Miss Prudence's hand. "Don't you wish you +could tell us about every _body_ and every _thing_, Miss Prudence?" + +"And then help you use the knowledge. I am glad of your question, +Marjorie, 'What did Mr. Buckle _do_ with his knowledge?' If I should +learn a new thing this week and not use it next week I should feel +guilty." + +"I don't know how to use knowledge," said Linnet. + +"You are putting your knowledge of tatting to very good service." + +"Miss Prudence, will you use your things on me?" inquired Marjorie, +soberly. + +"That is just what I am hoping to do." + +"Hillo! Hillo! Hillo!" sounded a voice behind the woodshed. After a +moment a tall figure emerged around a corner, arrayed in coarse working +clothes, with a saw over his shoulders. + +"Hillo! gals, I can't find your father. Tell him I left my saw here for +him to file." + +"I will," Linnet called back. + +"That's African John," explained Linnet as the figure disappeared around +the corner of the woodshed. "I wish I had asked him to stay and tell you +some of his adventures." + +"_African_ John. He is not an African;" said Miss Prudence. + +"No, oh no; he's Captain Rheid's cousin. People call him that because he +was three years in Africa. He was left on the coast. It happened this +way. He was only a sailor and he went ashore with another sailor and they +got lost in a jungle or something like it and when they came back to the +shore they saw the sails of their ship in the distance and knew it had +gone off and left them. The man with him fell down dead on the sand and +he had to stay three years before a ship came. He's an old man now and +that happened years and years ago. Captain Rheid can't tell anything more +frightful than that. Mother had a brother lost at sea, they supposed so, +for he never came back; if I ever have anybody go and not come back I'll +never, never, _never_ give him up." + +"Never, never, never give him up," echoed Miss Prudence in her heart. + +"They thought Will Rheid was lost once, but he came back! Linnet didn't +give him up, and his father and mother almost did." + +"I'd never give him up," said Linnet again, emphatically. + +"Will Rheid," teased Marjorie, "or anybody?" + +"Anybody," replied Linnet, but she twitched at her work and broke her +thread. + +"Now, girls, I'm going in to talk to your mother awhile, and then perhaps +Linnet will walk part of the way home with me," said Miss Prudence. + +"To talk about _that_," cried Marjorie. + +"I'll tell you by and by." + + + + +VIII. + +BISCUITS AND OTHER THINGS. + +"I am rather made for giving than taking."--_Mrs. Browning._ + + +Mrs. West had been awakened from her nap with an uncomfortable feeling +that something disagreeable had happened or was about to happen; she felt +"impressed" she would have told you. Pushing the light quilt away from +her face she arose with a decided vigor, determined to "work it off" if +it were merely physical; she brushed her iron gray hair with steady +strokes and already began to feel as if her presentiment were groundless; +she bathed her cheeks in cool water, she dressed herself carefully in her +worn black and white barege, put on her afternoon cap, a bit of black +lace with bows of narrow black ribbon, fastened the linen collar Linnet +had worked with button-hole stitch with the round gold and black +enamelled pin that contained locks of the light hair of her two lost +babes, and then felt herself ready for the afternoon, even ready for the +minister and his stylish wife, if they should chance to call. But she was +not ready without her afternoon work; she would feel fidgety unless she +had something to keep her fingers moving; the afternoon work happened to +be a long white wool stocking for Linnet's winter wear. Linnet must have +new ones, she decided; she would have no time to darn old ones, and +Marjorie might make the old ones do another winter; it was high time for +Marjorie to learn to mend. + +The four shining knitting needles were clicking in the doorway of the +broad little entry that opened out to the green front yard when Miss +Prudence found her way around to the front of the house. The ample figure +and contented face made a picture worth looking at, and Miss Prudence +looked at it a moment before she announced her presence by speaking. + +"Mrs. West, I want to come to see you a little while--may I?" + +Miss Prudence had a pretty, appealing way of speaking, oftentimes, that +caused people to feel as if she were not quite grown up. There was +something akin to childlikeness in her voice and words and manner, +to-day. She had never felt so humble in her life, as to-day when her +whole life loomed up before her--one great disappointment. + +"I was just thinking that I would go and find you after I had turned the +heel; I haven't had a talk with you yet." + +"I want it," returned the younger lady, seating herself on the upper step +and leaning back against the door post. "I've been wanting to be +_mothered_ all day. I have felt as if the sunshine were taking me into +its arms, and as if the soft warm grass were my mother's lap." + +"Dear child, you have had trouble in your life, haven't you?" replied the +motherly voice. + +Miss Prudence was not impulsive, at least she believed that she had +outgrown yielding to a sudden rush of feeling, but at these words she +burst into weeping, and drawing nearer dropped her head in the broad lap. + +"There, there, deary! Cry, if it makes you feel any better," hushed the +voice that had rocked babies to sleep. + +After several moments of self-contained sobbing Miss Prudence raised her +head. "I've never told any one, but I feel as if I wanted to tell you. It +is so long that it makes me feel old to speak of it. It is twenty years +ago since it happened. I had a friend that I love as girls love the man +they have chosen to marry; father admired him, and said he was glad to +leave me with such a protector. Mother had been dead about a year and +father was dying with consumption; they had no one to leave me with +excepting this friend; he was older than I, years older, but I admired +him all the more for that. Father had perfect trust in him. I think +the trouble hastened father's death. He had a position of trust--a great +deal of money passed through his hands. Like every girl I liked diamonds +and he satisfied me with them; father used to look grave and say: +'Prudie, your mother didn't care for such things.' But I cared for mine. +I had more jewels than any of my friends; and he used to promise that I +should have everything I asked for. But I did not want anything if I +might have him. My wedding dress was made--our wedding tour was all +planned: we were to come home to his beautiful house and father was to be +with us. Father and I were so contented over our plans; he seemed just +like himself that last evening that we laughed and talked. But he--my +friend was troubled and left early; when he went away he caught me in his +arms and held me. 'God bless you, bless you' he said, and then he said, +'May he forgive me!' I could not sleep that night, the words sounded in +my ears. In the morning I unburdened myself to father, I always told him +everything, and he was as frightened as I. Before two days we knew all. +He had taken--money--that was not his own, thousands of dollars, and he +was tried and sentenced. I sent them all my diamonds and everything that +would bring money, but that was only a little of the whole. They sent +him--to state-prison, to hard labor, for a term of five years. Father +died soon after and I had not any one nearer than an aunt or cousin. I +thought my heart broke with the shame and dishonor. I have lived in many +places since. I have money enough to do as I like--because I do not like +to do very much, perhaps. But I can't forget. I can't forget the shame. +And I trusted him so! I believed in him. He had buried a young wife years +ago, and was old and wise and good! When I see diamonds they burn into me +like live coals. I would have given up my property and worked for my +living, but father made me bind myself with a solemn promise that I would +not do it. But I have sought out many that he wronged, and given them all +my interest but the sum I compelled myself to live on. I have educated +two or three orphans, and I help every month several widows and one or +two helpless people who suffered through him. Father would be glad of +that, if he knew how comfortably I can live on a limited income. I have +made my will, remembering a number of people, and if they die before I +do, I shall keep trace of their children. I do all I can; I would, rather +give all my money up, but it is my father's money until I die." + +Mrs. West removed a knitting needle from between her lips and knit it +into the heel she had "turned." + +"Where is he--now?" she asked. + +"I never saw him after that night--he never wrote to me; I went to him in +prison but he refused to see me. I have heard of him many times through +his brother; he fled to Europe as soon as he was released, and has never +returned home--to my knowledge. I think his brother has not heard from +him for some years. When I said I had not a friend, I did not mention +this brother; he was young when it happened, too young to have any pity +for his brother; he was very kind to me, they all were. This brother was +a half-brother--there were two mothers--and much younger." + +"What was his name?" + +Mrs. West did not mean to be inquisitive, but she did want to know and +not simply for the sake of knowing. + +"Excuse me--but I must keep the secret for his brother's sake. He's the +only one left." + +"I may not know the name of the bank then?" + +"If you knew that you would know all. But _I_ know that your husband lost +his small patrimony in it--twenty-five hundred dollars--" + +"H'm," escaped Mrs. West's closely pressed lips. + +"And that is one strong reason why I want to educate your two daughters." + +The knitting dropped from the unsteady fingers. + +"And I've fretted and fretted about that money, and asked the Lord how my +girls ever were to be educated." + +"You know now," said Miss Prudence. "I had to tell you, for I feared that +you would not listen to my plan. You may guess how I felt when your +sister-in-law, Mrs. Easton, told me that she was to take Linnet for a +year or two and let her go to school. At first I could not see my way +clear, my money is all spent for a year to come--I only thought of taking +Marjorie home with me--but, I have arranged it so that I can spare a +little; I have been often applied to to take music pupils, and if I do +that I can take one of the girls home with me and send her to school; +next year I will take all the expense upon myself, wardrobe and all. +There is a cheap way of living in large cities as well as an expensive +one. If Linnet goes to Boston with her aunt, she will be kept busy out of +school hours. Mrs. Easton is very kindhearted but she considers no one +where her children are concerned. If I wore diamonds that Linnet's money +purchased, aren't you willing she shall eat bread and butter my money +purchases?" + +"But you gave the diamonds up?" + +"I wore them, though." + +"That diamond plea has done duty a good many times, I guess," said Mrs. +West, smiling down upon the head in her lap. + +"No, it hasn't. His brother has done many things for me; people are ready +enough to take money from his brother, and the widows are my friends. It +has not been difficult. It would have been without him." + +"The nights I've laid awake and made plans. My little boys died in +babyhood. I imagine their father and I would have mortgaged the farm, and +I would have taken in washing, and he would have gone back to his trade +to send those boys through college. But the girls don't need a college +education. The boys might have been ministers--one of them, at least. But +I would like the girls to have a piano, they both play so well on the +melodeon! I would like them to be--well, like you, Miss Prudence, and not +like their rough, hardworking old mother. I've shed tears enough about +their education, and told the Lord about it times enough. If the Boston +plan didn't suit, we had another, Graham and I--he always listens and +depends upon my judgment. I'm afraid, sometimes, I depend upon my own +judgment more than upon the Lord's wisdom. But this plan was--" the +knitting needle was being pushed vigorously through her back hair now, +"to exchange the farm for a house and lot in town--Middlefield is quite a +town, you know--and he was to go back to his trade, and I was to take +boarders, and the girls were to take turns in schooling and +accomplishments. I am not over young myself, and he isn't over strong, +but we had decided on that. I shed some tears over it, and he looked pale +and couldn't sleep, for we've counted on this place as the home of our +old age which isn't so far off as it was when he put that twenty-five +hundred dollars into that bank. But I do breathe freer if I think we may +have this place to live and die on, small as it is and the poor living it +gives us. Father's place isn't much to speak of, and James will come in +for his share of that, so we haven't much to count on anywhere. I don't +know, though," the knitting needle was doing duty in the stocking again, +"about taking _your_ money. You were not his wife, you hadn't spent it or +connived at his knavery." + +"I felt myself to be his wife--I am happier in making all the reparation +in my power. All I could do for one old lady was to place her in The Old +Ladies' Home. I know very few of the instances; I would not harrow my +soul with hearing of those I could not help. I have done very little, but +that little has been my exceeding comfort." + +"I guess so," said Mrs. West, in a husky voice. "I'll tell father what +you say, we'll talk it over and see. I know you love my girls--especially +Marjorie." + +"I love them both," was the quick reply. + +"Linnet is older, she ought to have the first chance." + +Miss Prudence thought, but did not say, "As Laban said about Leah," she +only said, "I do not object to that. We do Marjorie no injustice. This is +Linnet's schooltime. There does seem to be a justice in giving the first +chance to the firstborn, although God chose Jacob instead of the elder +Esau, and Joseph instead of his older brethren, and there was little +David anointed when his brothers were refused." + +Miss Prudence's tone was most serious, but her eyes were full of fun. She +was turning the partial mother's weapons against herself. + +"But David and Jacob and Joseph were different from the others," returned +the mother, gravely, "and in this case, the elder is as good as the +younger." + +It almost slipped off Miss Prudence's tongue, "But she will not take the +education Marjorie will," but she wisely checked herself and replied that +both the girls were as precious as precious could be. + +"And now don't you go home to-night, stay all night and I'll talk to +father," planned Mrs. West, briskly; "as Marjorie would say, Giant +Despair will get Diffidence his wife to bed and they will talk +the matter over. She doesn't read _Pilgrim's Progress_ as much as she +used to, but she calls you Mercy yet. And you are a mercy to us." + +With the tears rolling down her cheeks the mother stooped over and kissed +the lover of her girls. + +"Mr. Holmes is coming to see Marjorie to-night, he hasn't called since +her accident, and to talk to father, he likes to argue with him, and it +will be pleasanter to have you here. And Will Rheid is home from a +voyage, and he'll be running in. It must be lonesome for you over there +on the Point. It used to be for me when I was a girl." + +"But I'm not a girl," smiled Miss Prudence. + +"You'll pass for one any day. And you can play and make it lively. I am +not urging you with disinterested motives." + +"I can see through you; and I _am_ anxious to know how Mr. West will +receive my proposal." + +"He will see through my eyes in the end, but he always likes to argue a +while first. I want you to taste Linnet's cream biscuit, too. She made +them on purpose for you. There's father, now, coming with African John, +and there _is_ Will Rheid coming across lots. Well, I'm glad Linnet did +make the biscuits." + +Miss Prudence arose with a happy face, she did not go back to the girls +at once, there was a nook to be quiet in at the foot of the kitchen +garden, and she felt as if she must be alone awhile. Mrs. West, with her +heart in a tremor that it had not known since Marjorie was born, tucked +away her knitting behind the school-books on the dining-room table, tied +on her blue checked apron, and went out to the kitchen to kindle the fire +for tea, singing in her mellow voice, "Thus far the Lord hath led me on," +suddenly stopping short as she crammed the stove with shavings to +exclaim, "His name _was_ Holmes! And that's the school-master's name. And +that's why he's in such a fume when the boys cheat at marbles. Well, did +I _ever_!" + +Linnet ran in to exchange her afternoon dress for a short, dark calico, +and to put on her old shoes before she went into the barnyard to milk +Bess and Brindle and Beauty. Will Rheid found her in time to persuade +her to let him milk Brindle, for he was really afraid he would get his +hand out, and it would never do to let his wife do all the milking +when his father bequeathed him a fifth of his acres and two of his +hardest-to-be-milked cows. Linnet laughed, gave him one of her pails, +and found an other milking stool for him. + +Marjorie wandered around disconsolate until she discovered Miss Prudence +in the garden. + +She was perplexed over a new difficulty which vented itself in the +question propounded between tasting currants. + +"Ought I--do you think I ought--talk to people--about--like the +minister--about--" + +"No, child!" and Miss Prudence laughed merrily. "You ought to talk to +people like Marjorie West! Like a child and not like a minister." + + + + +IX. + +JOHN HOLMES. + +"Courage to endure and to obey."--_Tennyson._ + + +It was vacation-time and yet John Holmes was at work. No one knew him to +take a vacation, he had attempted to do it more than once and at the end +of his stipulated time had found himself at work harder than ever. The +last lazy, luxurious vacation that he remembered was his last college +vacation. What a boyish, good-for-nothing, aimless fellow he was in those +days! How his brother used to snap him up and ask if he had nothing +better to do than to dawdle around into Maple Street and swing Prudence +under the maples in that old garden, or to write rhymes with her and +correct her German exercises! How he used to tease her about having by +and by to color her hair white and put on spectacles, or else she would +have to call her husband "papa." And she would dart after him and box his +ears and laugh her happy laugh and look as proud as a queen over every +teasing word. He had told her that she grew prettier every hour as her +day of fate drew nearer, and then had audaciously kissed her as he bade +her good-by, for, in one week would she not be his sister, the only +sister he had ever had? He stood at the gate watching her as she tripped +up to her father's arm-chair on the piazza, and saw her bend her head +down to his, and then he had gone off whistling and thinking that his +brother certainly had a share of all of earth's good things position, a +good name, money, and now this sweet woman for a wife. Well, the world +was all before _him_ where to choose, and he would have money and a +position some day and the very happiest home in the land. + +The next time he saw Prudence she looked like one just risen out of a +grave: pallid, with purple, speechless lips, and eyes whose anguish rent +his soul. Her father had been suddenly prostrated with hemorrhage and he +stayed through the night with her, and afterward he made arrangements for +the funeral, and his mother and himself stood at the grave with her. And +then there was a prison, and after that a delirious fever for himself, +when for days he had not known his mother's face or Prudence's voice. + +The other boys had gone back to college, but his spirit was crushed, he +could not hold up his head among men. He had lost his "ambition," people +said. Since that time he had taught in country schools and written +articles for the papers and magazines; he had done one thing beside, he +had purchased books and studied them. In the desk in his chamber there +were laid away to-day four returned manuscripts, he was only waiting +for leisure to exchange their addressee and send them forth into the +world again to seek their fortunes. A rejection daunted him no more than +a poor recitation in the schoolroom; where would be the zest in life if +one had not the chance of trying again? + +John Holmes was a hermit, but he was a hermit who loved boys; girls were +too much like delicate bits of china, he was afraid of handling for fear +of breaking. Girls grown up were not quite so much like bits of china, +but he had no friend save one among womankind, his sister that was to +have been, Prudence Pomeroy. He had not addressed her with the name his +brother had given her since that last day in the garden; she was gravely +Prudence to him, in her plain attire, her smooth hair and little +unworldly ways, almost a veritable Puritan maiden. + +As to her marrying--again (he always thought "again"), he had no more +thought of it than she had. He had given to her every letter he had +received from his brother, but they always avoided speaking his name; +indeed Prudence, in her young reverence for his age and wisdom, had +seldom named his Christian name to others or to himself, he was "Mr. +Holmes" to her. + +John Holmes was her junior by three years, yet he had constituted himself +friend, brother, guardian, and sometimes, he told her, she treated him as +though he were her father, beside. + +"It's good to have all in one," she once replied, "for I can have you all +with me at one time." + +After being a year at Middlefield he had written to her about the +secluded homestead and fine salt bathing at the "Point," urging her to +spend her summer there. Marjorie had seen her face at church one day in +early spring as she had stopped over the Sabbath at the small hotel in +the town on her way on a journey farther north. + +This afternoon, while Prudence had been under the apple-tree and in the +front entry, he had bent over the desk in his chamber, writing. This +chamber was a low, wide room, carpeted with matting, with neither shades +nor curtains at the many-paned windows, containing only furniture that +served a purpose--a washstand, with a small, gilt-framed glass hanging +over it, one rush-bottomed chair beside the chair at the desk, that +boasted arms and a leather cushion, a bureau, with two large brass rings +to open each drawer, and a narrow cot covered with a white counterpane +that his hostess had woven as a part of her wedding outfit before he was +born, and books! There were books everywhere--in the long pine chest, on +the high mantel, in the bookcase, under the bed, on the bureau, and on +the carpet wherever it was not absolutely necessary for him to tread. + +Prudence and Marjorie had climbed the narrow stairway once this summer to +take a peep at his books, and Prudence had inquired if he intended +to take them all out West when he accepted the presidency of the college +that was waiting for him out there. + +"I should have to come back to my den, I couldn't write anywhere else." + +"And when somebody asks me if you are dead, as some king asked about the +author of Butler's 'Analogy' once, I'll reply, as somebody replied: 'Not +dead, but buried.'" + +"That is what I want to be," he had replied. "Don't you want a copy of my +little pocket dictionary? It just fits the vest pocket, you see. You +don't know how proud I was when I saw a young man on the train take one +from his pocket one day!" + +He opened his desk and handed her a copy; Marjorie looked at it and at +him in open-eyed wonder. And dared she recite to a teacher who had made a +book? + +"When is your Speller coming out?" + +"In the fall. I'm busy on my Reader now." + +Prudence stepped to his desk and examined the sheets of upright +penmanship; it could be read as easily as print. + +"And the Arithmetic?" + +"Oh, I haven't tackled that yet. That is for winter evenings, when my +fire burns on the hearth and the wind blows and nobody in the world cares +for me." + +"Then it won't be _this_ winter," said Marjorie, lifting her eyes from +the binding of the dictionary. + +"Why not?" he questioned. + +"Because somebody cares for you," she answered gravely. + +He laughed and shoved his manuscript into the desk. He was thinking of +her as he raised his head from the desk this afternoon and found the sun +gone down; he thought of her and remembered that he had promised to call +to see her to-night. Was it to take tea? He dreaded tea-parties, when +everybody talked and nobody said anything. A dim remembrance of being +summoned to supper a while ago flashed through his mind; but it hardly +mattered--Mrs. Devoe would take her cup of tea alone and leave his fruit +and bread and milk standing on the tea-table; it was better so, she would +not pester him with questions while he was eating, ask him why he did not +take more exercise, and if his room were not suffocating this hot day, +and if he did not think a cup of good, strong tea would not be better for +him than that bowl of milk! + +Mrs. Devoe, a widow of sixty-five, and her cat, Dolly, aged nineteen, +kept house and boarded the school-master. Her house was two miles nearer +the shore than the school-building, but he preferred the walk in all +weathers and he liked the view of the water. Mrs. Devoe had never kept a +boarder before, her small income being amply sufficient for her small +wants, but she liked the master, he split her wood and his own, locked +the house up at night, made no trouble, paid his board, two dollars per +week, regularly in advance, never went out at night, often read to her in +the evening after her own eyes had given out, and would have been perfect +if he had allowed her to pile away his books and sweep his chamber every +Friday. + +"But no man is perfect," she had sighed to Mrs. Rheid, "even my poor +husband would keep dinner waiting." + +After a long, absent-minded look over the meadows towards the sea, where +the waves were darkening in the twilight, he arose in haste, threw off +his wrapper, a gray merino affair, trimmed with quilted crimson silk, +that Prudence had given him on a birthday three years ago, and went to +the wash-stand to bathe his face and brush back that mass of black hair. +He did not study his features as Prudence had studied hers that morning; +he knew so little about his own face that he could scarcely distinguish a +good portrait of himself from a poor one; but Prudence knew it by heart. +It was a thin, delicate face, marred with much thought, the features not +large, and finely cut, with deep set eyes as black as midnight, and, when +they were neither grave nor stern, as soft as a dove's eyes; cheeks and +chin were closely shaven; his hair, a heavy black mass, was pushed back +from a brow already lined with thought or care, and worn somewhat long +behind the ears; there was no hardness in any line of the face, because +there was no hardness in the heart, there was sin and sorrow in the +world, but he believed that God is good. + +The slight figure was not above medium height; he had a stoop in the +shoulders that added to his general appearance of delicacy; he was +scholarly from the crown of his black head to the very tip of his worn, +velvet slipper; his slender hands, with their perfectly kept nails, and +even the stain of ink on the forefinger of his right hand, had an air of +scholarship about them. His black summer suit was a perfect fit, his +boots were shining, the knot of his narrow black neck tie was a little +towards one side, but that was the only evidence that he was careless +about his personal appearance. + +"I want my boys to be neat," he had said once apologetically to Mrs. +Devoe, when requesting her to give away his old school suit preparatory +to buying another. + +All he needed to be perfect was congenial social life, Prudence believed, +but that, alas, seemed never to enter his conception. He knew it never +had since that long ago day when he had congratulated his brother upon +his perfect share of this world's happiness. And, queerly enough, +Prudence stood too greatly in awe of him to suggest that his life was too +one-sided and solitary. + +"Some people wonder if you were ever married," Mrs. Devoe said to him +that afternoon when he went down to his late supper. Mrs. Devoe never +stood in awe of anybody. + +"Yes, I was married twenty years ago--to my work," he replied, gravely; +"there isn't any John Holmes, there is only my work." + +"There is something that is John Holmes to me," said the widow in her +quick voice, "and there's a John Holmes to the boys and girls, and I +guess the Lord thinks something of you beside your 'work,' as you call +it." + +Meditatively he walked along the grassy wayside towards the brown +farmhouse: + +"Perhaps there _is_ a John Holmes that I forget about," he said to +himself. + + + + +X. + +LINNET. + +"Use me to serve and honor thee, +And let the rest be as thou wilt"--_E.L.E._ + + +Marjorie's laugh was refreshing to the schoolmaster after his hard day's +work. She was standing behind her father, leaning over his shoulder, +and looking at them both as they talked; some word had reminded Mr. +Holmes of the subject of his writing that day and he had given them +something of what he had been reading and writing on Egyptian slavery. +Mr. Holmes was always "writing up" something, and one of Mr. West's +usual questions was: "What have you to tell us about now?" + +The subject was intensely interesting to Marjorie, she had but lately +read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and her tears and indignation were ready to +burst forth at any suggestion of injustice or cruelty. But the thing that +she was laughing at was a quotation from one of the older versions of the +Bible, Roger's Version Mr. Holmes told them when he quoted the passage: +"And the Lord was with Joseph and he was a luckie felowe." She lifted her +head from her father's shoulder and ran out into the little front yard to +find her mother and the others that she might tell them about Joseph and +ask Miss Prudence what "Roger's Version" meant. But her mother was busy +in the milkroom and Linnet was coming towards the house walking slowly +with her eyes on the ground. Will Rheid was walking as slowly toward his +home as Linnet was toward hers. + +Miss Prudence made a picture all by herself in her plain black dress, +with no color or ornament save the red rose in her black crape scarf, as +she sat upright in the rush-bottomed, straight-backed chair in the entry +before the wide-open door. Her eyes were towards the two who had parted +so reluctantly on the bridge over the brook. Marjorie danced away to find +her mother, suddenly remembering to ask if she might share the spare +chamber with Miss Prudence, that is--if Linnet did not want to very much. + +Marjorie never wanted to do anything that Linnet wanted to very much. + +Opening the gate Linnet came in slowly, with her eyes still on the +ground, shut the gate, and stood looking off into space; then becoming +aware of the still figure on the piazza hurried toward it. + +Linnet's eyes were stirred with a deeper emotion than had ever moved her +before; Miss Prudence did not remember her own face twenty years ago, but +she remembered her own heart. + +Will Rheid was a good young fellow, honest and true; Miss Prudence +stifled her sigh and said, "Well, dear" as the young girl came and stood +beside her chair. + +"I was wishing--I was saying to Will, just now, that I wished there was a +list of things in the Bible to pray about, and then we might be sure that +we were asking right." + +"And what did he say?" + +"He said he'd ask anyhow, and if it came, it was all right, and if it +didn't, he supposed that was all right, too." + +"That was faith, certainly." + +"Oh, he has faith," returned Linnet, earnestly. "Don't you know--oh, +you don't remember--when the Evangelist--that always reminds me of +Marjorie"--Linnet was a somewhat fragmentary talker like her mother--"but +when Mr. Woodfern was here four of the Rheid boys joined the Church, +all but Hollis, he was in New York, he went about that time. Mr. Woodfern +was so interested in them all; I shall never forget how he used to pray +at family worship: 'Lord, go through that Rheid family.' He prayed it +every day, I really believe. And they all joined the Church at the first +communion time, and every one of them spoke and prayed in the prayer +meetings. They used to speak just as they did about anything, and people +enjoyed it so; it was so genuine and hearty. I remember at a prayer +meeting here that winter Will arose to speak 'I was talking to a man in +town today and he said there was nothing _in_ religion. But, oh, my! I +told him there was nothing _out_ of it.' I told him about that to-night +and he said he hadn't found anything outside of it yet." + +"He's a fine young fellow," said Miss Prudence. "Mr. Holmes says he has +the 'right stuff' in him, and he means a great deal by that." + +A pleasant thought curved Linnet's lips. + +"But, Miss Prudence," sitting down on the step of the piazza, "I do wish +for a list of things. I want to know if I may pray that mother may +never look grave and anxious as she did at the supper table, and father +may not always have a cough in winter time, and Will may never have +another long voyage and frighten us all, and that Marjorie may have a +chance to go to school, too, and--why, _ever_ so many things!" + +A laugh from the disputants in the parlor brought the quick color to Miss +Prudence's cheeks. No mere earthly thing quickened her pulses like John +Holmes' laugh. And I do not think that was a mere earthly thing; there +was so much grace in it. + +"Doesn't St. Paul's 'everything' include your '_ever_ so many things?'" +questioned Miss Prudence, as the laugh died away. + +"I don't know," hesitatingly. "I thought it meant about people becoming +Christians, and faith and patience and such good things." + +"Perhaps your requests are good things, too. But I have thought of +something that will do for a list of things; it is included in this +promise: 'Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye +receive them and ye shall have them.' Desire _when_ ye pray! That's the +point." + +"Does the time when we desire make any difference?" asked Linnet, +interestedly. + +There were some kind of questions that Linnet liked to ask. + +"Does it not make all the difference? Suppose we think of something we +want while we are ease-loving, forgetful of duty, selfish, unforgiving, +neither loving God or our neighbor, when we feel far from him, instead of +near him, can we believe that we shall have such a heart's desire as that +would be? Would your desire be according to his will, his unselfish, +loving, forgiving will?" + +"No, oh, no," said Linnet, earnestly. "But I do think about father and +mother and Marjorie going to school and--when I am praying." + +"Then ask for everything you desire while you are praying; don't be +afraid." + +"_Is_ mother troubled about something?" + +"Not troubled, really; only perplexed a little over something we have +been planning about; and she is very glad, too." + +"I don't like to have her troubled, because her heart hurts her when she +worries. Marjorie don't know that, but she told me. That's one reason--my +strongest reason--for being sorry about going to Boston." + +"But your father is with her and he will watch over her." + +"But she depends on _me_," pleaded Linnet. + +"Marjorie is growing up," said Miss Prudence, hopefully. + +"Marjorie! It doesn't seem to me that she will ever grow up; she is such +a little puss, always absent-minded, with a book in her hand. And she +can't mend or sew or even make cake or clear up a room neatly. We spoil +her, mother and I, as much as she spoils her kitten, Pusheen. Did you +know that _pusheen_ is Irish for puss? Mr. Holmes told us. I do believe +he knows everything." + +"He comes nearer universal knowledge than the rest of us," said Miss +Prudence, smiling at the girl's eagerness. + +"But he's a book himself, a small volume, in fine print, printed in a +language that none of us can read," said Linnet. + +"To most people he is," granted Miss Prudence; "but when he was seven I +was ten, I was a backward child and he used to read to me, so he is not +a dead language to me." + +Linnet pulled at the fringe of her white shawl; Will Rheid had brought +that shawl from Ireland a year ago. + +"Miss Prudence, _do_ we have right desires, desires for things God likes, +while we are praying?" + +"If we feel his presence, if we feel as near to him as Mary sitting at +the feet of Christ, if we thank him for his unbounded goodness, and ask +his forgiveness for our sins with a grateful, purified, and forgiving +heart, how can we desire anything selfish--for our own good only and not +to honor him, anything unholy, anything that it would hurt him to grant; +if our heart is ever one with his heart, our will ever one with his will, +is it not when we are nearest to him, nearest in obeying, or nearest in +praying? Isn't there some new impulse toward the things he loves to give +us every time we go near to him?" + +Linnet assented with a slight movement of her head. She understood many +things that she could not translate into words. + +"Yesterday I saw in the paper the death of an old friend." They had been +silent for several minutes; Miss Prudence spoke in a musing voice. "She +was a friend in the sense that I had tried to befriend her. She was +unfortunate in her home surroundings, she was something of an invalid and +very deaf beside. She had lost money and was partly dependent upon +relatives. A few of us, Mr. Holmes was one of them, paid her board. She +was not what you girls call 'real bright,' but she was bright enough to +have a heartache every day. Reading her name among the deaths made me +glad of a kindness I grudged her once." + +"I don't believe you grudged it," interrupted Marjorie, who had come in +time to lean over the tall back of the chair and rest her hand on Miss +Prudence's shoulder while she listened to what promised to be a "story." + +"I did, notwithstanding. One busy morning I opened one of her long, +complaining, badly-written letters; I could scarcely decipher it; she was +so near-sighted, too, poor child, and would not put on glasses. Her +letters were something of a trial to me. I read, almost to my +consternation, 'I have been praying for a letter from you for three +weeks.' Slipping the unsightly sheet back into the envelope, hastily, +rather too hastily, I'm afraid, I said to myself: 'Well, I don't see how +you will get it.' I was busy every hour in those days, I did not have to +rest as often as I do now, and how could I spare the hour her prayer was +demanding? I could find the time in a week or ten days, but she had +prayed for it yesterday and would expect it to-day, would pray for it +to-day and expect it to-morrow. 'Why could she not pray about it without +telling me?' I argued as I dipped my pen in the ink, not to write to her +but to answer a letter that must be answered that morning. I argued about +it to myself as I turned from one thing to another, working in nervous +haste; for I did more in those days than God required me to do, I served +myself instead of serving him. I was about to take up a book to look over +a poem that I was to read at our literary circle when words from +somewhere arrested me: 'Do you like to have the answer to a prayer of +yours put off and off in this way?' and I answered aloud, 'No, I +_don't_.' 'Then answer this as you like to have God answer you.' And I +sighed, you will hardly believe it, but I _did_ sigh. The enticing poem +went down and two sheets of paper came up and I wrote the letter for +which the poor thing a hundred miles away had been praying three weeks. I +tried to make it cordial, spirited and sympathetic, for that was the kind +she was praying for. And it went to the mail four hours after I had +received her letter." + +"I'm so glad," said sympathetic Linnet. "How glad she must have been!" + +"Not as glad as I was when I saw her death in the paper yesterday." + +"You do write to so many people," said Marjorie. + +"I counted my list yesterday as I wrote on it the fifty-third name." + +"Oh, dear," exclaimed Linnet, who "hated" to write letters. "What do you +do it for?" + +"Perhaps because they need letters, perhaps because I need to write them. +My friends have a way of sending me the names of any friendless child, or +girl, or woman, who would be cheered by a letter, and I haven't the heart +to refuse, especially as some of them pray for letters and give thanks +for them. Instead of giving my time to 'society' I give it to letter +writing. And the letters I have in return! Nothing in story books equals +the pathos and romance of some of them." + +"I like that kind of good works," said Marjorie, "because I'm too bashful +to talk to people and I can _write_ anything." + +How little the child knew that some day she would write anything and +everything because she was "too bashful to talk." How little any of us +know what we are being made ready to do. And how we would stop to moan +and weep in very self-pity if we did know, and thus hinder the work of +preparation from going on. + +Linnet played with the fringe of her shawl and looked as if something +hard to speak were hovering over her lips. + +"Did mother tell you about Will?" she asked, abruptly, interrupting one +of Miss Prudence's stories to Marjorie of which she had not heeded one +word. + +"About Will!" repeated Marjorie. "What has happened to him?" + +Linnet looked up with arch, demure eyes. "He told mother and me while we +were getting supper; he likes to come out in the kitchen. The first mate +died and he was made first mate on the trip home, and the captain wrote a +letter to his father about him, and his father is as proud as he can be +and says he'll give him the command of the bark that is being built in +Portland, and he mustn't go away again until that is done. Captain Rheid +is the largest owner, he and African John, so they have the right to +appoint the master. Will thinks it grand to be captain at twenty-four." + +"But doesn't Harold feel badly not to have a ship, too?" asked Marjorie, +who was always thinking of the one left out. + +"But he's younger and his chance will come next. He doesn't feel sure +enough of himself either. Will has studied navigation more than he has. +Will went to school to an old sea-captain to study it, but Harold didn't, +he said it would get knocked into him, somehow. He's mate on a ship he +likes and has higher wages than Will will get, at first, but Will likes +the honor. It's so wonderful for his father to trust him that he can +scarcely believe it; he says his father must think he is some one else's +son. But that letter from the old shipmaster that Captain Rheid used to +know has been the means of it." + +"Is the bark named yet?" asked Marjorie. "Captain Rheid told father he +was going to let Mrs. Rheid name it." + +"Yes," said Linnet, dropping her eyes to hide the smile in them, "she is +named LINNET." + +"Oh, how nice! How splendid," exclaimed Marjorie, "Won't it look grand in +the _Argus_--'Bark LINNET, William Rheid, Master, ten days from +Portland'?" + +"Ten days to where?" laughed Linnet. + +"Oh, to anywhere. Siberia or the West Indies. I _wish_ he'd ask us to go +aboard, Linnet. _Don't_ you think he might?" + +"We might go and see her launched! Perhaps we all have an invitation; +suppose you run and ask mother," replied Linnet, with the demure smile +about her lips. + +Marjorie flew away, Linnet arose slowly, gathering her shawl about her, +and passed through the entry up to her own chamber. + +Miss Prudence did not mean to sigh, she did not mean to be so ungrateful, +there was work enough in her life, why should she long for a holiday +time? Girls must all have their story and the story must run on into +womanhood as hers had, there was no end till it was all lived through. + +"When thou passest _through_ the waters I will be with thee." + +Miss Prudence dropped her head in her hands; she was going through yet. + +Will Rheid was a manly young fellow, just six feet one, with a fine, +frank face, a big, explosive voice, and a half-bashful, half-bold manner +that savored of land and sea. He was as fresh and frolicsome as a sea +breeze itself, as shrewd as his father, and as simple as Linnet. + +But--Miss Prudence came back from her dreaming over the past,--would +Linnet go home with her and go to school? Perhaps John Holmes would take +Marjorie under his special tutelage for awhile, until she might come to +her, and--how queer it was for her to be planning about other people's +homes--why might he not take up his abode with the Wests, pay good board, +and not that meagre two dollars a week, take Linnet's seat at the table, +become a pleasant companion for Mr. West through the winter, and, above +all, fit Marjorie for college? And did not he need the social life? He +was left too much to his own devices at old Mrs. Devoe's. Marjorie, her +father with his ready talk, her mother, with a face that held remembrance +of all the happy events of her life, would certainly be a pleasant +exchange for Mrs. Devoe, and Dolly, her aged cat. She would go home to +her own snuggery, with Linnet to share it, with a relieved mind if John +Holmes might be taken into a family. And it was Linnet, after all, who +was to make the changes and she had only been thinking of Marjorie. + +When Linnet came to her to kiss her good night, Miss Prudence looked down +into her smiling eyes and quoted: + +"'Keep happy, sweetheart, and grow wise.'" + +The low murmur of voices reached Miss Prudence in her chamber long after +midnight, she smiled as she thought of Giant Despair and his wife +Diffidence. And then she prayed for the wanderer over the seas, that he +might go to his Father, as the prodigal did, and that, if it were not +wrong or selfish to wish it, she might hear from him once more before she +died. + +And then the voices were quiet and the whole house was still. + + + + +XI. + +GRANDMOTHER. + +"Even trouble may be made a little sweet"--_Mrs. Platt._ + + +"Here she is, grandmarm!" called out the Captain. "Run right in, Midget." + +His wife was _marm_ and his mother _grandmarm_. + +Marjorie ran in at the kitchen door and greeted the two occupants of the +roomy kitchen. Captain Rheid had planned his house and was determined +he said that the "women folks" should have room enough to move around in +and be comfortable; he believed in having the "galley" as good a place to +live in as the "cabin." + +It was a handsome kitchen, with several windows, a fine stove, a +well-arranged sink, a large cupboard, a long white pine table, three +broad shelves displaying rows of shining tinware, a high mantel with +three brass candlesticks at one end, and a small stone jar of fall +flowers at the other, the yellow floor of narrow boards was glowing with +its Saturday afternoon mopping, and the general air of freshness and +cleanliness was as refreshing as the breath of the sea, or the odor of +the fields. + +Marm and grandmarm liked it better. + +"Deary me!" ejaculated grandma, "it's an age since you were here." + +"A whole week," declared Marjorie, standing on tiptoe to hang up her sack +and hat on a hook near the shelves. + +"Nobody much comes in and it seems longer," complained the old lady. + +"I think she's very good to come once a week," said Hollis' sad-faced +mother. + +"Oh, I like to come," said Marjorie, pushing one of the wooden-bottomed +chairs to grandmother's side. + +"It seems to me, things have happened to your house all of a sudden," +said Mrs. Rheid, as she gave a final rub to the pump handle and hung up +one of the tin washbasins over the sink. + +"So it seems to us," replied Marjorie; "mother and I hardly feel at +home yet. It seems so queer at the table with Linnet gone and two +strangers--well, Mr. Holmes isn't a stranger, but he's a stranger at +breakfast time." + +"Don't you know how it all came about?" inquired grandmother, who +"admired" to get down to the roots of things. + +"No, I guess--I think," she hastily corrected, "that nobody does. We all +did it together. Linnet wanted to go with Miss Prudence and we all +wanted her to go; Mr. Holmes wanted to come and we all wanted him to +come; and then Mr. Holmes knew about Morris Kemlo, and father wanted a +boy to do the chores for winter and Morris wanted to come, because he's +been in a drug store and wasn't real strong, and his mother thought farm +work and sea air together would be good for him." + +"And you don't go to school?" said Mrs. Rheid, bringing her work, +several yards of crash to cut up into kitchen towels and to hem. Her +chair was also a hard kitchen chair; Hollis' mother had never "humored" +herself, she often said, there was not a rocking chair in her house until +all her boys were big boys; she had thumped them all to sleep in a +straight-backed, high, wooden chair. But with this her thumping had +ceased; she was known to be as lax in her government as the father was +strict in his. + +She was a little woman, with large, soft black eyes, with a dumb look of +endurance about the lips and a drawl in her subdued voice. She had not +made herself, her loving, rough boys, and her stern, faultfinding +husband, had moulded not only her features, but her character. She was +afraid of God because she was afraid of her husband, but she loved God +because she knew he must love her, else her boys would not love her. + +"Is Linnet homesick?" she questioned as her sharp shears cut through the +crash. + +"Yes, but not very much. She likes new places. She likes the school, and +the girls, so far, and she likes Miss Prudence's piano. Hollis has been +to see her, and Helen Rheid has called to see her, and invited her and +Miss Prudence to come to tea some time. Miss Prudence wrote me about +Helen, and she's _lovely_, Mrs. Rheid." + +"So Hollis said. Have you brought her picture back?" + +"Yes'm." + +Marjorie slowly drew a large envelope from her pocket, and taking the +imperial from it gazed at it long. There was a strange fascination to her +in the round face, with its dark eyes and mass of dark hair piled high on +the head. It was a vignette and the head seemed to be rising from folds +of black lace, the only ornament was a tiny gold chain on which was +placed a small gold cross. + +To Marjorie this picture was the embodiment of every good and beautiful +thing. It was somebody that she might be like when she had read all the +master's books, and learned all pretty, gentle ways. She never saw Helen +Rheid, notwithstanding Helen Rheid's life was one of the moulds in which +some of her influences were formed. Helen Rheid was as much to her as +Mrs. Browning was to Miss Prudence. After another long look she slipped +the picture back into the envelope and laid it on the table behind her. + +"You are going with Miss Prudence when Linnet is through, I suppose?" +asked Mrs. Rheid. + +"So mother says. It seems a long time to wait, but I am studying at home. +Mother cannot spare me to go to school, now, and Mr. Holmes says he would +rather hear me recite than not. So I am learning to sew and do housework +as well." + +"You need that as much as schooling," returned Mrs. Rheid, decidedly. "I +wish one of my boys could have gone to college, there's money enough to +spare, but their father said he had got his learning knocking around the +world and they could get theirs the same way." + +"Hollis studies--he's studying French now." + +"Did you bring a letter from him?" inquired his mother, eagerly. + +"Yes," said Marjorie, disappointedly, "but I wanted to keep it until the +last thing. I wanted you to have the best last." + +"If I ever do get the best it will be last!" said the subdued, sad voice. + +"Then you shall have this first," returned the bright, childish voice. + +But her watchful eyes had detected a stitch dropped in grandmother's work +and that must be attended to first. The old lady gave up her work +willingly and laid her head back to rest while Marjorie knit once around. +And then the short letter was twice read aloud and every sentence +discussed. + +"If I ever wrote to him I suppose he'd write to me oftener," said his +mother, "but I can't get my hands into shape for fine sewing or for +writing. I'd rather do a week's washing than write a letter." + +Marjorie laughed and said she could write letters all day. + +"I think Miss Prudence is very kind to you girls," said Mrs. Rheid. "Is +she a relation?" + +"Not a _real_ one," admitted Marjorie, reluctantly. + +"There must be some reason for her taking to you and for your mother +letting you go. Your mother has the real New England grit and she's proud +enough. Depend upon it, there's a reason." + +"Miss Prudence likes us, that's the reason, and we like her." + +"But that doesn't repay _money_." + +"She thinks it does. And so do we." + +"How much board does the master pay?" inquired grandmother. + +"I don't know; I didn't ask. He has brought all his books and the spare +chamber is full. He let me help him pile them up. But he says I must not +read one without asking him." + +"I don't see what you want to read them for," said the old lady sharply. +"Can't your mother find enough for you to do. In my day--" + +"But your day was a long time ago," interrupted her daughter-in-law. + +"Yes, yes, most a hundred, and girls want everything they can get now. +Perhaps the master hears your lessons to pay his board." + +"Perhaps," assented Marjorie. + +"They say bees pay their board and work for you beside," said Mrs. Rheid. +"I guess he's like a bee. I expect the Widow Devoe can't help wishing he +had stayed to her house." + +"He proposed to come himself," said Marjorie, with a proud flash of her +eyes, "and he proposed to teach me himself." + +"Oh, yes, to be sure, but she and the cat will miss him all the same." + +"It's all sudden." + +"[missing text] happen sudden, nowadays. I keep my eyes shut and things +keep whirling around." + +Grandmother was seated in an armchair with her feet resting on a +home-made foot stool, clad in a dark calico, with a little piece of gray +shawl pinned closely around her neck, every lock of hair was concealed +beneath a black, borderless silk cap, with narrow black silk strings tied +under her trembling chin, her lips were sunken and seamed, her eyelids +partly dropped over her sightless eyes, her withered, bony fingers were +laboriously pushing the needles in and out through a soft gray wool sock, +every few moments Marjorie took the work from her to pick up a dropped +stitch or two and to knit once around. The old eyes never once suspected +that the work grew faster than her own fingers moved. Once she remarked +plaintively: "Seems to me it takes you a long time to pick up one +stitch." + +"There were three this time," returned Marjorie, seriously. + +"What does the master learn you about?" asked Mrs. Rheid. + +"Oh, the school studies! And I read the dictionary by myself." + +"I thought you had some new words." + +"I want some good words," said Marjorie. + +"Now don't you go and get talking like a book," said grandmother, +sharply, "if you do you can't come and talk to me." + +"But you can talk to me," returned Marjorie, smiling, "and that is what I +want. Hollis wrote me that I mustn't say 'guess' and I do forget so +often." + +"Hollis is getting ideas," said Hollis' mother; "well, let him, I want +him to learn all he can." + +Marjorie was wondering where her own letter to Hollis would come in; +she had stowed away in the storehouse of her memory messages enough +from mother and grandmother to fill one sheet, both given with many +explanations, and before she went home Captain Rheid would come in +and add his word to Hollis. And if she should write two sheets this +time would her mother think it foolish? It was one of Mrs. West's +old-fashioned ways to ask Marjorie to let her read every letter that +she wrote. + +With her reserve Marjorie could open her heart more fully to Miss +Prudence than she could to one nearer her; it was easier to tell Miss +Prudence that she loved her than to tell her mother that she loved her, +and there were some things that she could say to Mr. Holmes that she +could not say to her father. It may be a strange kind of reserve, but it +is like many of us. Therefore, under this surveillance, Marjorie's +letters were not what her heart prompted them to be. + +If, in her own young days, her mother had ever felt thus she had +forgotten it. + +But for this Marjorie's letters would have been one unalloyed pleasure. +One day it occurred to her to send her letter to the mail before her +mother was aware that she had written, but she instantly checked the +suggestion as high treason. + +Josie Grey declared that Marjorie was "simple" about some things. A taint +of deceit would have caused her as deep remorse as her heart was capable +of suffering. + +"Grandma, please tell me something that happened when you were little," +coaxed Marjorie, as she placed the knitting back in the old fingers. +How pink and plump the young fingers looked as they touched the old +hands. + +"You haven't told me about the new boy yet," said the old lady. "How old +is he? Where did he come from? and what does he look like?" + +"_We_ want another boy," said Mrs. Rheid, "but boys don't like to stay +here. Father says I spoil them." + +"Our 'boy,'--Morris Kemlo,--don't you think it's a pretty name? It's real +funny, but he and I are twins, we were born on the same day, we were +both fourteen this summer. He is taller than I am, of course, with light +hair, blue eyes, and a perfect gentleman, mother says. He is behind in +his studies, but Mr. Holmes says he'll soon catch up, especially if he +studies with me evenings. We are to have an Academy at our house. His +mother is poor, and has other children, his father lost money in a bank, +years ago, and died afterward. It was real dreadful about it--he sold his +farm and deposited all his money in this bank, he thought it was so sure! +And he was going into business with the money, very soon. But it was lost +and he died just after Morris was born. That is, it was before Morris was +born that he lost the money, but Morris talks about it as if he knew all +about it. Mr. Holmes and Miss Prudence know his mother, and Miss Prudence +knew father wanted a boy this winter. He is crazy to go to sea, and says +he wants to go in the _Linnet_. And that's all I know about him, +grandma." + +"Is he a _good_ boy?" asked Mrs. Rheid. + +"Oh, yes," said Marjorie, "he brings his Bible downstairs and reads every +night. I like everything but doing his mending, and mother says I must +learn to do that. Now, grandma, please go on." + +"Well, Marjorie, now I've heard all the news, and Hollis' letter, if +you'll stay with grandmarm I'll run over and see Cynthy! I want to see if +her pickles are as green as mine, and I don't like to leave grandmarm +alone. You must be sure to stay to supper." + +"Thank you; I like to stay with grandma." + +"But I want hasty pudding to-night, and you won't be home in time to make +it, Hepsie," pleaded the old lady in a tone of real distress. + +"Oh, yes, I will, Marjorie will have the kettle boiling and she'll stir +it while I get supper." + +Mrs. Rheid stooped to pick up the threads that had fallen on her clean +floor, rolled up her work, took her gingham sun-bonnet from its hook, and +stepped out into the sunshine almost as lightly as Marjorie would have +done. + +"Cynthy" was African John's wife, a woman of deep Christian experience, +and Mrs. Rheid's burdened heart was longing to pour itself out to her. + +Household matters, the present and future of their children, the news of +the homes around them, and Christian experience, were the sole topics +that these simply country women touched upon. + +"Well, deary, what shall I tell you about? I must keep on knitting, for +Hollis must have these stockings at Christmas, so he can tell folks in +New York that his old grandmarm most a hundred knit them for him all +herself. Nobody helped her, she did it all herself. She did it with her +own old fingers and her own blind eyes. I'll drop too many stitches while +I talk, so I'll let you hold it for me. It seems as if it never will get +done," she sighed, dropping it from her fingers. + +"Oh, yes," said Marjorie, cheerily, "it's like your life, you know; that +has been long, but it's 'most done.'" + +"Yes, I'm most through," sighed the old lady with a long, resigned +breath, "and there's nobody to pick up the stitches I've dropped all +along." + +"Won't God?" suggested Marjorie, timidly. + +"I don't know, I don't know about things. I've never been good enough to +join the Church. I've been afraid." + +"Do you have to be _good_ enough?" asked the little church member in +affright. "I thought God was so good he let us join the Church just as he +lets us go into Heaven--and he makes us good and we try all we can, too." + +"That's an easy way to do, to let him make you good. But when the +minister talks to me I tell him I'm afraid." + +"I wouldn't be afraid," said Marjorie; "because you want to do as Christ +commands, don't you? And he says we must remember him by taking the +bread and wine for his sake, to remember that he died for us, don't you +know?" + +"I never did it, not once, and I'm most a hundred!" + +"Aren't you sorry, don't you want to?" pleaded Marjorie, laying her warm +fingers on the hard old hand. + +"I'm afraid," whispered the trembling voice. "I never was good enough." + +"Oh, dear," sighed Marjorie, her eyes brimming over, "I don't know how to +tell you about it. But won't you listen to the minister, he talks so +plainly, and he'll tell you not to be afraid." + +"They don't go to communion, my son nor his wife; they don't ask me to." + +"But they want you to; I know they want you to--before you die," +persuaded Marjorie. "You are so old now." + +"Yes, I'm old. And you shall read to me out of the Testament before you +go. Hepsie reads to me, but she gets to crying before she's half through; +she can't find 'peace,' she says." + +"I wish she could," said Marjorie, almost despairingly. + +"Now I'll tell you a story," began the old voice in a livelier tone. "I +have to talk about more than fifty years ago--I forget about other +things, but I remember when I was young. I'm glad things happened then, +for I can remember them." + +"Didn't things happen afterward?" asked Marjorie, laughing. + +"Not that I remember." + +This afternoon was a pleasant change to Marjorie from housework and +study, and she remembered more than once that she was doing something to +help pay Hollis for the Holland plate. + +"Where shall I begin?" began the dreamy, cracked voice, "as far back as I +can remember?" + +"As far back as you can," said Marjorie, eagerly. "I like old stories +best." + +"Maybe I'll get things mixed up with my mother and grandmother and not +know which is me." + +"Rip Van Winkle thought his son was himself," laughed Marjorie, "but you +will think you are your grandmother." + +"I think over the old times so, sitting here in the dark. Hepsie is no +hand to talk much, and Dennis, he's out most of the time, but bedtime +comes soon and I can go to sleep. I like to have Dennis come in, he never +snaps up his old mother as he does Hepsie and other folks. I don't like +to be in the dark and have it so still, a dog yapping is better than no +noise, at all. I say, 'Now I lay me' ever so many times a day to keep me +company." + +"You ought to live at our house, we have noisy times; mother and I sing, +and father is always humming about his work. Mr. Holmes is quiet, but +Morris is so happy he sings and shouts all day." + +"It used to be noisy enough once, too noisy, when the boys were all +making a racket together, and Will made noise enough this time he was +home. He used to read to me and sing songs. I don't wonder Hepsie is +still and mournful, like. It's a changed home to her with the boys away. +My father's house had noise enough in it; he had six wives." + +"Not all at once," cried Marjorie alarmed, confounding a hundred years +ago with the partriarchal age. + +But the old story-teller never heeded interruptions. + +"And my marm was the last wife but one. My father was a hundred years and +one day when he died. I've outlived all the children, I guess, for I +never hear from none of them--I most forget who's dead. Some of them was +married before I was born. I was the youngest, and I never remember my +own mother, but I had a good mother, all the same." + +"You had four step-mothers before you were born," said Marjorie +seriously, "and one own mother and then another step-mother. Girls don't +have so many step-mothers nowadays." + +"And our house was one story--a long house, with the eaves most touching +the ground and big chimneys at both ends. It was full of folks." + +"I should _think_ so," interposed Marjorie. + +"And Sunday nights we used to sing 'God of my childhood and my youth.' +Can you sing that? I wish you'd sing it to me. I forget what comes next." + +"I never heard of it before; I wish you _could_ remember it all, it's so +pretty." + +"Amzi used to sit next to me and sing--he was my twin brother--as loud +and clear as a bell. And when he died they put this on his tombstone: + +"'Come see ye place where I do lie +As you are now so once was I: +As I be now so you will be, +Prepare for death and follow me.'" + +"Oh," shivered Marjorie, "I don't like it. I like a Bible verse better." + +"Isn't that in the Bible?" she asked, angrily. + +"I don't believe it is." + +"'Prepare to meet thy God' is." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "that was the text last Sunday." + +"And on father's tombstone mother put this verse: + +'O, my dear wife, do think of me + Although we've from each other parted, + O, do prepare to follow me + Where we shall love forever.' + +"I wish I could remember some more." + +"I wish you could," said Marjorie. "Didn't you have all the things we +have? You didn't have sewing machines." + +"Sewing machines!" returned the old lady, indignantly, "we had our +fingers and pins and needles. But sometimes we couldn't have pins +and had to pin things together with thorns. How would you like that?" + +"I'd rather be born now," said Marjorie. "I wouldn't want to have so many +step-mothers as you had, and I'd rather be named Marjorie than +_Experience_." + +"Experience is a good name, and I'd have earned it by this time if my +mother hadn't given it to me," and the sunken lips puckered themselves +into a smile. "I could tell you some _dreadful_ things, too, but Hepsie +won't like it if I do. I'll tell you one, though. I don't like to think +about the dreadful things myself. I used to tell them to my boys and +they'd coax me to tell them again, about being murdered and such things. +A girl I knew found out after she was married that her husband had killed +a peddler, to steal his money to marry her with, and people found it out +and he was hanged and she was left a widow!" + +"Oh, dear, _dear_," exclaimed Marjorie, "have dreadful things been always +happening? Did she die with a broken heart?" + +"No, indeed, she was married afterward and had a good husband. She got +through, as people do usually, and then something good happened." + +"I'll remember that," said Marjorie, her hazel eyes full of light; "but +it was dreadful." + +"And there were robbers in those days." + +"Were there giants, too?" + +"I never saw a giant, but I saw robbers once. The women folks were alone, +not even a boy with us, and six robbers came for something to eat and +they ransacked the house from garret to cellar; they didn't hurt us at +all, but we _were_ scared, no mistake. And after they were gone we found +out that the baby was gone, Susannah's little black baby, it had died the +day before and mother laid it on a table in the parlor and covered it +with a sheet and they had caught it up and ran away with it." + +"Oh, _dear_," ejaculated Marjorie. + +"Father got men out and they hunted, but they never found the robbers or +the baby. If Susannah didn't cry nobody ever did! She had six other +children but this baby was so cunning! We used to feed it and play with +it and had cried our eyes sore the day it died. But we never found it." + +"It wasn't so bad as if it had been alive," comforted Marjorie, "they +couldn't hurt it. And it was in Heaven before they ran away with the +body. But I don't wonder the poor mother was half frantic." + +"Poor Susannah, she used to talk about it as long as she lived." + +"Was she a slave?" + +"Of course, but we were good to her and took care of her till she died. +My father gave her to me when I was married. That was years and years and +_years_ before we came to this state. I was fifteen when I was married--" + +"_Fifteen_," Marjorie almost shouted. That was queerer than having so +many step-mothers. + +"And my husband had four children, and Lucilla was just my age, the +oldest, she was in my class at school. But we got on together and kept +house together till she married and went away. Yes, I've had things +happen to me. People called it our golden wedding when we'd been married +fifty years, and then he died, the next year, and I've lived with my +children since. I've had my ups and downs as you'll have if you live to +be most a hundred." + +"You've had some _ups_ as well as downs," said Marjorie. + +"Yes, I've had some good times, but not many, not many." + +Marjorie answered indignantly: "I think you have good times now, you have +a good home and everybody is kind to you." + +"Yes, but I can't see and Hepsie don't talk much." + +"This afternoon as I was coming along I saw an old hunch-backed woman +raking sticks together to make a bonfire in a field, don't you think she +had a hard time?" + +"Perhaps she liked to; I don't believe anybody made her, and she could +_see_ the bonfire." + +Marjorie's eyes were pitiful; it must be hard to be blind. + +"Shall I read to you now?" she asked hurriedly. + +"How is the fire? Isn't it most time to put the kettle on? I shan't sleep +a wink if I don't have hasty pudding to-night and I don't like it _raw_, +either." + +"It shan't be raw," laughed Marjorie, springing up. "I'll see to the fire +and fill the kettle and then I'll read to you." + +The old lady fumbled at her work till Marjorie came back to her with the +family Bible in her hands. + +She laid the Bible on the table and moved her chair to the table. + +"Where shall I read?" + +"About Jacob and all his children and all his troubles, I never get tired +of that. He said few and evil had been his days and he was more than most +a hundred." + +"Well," said Marjorie, lingering over the word and slowly turning back to +Genesis. She had opened to John, she wanted to read to the grumbling old +heart that was "afraid" some of the comforting words of Jesus: "Let not +your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." + +"Begin about Jacob and read right on." + +With a voice that could not entirely conceal her disappointment, she +"began about Jacob and read right on" until Mrs. Rheid's light step +touched the plank at the kitchen door. There was a quiet joyfulness in +her face, but she did not say one word; she bent over to kiss Marjorie as +she passed her, hung up her gingham sun-bonnet, and as the tea kettle was +singing, poured the boiling water into an iron pot, scattered a handful +of salt in it and went to the cupboard for the Indian meal. + +"I'll stir," said Marjorie, looking around at the old lady and +discovering her head dropped towards one side and the knitting aslant in +her fingers. + +"The pudding stick is on the shelf next to the tin porringer," explained +Mrs. Rheid. + +Marjorie moved to the stove and stood a moment holding the wooden pudding +stick in her hand. + +"You may tell Hollis," said Hollis' mother, slowly dropping the meal into +the boiling water, "that I have found peace, at last." + +Majorie's eyes gave a quick leap. + +"Peace in _believing_--there is no peace anywhere else," she added. + + + + +XII. + +A BUDGET OF LETTERS. + +"The flowers have with the swallows fled, + And silent is the cricket; +The red leaf rustles overhead, + The brown leaves fill the thicket + +"With frost and storm comes slowly on + The year's long wintry night time."--_J. T. Trowbridge_ + + +"_New York, Nov_. 21, 18--. + +"MY DARLING MARJORIE: + +"You know I hate to write letters, and I do not believe I should have +begun this this evening if Miss Prudence had not made me. She looks at +me with her eyes and then I am _made_. I am to be two weeks writing this, +so it is a journal. To think I have been at school two years and am +beginning a third year. And to think I am really nineteen years old. And +you are sixteen, aren't you? Almost as old as I was when I first came. +But your turn is coming, poor dear! Miss Prudence says I may go home and +be married next summer, if I can't find anything better to do, and Will +says I can't. And I shouldn't wonder if we go to Europe on our wedding +tour. That sounds grand, doesn't it? But it only means that Captain +Will Rheid will take his wife with him if the owners' do not object too +strongly, and if they do, the captain says he will let the _Linnet_ find +another master; but I don't believe he will, or that anybody will object. +That little cabin is just large enough for two of us to turn around in, +or we would take you. Just wait till Will has command of a big East +Indiaman and you shall go all around the world with us. We are in our +snuggery this evening, as usual. I think you must know it as well as I do +by this time. The lovely white bed in the alcove, the three windows with +lace curtains dropping to the floor, the grate with its soft, bright +fire, the round table under the chandelier, with Miss Prudence writing +letters and I always writing, studying, or mending. Sometimes we do not +speak for an hour. Now my study hours are over and I've eaten three +Graham wafers to sustain my sinking spirits while I try to fill this +sheet. Somehow I can think of enough to say--how I would talk to you if +you were in that little rocker over in the corner. But I think you would +move it nearer, and you would want to do some of the talking yourself. I +haven't distinguished myself in anything, I have not taken one prize, my +composition has never once been marked T. B. R, _to be read_; to be read +aloud, that is; and I have never done anything but to try to be perfect +in every recitation and to be ladylike in deportment. I am always asked +to sing, but any bird can sing. I was discouraged last night and had a +crying time down here on the rug before the grate. Miss Prudence had gone +to hear Wendell Phillips, with one of the boarders, so I had a good long +time to cry my cry out all by myself. But it was not all out when she +came, I was still floating around in my own briny drops, so, of course, +she would know the cause of the small rain storm I was drenched in, and I +had to stammer out that--I--hadn't--improved--my time and--I knew she was +ashamed of me--and sorry she--had tried to--make anything out of me. And +then she laughed. You never heard her laugh like that--nor any one else. +I began to laugh as hard as I had been crying. And, after that, we talked +till midnight. She said lovely things. I wish I knew how to write them, +but if you want to hear them just have a crying time and she will say +them all to you. Only you can never get discouraged. She began by asking +somewhat severely: 'Whose life do you want to live?' And I was frightened +and said, 'My own, of course,' that I wouldn't be anybody else for +anything, not even Helen Rheid, or you. And she said that my training had +been the best thing for my own life, that I had fulfilled all her +expectations (not gone beyond them), and she knew just what I could do +and could not do when she brought me here. She had educated me to be a +good wife to Will, and an influence for good in my little sphere in my +down-east home; she knew I would not be anything wonderful, but she had +tried to help me make the most of myself and she was satisfied that I had +done it. I had education enough to know that I am an ignorant thing (she +didn't say _thing_, however), and I had common sense and a loving heart. +I was not to go out into the world as a bread-winner or 'on a mission,' +but I was to stay home and make a home for a good man, and to make it +such a sweet, lovely home that it was to be like a little heaven. (And +then I had to put my head down and cry again.) So it ended, and I felt +better and got up early to write it all to Will.--There's a knock at the +door and a message for Miss Prudence. + +"Later. The message was that Helen Rheid is very sick and wants her to +come to sit up with her to-night. Hollis brought the word but would not +come upstairs. And now I must read my chapter in the Bible and prepare to +retire. Poor Helen! She was here last week one evening with Hollis, +as beautiful as a picture and so full of life. She was full of plans. She +and Miss Prudence are always doing something together. + +"23d. Miss Prudence has not come home yet and I'm as lonesome as can be. +Coming home from school to-day I stopped to inquire about Helen and saw +nobody but the servant who opened the door; there were three doctors +upstairs then, she said, so I came away without hearing any more; that +tells the whole story. I wish Hollis would come and tell me. I've learned +my lessons and read my chapters in history and biography, and now I am +tired and stupid and want to see you all. I do not like it here, in this +stiff house, without Miss Prudence. Most of the boarders are gentlemen or +young married ladies full of talk among themselves. Miss Prudence says +she is going back to her Maple Street home when she takes you, and you +and she and her old Deborah are to live alone together. She is tired of +boarding and so I am, heartily tired. I am tired of school, to-night, and +everything. Your letter did not come to-day, and Will's was a short, +hurried one, and I'm homesick and good-for-nothing. + +"27th. I've been studying hard to keep up in geometry and astronomy and +have not felt a bit like writing. Will has sailed for Liverpool and I +shall not see him till next spring or later, for he may cross the +Mediterranean, and then back to England, and nobody knows where else, +before he comes home. It all depends upon "freights." As if freight were +everything. Hollis called an hour ago and stayed awhile. Helen is no +better. She scarcely speaks, but lies patient and still. He looked in at +her this morning, but she did not lift her eyes. Oh, she is so young to +die! And she has so much to _do_. She has not even begun to do yet. She +has so much of herself to do with, she is not an ignoramus like me. Her +life has been one strong, pure influence Hollis said to-night. He is sure +she will get well. He says her father and mother pray for her night and +day. And his Aunt Helen said such a beautiful thing yesterday. She was +talking to Hollis, for she knows he loves her so much. She said +something like this: (the tears were in his eyes when he told me) 'I was +thinking last night, as I stood looking at her, about that blood on the +lintel--the blood of the lamb that was to keep the first-born safe among +the children of Israel. She is our first-born and the blood of Jesus +Christ is in all our thoughts while we plead for her life--for his +sake--for the sake of his blood.' Hollis broke down and had to go away +without another word. Her life has done him good. I wish she could talk +to him before she goes away, because he is not a Christian. But he is so +good and thoughtful that he will _think_ now more than he ever did +before. Miss Prudence stays all the time. Helen notices when she is not +there and Mrs. Rheid says she can rest while Miss Prudence is in the +room. + +"I am such a poor stick myself, and Helen could do so much in the world; +and here I am, as strong and well as can be, and she is almost dying. But +I do not want to take her place. I have so much to live for--so many, I +ought to say. I thought of writing a long journal letter, but I have not +the heart to think of anything but Helen. + +"Hollis is to start next week on his first trip as a 'commercial +traveller,' and he is in agony at the thought of going and not knowing +whether Helen will live or die. I'll finish this in the morning, because +I know you are anxious to hear from us. + +"In the morning. I am all ready for school, with everything on but my +gloves. I don't half know my geometry and I shall have to copy my +composition in school. It is as stupid as it can be; it is about the +reign of Queen Anne. There isn't any heart in it, because all I care +about is the present--and the future. I'll send it to you as soon as it +is returned corrected. You will laugh at the mistakes and think, if you +are too modest to say so, that you can do better. I pity you if you +can't. I shall stop on the way to inquire about Helen, and I am afraid +to, too. + +"School, Noon Recess. I met Hollis on the walk as I stood in front of +Helen's--there was no need to ask. Black and white ribbon was streaming +from the bell handle. I have permission to go home. I have cried all the +morning. I hope I shall find Miss Prudence there. She must be so tired +and worn out. Hollis looked like a ghost and his voice shook so he could +scarcely speak. + +"With ever so much love to all, + +"YOUR SISTER LINNET. + +"P. S. Hollis said he would not write this week and wants you to tell his +mother all about it." + + * * * * * + +The next letter is dated in the early part of the following month. + +"_In my Den, Dec_. 10, 18--, + +"MY FRIEND PRUDENCE: + +"My heart was with you, as you well know, all those days and nights in +that sick chamber that proved to be the entrance to Heaven. She smiled +and spoke, lay quiet for awhile with her eyes closed, and awoke in the +presence of the Lord. May you and I depart as easily, as fearlessly. I +cannot grieve as you do; how much she is saved! To-night I have been +thinking over your life, and a woman's lot seems hard. To love so much, +to suffer so much. You see I am desponding; I am often desponding. You +must write to me and cheer me up. I am disappointed in myself. Oh how +different this monotonous life from the life I planned! I dig and +delve and my joy comes in my work. If it did not, where would it come in, +pray? I am a joyless fellow at best. There! I will not write another +word until I can give you a word of cheer. Why don't you toss me +overboard? Your life is full of cheer and hard work; but I cannot be like +you. Marjorie and Morris were busy at the dining-room table when I left +them, with their heads together over my old Euclid. We are giving them a +lift up into the sunshine and that is something. What do you want to send +Marjorie to school for? What can school do for her when I give her up to +you? Give yourself to her and keep her out of school. The child is not +always happy. Last communion Sunday she sat next to me; she was crying +softly all the time. You could have said something, but, manlike, I held +my peace. I wonder whether I don't know what to say, or don't know how to +say it. I seem to know what to say to you, but, truly Prudence, I don't +know how to say it. I have been wanting to tell you something, fourteen, +yes, fourteen years, and have not dared and do not dare to night. +Sometimes I am sure I have a right, a precious right, a sacred right, and +then something bids me forbear, and I forbear. I am forbearing now as I +sit up here in my chamber alone, crowded in among my books and the wind +is wild upon the water. I am gloomy to-night and discouraged. My book, +the book I have lost myself in so long, has been refused the fourth time. +Had it not been for your hand upon my arm awhile ago it would be now +shrivelled and curling among the ashes on my hearth. + +"Who was it that stood on London Bridge and did not throw his manuscript +over? Listen! Do you hear that grand child of yours asking who it was +that sat by his hearth and did not toss his manuscript into the fire? +Didn't somebody in the Bible toss a roll into the fire on the hearth? I +want you to come to talk to me. I want some one not wise or learned, +except learned and wise in such fashion as you are, to sit here beside +me, and look into the fire with me, and listen to the wind with me, and +talk to me or be silent with me. If my book had been accepted, and all +the world were wagging their tongues about it, I should want that unwise, +unlearned somebody. That friend of mine over the water, sitting in his +lonely bungalow tonight studying Hindoostanee wants somebody, too. Why +did you not go with him, Prudence? Shall you never go with any one; shall +you and I, so near to each other, with so much to keep us together, go +always uncomforted. But you _are_ comforted. You loved Helen, you love +Linnet and Marjorie and a host of others; you do not need me to bid you +be brave. You are a brave woman. I am not a brave man. I am not brave +to-night, with that four-times-rejected manuscript within reach of my +hand. Shall I publish it myself? I want some one to think well enough of +it to take the risk. + +"Prudence, I have asked God for something, but he gives me an answer that +I cannot understand. Write to me and tell me how that is. + +"Yours to-day and to-morrow." + +"J. H." + + * * * * * + +"_New York, Dec_. 20, 18--. + +"MY DEAR JOHN: + +"I have time but for one word to-night, and even that cannot be at +length. Linnet and I are just in from a lecture on Miss Mitford! There +were tears running down over my heart all the time that I was listening. +You call me brave; she was brave. Think of her pillowed up in bed writing +her last book, none to be kind to her except those to whom she paid +money. Linnet was delighted and intends to 'write a composition' about +her. Just let me keep my hand on your arm (will you?) when evil impulses +are about. You do not quite know how to interpret the circumstances that +seem to be in answer to your prayer? It is as if you spoke to God in +English and the answer comes in Sanscrit. I think I have received such +answers myself. And if we were brutes, with no capacity of increasing our +understanding, I should think it very queer. Sometimes it is hard work to +pray until we get an answer and then it is harder still to find out its +meaning. I imagine that Linnet and Marjorie, even Will Rheid, would not +understand that; but you and I are not led along in the easiest way. It +must be because the answer is worth the hard work: his Word and Spirit +can interpret all his involved and mystical answers. Think with a clear +head, not with any pre-formed judgment, with a heart emptied of all but a +willingness to read his meaning aright, be that meaning to shatter your +hopes or to give bountifully your desire--with a sincere and abiding +determination to take it, come what may, and you will understand as +plainly as you are understanding me. Try it and see. I have tried and I +know. There may be a wound for you somewhere, but oh, the joy of the +touch of his healing hand. And after that comes obedience. Do you +remember one a long time ago who had half an answer, only a glimmer of +light on a dark way? He took the answer and went on as far as he +understood, not daring to disobey, but he went on--something like you, +too--in 'bitterness,' in the heat of his spirit, he says; he went on as +far as he could and stayed there. That was obedience. He stayed there +'astonished' seven days. Perhaps you are in his frame of mind. Nothing +happened until the end of the seven days, then he had another word. So I +would advise you to stay astonished and wait for the end of your seven +days. In our bitterness and the heat of our spirit we are apt to think +that God is rather slow about our business. Ezekiel could have been busy +all that seven days instead of doing nothing at all, but it was the time +for him to do nothing and the time for God to be busy within him. You +have inquired of the Lord, that was your busy time, now keep still and +let God answer as slowly as he will, this is his busy time. Now Linnet +and I must eat a cracker and then say good-night to all the world, +yourself, dear John, included. + +"Yours, + +"PRUDENCE" + + * * * * * + + +"_Washington, Dec._ 21, 18--. + +"DEAR MARJORIE: + +"Aunt Helen sent me your letter; it came an hour ago. I am full of +business that I like. I have no time for sight-seeing. I wish I had! +Washington is the place for Young America to come to. But Young America +has to come on business this time. Perhaps I will come here on my wedding +trip, when there is no business to interfere. I am not ashamed to say +that if I had been a girl I would have cried over your letter. Helen was +_something_ to everybody; she used to laugh and then look grave when she +read your letters about her and the good she was to you. There will never +be another Helen. There is one who has a heartache about her and no one +knows it except himself and me. She refused him a few days before +she was taken ill. He stood a long time and looked at her in her coffin, +as if he forgot that any one was looking at him. I told him it was of no +use to ask her, but he persisted. She had told me several times that he +was disagreeable to her. Her mother wonders who will take her place to us +all, and we all say no one ever can. I thank God that she lived so long +for my sake. You and she are like sisters to me. You do me good, too. I +should miss your letters very much, for I hear from home so seldom. You +are my good little friend, and I am grateful to you. Give my best love to +every one at home and tell mother I like my business. Mother's photograph +and yours and Helen's are in my breast pocket. If I should die to-night +would I be as safe as Helen is? + +"Your true friend, + +"HOLLIS RHEID." + + * * * * * + +"_The Homestead, Jan_. 4, 18--. + +"DEAR FRIEND HOLLIS: + +"Thank you for your letter from Washington. I took it over to your mother +and read it to her and your father, all excepting about the young man who +stood and looked at Helen in her coffin. I thought, perhaps, that was in +confidence. Your father said: 'Tell Hollis when he is tired of tramping +around to come home and settle down near the old folks,' and your mother +followed me to the door and whispered: 'Tell him I cannot feel that he is +safe until I know that he has repented and been forgiven.' And now, being +through all this part, my conscience is eased and I can tell you +everything else I want to. + +"Look in and see us in a snow-storm. Mother is reading for the one +hundred and twenty-second and a half time somebody's complete works on +the New Testament, and father and Mr. Holmes are talking about--let me +see if I know--ah, yes, Mr. Holmes is saying, 'Diversity of origin,' so +you know all about it. + +"Sometimes I listen instead of studying. I would listen to this if your +letter were not due for the mail to-morrow. Father sits and smiles, and +Mr. Holmes walks up and down with his arms behind him as he used to do +during recitation in school. Perhaps he does it now, only you and I are +not there to see. I wish you were here to listen to him; father speaks +now and then, but the dialogue soon develops into a monologue and the +master entertains and instructs us all. If you do not receive this letter +on time know that it is because I am learning about the Jew; how he is +everywhere proving the truth of prophecy by becoming a resident of every +country. And yet while he is a Jew he has faces of all colors. In the +plains of the Ganges, he is black; in Syria, lighter and yet dusky; in +Poland his complexion is ruddy and his hair as light as yours. There was +a little Jewess boarding around here last summer as olive as I imagine +Rebekah and Sarah, and another as fair and rosy as a Dane. But have you +enough of this? Don't you care for what Livingstone says or Humboldt? +Don't you want to know the four proofs in support of unity of origin? +I do, and if I write them I shall remember them; 1. Bodily Structure. 2. +Language. 3. Tradition. 4. Mental Endowment. Now he is telling about the +bodily structure and I do want to listen.--And I _have_ listened and the +minute hand of the clock has been travelling on and my pen has been +still. But don't you want to know the ten conclusions that have been +established--I know you do. And if I forget, I'll nudge Morris and ask +him. Oh, I see (by looking over his shoulder) he has copied them all in +one of his exercise books. + +"You may skip them if you want to, but I know you want to see if your +experience in your extensive travels correspond with the master's +authority. Now observe and see if the people in Washington--all have the +same number of teeth, and of additional bones in their body. As that may +take some time, and seriously interfere with your 'business' and theirs, +perhaps you had better not try it. And, secondly, they all shed their +teeth in the same way (that will take time also, so, perhaps, you may +better defer it until your wedding trip, when you have nothing else to +do); and, thirdly, they all have the upright position, they walk and +look upward; and, fourthly, their head is set in every variety in the +same way; fifthly, they all have two hands; sixthly, they all have smooth +bodies with hair on the head; seventhly, every muscle and every nerve in +every variety are the same; eighthly, they all speak and laugh; ninthly, +they eat different kind of food, and live in all climates; and, _lastly_, +they are more helpless and grow more slowly than other animals. Now don't +you like to know that? And now he has begun to talk about language and I +_must_ listen, even if this letter is never finished, because language is +one of my hobbies. The longer the study of language is pursued the more +strongly the Bible is confirmed, he is saying. You ought to see Morris +listen. His face is all soul when he is learning a new thing. I believe +he has the most expressive face in the world. He has decided to be a +sailor missionary. He says he will take the Gospel to every port in the +whole world. Will takes Bibles and tracts always. Morris reads every word +of _The Sailors Magazine_ and finds delightful things in it. I have +almost caught his enthusiasm. But if I were a man I would be professor of +languages somewhere and teach that every word has a soul, and a history +because it has a soul. Wouldn't you like to know how many languages there +are? It is _wonderful_. Somebody says--Adelung (I don't know who he +is)--three thousand and sixty-four distinct languages, Balbi (Mr. Holmes +always remembers names) eight hundred languages and five thousand +dialects, and Max Mueller says there are nine hundred known languages. Mr. +Holmes can write a letter in five languages and I reverence him, but what +is that where there are, according to Max Mueller, eight hundred and +ninety-five that he does not know a word of? Mr. Holmes stands still and +puts his hands in front of him (where they were meant to be), and says he +will tell us about Tradition to-morrow night, as he must go up to his +den and write letters. But he does say Pandora's box is the story of the +temptation and the fall. You know she opened her box out of curiosity, +and diseases and wars leaped out to curse mankind. That is a Greek story. +The Greek myths all seem to mean something. Father says: 'Thank you for +a pleasant evening,' as Mr. Holmes takes his lamp to leave us, and _he_ +says: 'You forget what I have to thank you all for.' + +"My heart _bursts_ with gratitude to him, sometimes; I have his books and +I have him; he is always ready so gently and wisely to teach and explain +and never thinks my questions silly, and Morris says he has been and is +his continual inspiration. And we are only two out of the many whom he +stimulates. He says we are his recreation. Dull scholars are his hard +work. Morris is never dull, but I can't do anything with geometry; he +outstripped me long ago. He teaches me and I do the best I can. He has +written on his slate, 'Will you play crambo?' Crambo was known in the +time of Addison, so you must know that it is a very distinguished game. +Just as I am about to say 'I will as soon as this page is finished,' +father yawns and looks up at the clock. Mother remarks: 'It is time +for worship, one of the children will read, father.' So while father goes +to the door to look out to see what kind of a night it is and predict +to-morrow and while mother closes her book with a lingering, loving sigh, +and Morris pushes his books away and opens the Bible, I'll finish my last +page. And, lo, it is finished and you are glad that stupidity and +dullness do sometime come to an abrupt end. + +"FRIEND MARJORIE." + + * * * * * + +"_In the Schoolroom, Jan_. 23, 18--. + +"MY BLESSED MOTHER: + +"Your last note is in my breast pocket with all the other best things +from you. What would boys do without a breast pocket, I wonder. There is +a feeling of study in the very air, the algebra class are 'up' and doing +finely. The boy in my seat is writing a note to a girl just across from +us, and the next thing he will put it in a book and ask, with an +unconcerned face, 'Mr. Holmes, may I hand my arithmetic to somebody?' And +Mr. Holmes, having been a fifteen-year-old boy himself, will wink at any +previous knowledge of such connivings, and say 'Yes,' as innocently! It +isn't against the rules to do it, for Mr. Holmes, never, for a moment, +supposes such a rule a necessity. But I never do it. Because Marjorie +doesn't come to school. And a pencil is slow for all I want to say to +her. She is my talisman. I am a big, awkward fellow, and she is a zephyr +that is content to blow about me out of sheer good will to all human +kind. But, in school, I write notes to another girl, to my mother. And I +write them when I have nothing to say but that I am well and strong and +happy, content with the present, hopeful for the future, looking forward +to the day when you will see me captain of as fine a ship as ever sailed +the seas. And won't I bring you good things from every country in the +world, just because you are such a blessed mother to + +"Your unworthy boy, + +"M.K." + + * * * * * + +"_New York, Jan. 30, 18--._ + +"MY MARJORIE: + +"Your long letter has been read and re-read, and then read aloud to +Linnet. She laughed over it, and brushed her eyes over it; and then it +was laid away in my archives for future reference. It is a perfect +afternoon, the sun is shining, and the pavements are as dry as in May. +Linnet endeavored to coax me out, as it is her holiday afternoon, and +Broadway will be alive with handsome dresses and handsome faces, and +there are some new paintings to be seen. But I was proof against her +coaxing as this unwritten letter pressed on my heart, so she has +contented herself with Helen's younger sister, Nannie, and they will have +a good time together and bring their good time home to me, for Nannie is +to come home to dinner with her. Linnet looked like a veritable linnet in +her brown suit with the crimson plume in her brown hat; I believe the +girl affects grays and brown with a dash of crimson, because they remind +her of a linnet, and she _is_ like a linnet in her low, sweet voice, not +strong, but clear. She will be a lovely, symmetrical woman when she comes +out of the fire purified. How do I know she will ever be put in any +furnace? Because all God's children must suffer at some times, and then +they know they are his children. And she loves Will so vehemently, so +idolatrously, that I fear the sorrow may be sent through him; not in any +withdrawing of his love, he is too thoroughly true for that, not in any +great wickedness he may commit, he is too humble and too reliant upon the +keeping power of God to be allowed to fall into that, but--she may not +have him always, and then, I fear, her heart would really break. + +"She reminds me of my own young vehemence and trust. But the taking away +will be the least sorrow of all. Why! How sorrowfully I am writing +to-day: no, how truly I am writing of life to-day: of the life you and +she are entering--are already entered upon. But God is good, God is good, +hold to that, whatever happens. Some day, when you are quite an old woman +and I am really an old woman, I will tell you about my young days. + +"Your letter was full of questions; do not expect me to answer them all +at once. First, about reading the Bible. You poor dear child! Do you +think God keeps a book up in Heaven to put down every time you fail to +read the Bible through in a year? Because you have read it three times in +course, so many chapters a weekday, and so many a Sunday, do you think +you must keep on so or God will keep it laid up against you? + +"Well, be a law keeper if you must, but keep the whole law, and keep it +perfectly, in spirit and in letter, or you will fail! And if you fail in +one single instance, in spirit or in letter, you fail in all, and must +bear the curse. You must continue in _all things_ written in the law to +do them. Are you ready to try that? Christ could do it, and he did do it, +but can you? And, if not, what? You must choose between keeping the law +and trusting in Christ who has kept it for you. You cannot serve two +masters: the Law and Christ. Now, I know I cannot keep the law and so I +have given up; all I can do is to trust in Christ to save me, in Christ +who is able to obey all God's law for me, and so I trust him and love +him, and obey him with the strength he gives me. If we love him, we will +keep his commandments, he says. 'I can do all things through Christ +strengthening me'--even keep his commandments, which are not grievous. If +you must be a law keeper in your own strength, give up Christ and cling +to the law to save you, or else give up keeping the law for your +salvation and cling to Christ. Keep his commandments because you love +him, and not keep the old law to save your soul by your own obedience. +Read the Bible because you love it, every word. Read till you are full of +some message he gives you, and then shut it up; don't keep on, because +you must read so many chapters a day. + +"My plan is--and I tell you because it has been blessed to me--to ask him +to feed me with his truth, feed me _full_, and then I open the Book and +read. One day I was filled full with one clause: '_Because they +fainted_.' I closed it, I could read no more. At another time I read a +whole Epistle before I had all I was hungry for. One evening I read a +part of Romans and was so excited that I could not sleep for some time +that night. Don't you like that better than reading on and on because +you have set yourself to do it, and ending with a feeling of relief +because it is _done_, at last? These human hearts are naughty things and +need more grace continually. Just try my way--not my way but God's way +for me,--and see how full you will be fed with your daily reading. + +"I just bethought myself of a page in an old journal; I'll copy it for +you. It has notes of my daily reading. I wish I had kept the references, +but all I have is the thought I gathered. I'll give it to you just as I +have it. + +"'April 24, 18--. Preparation is needed to receive the truth. + +"'25. Ezekiel saw the glory before he heard the Voice. + +"'26. He permits long waiting. + +"'27. It is blessed to hear his voice, even if it be to declare +punishment. + +"'28. The word of God comes through the lips of men. + +"'29. God works with us when we work with him. + +"'30. God's work, and not man's word, is the power, + +"'May 1. Man fails us, _then_ we trust in God. + +"'2. Death is wages, Life is a gift. + +"'3. Paul must witness at Jerusalem before going to Rome. + +"'4. When God wills, it is not _to be_, it _is_. + +"'5. To man is given great power, but it is not his own power. + +"'6. Even his great love Christ _commends_ to us. + +"'7. To seek and find God all beside must be put away. + +"'11. The day of the Lord is darkness to those who do not seek him. + +"'12. For all there were so many yet was not the net broken. + +"'13. Even after Aaron's sin the Lord made him High Priest. + +"'14. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities--for Christ's sake. + +"'15. It is _spirit_ and not letter that God looks at. + +"'16. His choices rule all things. + +"'17. That which is not forbidden may be inquired about. + +"'18. Captivity is turned upon repentance and obedience. + +"'19. Rejoicing comes after understanding his words. + +"'20. A way of escape is made for sin. + +"'21. Faith waits as long as God asks it to wait. + +"'22. He strengthens our hearts through waiting to wait longer. + +"'23. Anything not contrary to the revealed will of God we may ask in +prayer.' + +"These lessons I took to my heart each day. Another might have drawn +other lessons from the same words, but these were what I needed then. +The page is written in pencil, and some words were almost erased. But I +am glad I kept them all this time; I did not know I was keeping them +for you, little girl. I have so fully consecrated myself to God that +sometimes I think he does not let any of me be lost; even my sins and +mistakes I have used to warn others, and through them I have been led to +thank him most fervently that he has not left me to greater mistakes, +greater sins. Some day your heart will almost break with thankfulness. + +"And now, childie, about your praying. You say you are _tired out_ when +your prayer is finished. I should think you would be, poor child, if you +desire each petition with all your intense nature. Often one petition +uses all my strength and I can plead no more--in words. You seem to think +that every time you kneel you must pray about every thing that can be +prayed about, the church, the world, all your friends, all your wants, +and everything that everybody wants. + +"What do you think of my short prayers? This morning all I could +ejaculate was: 'Lord, this is thy day, every minute of it.' I have had +some blessed minutes. When the sinner prayed, 'Lord, be merciful to me a +sinner,' he did not add, 'and bless my father and mother, brothers and +sisters, and all the sick and sinful and sorrowing, and send missionaries +to all parts of the world, and hasten thy kingdom in every heart.' And +when Peter was sinking he cried: 'Lord, save me, I perish,' and did not +add, 'strengthen my faith for this time and all time, and remember those +who are in the ship looking on, and wondering what will be the end of +this; teach them to profit by my example, and to learn the lesson thou +art intending to teach by this failure of mine.' And when the ship was +almost overwhelmed and the frightened disciples came to him--but why +should I go on? Child, _pour_ out your heart to him, and when, through +physical weariness, mental exhaustion, or spiritual intensity of feeling, +the heart refuses to be longer poured out, _stop_, don't pump and pump +and _pump_ at an exhausted well for water that has been all used up. +We are not heard for much speaking or long praying. Study the prayer he +gave us to pray, study his own prayer. He continued all night in prayer +but he was not hard upon his weak disciples, who through weariness and +sorrow fell asleep while he had strength to keep on praying. Your master +is not a hard master. We pray when we do not utter one word. Let the +Spirit pray in you and don't try to do it all yourself. Don't make +crosses for yourself. Before you begin to pray think of the loving, +lovely Saviour and pitiful Father you are praying to and ask the Spirit +to help you pray, and then pray and be joyful. Pray the first petition +that comes out of your heart, and then the second and the third, and +thank him for everything. + +"But here come the girls laughing upstairs and I must listen to the story +of their afternoon. Linnet will tell you about the pictures. + +"More than ever your sympathizing friend, + +"P. P." + + * * * * * + +"_Feb_. 2, 18--. + +"DEAR HOLLIS: + +"Your mother asked me to write to you while I am here, in your home, so +that it may seem like a letter from her. It is evening and I am writing +at the kitchen table with the light of one candle. How did I come to be +here at night? I came over this afternoon to see poor grandma and found +your mother alone with her; grandma had been in bed three days and the +doctor said she was dying of old age. She did not appear to suffer, she +lay very still, recognizing us, but not speaking even when we spoke to +her. + +"How I did want to say something to help her, for I was afraid she might +be troubled, she was always so 'afraid' when she thought about joining +the Church. But as I stood alone, looking down at her, I did not dare +speak. I did not like to awaken her if she were comfortably asleep. Then +I thought how wicked I was to withhold a word when she might hear it and +be comforted and her fear taken away, so I stooped over and said close +to her ear, 'Grandma,' and all she answered was, in her old way, 'Most a +hundred;' and then I said, '"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all +sin, even the sins of most a hundred years;"' and she understood, for she +moaned, 'I've been very wicked;' and all I could do was to say again, +'"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin."' She made no reply +and we think she did not speak again, for your mother's cousin, Cynthy, +was with her at the last and says she bent over her and found that she +did not breathe, and all the time she was with her she did not once +speak. + +"The house is so still, they all move around so softly and speak in +whispers. Your mother thinks you may be in Philadelphia or Baltimore when +this reaches New York, and that you will not hear in time to come to the +funeral. I hope you can come; she does _so_ want to see you. She says +once a year is so seldom to see her youngest boy. I believe I haven't +seen you since the day you brought me the plate so long, so long ago. +I've been away both times since when you were home. I have kept my +promise, I think; I do not think I have missed one letter day in writing +to you. I have come to see your mother as often as I could. Grandma will +not be buried till the fifth; they have decided upon that day hoping you +can get here by that time. Morris was to come for me if I did not get +home before dark and there's the sound of sleigh bells now. Here comes +your mother with her message. She says: 'Tell Hollis to come if he _any +way_ can; I shall look for him.' So I know you will. + +"That _is_ Morris, he is stamping the snow off his feet at the door. Why +do you write such short letters to me? Are mine too long? O, Hollis, I +want you to be a Christian; I pray for you every day. + +"Your friend, + +"MARJORIE" + + * * * * * + +"Feb 15, 18--. + +"MY DARLING LINNET: + +"Now I am settled down for a long letter to you, up here in the master's +chamber, where no one will dare interrupt me. I am sitting on the rug +before the fire with my old atlas on my lap; his desk with piles of +foolscap is so near that when my own sheet gives out, and my thoughts +and incidents are still unexhausted, all I have to do is to raise the +cover of his desk, take a fresh sheet and begin again. I want this to be +the kind of a three-volumed letter that you like; I have inspiration +enough--for I am surrounded by books containing the wisdom of all +the past. No story books, and I know you want a story letter. This room +is as cozy as the inside of an egg shell, with only the fire, the clock, +the books and myself. There is nothing but snow, snow, snow, out the +window, and promise of more in the threatening sky. I am all alone +to-day, too, and I may be alone to-night. I rather like the adventure of +staying alone; perhaps something will happen that never happened to any +one before, and I may live to tell the tale to my grandchildren. It is +early in the morning, that is, early to be writing a letter, but I shall +not have much dinner to get for myself and I want to write letters all +day. _That_ is an adventure that never happened to me before. How do you +think it happens that I am alone? Of course Morris and the master have +taken their dinners and gone to school; mother has been in Portland four +days, and father is to go for her to-day and bring her home to-morrow; +Morris is to go skating to-night and to stay in Middlefield with some of +the boys; and I told Mr. Holmes that he might go to the lecture on Turkey +and stay in Middlefield, too, if he would give my note to Josie Grey and +ask her to come down after school and stay with me. He said he would come +home unless she promised to come to stay with me, so I don't suppose I +shall have my adventurous night alone, after all. + +"I don't believe father has gone yet, I heard his step down-stairs, I'll +run down to say good-bye again and see if he wants anything, and go down +cellar and get me some apples to munch on to keep me from being lonesome. +Father will take the horses and they will not need to be fed, and I told +Morris I could feed the two cows and the hens myself, so he need not come +home just for that. But father is calling me. + +"Afternoon. Is it years and _years_ since I began this letter? My hair +has not turned white and I am not an old woman; the ink and paper look +fresh, too, fresher than the old bit of yellow paper that mother keeps so +preciously, that has written on it the invitation to her mother's wedding +that somebody returned to her. How slowly I am coming to it! But I want +to keep you in suspense. I am up in the master's chamber again, sitting +on the hearth before a snapping fire, and I haven't written one word +since I wrote you that father was calling me. + +"He did call me, and I ran down and found that he wanted an extra +shawl for mother; for it might be colder to-morrow, or it might be a +snow-storm. I stood at the window and saw him pass and listened to the +jingling of his bells until they were out of hearing, and then I lighted +a bit of a candle (ah, me, that it was not longer) and went down cellar +for my apples. I opened one barrel and then another until I found the +ones I wanted, the tender green ones that you used to like; I filled my +basket and, just then hearing the back door open and a step in the entry +over my head, I turned quickly and pushed my candlestick over, and, of +course, that wee bit of light sputtered out. I was frightened, for fear a +spark might have fallen among the straw somewhere, and spent some time +feeling around to find the candlestick and to wait to see if a spark +_had_ lighted the straw; and then, before I could cry out, I heard the +footsteps pass the door and give it a pull and turn the key! Father +always does that, but this was not father. I believe it was Captain +Rheid, father left a message for him and expected him to call, and I +suppose, out of habit, as he passed the door he shut it and locked it. I +could not shout in time, he was so quick about it, and then he went out +and shut the outside door hard. + +"I think I turned to stone for awhile, or fainted away, but when I came +to myself there I stood, with the candlestick in my hand, all in the +dark. I could not think what to do. I could not find the outside doors, +they are trap doors, you know, and have to be pushed up, and in winter +the steps are taken down, and I don't know where they are put. I had the +candle, it is true, but I had no match. I don't know what I did do. My +first thought was to prowl around and find the steps and push up one of +the doors, and I prowled and prowled and prowled till I was worn out. The +windows--small windows, too,--are filled up with straw or something in +winter, so that it was as dark as a dungeon; it _was_ a dungeon and +I was a prisoner. + +"If I hadn't wanted the apples, or if the light hadn't gone out, or if +Captain Rheid hadn't come, or if he hadn't locked the door! Would I have +to stay till Josie came? And if I pounded and screamed wouldn't she be +frightened and run away? + +"After prowling around and hitting myself and knocking myself I stood +still again and wondered what to do! I wanted to scream and cry, but that +wouldn't have done any good and I should have felt more alone than ever +afterward. Nobody could come there to hurt me, that was certain, and I +could stamp the rats away, and there were apples and potatoes and turnips +to eat? But suppose it had to last all night! I was too frightened to +waste any tears, and too weak to stand up, by this time, so I found a +seat on the stairs and huddled myself together to keep warm, and prayed +as hard as I ever did in my life. + +"I thought about Peter in prison; I thought about everything I could +think of. I could hear the clock strike and that would help me bear it, I +should know when night came and when morning came. The cows would suffer, +too, unless father had thrown down hay enough for them; and the fires +would go out, and what would father and mother think when they came home +to-morrow? Would I frighten them by screaming and pounding? Would I add +to my cold, and have quinsy sore throat again? Would I faint away and +never 'come to'? When I wrote 'adventure' upstairs by the master's fire I +did not mean a dreadful thing like this! Staying alone all night was +nothing compared to this. I had never been through anything compared to +this. I tried to comfort myself by thinking that I might be lost or +locked up in a worse place; it was not so damp or cold as it might have +been, and there was really nothing to be afraid of. I had nothing to do +and I was in the dark. I began to think of all the stories I knew about +people who had been imprisoned and what they had done. I couldn't write +a Pilgrim's Progress, I couldn't even make a few rhymes, it was too +lonesome; I couldn't sing, my voice stopped in my throat. I thought about +somebody who was in a dark, solitary prison, and he had one pin that he +used to throw about and lose and then crawl around and find it in the +dark and then lose it again and crawl around again and find it. I had +prowled around enough for the steps; that amusement had lost its +attraction for me. And then the clock struck. I counted eleven, but had I +missed one stroke? Or counted too many? It was not nine when I lighted +that candle. Well, that gave me something to reason about, and something +new to look forward to. How many things could I do in an hour? How many +could I count? How many Bible verses could I repeat? Suppose I began +with A and repeated all I could think of, and then went on to B. 'Ask, +and ye shall receive.' How I did ask God to let me out in some way, to +bring somebody to help me? To _send_ somebody. Would not Captain Rheid +come back again? Would not Morris change his mind and come home to +dinner? or at night? And would Mr. Holmes certainly go to hear that +lecture? Wasn't there anybody to come? I thought about you and how sorry +you would be, and, I must confess it, I did think that I would have +something to write to you and Hollis about. (Please let him see this +letter; I don't want to write all this over again.) + +"So I shivered and huddled myself up in a heap and tried to comfort +myself and amuse myself as best I could. I said all the Bible verses +I could think, and then I went back to my apples and brought the basket +with me to the stairs. I would not eat one potato or turnip until the +apples had given out. You think I can laugh now; so could you, after you +had got out. But the clock didn't strike, and nobody came, and I was sure +it must be nearly morning I was so faint with hunger and so dizzy from +want of sleep. And then it occurred to me to stumble up the stairs and +try to burst the door open! That lock was loose, it turned very easily! +In an instant I was up the stairs and trying the door. And, lo, and +behold, it opened easily, it was not locked at all! I had only imagined I +heard the click of the lock. And I was free, and the sun was shining, +and I was neither hungry nor dizzy. + +"I don't know whether I laughed or cried or mingled both in a state of +ecstasy. But I was too much shaken to go on with my letter, I had to find +a story book and a piece of apple pie to quiet my nerves. The fires were +not out and the clock had only struck ten. But when you ask me how long I +stayed in that cellar I shall tell you one hundred years! Now, isn't that +adventure enough for the first volume? + +"Vol. II. Evening. I waited and waited downstairs for somebody to come, +but nobody came except Josie Grey's brother, to say that her mother was +taken ill suddenly and Josie could not come. I suppose Mr. Holmes +expected her to come and so he has gone to Middlefield, and Morris +thought so, too; and so I am left out in the cold, or rather in by the +fire. Mr. Holmes' chamber is the snuggest room in the house, so full of +books that you can't be lonely in it, and then the fire on the hearth +is company. It began to snow before sun down and now the wind howls and +the snow seems to rush about as if it were in a fury. You ask what I have +read this winter. Books that you will not like: Thomson's 'Seasons,' +Cowper's 'Task,' Pollok's 'Course of Time,' Milton's 'Paradise Regained,' +Strickland's 'Queens of England,' 'Nelson on Infidelity,' 'Lady +Huntington and her Friends,' 'Lady of the Lake,' several of the +'Bridgewater Treatises,' Paley's 'Natural Theology,' 'Trench on +Miracles,' several dozens of the best story books I could find to make +sandwiches with the others, somebody's 'Travels in Iceland,' and +somebody's 'Winter in Russia,' and 'Rasselas,' and 'Boswell's Johnson,' +and I cannot remember others at this moment. Morris says I do not think +anything dry, but go right through everything. Because I have the master +to help me, and I did give 'Paradise Lost' up in despair. Mother says I +shall never make three quilts for you if I read so much, but I do get on +with the patch work and she already has one quilt joined, and Mrs. Rheid +is coming to help her quilt it next week. There is a pile of blocks on +the master's desk now and I intend to sit here in his arm chair and +sew until I am sleepy. I wonder if you will do as much for me when my +Prince comes. Mine is to be as handsome as Hollis, as good as Morris, +as learned as the master, and as devoted as your splendid Will. And if I +cannot find all these in one I will--make patch work for other brides and +live alone with Miss Prudence. And I'll begin now to make the patch work. +Oh, dear, I wish you and Miss Prudence were here. Hark! there's somebody +pounding on the outside kitchen door! Shall I go down or let them pound? +I don't believe it is Robin Hood or any of his merry men, do you? I'll +screw my courage up and go. + +"Vol. III. Next Day. I won't keep you in suspense, you dear, sympathetic +Linnet. I went down with some inward quaking but much outward boldness +as the pounding increased, and did not even ask 'Who's there?' before I +opened the door. But I _was_ relieved to find Morris, covered with snow, +looking like a storm king. He said he had heard through Frank Grey that +Josie couldn't come and he would not let me stay alone in a storm. I was +so glad, if I had been you I should have danced around him, but as it was +I and not you I only said how glad I was, and made him a cup of +steaming coffee and gave him a piece of mince pie for being so good. +To-day it snows harder than ever, so that we do not expect father and +mother; and Mr. Holmes has not come out in the storm, because Morris saw +him and told him that he was on the way home. Not a sleigh has passed, +we have not seen a single human being to-day. I could not have got out to +the stable, and I don't know what the cows and hens would have done +without Morris. He has thrown down more hay for the cows, and put corn +where the hens may find it for to-morrow, in case he cannot get out to +them. The storm has not lessened in any degree; I never knew anything +like it, but I am not the 'oldest inhabitant.' Wouldn't I have been +dreary here alone? + +"This does seem to be a kind of adventure, but nothing happens. Father is +not strong enough to face any kind of a storm, and I am sure they will +not attempt to start. Morris says we are playing at housekeeping and he +helps me do everything, and when I sit down to sew on your patch work he +reads to me. I let him read this letter to you, forgetting what I had +said about my Prince, but he only laughed and said he was glad that he +was _good_ enough for me, even if he were not handsome enough, or learned +enough, or devoted enough, and said he would become devoted forthwith, +but he could not ever expect to attain to the rest. He teases me and says +that I meant that the others were not good enough. He has had a letter +from Will promising to take him before the mast next voyage and he is +hilarious over it. His mother tries to be satisfied, but she is afraid of +the water. When so many that we know have lost father or brother or +husband on the sea it does seem strange that we can so fearlessly send +another out. Mrs. Rheid told me about a sea captain that she met when she +was on a voyage with Captain Rheid. He had been given up for lost when he +was young and when he came back he found his wife married to another man, +but she gave up the second husband and went back to the first. She was +dead when Mrs. Rheid met him; she said he was a very sad man. His ship +was wrecked on some coast, I've forgotten where, and he was made to work +in a mine until he was rescued. I think I would have remained dead to her +if she had forgotten me like that. But isn't this a long letter? Morris +has made me promise to write regularly to him; I told him he had never +given me a Holland plate two hundred years old, but he says he will go to +Holland and buy me one and that is better. + +"I am glad Hollis wrote such a long letter to his mother if he could not +come home. I wish he would write to her oftener; I do not think she is +quite satisfied to have him write to me instead. I will write to him +to-morrow, but I haven't anything to say, I have told you everything. O, +Linnet, how happy I shall be when your school days are over. Miss +Prudence shall have the next letter; I have something to ask her, as +usual. + +"The end of my story in three volumes isn't very startling. But this +snow-storm is. If we hadn't everything under cover we would have to do +without some things. + +"Yours, + +"MARJORIE" + + + + +XIII. + +A WEDDING DAY. + +"A world-without-end bargain."--_Shakespeare._ + + +A young girl stood in the doorway, shading her eyes with her hand as +she gazed down the dusty road; she was not tall or slight, but a plump, +well-proportioned little creature, with frank, steadfast eyes, a low, +smooth forehead with brown hair rippling away from it, a thoughtful mouth +that matched well with the eyes; an energetic maiden, despite the air of +study that somehow surrounded her; you were sure her voice would be +sweet, and as sure that it would be sprightly, and you were equally sure +that a wealth of strength was hidden behind the sweetness. She was only +eighteen, eighteen to-day, but during the last two years she had rapidly +developed into womanhood. The master told Miss Prudence this morning that +she was trustworthy and guileless, and as sweet and bright as she was +good; still, he believed, as of old, that she did not quite know how to +take her own part; but, as a woman, with a man to fight for her, what +need had she of fighting? He would not have been at all surprised had he +known that she had chosen, that morning, a motto, not only for her new +year, but, as she told Morris, for her lifetime: "The Lord shall fight +for you, and ye shall hold your peace." And he had said: "May I fight for +you, too, Marjorie?" But she had only laughed and answered: "We don't +live in the time of the Crusades." + +Although it was Linnet's wedding day Marjorie, the bridesmaid, was +attired in a gingham, a pretty pink and white French gingham; but there +were white roses at her throat and one nestled in her hair. The roses +were the gift of the groomsman, Hollis, and she had fastened them in +under the protest of Morris' eyes. Will and Linnet had both desired +Hollis to "stand up" with Marjorie; the bridesmaid had been very shy +about it, at first; Hollis was almost a stranger, she had seen him but +once since she was fourteen, and their letters were becoming more and +more distant. He was not as shy as Marjorie, but he was not easy and at +home with her, and never once dared to address the maiden who had so +suddenly sprung into a lovely woman with the old names, Mousie, or +Goosie. Indeed, he had nearly forgotten them, he could more readily have +said: "Miss Marjorie." + +He had grown very tall; he was the handsomest among the brothers, with an +air of refinement and courtesy that somewhat perplexed them and set him +apart from them. Marjorie still prayed for him every day, that is, for +the Hollis she knew, but this Hollis came to her to-day a stranger; her +school-boy friend was a dream, the friend she had written to so long was +only her ideal, and this tall man, with the golden-red moustache, dark, +soft eyes and deep voice, was a fascinating stranger from the outside +world. She could never write to him again; she would never have the +courage. + +And his heart quickened in its beating as he stood beside the white-robed +figure and looked down into the familiar, strange face, and he wondered +how his last letter could have been so jaunty and off-hand. How could he +ever write "Dear Marjorie" again, with this face in his memory? She was +as much a lady as Helen had been, he would be proud to take her among his +friends and say: "This is my old school friend." + +But he was busy bringing chairs across the field at this moment and +Marjorie stood alone in the doorway looking down the dusty road. This +doorway was a fitting frame for such a rustic picture as a girl in a +gingham dress, and the small house itself a fitting background. + +The house was a story and a half, with a low, projecting roof, a small +entry in the centre, and square, low-studded rooms on both sides, a +kitchen and woodshed stretched out from the back and a small barn stood +in the rear; the house was dazzling in the sun, with its fresh coat of +white paint, and the green blinds gave a cooling effect to the whole; +the door yard was simply a carpet of green with lilac bushes in one +corner and a tall pine standing near the gate; the fence rivalled the +house in its glossy whiteness, and even the barn in the rear had a new +coat of brown to boast of. Every room inside the small house was in +perfect order, every room was furnished with comfort and good taste, +but plainly as it became the house of the captain of the barque _Linnet_ +to be. It was all ready for housekeeping, but, instead of taking instant +possession, at the last moment Linnet had decided to go with her husband +to Genoa. + +"It is nonsense," Captain Rheid growled, "when the house is all ready." +But Will's mother pleaded for him and gained an ungracious consent. + +"You never run around after me so," he said. + +"Go to sea to-day and see what I will do," she answered, and he kissed +her for the first time in so many years that she blushed like a girl and +hurried away to see if the tea-kettle were boiling. + +Linnet's mother was disappointed, for she wanted to see Linnet begin her +pretty housekeeping; but Marjorie declared that it was as it should be +and quite according to the Old Testament law of the husband cheering up +his wife. + +But Marjorie did not stay very long to make a picture of herself, she ran +back to see if Morris had counted right in setting the plates on the long +dining table that was covered with a heavy cloth of grandma's own making. +There was a silk quilt of grandma's making on the bed in the "spare +room" beside. As soon as the ceremony was performed she had run away with +"the boys" to prepare the surprise for Linnet, a lunch in her own +house. The turkeys and tongue and ham had been cooked at Mrs. Rheid's, +and Linnet had seen only the cake and biscuits prepared at home, the +fruit had come with Hollis from New York at Miss Prudence's order, and +the flowers had arrived this morning by train from Portland. Cake and +sandwiches, lemonade and coffee, would do very well, Linnet said, who had +no thought of feasting, and the dining room at home was the only +banqueting hall she had permitted herself to dream of. + +Marjorie counted the chairs as Hollis brought them across the field from +home, and then her eyes filled as he drew from his pocket, to show her, +the deed of the house and ten acres of land, the wedding present from his +father to the bride. + +"Oh, he's too good," she cried. "Linnet will break down, I know she +will." + +"I asked him if he would be as good to my wife," answered Hollis, "and he +said he would, if I would please him as well as Will had done." + +"There's only one Linnet," said Marjorie. + +"But bride's have sisters," said Morris. "Marjorie, where shall I put all +this jelly? And I haven't missed one plate with a bouquet, have I? Now +count everybody up again and see if we are all right." + +"Marjorie and I," began Hollis, audaciously, pushing a chair into its +place. + +"Two," counted Morris, but his blue eyes flashed and his lip trembled. + +"And Will and Linnet, four," began Marjorie, in needless haste, and +father and mother, six, and Will's father and mother, eight, and the +minister and his wife, ten, and Herbert and his wife, twelve, and Mr. +Holmes and Miss Prudence, fourteen, and Sam and Harold, sixteen, and +Morris, seventeen. That is all. Oh, and grandfather and grandmother, +nineteen." + +"Seventeen plates! You and I are to be waiters, Marjorie," said Morris. + +"I'll be a waiter, too," said Hollis. "That will be best fun of all. I'm +glad you didn't hire anybody, Marjorie." + +"I wouldn't; I wanted to be primitive and do it all ourselves; I knew +Morris would be grand help, but I was not so sure of you." + +"Are you sure of me, now?" he laughed, like the old Hollis who used to go +to school. + +After that Marjorie would not have been surprised if he had called her +"Mousie." + +"Morris, what do you want to be a sailor for?" inquired Hollis, arranging +the white rose in his button-hole anew. + +"To sail," answered Morris seriously. "What do you want to be a salesman +for?" + +"To sell," said Hollis, as seriously, "Marjorie, what do you want to be +yourself for?" + +"To help you to be yourself," she answered promptly, and flew to the +front door where there was a sound of shouting and laughter. They were +all there, every one of the little home-made company; and the waiters +ushered them into the kitchen, where the feast was spread, with great +ceremony. + +If Linnet had not been somebody's wife she would have danced around and +clapped her hands with delight; as it was she nearly forgot her dignity, +and exclaimed with surprise and pleasure sufficient to satisfy those who +were in the secret of the feast. + +Linnet was in her gray travelling suit, but the dash of crimson this time +was in both cheeks; there was a haziness in her eyes that subdued the +brightness of her face and touched them all. The bridegroom was handsome +and proud, his own merry self, not a trifle abashed before them all on +his wedding day, everything that he said seemed to be thought worth +laughing at, and there was not a shadow on any face, except the flitting +of a shadow ever and anon across Morris Kemlo's blue eyes. + +The feast was ended, prayer offered by the pastor and the new home +dedicated to him who is the Father in every home where his children +dwell, and then kisses and congratulations and thanks mingled with the +tears that the mothers must need shed out of their joy and natural +regret. The mothers were both exultantly proud and sure that _her_ child +would not be the one to make the other unhappy. The carriages rolled +away, Will and Linnet to take the train to Portland, for if the wind +were fair the _Linnet_ would sail the next day for New York and thence to +Genoa. Linnet had promised to bring Marjorie some of the plastering of +the chamber in which Christopher Columbus was born, and if they went down +to Naples she would surely climb Mt. Vesuvius and bring her a branch of +mulberry. + +The mothers remained to wash the dishes and pack things away, to lock up +the house, and brush the last flake of dust from any of Linnet's new +possessions; Captain Rheid called to Hollis and asked him to walk over +the farm with him and see where everything was planted. Hollis was to +remain over night, but Morris was to take a late train to join the +_Linnet's_ crew, it being his first voyage as second mate. + +The mothers took off their kitchen aprons, washed their hands at Linnet's +new sink, and gave Morris the key of the front door to hang up in an +out-of-the-way corner of the wood shed. + +"It may better be here," said Mrs. Rheid, "and then any of us can get in +at any time to see how things are without troubling anybody to find the +key. The captain will see that every door and window is safe and as we +have the silver I don't believe anybody will think of troubling the +house." + +"Oh, dear no," replied Mrs. West. "I always leave my clothes out on the +line and we never think of locking a door at night." + +"Our kitchen windows look over this way and I shall always be looking +over. Now come home with me and see that quilt I haven't got finished +yet for them. I told your husband to come to our house for you, for you +would surely be there. I suppose Marjorie and Morris will walk back; we +wouldn't have minded it, either, on our eighteenth birthday." + +"Come, Marjorie, come see where I hang the key," said Morris. + +Marjorie followed him down the kitchen steps, across the shed to a corner +at the farther end; he found a nail and slipped it on and then asked her +to reach it. + +Even standing on tip toe her upstretched hand could not touch it. + +"See how I put the key of my heart out of your reach," he said, +seriously. + +"And see how I stretch after it," she returned, demurely. + +"I will come with you and reach it for you." + +"How can you when you are demolishing plaster in Christopher Columbus' +house or falling into the crater of Mt. Vesuvius? I may want to come +here that very day." + +"True; I will put it lower for you. Shall I put it under this stone so +that you will have to stoop for it?" + +"Mrs. Rheid said hang it over the window, that has been its place for +generations. They lived here when they were first married, before they +built their own house; the house doesn't look like it, does it? It is all +made over new. I am glad he gave it to Will." + +"He can build a house for Hollis," said he, watching her as he spoke. + +"Let me see you put the key there," she returned, unconcernedly. + +He hung the key on the nail over the small window and inquired if it were +done to her satisfaction. + +"Yes," she said. "I wonder how Linnet feels about going away from us all +so far." + +"She is with her husband," answered Morris. "Aren't you woman enough to +understand that?" + +"Possibly I am as much of a woman as you are." + +"You are years ahead of me; a girl at eighteen is a woman; but a boy at +eighteen is a boy. Will you tell me something out here among the wood? +This wood pile that the old captain sawed and split ten years ago shall +be our witness. Why do you suppose he gets up in winter before daylight +and splits wood--when he has a pile that was piled up twenty years ago?" + +"That is a question worthy the time and place and the wood pile shall be +our witness." + +"Oh, that isn't the question," he returned with some embarrassment, +stooping to pick up a chip and toss it from him as he lifted himself. +"Marjorie, _do_ you like Hollis better than you like me?" + +"You are only a boy, you know," she answered, roguishly. + +"I know it; but do you like me better than Hollis?" + +His eyes were on the chips at his feet, Marjorie's serious eyes were upon +him. + +"It doesn't matter; suppose I don't know; as the question never occurred +to me before I shall have to consider." + +"Marjorie, you are cruel," he exclaimed raising his eyes with a flash in +them; he was "only a boy" but his lips were as white as a man's would +have been. + +"I am sorry; I didn't know you were in such earnest," she said, +penitently. "I like Hollis, of course, I cannot remember when I did not +like him, but I am not acquainted with him." + +"Are you acquainted with me?" he asked in a tone that held a shade of +relief. + +"Oh, you!" she laughed lightly, "I know what you think before you can +speak your thought." + +"Then you know what I am thinking now." + +"Not all of it," she returned, but she colored, notwithstanding, and +stepped backward toward the kitchen. + +"Marjorie," he caught her hand and held it, "I am going away and I want +to tell you something. I am going far away this time, and I must tell +you. Do you remember the day I came? You were such a little thing, you +stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes, with your sleeves rolled back +and a big apron up to your neck, and you stopped in your work and looked +at me and your eyes were so soft and sorry. And I have loved you better +than anybody every day since. Every day I have thought: 'I will study +like Marjorie. I will be good like Marjorie. I will help everybody like +Marjorie.'" + +She looked up into his eyes, her own filled with tears. + +"I am so glad I have helped you so." + +"And will you help me further by saying that you like me better than +Hollis." + +"Oh, I do, you know I do," she cried, impulsively. "I am not acquainted +with him, and I know every thought you think." + +"Now I am satisfied," he cried, exultantly, taking both her hands in his +and kissing her lips. "I am not afraid to go away now." + +"Marjorie,"--the kitchen door was opened suddenly,--"I'm going to take +your mother home with me. Is the key in the right place." + +"Everything is all right, Mrs. Rheid," replied Morris. "You bolt that +door and we will go out this way." + +The door was closed as suddenly and the boy and girl stood silent, +looking at each other. + +"Your Morris Kemlo is a fine young man," observed Mrs. Rheid as she +pushed the bolt into its place. + +"He is a heartease to his mother," replied Mrs. West, who was sometimes +poetical. + +"Does Marjorie like him pretty well?" + +"Why, yes, we all do. He is like our own flesh and blood. But why did you +ask?" + +"Oh, nothing. I just thought of it." + +"I thought you meant something, but you couldn't when you know how Hollis +has been writing to her these four years." + +"Oh!" ejaculated Hollis' mother. + +She did not make plans for her children as the other mother did. + +The two old ladies crossed the field toward the substantial white +farmhouse that overlooked the little cottage, and the children, whose +birthday it was, walked hand in hand through the yard to the footpath +along the road. + +"Must you keep on writing to Hollis?" he asked. + +"I suppose so. Why not? It is my turn to write now." + +"That's all nonsense." + +"What is? Writing in one's turn?" + +"I don't see why you need write at all." + +"Don't you remember I promised before you came?" + +"But I've come now," he replied in a tone intended to be very convincing. + +"His mother would miss it, if I didn't write; she thinks she can't write +letters. And I like his letters," she added frankly. + +"I suppose you do. I suppose you like them better than mine," with an +assertion hardly a question in his voice. + +"They are so different. His life is so different from yours. But he is +shy, as shy as a girl, and does not tell me all the things you do. Your +letters are more interesting, but _he_ is more interesting--as a study. +You are a lesson that I have learned, but I have scarcely begun to learn +him." + +"That is very cold blooded when you are talking about human beings." + +"My brain was talking then." + +"Suppose you let your heart speak." + +"My heart hasn't anything to say; it is not developed yet." + +"I don't believe it," he answered angrily. + +"Then you must find it out for yourself. Morris, I don't want to be _in +love_ with anybody, if that's what you mean. I love you dearly, but I am +not in love with you or with anybody." + +"You don't know the difference," he said quickly. + +"How do you know the difference? Did you learn it before I was born?" + +"I love my mother, but I am in love with you; that's the difference." + +"Then I don't know the difference--and I do. I love my dear father and +Mr. Holmes and you,--not all alike, but I need you all at different +times--" + +"And Hollis," he persisted. + +"I do not know him," she insisted. "I have nothing to say about that. +Morris, I want to go with Miss Prudence and study; I don't want to be +a housekeeper and have a husband, like Linnet! I have so much to learn; I +am eager for everything. You see you _are_ older than I am." + +"Yes," he said, disappointedly, "you are only a little girl yet. Or you +are growing up to be a Woman's Rights Woman, and to think a 'career' is +better than a home and a man who is no better than other men to love you +and protect you and provide for you." + +"You know that is not true," she answered quietly; "but I have been +looking forward so long to going to school." + +"And living with Miss Prudence and becoming like her!" + +"Don't you want me to be like her?" + +"No," he burst out. "I want you to be like Linnet, and to think that +little house and house-keeping, and a good husband, good enough for you. +What is the good of studying if it doesn't make you more a perfect woman? +What is the good of anything a girl does if it doesn't help her to be a +woman?" + +"Miss Prudence is a perfect woman." + +Marjorie's tone was quiet and reasonable, but there was a fire in her +eyes that shone only when she was angry. + +"She would be more perfect if she stayed at home in Maple Street and made +a home for somebody than she is now, going hither and thither finding +people to be kind to and to help. She is too restless and she is not +satisfied. Look at Linnet; she is happier to-day with her husband that +reads only the newspapers, the nautical books, and his Bible, than Miss +Prudence with all her lectures and concerts and buying books and knowing +literary people! She couldn't make a Miss Prudence out of Linnet, but she +will make a Miss Prudence twice over out of you." + +"Linnet is happy because she loves Will, and she doesn't care for books +and people, as we do; but we haven't any Will, poor Miss Prudence and +poor Marjorie, we have to substitute people and books." + +"You might have, both of you!" he went on, excitedly; "but you want +something better, both of you,--_higher_, I suppose you think! There's +Mr. Holmes eating his heart out with being only a friend to Miss +Prudence, and you want me to go poking along and spoiling my life as he +does, because you like books and study better!" + +Marjorie laughed; the fire in Morris' blue eyes was something to see, and +the tears in his voice would have overcome her had she not laughed +instead. And he was going far away, too. + +"Morris, I didn't know you were quite such a volcano. I don't believe Mr. +Holmes stays here and _pokes_ because of Miss Prudence. I know he is +melancholy, sometimes, but he writes so much and thinks so much he can't +be light-hearted like young things like us. And who does as much good as +Miss Prudence? Isn't she another mother to Linnet and me? And if she +doesn't find somebody to love as Linnet does Will, I don't see how she +can help it." + +"It isn't in her heart or she would have found somebody; it is what is in +peoples' hearts that makes the difference! But when they keep the brain +at work and forget they have any heart, as you two do--" + +"It isn't Miss Prudence's brain that does her beautiful work. You ought +to read some of the letters that she lets me read, and then you would +see how much heart she has!" + +"And you want to be just like her," he sighed, but the sigh was almost a +groan. + +Certainly, in some experiences he had outstripped Marjorie. + +"Yes, I want to be like her," she answered deliberately. + +"And study and go around and do good and never be married?" he +questioned. + +"I don't see the need of deciding that question to-day." + +"I suppose not. You will when Hollis Rheid asks you to." + +"Morris, you are not like yourself to-day, you are quarrelling with me, +and we never quarrelled before." + +"Because you are so unreasonable; you will not answer me anything." + +"I have answered you truly; I have no other answer to give." + +"Will you think and answer me when I come home?" + +"I have answered you now." + +"Perhaps you will have another answer then." + +"Well, if I have I will give it to you. Are you satisfied?" + +"No," he said; but he turned her face up to his and looked down into her +innocent earnest eyes. + +"You are a goosie, as Linnet says; you will never grow up, little +Marjorie." + +"Then, if I am only eight, you must not talk to me as if I were eighty." + +"Or eighteen," he said. "How far on the voyage of life do you suppose +Linnet and Captain Will are." + +"Not far enough on to quarrel, I hope." + +"They will never be far enough for that, Will is too generous and Linnet +will never find anything to differ about; do you know, Marjorie, that +girl has no idea how Will loves her?" + +Marjorie stopped and faced him with the utmost gravity. + +"Do you know, Morris, that man has no idea how Linnet loves him?" + +And then the two burst into a laugh that restored them both to the +perfect understanding of themselves and each other and all the world. And +after an early supper he shook hands with them all--excepting "Mother +West," whom he kissed, and Marjorie, whom he asked to walk as far as +"Linnet's" with him on his way to the train--and before ten o'clock was +on board the _Linnet_, and congratulating again the bridegroom, who was +still radiant, and the bride, who was not looking in the least bit +homesick. + +"Will," said Linnet with the weight of tone of one giving announcement to +a mighty truth, "I wouldn't be any one beside myself for _anything_." + +"And I wouldn't have you any one beside yourself for _anything_," he +laughed, in the big, explosive voice that charmed Linnet every time +afresh. + + + + +XIV. + +A TALK AND ANOTHER TALK. + +"Life's great results are something slow."--Howells. + + +Morris had said good-bye with a look that brought sorrow enough in +Marjorie's eyes to satisfy him--almost, and had walked rapidly on, not +once turning to discover if Marjorie were standing still or moving toward +home; Mr. Holmes and Miss Prudence had promised to start out to meet her, +so that her walk homeward in the starlight would not be lonely. + +But they were not in sight yet to Marjorie's vision, and she stood +leaning over the gate looking at the windows with their white shades +dropped and already feeling that the little, new home was solitary. She +did not turn until a footstep paused behind her; she was so lost in +dreams of Linnet and Morris that she had not noticed the brisk, hurried +tread. The white rose had fallen from her hair and the one at her throat +had lost several petals; in her hand was a bunch of daisies that Morris +had picked along the way and laughingly asked her to try the childish +trick of finding out if he loved her, and she had said she was afraid +the daisies were too wise and would not ask them. + +"Haven't you been home all this time?" asked Hollis, startling her out of +her dream. + +"Oh, yes, and come back again." + +"Do you find the cottage so charming?" + +"I find it charming, but I could have waited another day to come and see +it. I came to walk part of the way with Morris." + +She colored, because when she was embarrassed she colored at everything, +and could not think of another word to say. + +Among those who understood him, rather, among those he understood, Hollis +was a ready talker; but, seemingly, he too could not think of another +word to say. + +Marjorie picked her daisies to pieces and they went on in the narrow foot +path, as she and Morris had done in the afternoon; Hollis walking on the +grass and giving her the path as her other companion had done. She could +think of everything to say to Morris, and Morris could think of +everything to say to her; but Morris was only a boy, and this tall +stranger was a gentleman, a gentleman whom she had never seen before. + +"If it were good sleighing I might take you on my sled," he remarked, +when all the daisies were pulled to pieces. + +"Is Flyaway in existence still?" she asked brightly, relieved that she +might speak at last. + +"'Stowed away,' as father says, in the barn, somewhere. Mr. Holmes is not +as strict as he used to be, is he?" + +"No, he never was after that. I think he needed to give a lesson to +himself." + +"He looks haggard and old." + +"I suppose he is old; I don't know how old he is, over forty." + +"That _is_ antiquated. You will be forty yourself, if you live long +enough." + +"Twenty-two years," she answered seriously; "that is time enough to do a +good many things in." + +"I intend to do a good many things," he answered with a proud humility in +his voice that struck Marjorie. + +"What--for example?" + +"Travel, for one thing, make money, for another." + +"What do you want money for?" she questioned. + +"What does any man want it for? I want it to give me influence, and I +want a luxurious old age." + +"That doesn't strike me as being the highest motives." + +"Probably not, but perhaps the highest motives, as you call them, do not +rule my life." + +And she had been praying for him so long. + +"Your mother seems to be a happy woman," was her reply, coming out of a +thought that she did not speak. + +"She is," he said, emphatically. "I wish poor old father were as happy." + +"Do you find many happy people?" she asked. + +"I find you and my mother," he returned smiling. + +"And yourself?" + +"Not always. I am happy enough today. Not as jubilant as old Will, +though. Will has a prize." + +"To be sure he has," said Marjorie. + +"What are you going to do next?" + +"Go to that pleasant home in Maple Street with Miss Prudence and go to +school." She was jubilant, too, today, or she would have been if Morris +had not gone away with such a look in his eyes. + +"You ought to be graduated by this time, you are old enough. Helen was +not as old as you." + +"But I haven't been at school at all, yet," she hastened to say. "And +Helen was so bright." + +"Aren't you bright?" he asked, laughing. + +"Mr. Holmes doesn't tell me that I am." + +"What will your mother do?" + +"Oh, dear," she sighed, "that is what I ask myself every day. But she +insists that I shall go, Linnet has had her 'chance' she says, and now it +is my turn. Miss Prudence is always finding somebody that needs a home, +and she has found a girl to help mother, a girl about my age, that hasn't +any friends, so it isn't the work that will trouble me; it is leaving +mother without any daughter at all." + +"She is willing to let Linnet go, she ought to be as willing to let you." + +"Oh, she is, and father is, too. I know I don't deserve such good times, +but I do want to go. I love Miss Prudence as much as I do mother, I +believe, and I am only forty miles from home. Mr. Holmes is about +leaving, too. How father will miss _him_! And Morris gone! Mother sighs +over the changes and then says changes must needs come if boys and girls +will grow up." + +"Where is Mr. Holmes going?" + +"To California. The doctor says he must go somewhere to cure his cough. +And he says he will rest and write another book. Have you read his book?" + +"No, it is too dry for me." + +"We don't think it is dry; Morris and I know it by heart." + +"That is because you know the author." + +"Perhaps it is. The book is everything but a story book. Miss Prudence +has a copy in Turkey morocco. Do you see many people that write books?" + +"No," he said, smiling at her simplicity. "New York isn't full of them." + +"Miss Prudence sees them," replied Marjorie with dignity. + +"She is a bird of their feather. I do not fly, I walk on the ground--with +my eyes on it, perhaps." + +"Like the man with the muck rake," said Marjorie, quoting from her old +love, _Pilgrims Progress_, "don't you know there was a crown held above +his head, and his eyes were on the ground and he could not see it." + +"No, I do not know it, but I perceive that you are talking an allegory at +me." + +"Not at you, _to_ you," she corrected. + +"You write very short letters to me, nowadays." + +"Your letters are not suggestive enough," she said, archly. + +"Like my conversation. As poor a talker as I am, I am a better talker +than writer. And you--you write a dozen times better than you talk." + +"I'm sorry I'm so unentertaining to-night. When Linnet writes she says: +"'I wish I could _talk_ to you,' and when I talk I think: 'I wish I could +write it all to you.'" + +"As some one said of some one who could write better than he talked, 'He +has plenty of bank notes, but he carries no small change, in his +pocket.'" + +"It is so apt to be too small," she answered, somewhat severely. + +"I see you are above talking the nonsense that some girls talk. What do +you do to get rested from your thoughts?" + +How Marjorie laughed! + +"Hollis, do talk to me instead of writing. And I'll write to you instead +of talking." + +"That is, you wish me near to you and yourself far away from me. That is +the only way that we can satisfy each other. Isn't that Miss Prudence +coming?" + +"And the master. They did not know I would have an escort home. But do +come all the way, father will like to hear you talk about the places +you have visited." + +"I travel, I don't visit places. I expect to go to London and Paris by +and by. Our buyer has been getting married and that doesn't please the +firm; he wanted to take his wife with him, but they vetoed that. They say +a married man will not attend strictly to business; see what a premium +is paid to bachelorhood. I shall understand laces well enough soon: I can +pick a piece of imitation out of a hundred real pieces now. Did Linnet +like the handkerchief and scarf?" + +"You should have seen her! Hasn't she spoken of them?" + +"No, she was too full of other things." + +"Marriage isn't all in getting ready, to Linnet," said Marjorie, +seriously, "I found her crying one day because she was so happy and +didn't deserve to be." + +"Will is a good fellow," said Hollis. "I wish I were half as good. But I +am so contradictory, so unsatisfied and so unsatisfying. I understand +myself better than I want to, and yet I do not understand myself at all." + +"That is because you are _growing_," said Marjorie, with her wise air. "I +haven't settled down into a real Marjorie yet. I shouldn't know my own +picture unless I painted it myself." + +"We are two rather dangerous people, aren't we?" laughed Hollis. "We will +steer clear of each other, as Will would say, until we can come to an +understanding." + +"Unless we can help each other," Marjorie answered. "But I don't believe +you need to be pulled apart, but only to be let alone to grow--that is, +if the germ is perfect." + +"A perfect germ!" he repeated. Hollis liked to talk about himself to any +one who would help him to self-analysis. + +But the slowly moving figures were approaching, the black figure with +bent shoulders and a slouched hat, the tall slight figure at his side in +light gray with a shawl of white wool across her shoulders and drawn up +over her hair, the fleecy whiteness softening the lines of a face that +were already softened. + +"O, Prudence, how far ahead we are of those two," exclaimed the +school-master, "and they are wiser than we, perhaps, because they do not +know so much." + +"They do not know so much of each other, surely," she replied with a low +laugh. That very day Mr. Holmes had quoted to her, giving it a personal +application: "What she suffered she shook off in the sunshine." + +He had been arguing within himself all day whether or not to destroy that +letter in his pocket or to show it to her. Would it give her something +else to shake off in the sunshine? + +Hollis was wondering if this Marjorie, with her sweet, bright face, her +graceful step and air of ladyhood, with modest and quick replies, not at +all intruding herself, but giving herself, unconsciously, could be the +same half-bashful little girl that he had walked with on a country road +four years before; the little girl who fell so far behind his ideal, the +little girl so different from city girls; and now, who among his small +circle of girlhood at home could surpass her? And she was dressed so +plainly, and there were marks of toil upon her fingers, and even freckles +hidden beneath the fresh bloom of her cheek! She would hunt eggs tomorrow +and milk the cows, she might not only weed in the garden, but when the +potatoes were dug she might pick them up, and even assist her father in +assorting them. Had he not said that Marjorie was his "boy" as well as +her mother's girl? Had she not taken the place of Morris in all things +that a girl could, and had she not taken his place with the master and +gone on with Virgil where Morris left off? + +"Marjorie, I don't see the _need_ of your going to school?" he was saying +when they joined the others. + +"Hollis, you are right," repeated the master, emphatically, "that is only +a whim, but she will graduate the first year, so it doesn't matter." + +"You see he is proud of his work," said Marjorie, "he will not give any +school the credit of me." + +"I will give you into Miss Prudence's keeping for a term of years, to +round you off, to make you more of a woman and less of a student--like +herself." + +Marjorie's eyes kindled, "I wish Morris might hear that! He has been +scolding me,--but that would satisfy him." + +After several moments of light talk, if the master ever could be said to +encourage light talk, he touched Miss Prudence, detaining her with him, +and Marjorie and Hollis walked on together. + +Marjorie and Hollis were not silent, nor altogether grave, for now and +then her laugh would ripple forth and he would join, with a ringing, +boyish laugh that made her forget that he had grown up since that day he +brought her the plate. + +But the two behind them were altogether grave; Miss Prudence was +speaking, for Mr. Holmes had asked her what kind of a day she had had. + +"To-morrow is to be one of our anniversaries, you know," she replied; +"twenty-four years ago--to-morrow--was to have been to me what to-day +is to Linnet. I wonder if I _were_ as light hearted as Linnet." + +"You were as blithe a maiden as ever trod on air," he returned smiling +sadly. "Don't I remember how you used to chase me around that old garden. +When we go back let us try another chase, shall we?" + +"We will let Marjorie run and imagine it is I." + +"Prudence, if I regain my strength out there, I am coming home to tell +you something, may I?" + +"I want you to regain your strength, but I am trembling when I think of +anything to be told. Is it anything--about--" + +"Jerome? Yes, it is about him and about my self. It is about our last +interview when we spoke of you. Do you still believe that he is living?" + +"Yes, we are living, why should he not be alive?" + +"Do yon know how old he would be?" + +"He was just twenty years older than I." + +"Then he must be sixty-four. That is not young, Prudence, and he had +grown old when I said goodbye to him on the steamer--no, it was not a +steamer, he avoided the publicity, he went in a merchant ship, there was +not even one passenger beside himself. He had a fine constitution and he +knew how to take care of himself; it was the--worry that made him look +old. He was very warm-hearted and lovable." + +"Yes," escaped Miss Prudence's lips. + +"But he was weak and lead astray--it seems strange that your silver +wedding day might be almost at hand, and that tall boy and girl in front +of you my brother's children to call me Uncle John." + +"John," she sobbed, catching her breath. + +"Poor child! Now I've brought the tears. I was determined to get that +dead look out of your eyes that was beginning to come to-night. It shall +go away to-night and you shall not awake with it in the morning. Do you +know what you want? Do you want to tell me what you pray about on your +wedding day?" + +"Yes, and you can pray with me to-morrow. I always ask repentance and +remission of sins for him and for myself that I may see him once more +and make him believe that I have forgiven him." + +"Did you ever wish that you had been his wife and might have shared his +exile?" + +"Not at first; I was too indignant; I did not forgive him, at first; but +since I have wished it; I know he has needed me." + +"But he threw you off." + +"No, he would not let me share his disgrace." + +"He did not love you well enough to keep the disgrace from you, it +seems," said John Holmes, bitterly. + +"No, I could not keep him from sin. The love of a woman is not the love +of God. I failed as many a woman has failed. But I did not desert him; I +went--but he would not see me." + +"He was sorry afterward, he tried to write to you, but he always broke +down and could not go on; you were so young and he had been a shame to +you." + +"You never told me this before." + +"Because I hated him, I hated my brother, for disgracing you and +disgracing my mother and myself; I have grown forgiving since, since God +has forgiven me. He said that last day that you must not forget him." + +"He knew I would not forget," said Miss Prudence, proudly. + +"Did you ever hate him?" + +"Yes, I think I did. I believed he hastened poor father's death; I knew +he had spoiled all my life; yes, I hated him until my heart was softened +by many sorrows--John, I loved that man who went away--so far, without +me, but I held myself bound, I thought your brother would come back and +claim [missing text] was while Jerome was in--before he went to Europe-- +and I said the shame and horror was too great, I could not become +anybody's happy wife with that man who was so nearly my husband in such a +place." + +"Have you regretted that decision since?" he questioned in a dry hard +tone. + +"Yes." + +How quiet her voice was! "I was sorry--when I read of his sudden death +two years ago--and I almost hated your brother again for keeping so much +from me--it is so hard not to hate with a bitter hatred when we have been +so wronged. How I have prayed for a forgiving heart," she sighed. + +"Have you had any comfort to-day?" + +"Yes, I found it in my reading this morning. Linnet was up and singing +early and I was sitting at my window over her head and I learned a lesson +of how God waits before he comforts in these words that were given new to +me. 'And the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen +clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.'" + +"I cannot see any comfort in that." + +There was a broken sound in the master's voice that Miss Prudence had +never heard before, a hopelessness that was something deeper than his old +melancholy. Had any confession that she had made touched him anew? Was he +troubled at that acknowledged hardness towards his brother? Or was it +sorrow afresh at the mention of her disappointments? Or was it sympathy +for the friend who had given her up and gone away without her? + +Would Miss Prudence have been burdened as she never had been burdened +before could she have known that he had lost a long-cherished hope for +himself? that he had lived his lonely life year after year waiting until +he should no longer be bound by the promise made to his brother at their +parting? The promise was this; that he should not ask Prudence, "Prue" +his brother had said, to marry him until he himself should be dead; in +pity for the brother who had educated him and had in every way been so +generous, and who now pleaded brokenly for this last mercy, he had given +the promise, rather it had been wrung out of him, and for a little time +he had not repented. And then when he forgot his brother and remembered +himself, his heart died within him and there was nothing but hard work +left to live for; this only for a time, he found God afterward and worked +hard for him. + +He had written to his brother and begged release, but no word of release +had come, and he was growing old and his health had failed under the +stress of work and the agony of his self-control, "the constant anguish +of patience." + +But the letter in his pocket was of no avail now, Prudence had loved him +only as a brother all these long years of his suspense and hope and +waiting; that friend whose sudden death had moved her so had been in her +thoughts, and he was only her dear friend and--Jerome's brother. + +It is no wonder that the bent shoulders drooped lower and that the +slouched hat was drawn over a face that fain would have hidden itself. +Prudence, his sister Prudence, was speaking to him and he had not heard a +word. How that young fellow in front was rattling on and laughing as +though hearts never ached or broke with aching, and now he was daring +Marjorie to a race, and the fleet-footed girl was in full chase, and the +two who had run their race nearly a quarter of a century before walked on +slowly and seriously with more to think about and bear than they could +find words for. + +"I found comfort in that. Shall I tell you?" she asked. + +"Yes," he said, "if you can make me understand." + +"I think you will understand, but I shall not make you; I shall speak +slowly, for I want to tell you all I thought. The Lord was dead; he +had been crucified and laid away within the sepulchre three days since, +and they who had so loved him and so trusted in his promises were +broken-hearted because of his death. Our Christ has never been dead to +us, John; think what it must have been to them to know him _dead_. 'Let +not your heart be troubled' he said; but their hearts were troubled, and +he knew it; he knew how John's heart was rent, and how he was sorrowing +with the mother he had taken into his own home; he knew how Peter had +wept his bitter tears, how Martha and Mary and Lazarus were grieving for +him, how all were watching, waiting, hoping and yet hardly daring to +hope,--oh, how little our griefs seem to us beside such grief as theirs! +And the third day since he had been taken from them. Did they expect +again to hear his footfall or his voice? He could see, all this time, the +hands outstretched in prayer, he could hear their cries, he could feel +the beating of every heart, and yet how slowly he was going forth to meet +them. How could he stay his feet? Were not Peter and John running towards +him? Was not Mary on her way to him? And yet he did not hasten; something +must first be done, such little things; the linen clothes must be laid +aside and the napkin that had been about his head must be wrapped +together in a place by itself. Such a little thing to think of, such a +little thing to do, before he could go forth to meet them! Was it +necessary that the napkin should be wrapped together in a place by +itself? As necessary as that their terrible suspense should be ended? As +necessary as that Peter and John and Martha and Mary and his mother +should be comforted one little instant sooner? Could you or I wait to +fold a napkin and lay it away if we might fly to a friend who was +wearying for us? Suppose God says: 'Fold that napkin and lay it away,' do +we do it cheerfully and submissively, choosing to do it rather than to +hasten to our friend? If a leper had stood in the way, beseeching him, if +the dead son of a widow were being carried out, we could understand the +instant's delay, if only a little child were waiting to speak to the +Lord, but to keep so many waiting just to lay the linen clothes aside, +and, most of all, to wrap together that napkin and lay it by itself. Only +the knowing that the doing this was doing the will of God reconciles me +to the waiting that one instant longer, that his mother need not have +waited but for that. So, John, perhaps you and I are waiting to do some +little thing, some little thing that we do not know the meaning of, +before God's will can be perfect concerning us. It may be as near to us +as was the napkin about the head of the Lord. I was forgetting that, +after he died for us, there was any of the Father's will left for him to +do. And I suppose he folded that napkin as willingly as he gave himself +up to the cross. John, that does help me--I am so impatient at +interruptions to what I call my 'work,' and I am so impatient for the +Lord to work for me." + +"Yes," he answered slowly, "it is hard to realize that we _must_ stop to +do every little thing. But I do not stop, I pass the small things by. +Prudence, I am burning up with impatience to-night." + +"Are you? I am very quiet." + +"If you knew something about Jerome that I do not know, and it would +disturb me to know it, would you tell me?" + +"If I should judge you by myself I should tell you. How can one person +know how a truth may affect another? Tell me what you know; I am +ready." + +But she trembled exceedingly and staggered as she walked. + +"Take my arm," he said, quietly. + +She obeyed and leaned against him as they moved on slowly; it was too +dark for them to see each other's faces clearly, a storm was gathering, +the outlines of the house they were approaching, were scarcely +distinguishable. + +"We are almost home," she said. + +"Yes, there! Our light is flashing out. Marjorie is lighting the parlor +lamp. I have in my pocket a letter from Jerome; I have had it a week; you +seemed so quiet and happy I had not the heart to disturb you. It was sent +to the old address, I told him some one there would always find me. He +has not written because he thought we did not care to hear. He has the +name of an honest man there, he says." + +"Is that all?" she questioned, her heart beating with a rapid pulsation. +How long she had waited for this. + +"He is not in Europe now, he is in California. His wife is dead and he +has a little girl ten years old. He refers to a letter written twelve +years ago--a letter that I never received; but it would have made no +difference if I had received it. I wrote to him once begging him to +release me from a promise that I made rashly out of great pity for him, +it was cruel and selfish in him to force me to it, but I was not sure of +myself then, and it was all that I could do for him. But, as I said, he +released me when he chose to do it, and it does not matter. Perhaps it is +better that I had the promise to bind me; you are happier for it, I +think, and I have not been selfish in any demand upon you." + +"John, I don't know what you mean," she said, perplexed. + +"I don't mean anything that I can tell you." + +"I hope he did not deceive her--his wife, that he told her all about +himself." + +"She died nine years ago, he writes, and now he is very ill himself and +wishes to leave his little daughter in safe hands; her mother was an +orphan, it seems, and the child has no relatives that he cares to leave +her with; her mother was an English girl, he was married in England. He +wishes me to come to him and take charge of the child." + +"That is why you so suddenly chose California instead of Minnesota for +your winter?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you written to him?" + +"Yes." + +"Is he very ill?" + +"Yes; he may never receive my letter." + +"I would like to write to him," said Miss Prudence. + +"Would you like to see the letter?" + +"No; I would rather not. You have told me all?" with a slight quiver in +the firm voice. + +"All excepting his message to you." + +After a moment she asked: "What is it?" + +"He wants you to take the guardianship of his child with me. I have not +told you all--he thinks we are married." + +The brave voice trembled in spite of his stern self-control. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Prudence, and then: "Why should he think that?" in a low, +hesitating voice. + +"Because he knew me so well. Having only each other, it was natural, was +it not?" + +"Perhaps so. Then that is all he says." + +"Isn't that enough?" + +"No, I want to know if he has repented, if he is another man. I am glad I +may write to him; I want to tell him many things. We will take care of +the little girl, John." + +"If I am West and you are East--" + +"Do you want to keep her with you?" + +"What could I do with her? She will be a white elephant to me. I am not +her father; I do not think I understand girls--or boys, or men. I hardly +understand you, Prudence." + +"Then I am afraid you never will. Isn't it queer how I always have a +little girl provided for me? Marjorie is growing up and now I have this +child, your niece, John, to be my little girl for a long time. I wonder +what her name is." + +"He did tell me that! I may have passed over something else; you might +better see the letter." + +"No; handwriting is like a voice, or a perfume to me--I could not bear it +to-night. John, I feel as if it would _kill_ me. It is so long ago--I +thought I was stronger--O, John," she leaned her head upon his arm and +sobbed convulsively like a little child. + +He laid his hand upon her head as if she were indeed the little child, +and for a long time no words were spoken. + +"Prudence, there is something else, there is the photograph of the little +girl--her mother named her Jeroma." + +"I will take that," she said, lifting her head, "and I will write to her +to-night." + +That night before she slept she wrote a long letter to the child with the +brown eyes and sunny curls, describing the home in Maple Street, and +promising to take her into her heart and keep her there always, to adopt +her for her very own little daughter for her own sake and for her +father's sake, whom she knew long ago, ending it thus: + +"You cannot come to me too soon, for I am waiting for you with a hungry +heart. I knew there was something good coming to me, and I know you +will be my blessing. + +"Your Loving Aunt Prue." + + + + +XV. + +JEROMA. + +"Whom hast them pitied? And whom forgiven I"--_Wills_. + + +The child had risen early that she might have a good time looking at the +sea lions; the huge creatures covered the rocks two hundred yards away +from her, crawling and squirming, or lying still as if as dead as the +rock itself, their pointed heads and shining bodies giving her a +delightful shiver of affright, their howling and groaning causing her to +run every now and then back to her father's chair on the veranda, and +then she would dance back again and stand and watch them--the horrible, +misshapen monsters--as they quarrelled, or suckled their young, or +furious and wild as they tumbled about and rolled off the craggy cliffs +into the sea. She left her chamber early every morning to watch them and +never grew weary of the familiar, strange Bight. Not that this sight had +been so long familiar, for her father was ever seeking new places along +the coast to rest in, or grow strong in. Nurse had told her that morning +that there was not any place for her papa to get well in. + +He had breakfasted, as usual, upon the veranda, and, the last time that +she had brought her gaze from the fascinating monsters to look back at +him, he was leaning against the cushions of his rolling chair, with his +eyes fixed upon the sea. He often sat for hours and hours looking out +upon the sea. + +Jeroma had played upon the beach every day last winter, growing ruddy and +strong, but the air had revived him only for a little time, he soon sank +back into weakness and apathy. He had dismissed her with a kiss awhile +ago, and had seemed to suffer instead of respond to her caresses. + +"Papa gets tired of loving me," she had said to Nurse last night with a +quivering of the lip. + +"Papa is very sick," Nurse had answered guardedly, "and he had letters +to-day that were too much for him." + +"Then he shouldn't have letters," said the child, decidedly. "I'll tell +him so to-morrow." + +As she danced about, her white dress and sunny curls gleaming in and out +among the heliotrope and scarlet geranium that one of the flower-loving +boarders was cultivating, her father called her name; it was a queer +name, and she did not like it. She liked her second name, Prudence, +better. But Nurse had said, when she complained to her, that the girls +would call her "Prudy" for short, and "Jerrie" was certainly a prettier +name than that. + +"Jerrie," her father called. + +The sound was so weak and broken by a cough that she did not turn her +head or answer until he had called more than twice. But she flew to him +when she was sure that he had called her, and kissed his flabby cheek and +smoothed back the thin locks of white hair. His black eyes were burning +like two fires beneath his white brows, his lips were ashy, and his +breath hot and hurried. Two letters were trembling in his hand, two open +letters, and one of them was in several fluttering sheets; this +handwriting was a lady's, Jeroma recognized that, although she could not +read even her own name in script. + +"O, papa, those are the letters that made you sick! I'll throw them away +to the lions," she cried, trying to snatch them. But he kept them in his +fingers and tried to speak. + +"I'll be rested in a moment, eat those strawberries--and then I +have--something to talk to you about." + +She surveyed the table critically, bread and fruit and milk; there was +nothing beside. + +"I've had my breakfast! O, papa, I've forgotten your flowers! Mrs. Heath +said you might have them every morning." + +"Run and get them then, and never wait for me to call you--it tires me +too much." + +"Poor papa! And I can howl almost as loud as the lions themselves." + +"Don't howl at me then, for I might want to roll off into the sea," he +said, smiling as she danced away. + +The child seemed never to walk, she was always frisking about, one hardly +knew if her feet touched the ground. + +"Poor child! happy child," he groaned, rather than murmured, as she +disappeared around the corner of the veranda. She was a chubby, +roundfaced child, with great brown eyes and curls like yellow floss; from +her childishness and ignorance of what children at ten years of age are +usually taught, she was supposed by strangers to be no more than eight +years of age; she was an imperious little lady, impetuous, untrained, +self-reliant, and, from much intercourse with strangers, not at all shy, +looking out upon the world with confiding eyes, and knowing nothing to be +afraid of or ashamed of. Nurse had been her only teacher; she could +barely read a chapter in the New Testament, and when her father gave her +ten cents and then five more she could not tell him how many cents she +held in her hand. + +"No matter, I don't want you to count money," he said. + +Before he recovered his breath and self-possession she was at his side +with the flowers she had hastily plucked--scarlet geranium, heliotrope, +sweet alyssum, the gorgeous yellow and orange poppy, and the lovely blue +and white lupine. He received them with a listless smile and laid them +upon his knee; as he bade her again to eat the strawberries she brought +them to his side, now and then coaxing a "particularly splendid" one into +his mouth, pressing them between his lips with her stained fingers. + +"Papa, your eyes shine to-day! You are almost well. Nurse doesn't know." + +"What does Nurse say?" + +"That you will die soon; and then where shall I go?" + +"Would you like to know where you will go?" + +"I don't want to go anywhere; I want to stay here with you." + +"But that is impossible, Jerrie." + +"Why! Who says so?" she questioned, fixing her wondering eyes on his. + +"God," he answered solemnly. + +"Does he know all about it?" + +"Yes." + +"Has it _got_ to be so, then?" she asked, awed. + +"Yes." + +"Well, what is the rest, then?" + +"Sit down and I'll tell you." + +"I'd rather stand, please. I never like to sit down." + +"Stand still then, dear, and lean on the arm of my chair and not on me; +you take my breath away," + +"Poor papa! Am I so big? As big as a sea lion?" + +Not heeding her--more than half the time he heard her voice without +heeding her words--he turned the sheets in his fingers, lifted them as if +to read them and then dropped his hand. + +"Jerrie, what have I told you about Uncle John who lives near the other +ocean?" + +Jerrie thought a moment: "That he is good and will love me dearly, and be +ever so kind to me and teach me things?" + +"And Prue, Aunt Prue; what do you know about her?" + +"I know I have some of her name, not all, for her name is Pomeroy; and +she is as beautiful as a queen and as good; and she will love me more +than Uncle John will, and teach me how to be a lovely lady, too." + +"Yes, that is all true; one of these letters is from her, written to +you--" + +"Oh, to me! to _me_." + +"I will read it to you presently." + +"I know which is hers, the thin paper and the writing that runs along." + +"And the other is from Uncle John." + +"To me?" she queried. + +"No, this is mine, but I will read it to you. First I want to tell you +about Aunt Prue's home." + +"Is it like this? near the sea? and can I play on the beach and see the +lions?" + +"It is near the sea, but it is not like this; her home is in a city by +the sea. The house is a large house. It was painted dark brown, years +ago, with red about the window frames, and the yard in front was full of +flowers that Aunt Prue had the care of, and the yard at the back was deep +and wide with maples in it and a swing that she used to love to swing in; +she was almost like a little girl then herself." + +"She isn't like a little girl now, is she?" + +"No, she is grown up like that lady on the beach with the children; but +she describes herself to you and promises to send her picture!" + +"Oh, good!" exclaimed the child, dancing around the chair, and coming +back to stand quietly at her father's side. + +"What is the house like inside? Like this house?" + +"No, not at all. There is a wide, old-fashioned hall, with a dark carpet +in it and a table and several chairs, and engravings on the walls, and +a broad staircase that leads to large, pleasant rooms above; and there is +a small room on the top of the house where you can go up and see vessels +entering the harbor. Down-stairs the long parlor is the room that I know +best; that had a dark carpet and dark paper on the walls and many +windows, windows in front and back and two on the side, there were +portraits over the mantel of her father and mother, and other pictures +around everywhere, and a piano that she loved to play for her father on, +and books in book cases, and, in winter, plants; it was not like any one +else's parlor, for her father liked to sit there and she brought in +everything that would please him. Her father was old like me, and sick, +and she was a dear daughter like you." + +"Did he die?" she asked. + +"Yes, he died. He died sooner than he would have died because some one he +thought a great deal of did something very wicked and almost killed his +daughter with grief. How would I feel if some one should make you so +unhappy and I could not defend you and had to die and leave you alone." + +"Would you want to kill him--the man that hurt me?" + +But his eyes were on the water and not on her face; his countenance +became ashy, he gasped and hurried his handkerchief to his lips. Jeroma +was not afraid of the bright spots that he sought to conceal by crumpling +the handkerchief in his hand, she had known a long time that when her +father was excited those red spots came on his handkerchief. She knew, +too, that the physician had said that when he began to cough he would +die, but she had never heard him cough very much, and could not believe +that he must ever die. + +"Papa, what became of the man that hurt Aunt Prue and made her father +die?" + +"He lived and was the unhappiest wretch in existence. But Aunt Prue tried +to forgive him, and she used to pray for him as she always had done +before. Jerrie, when you go to Aunt Prue I want you to take her name, +your own name, Prudence, and I will begin to-day to call you 'Prue,' so +that you may get used to it." + +"Oh, will you?" she cried in her happy voice. "I don't like to be +'Jerrie,' like the boy that takes care of the horses. When Mr. Pierce +calls so loud 'Jerry!' I'm always afraid he means me; but Nurse says that +Jerry has a _y_ in it and mine is _ie_, but it sounds like my name all +the time. But Prue is soft like Pussy and I like it. What made you ever +call me Jerrie, papa?" + +"Because your mamma named you after my name, Jerome. We used to call you +Roma, but that was long for a baby, so we began to call you Jerrie." + +"I like it, papa, because it is your name, and I could tell the girls at +Aunt Prue's that it is my father's name, and then I would be proud and +not ashamed." + +"No, dear, always write it Prudence Holmes--forget that you had any other +name. It is so uncommon that people would ask how you came by it and then +they would know immediately who your father was." + +"But I like to tell them who my father was. Do people know you in Aunt +Prue's city?" + +"Yes, they knew me once and they are not likely to forget. Promise me, +Jerrie--Prue, that you will give up your first name." + +"I don't like to, now I must, but I will, papa, and I'll tell Aunt Prue +you liked her name best, shall I?" + +"Yes, tell her all I've been telling you--always tell her +everything--never do anything that you cannot tell her--and be sure to +tell her if any one speaks to you about your father, and she will talk +to you about it." + +"Yes, papa," promised the child in an uncomprehending tone. + +"Does Nurse teach you a Bible verse every night as I asked her to do?" + +"Oh, yes, and I like some of them. The one last night was about a name! +Perhaps it meant Prue was a good name." + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"'A good name--a good name--'" she repeated, with her eyes on the floor +of the veranda, "and then something about riches, great riches, but I do +forget so. Shall I run and ask her, papa?" + +"No, I learned it when I was a boy: 'A good name is rather to be chosen +than great riches.' Is that it?" + +"Yes, that's it: 'A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.' +I shan't forget next time; I'll think about your name, Jerome, papa; that +is a good name, but I don't see how it is better than _great_ riches, do +you?" + +The handkerchief was nervously at his lips again, and the child waited +for him to speak. + +"Jerrie, I have no money to leave you, it will all be gone by the time +you and Nurse are safe at Aunt Prue's. Everything you have will come from +her; you must always thank her very much for doing so much for you, and +thank Uncle John and be very obedient to him." + +"Will he make me do what I don't want to?" she asked, her lips pouting +and her eyes moistening. + +"Not unless it is best, and now you must promise me never to disobey him +or Aunt Prue. Promise, Jerrie." + +But Jerrie did not like to promise. She moved her feet uneasily, she +scratched on the arm of his chair with a pin that she had picked up on +the floor of the veranda; she would not lift her eyes nor speak. She did +not love to be obedient; she loved to be queen in her own little realm of +Self. + +"Papa is dying--he will soon go away, and his little daughter will not +promise the last thing he asks of her?" + +Instantly, in a flood of penitent tears, her arms were flung about his +neck and she was promising over and over, "I will, I will," and sobbing +on his shoulder. + +He suffered the embrace for a few moments and then pushed her gently +aside. + +"Papa is tired now, dear. I want to teach you a Bible verse, that you +must never, never forget: 'The way of the transgressor is hard.' Say it +after me." + +The child brushed her tears away and stood upright. + +"The way of the transgressor is hard," she repeated in a sobbing voice. + +"Repeat it three times." + +She repeated it three times slowly. + +"Tell Uncle John and Aunt Prue that that was the last thing I taught you, +will you?" + +"Yes, papa," catching her breath with a little sob. + +"And now run away and come back in a hour and I will read the letters to +you. Ask Nurse to tell you when it is an hour." + +The child skipped away, and before many minutes he heard her laughing +with the children on the beach. With the letters in his hand, and the +crumpled handkerchief with the moist red spots tucked away behind him in +the chair, he leaned back and closed his eyes. His breath came easily +after a little time and he dozed and dreamed. He was a boy again and it +was a moonlight night, snow was on the ground, and he was walking home +from town besides his oxen; he had sold the load of wood that he had +started with before daylight; he had eaten his two lunches of bread and +salt beef and doughnuts, and now, cold and tired and sleepy, he was +walking back home at the side of his oxen. The stars were shining, the +ground was as hard as stone beneath his tread, the oxen labored on +slowly, it seemed as if he would never get home. His mother would have a +hot supper for him, and the boys would ask what the news was, and what +he had seen, and his little sister would ask if he had bought that piece +of ginger bread for her. He stirred and the papers rustled in his fingers +and there was a harsh sound somewhere as of a bolt grating, and his cell +was small and the bed so narrow, so narrow and so hard, and he was +suffocating and could not get out. + +"Papa! papa! It's an hour," whispered a voice in his ear. The eyelids +quivered, the eyes looked straight at her but did not see her. + +"Ah Sing! Ah Sing! Get me to bed!" he groaned. + +Frightened at the expression of his face the child ran to call Nurse and +her father's man, Ah Sing. Nurse kept her out of her father's chamber all +that day, but she begged for her letter and Nurse gave it to her. She +carried it in her hand that day and the next, at night keeping it under +her pillow. + +Before many days the strange uncle came and he led her in to her father +and let her kiss his hand, and afterward he read Aunt Prue's soiled +letter to her and told her that she and Nurse were going to Aunt Prue's +home next week. + +"Won't you go, too?" she asked, clinging to him as no one had ever clung +to him before. + +"No, I must stay here all winter--I shall come to you some time." + +She sobbed herself to sleep in his arms, with the letter held fast in her +hand; he laid her on her bed, pressing his lips to her warm, wet face, +and then went down and out on the beach, pacing up and down until the +dawn was in the sky. + + + + +XVI. + +MAPLE STREET. + +"Work for some good, be it ever so slowly."--_Mrs. Osgood_. + + +The long room with its dark carpet and dark walls was in twilight, in +twilight and in firelight, for without the rain was falling steadily, and +in the old house fires were needed early in the season. In the time of +which little Jeroma had heard, there had been a fire on the hearth in the +front parlor, but to-night, when that old time was among the legends, the +fire glowed in a large grate; in the back parlor the heat came up through +the register. Miss Prudence had a way of designating the long apartment +as two rooms, for there was an arch in the centre, and there were two +mantels and two fireplaces. Prue's father would have said to-night that +the old room was unchanged--nothing had been taken out and nothing new +brought in since that last night that he had seen the old man pacing up +and down, and the old man's daughter whirling around on the piano stool, +as full of hope and trust and enthusiasm as ever a girl could be. + +But to-night there was a solitary figure before the fire, with no +memories and no traditions to disturb her dreaming, with no memories of +other people's past that is, for there was a sad memory or a foreboding +in the very droop of her shoulders and in her listless hands. The small, +plump figure was arrayed in school attire of dark brown, with linen +collar and cuffs, buttoned boots resting on the fender, and a black silk +apron with pockets; there were books and a slate upon the rug, and a +slate pencil and lead pencil in one of the apron pockets; a sheet of note +paper had slipped from her lap down to the rug, on the sheet of paper was +a half-finished letter beginning: "Dear Morris." There was nothing in the +letter worth jotting down, she wondered why she had ever begun it. She +was nestling down now with her head on the soft arm of the chair, her +eyes were closed, but she was not asleep, for the moisture beneath the +tremulous eyelids had formed itself into two large drops and was slowly +rolling, unheeded, down her cheeks. + +The rain was beating noisily upon the window panes, and the wind was +rising higher and higher; as it lulled for a moment there was the sound +of a footfall on the carpet somewhere and the door was pushed open from +the lighted hall. + +"Don't you want to be lighted up yet, Miss Marjorie?" + +"No, Deborah, thank you! I'll light the lamps myself." + +"Young things like to sit in the dark, I guess," muttered old Deborah, +closing the door softly; adding to herself: "Miss Prudence used to, once +on a time, and this girl is coming to it." + +After that for a little time there was no sound, save the sound of the +rain, and, now and then, the soft sigh that escaped Marjorie's lips. + +How strange it was, she reasoned with herself, for her to care at all! +What if Hollis did not want to answer that last letter of hers, written +more than two months ago, just after Linnet's wedding day? That had been +a long letter; perhaps too long. But she had been so lonesome, missing +everybody. Linnet, and Morris, and Mr. Holmes, and Miss Prudence had gone +to her grandfather's for the sea bathing, and the girl had come to help +her mother, and she had walked over to his mother's and talked about +everything to her and then written that long letter to him, that long +letter that had been unanswered so long. When his letter was due she had +expected it, as usual, and had walked to the post-office, the two miles +and a half, for the sake of the letter and having something to do. She +could not believe it when the postmaster handed her only her father's +weekly paper, she stood a moment, and then asked, "Is that all?" And the +next week came, and the next, and the next, and no letter from him; and +then she had ceased, with a dull sense of loss and disappointment, to +expect any answer at all. Her mother inquired briskly every day if her +letter had come and urged her to write a note asking if he had received +it, for he might be waiting for it all this time, but shyness and pride +forbade that, and afterward his mother called and spoke of something +that he must have read in that letter. She felt how she must have +colored, and was glad that her father called her, at that moment, to help +him shell corn for the chickens. + +When she returned to the house, brightened up and laughing, her mother +told her that Mrs. Rheid had said that Hollis had begun to write to her +regularly and she was so proud of it. "She says it is because you are +going away and he wants her to hear directly from him; I guess, too, it's +because he's being exercised in his mind and thinks he ought to have +written oftener before; she says her hand is out of practice and the +Cap'n hates to write letters and only writes business letters when it's a +force put. I guess she will miss you, Marjorie." + +Marjorie thought to herself that she would. + +But Marjorie's mother did not repeat all the conversation; she did not +say that she had followed her visitor to the gate and after glancing +around to be sure that Marjorie was not near had lowered her voice and +said: + +"But I do think it is a shame, Mis' Rheid, for your Hollis to treat my +Marjorie so! After writing to her four years to give her the slip like +this! And the girl takes on about it, I can see it by her looks, although +she's too proud to say a word." + +"I'm sure I'm sorry," said Mrs. Rheid. "Hollis wouldn't do a mean thing." + +"I don't know what you call this, then," Marjorie's mother had replied +spiritedly as she turned towards the house. + +Mrs. Rheid pondered night and day before she wrote to Hollis what +Marjorie's mother had said; but he never answered that part of the +letter, and his mother never knew whether she had done harm or good. Poor +little Marjorie could have told her, with an indignation that she would +have been frightened at; but Marjorie never knew. I'm afraid she would +not have felt like kissing her mother good-night if she had known it. + +Her father looked grave and anxious that night when her mother told him, +as in duty bound she was to tell him everything, how she was arranging +things for Marjorie's comfort. + +"That was wrong, Sarah, that was wrong," he said. + +"How wrong? I don't see how it was wrong?" she had answered sharply. + +"Then I cannot explain to you, Marjorie isn't hurt any; I don't believe +she cares half as much as you do?" + +"You don't know; you don't see her all the time." + +"She misses Linnet and Morris, and perhaps she grieves about going away. +You remind me of some one in the Bible--a judge. He had thirty sons and +thirty daughters and he got them all married! It's well for your peace of +mind that you have but two." + +"It's no laughing matter," she rejoined. + +"No, it is not," he sighed, for he understood Marjorie. + +How the tears would have burned dry on Marjorie's indignant cheeks had +she surmised one tithe of her mother's remonstrance and defence; it is +true she missed his letters, and she missed writing her long letters to +him, but she did not miss him as she would have missed Morris had some +misunderstanding come between them. She was full of her home and her +studies, and she felt herself too young to think grown-up thoughts and +have grown-up experiences; she felt herself to be so much younger +than Linnet. But her pride was touched, simple-hearted as she was she +wanted Hollis to care a little for her letters. She had tried to please +him and to be thoughtful about his mother and grandmother; and this was +not a pleasant ending. Her mother had watched her, she was well aware, +and she was glad to come away with Miss Prudence to escape her mother's +keen eyes. Her father had kissed her tenderly more than once, as though +he were seeking to comfort her for something. It was _such_ a relief--and +she drew a long breath as she thought of it--to be away from both, and to +be with Miss Prudence, who never saw anything, or thought anything, or +asked any questions. A few tears dropped slowly as she cuddled in the +chair with her head on its arm, she hardly knew why; because she was +alone, perhaps, and Linnet was so far off, and it rained, and Miss +Prudence and her little girl might not come home to-night, and, it might +be, because Miss Prudence had another little girl to love. + +Miss Prudence had gone to New York, a week ago, to meet the child and to +visit the Rheids. The nurse had relatives in the city and preferred to +remain with them, but Prue would be ready to come home with Miss +Prudence, and it was possible that they might come to-night. + +The house had been so lonely with old Deborah it was no wonder that she +began to cry! And, it was foolish to remember that Holland plate in Mrs. +Harrowgate's parlor that she had seen to-day when she had stopped after +school on an errand for Miss Prudence. What a difference it had made to +her that it was that plate on the bracket and not that yellow pitcher. +The yellow pitcher was in fragments now up in the garret; she must show +it to Prue some rainy day and tell her about what a naughty little girl +she had been that day. + +That resolution helped to shake off her depression, she roused herself, +went to the window and looked out into darkness, and then sauntered as +far as the piano and seated herself to play the march that Hollis liked; +Napoleon crossing the Alps. But scarcely had she touched the keys before +she heard voices out in the rain and feet upon the piazza. + +Deborah's old ears had caught an earlier sound, and before Marjorie could +rush out the street door was opened and the travellers were in the hall. + +Exclamations and warm embraces, and then Marjorie drew the little one +into the parlor and before the fire. The child stood with her grave eyes +searching out the room, and when the light from the bronze lamp on the +centre table flashed out upon everything she walked up and down the +length of the apartment, stopping now and then to look curiously at +something. + +Marjorie smiled and thought to herself that she was a strange little +creature. + +"It's just as papa said," she remarked, coming to the rug, her survey +being ended. The childishness and sweet gravity of her tone were +striking. + +Marjorie removed the white hood that she had travelled from California +in, and, brushing back the curls that shone in the light like threads of +gold, kissed her forehead and cheeks and rosy lips. + +"I am your Cousin Marjorie, and you are my little cousin." + +"I like you, Cousin Marjorie," the child said. + +"Of course you do, and I love you. Are you Prue, or Jeroma?" + +"I'm Prue," she replied with dignity. "Don't you _ever_ call me Jeroma +again, ever; papa said so." + +Marjorie laughed and kissed her again. + +"I never, never will," she promised. + +"Aunt Prue says 'Prue' every time." + +Marjorie unbuttoned the gray cloak and drew off the gray gloves; Prue +threw off the cloak and then lifted her foot for the rubber to be pulled +off. + +"I had no rubbers; Aunt Prue bought these in New York." + +"Aunt Prue is very kind," said Marjorie, as the second little foot was +lifted. + +"Does she buy you things, too?" asked Prue. + +"Yes, ever and ever so many things." + +"Does she buy _everybody_ things?" questioned Prue, curiously. + +"Yes," laughed Marjorie; "she's everybody's aunt." + +"No, I don't buy everybody things. I buy things for you and Marjorie +because you are both my little girls." + +Turning suddenly Marjorie put both arms about Miss Prudence's neck: "I've +missed you, dreadfully, Miss Prudence; I almost cried to-night." + +"So that is the story I find in your eyes. But you haven't asked me the +news." + +"You haven't seen mother, or Linnet, or Morris,--they keep my news for +me." But she flushed as she spoke, reproaching herself for not being +quite sincere. + +Prue stood on the hearth rug, looking up at the portrait of the lady over +the mantel. + +"Don't pretend that you don't want to hear that Nannie Rheid has put +herself through," began Miss Prudence in a lively voice, "crammed to the +last degree, and has been graduated a year in advance of time that she +may be married this month. Her father was inexorable, she must be +graduated first, and she has done it at seventeen, so he has had to +redeem his promise and allow her to be married. Her 'composition'--that +is the old-fashioned name--was published in one of the literary weeklies, +and they all congratulate themselves and each other over her success. But +her eyes are big, and she looks as delicate as a wax lily; she is all +nerves, and she laughs and talks as though she could not stop herself. +What do you think of her as a school girl triumph?" + +"It isn't tempting. I like myself better. I want to be _slow_. Miss +Prudence, I don't want to hurry anything." + +"I approve of you, Marjorie. Now what is this little girl thinking +about?" + +"Is that your mamma up there?" + +"Yes." + +"She looks like you." + +"Yes, I am like her; but there is no white in her hair. It is all black, +Prue." + +"I like white in hair for old ladies." + +Marjorie laughed and Miss Prudence smiled. She was glad that being called +"an old lady" could strike somebody as comical. + +"Was papa in this room a good many times?" + +"Yes, many times." + +Miss Prudence could speak to his child without any sigh in her voice. + +"Do you remember the last time he was here?" + +"Yes," very gently. + +"He said I would like your house and I do." + +"Nannie is to marry one of Helen's friends, Marjorie; her mother thought +he used to care for Helen, but Nannie is like her." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "I remember. Hollis told me." + +"And my best news is about Hollis. He united with the Church a week or +two ago; Mrs. Rheid says he is the happiest Christian she ever saw. He +says he has not been _safe_ since Helen died--he has been thinking ever +since." + +Tears were so near to Marjorie's eyes that they brimmed over; could she +ever thank God enough for this? others may have been praying for him, +but she knew her years of prayers were being answered. She would never +feel sorrowful or disappointed about any little thing again, for what +had she so longed for as this? How rejoiced his mother must be! Oh, that +she might write to him and tell him how glad she was! But she could not +do that. She could tell God how glad she was, and if Hollis never knew it +would not matter. + +"In the spring he is to go to Europe for the firm." + +"He will like that," said Marjorie, finding her voice. + +"He is somebody to be depended on. But there is the tea-bell, and my +little traveller is hungry, for she would not eat on the train and I +tempted her with fruit and crackers." + +"Aunt Prue, I _like_ it here. May I see up stairs, too?" + +"You must see the supper table first. And then Marjorie may show you +everything while I write to Uncle John, to tell him that our little bird +has found her nest." + +Marjorie gave up her place that night in the wide, old-fashioned mahogany +bedstead beside Miss Prudence and betook herself to the room that opened +out of Miss Prudence's, a room with handsome furniture in ash, the +prevailing tint of the pretty things being her favorite shade of light +blue. + +"That is a maiden's room," Miss Prudence had said; "and when Prue has a +maiden's room it shall be in rose." + +Marjorie was not jealous, as she had feared she might be, of the little +creature who nestled close to Miss Prudence; she felt that Miss Prudence +was being comforted in the child. She was too happy to sleep that night. +In the years afterward she did not leave Hollis out of her prayers, but +she never once thought to pray that he might be brought back again to be +her friend. Her prayer for him had been answered and with that she was +well content. + + + + +XVII. + +MORRIS. + +"What I aspired to be comforts me."--_Browning_. + + +It was late one evening in November; Prue had kissed them both good-night +and ran laughing up the broad staircase to bed; Miss Prudence had +finished her evening's work and evening's pleasure, and was now sitting +opposite Marjorie, near the register in the back parlor. A round table +had been rolled up between them upon which the shaded, bronze lamp was +burning, gas not having yet been introduced into old-fashioned Maple +Street. The table was somewhat littered and in confusion, Prue's +stereoscope was there with the new views of the Yosemite at which she had +been looking that evening and asking Aunt Prue numerous questions, among +which was "Shall we go and see them some day? Shall we go everywhere some +day?" Aunt Prue had satisfied her with "Perhaps so, darling," and then +had fallen silently to wondering why she and Prue might not travel some +day, a year in Europe had always been one of her postponed intentions, +and, by and by, how her child would enjoy it. Marjorie's books and +writing desk were on the table also, for she had studied mental +philosophy and chemistry after she had copied her composition and +written a long letter to her mother. Short letters were as truly an +impossibility to Marjorie as short addresses are to some public speeches; +still Marjorie always stopped when she found she had nothing to say. To +her mother, school and Miss Prudence and Prue's sayings and doings were +an endless theme of delight. Not only did she take Marjoire's letters to +her old father and mother, but she more than a few times carried them in +her pocket when she visited Mrs. Rheid, that she might read them aloud to +her. Miss Prudence's work was also on the table, pretty sewing for Prue +and her writing materials, for it was the night for her weekly letter to +John Holmes. Mr. Holmes did not parade his letters before the neighbors, +but none the less did he pore over them and ponder them. For whom had he +in all the world to love save little Prue and Aunt Prue? + +Marjorie had closed the chemistry with a sigh, reserving astronomy for +the fresher hour of the morning. With the burden of the unlearned lesson +on her mind she opened her Bible for her usual evening reading, shrinking +from it with a distaste that she had felt several times of late and that +she had fought against and prayed about. Last evening she had compelled +herself to read an extra chapter to see if she might not read herself +into a comfortable frame of mind, and then she had closed the book with a +sigh of relief, feeling that this last task of the day was done. To-night +she fixed her eyes upon the page awhile and then dropped the book into +her lap with a weary gesture that was not unnoticed by the eyes that +never lost anything where Marjorie was concerned. It was something new to +see a fretful or fretted expression upon Marjorie's lips, but it was +certainly there to-night and Miss Prudence saw it; it might be also in +her eyes, but, if it were, the uneasy eyelids were at this moment +concealing it. "The child is very weary to-night," Miss Prudence thought, +and wondered if she were allowing her, in her ambition, to take too much +upon herself. Music, with the two hours a day practicing that she +resolutely never omitted, all the school lessons, reading and letters, +and the conscientious preparation of her lesson for Bible class, was most +assuredly sufficient to tax her mental and physical strength, and there +was the daily walk of a mile to and from school, and other things +numberless to push themselves in for her comfort and Prue's. But her step +was elastic, her color as pretty as when she worked in the kitchen at +home, and when she came in from school she was always ready for a romp +with Prue before she sat down to practice. + +When summer came the garden and trips to the islands would be good for +both her children. Miss Prudence advocated the higher education for +girls, but if Marjorie's color had faded or her spirits flagged she would +have taken her out of school and set her to household tasks and to walks +and drives. Had she not taken Linnet home after her three years course +with the country color fresh in her cheeks and her step as light upon the +stair as when she left home? + +The weariness had crept into Marjorie's face since she closed her books; +it was not when she opened the Bible. Was the child enduring any +spiritual conflicts again? Linnet had never had spiritual conflicts; what +should she do with this too introspective Marjorie? Would Prue grow up to +ask questions and need just such comforting, too? Miss Prudence's own +evening's work had begun with her Bible reading, she read and meditated +all the hour and a quarter that Marjorie was writing her letter (they had +supper so early that their evenings began at half-past six), she had read +with eagerness and a sense of deep enjoyment and appreciation. + +"It is so good," she had exclaimed as she laid the Bible aside, and +Marjorie had raised her head at the exclamation and asked what was so +good. "Peter's two letters to the Church and to me." + +Without replying Marjorie had dipped her pen again and written: "Miss +Prudence is more and more of a saint every day." + +"Marjorie, it's a snow storm." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, not opening her eyes. + +Miss Prudence looked at the bronze clock on the mantel; it was ten +o'clock. Marjorie should have been asleep an hour ago. + +Miss Prudence's fur-trimmed slippers touched the toe of Marjorie's +buttoned boot, they were both resting on the register. + +"Marjorie, I don't know what I am thinking of to let you sit up so late; +I shall have to send you upstairs with Prue after this. Linnet's hour was +nine o'clock when she was studying, and look at her and Nannie Rheid." + +"But I'm not getting through to be married, as Linnet was." + +"How do you know?" asked Miss Prudence. + +"Not intentionally, then," smiled Marjorie, opening her eyes this time. + +"I'm not the old maid that eschews matrimony; all I want is to choose for +you and Prue." + +"Not yet, please," said Marjorie, lifting her hands in protest. + +"What is it that tires you so to-night? School? + +"No," answered Marjorie, sitting upright; "school sits as lightly on my +shoulders as that black lace scarf you gave me yesterday; it is because I +grow more and more wicked every night. I am worse than I was last night. +I tried to read in the Bible just now and I did not care for it one bit, +or understand it one bit; I began to think I never should find anything +to do me good in Malachi, or in any of the old prophets." + +"Suppose you read to me awhile--not in the Bible, but in your +Sunday-school book. You told Prue that it was fascinating. 'History of +the Reformation,' isn't it?" + +"To-night? O, Aunt Prue, I'm too tired." + +"Well, then, a chapter of Walter Scott, that will rest you." + +"No, it won't; I wouldn't understand a word." + +"'The Minister's Wooing' then; you admire Mrs. Stowe so greatly." + +"I don't admire her to-night, I'm afraid. Aunt Prue, even a startling +ring at the door bell will not wake me up." + +"Suppose I play for you," suggested Miss Prudence, gravely. + +"I thought you wanted me to go to bed," said Marjorie, suppressing her +annoyance as well as she could. + +"Just see, child; you are too worn out for all and any of these things +that you usually take pleasure in, and yet you take up the Bible and +expect to feel devotional and be greatly edified, even to find that +Malachi has a special message for you. And you berate yourself for +hardheartedness and coldheartedness. When you are so weary, don't you see +that your brain refuses to think?" + +"Do you mean that I ought to read only one verse and think that enough? +Oh, if I might." + +"Have you taken more time than that would require for other things +to-day?" + +"Why, yes," said Marjorie, looking surprised. + +"Then why should you give God's book just half a minute, or not so long, +and Wayland and Legendre and every body else just as much time as the +length of your lesson claims? Could you make anything of your astronomy +now?" + +"No, I knew I could not, and that is why I am leaving it till morning." + +"Suppose you do not study it at all and tell Mr. McCosh that you were too +tired to-night." + +"He would not accept such an excuse. He would ask why I deferred it so +long. He would think I was making fun of him to give him such an excuse. +I wouldn't dare." + +"But you go to God and offer him your evening sacrifice with eyes so +blind that they cannot see his words, and brain so tired that it can find +no meaning in them. Will he accept an excuse that you are ashamed to give +your teacher?" + +"No," said Marjorie, looking startled. "I will read, and perhaps I can +think now." + +But Miss Prudence was bending towards her and taking the Bible from her +lap. + +"Let me find something for you in Malachi." + +"And help me understand," said Marjorie. + +After a moment Miss Prudence read aloud: + +"'And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if ye +offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor; +will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of +hosts.'" + +Closing the book she returned it to Marjorie's lap. + +"You mean that God will not accept my excuse for not feeling like reading +to-night?" + +"You said that Mr. McCosh would not accept such an excuse for your +astronomy." + +"Miss Prudence!" Marjorie was wide awake now. "You mean that I should +read early in the evening as you do! Is _that_ why you always read before +you do anything else in the evening?" + +"It certainly is. I tried to give my blind, tired hours to God and found +that he did not accept--for I had no blessing in reading; I excused +myself on your plea, I was too weary, and then I learned to give him my +best and freshest time." + +There was no weariness or frettedness in Marjorie's face now; the heart +rest was giving her physical rest. "I will begin to-morrow night--I can't +begin to-night--and read the first thing as you do. I am almost through +the Old Testament; how I shall enjoy beginning the New! Miss Prudence, +is it so about praying, too?" + +"What do you think?" + +"I know it is. And that is why my prayers do not comfort me, sometimes. I +mean, the short prayers do; but I do want to pray about so many things, +and I am really too tired when I go to bed, sometimes I fall asleep when +I am not half through. Mother used to tell Linnet and me that we oughtn't +to talk after we said our prayers, so we used to talk first and put our +prayers off until the last thing, and sometimes we were so sleepy we +hardly knew what we were saying." + +"This plan of early reading and praying does not interfere with prayer at +bedtime, you know; as soon as my head touches the pillow I begin to pray, +I think I always fall asleep praying, and my first thought in the morning +is prayer. My dear, our best and freshest, not our lame and blind, belong +to God." + +"Yes," assented Marjorie in a full tone. "Aunt Prue, O, Aunt Prue what +would I do without you to help me." + +"God would find you somebody else; but I'm very glad he found me for +you." + +"I'm more than glad," said Marjorie, enthusiastically. + +"It's a real snow storm," Miss Prudence went to the window, pushed the +curtain aside, and looked out. + +"It isn't as bad as the night that Morris came to me when I was alone. +Mr. Holmes did not come for two days and it was longer than that before +father and mother could come. What a grand time we had housekeeping! It +is time for the _Linnet_ to be in. I know Morris will come to see us as +soon as he can get leave. Linnet will be glad to go to her pretty little +home; the boy on the farm is to be there nights, mother said, and Linnet +will not mind through the day. Mother Rheid, as Linnet says, will run +over every day, and Father Rheid, too, I suspect. They _love_ Linnet." + +"Marjorie, if I hadn't had you I believe I should have been content with +Linnet, she is so loving." + +"And if you hadn't Prue you would be content with me!" laughed Marjorie, +and just then a strong pull at the bell sent it ringing through the +house, Marjorie sprang to her feet and Miss Prudence moved towards the +door. + +"I feel in my bones that it's somebody," cried Marjorie, following her +into the hall. + +"I don't believe a ghost could give a pull like that," answered Miss +Prudence, turning the big key. + +And a ghost certainly never had such laughing blue eyes or such light +curls sprinkled with snow and surmounted by a jaunty navy-blue sailor +cap, and a ghost never could give such a spring and catch Marjorie in its +arms and rub its cold cheeks against her warm ones. + +"O, Morris," Marjorie cried, "it's like that other night when you came in +the snow! Only I'm not frightened and alone now. This is such a surprise! +Such a splendid surprise." + +Marjorie was never shy with Morris, her "twin-brother" as she used to +call him. + +But the next instant she was escaping out of his arms and fleeing back to +the fire. Miss Prudence and Morris followed more decorously. + +"Now tell us all about it," Marjorie cried, stepping about upon the rug +and on the carpet. "And where is Linnet? And when did you get in? And +where's Will? And why didn't Linnet come with you?" + +"Because I didn't want to be overshadowed; I wanted a welcome all my own. +And Linnet is at home under her mother's sheltering wing--as I ought to +be under my mother's, instead of being here under yours. Will is on board +the _Linnet_, another place where I ought to be this minute; and we +arrived day before yesterday in New York, where we expect to load for +Liverpool, I took the captain's wife home, and then got away from Mother +West on the plea that I must see my own mother as soon as time and tide +permitted; but to my consternation I found every train stopped at the +foot of Maple Street, so I had to stop, instead of going through as I +wanted to." + +"That is a pity," said Marjorie; "but we'll send you off to your mother +to-morrow. Now begin at the beginning and tell me everything that you and +Linnet didn't write about." + +"But, first--a moment, Marjorie. Has our traveller had his supper?" +interposed Miss Prudence. + +"Yes, thank you, I had supper, a very early one, with Linnet and Mother +West; Father West had gone to mill, and didn't we turn the house upside +down when he came into the kitchen and found us. Mother West kept wiping +her eyes and Linnet put her arms around her father's neck and really +cried! She said she knew she wasn't behaving 'marriedly,' but she was so +glad she couldn't help it." + +"Dear old Linnet," ejaculated Marjorie. "When is she coming to see us?" + +"As soon as Mother West and Mother Rheid let her! I imagine the scene at +Captain Rheid's tomorrow! Linnet is 'wild,' as you girls say, to see her +house, and I don't know as she can tear herself away from that kitchen +and new tinware, and she's fairly longing for washday to come that she +may hang her new clothes on her new clothes line." + +"Oh, I wish I could go and help her!" cried Marjorie. "Miss Prudence, +that little house does almost make me want to go to housekeeping! Just +think of getting dinner with all her new things, and setting the table +with those pretty white dishes." + +"Now, Marjorie, I've caught you," laughed Morris. "That is a concession +from the girl that cared only for school books." + +"I do care for school books, but that house is the temptation." + +"I suppose another one wouldn't be." + +"There isn't another one like that--outside of a book." + +"Oh, if you find such things, in books, I won't veto the books; but, Miss +Prudence, I'm dreadfully afraid of our Marjorie losing herself in a Blue +Stocking." + +"She never will, don't fear!" reassured Miss Prudence. "She coaxes me to +let her sew for Prue, and I found her in the kitchen making cake last +Saturday afternoon." + +Miss Prudence was moving around easily, giving a touch to something here +and there, and after closing the piano slipped away; and, before they +knew it, they were alone, standing on the hearth rug looking gravely and +almost questioningly into each others' eyes. Marjorie smiled, remembering +the quarrel of that last night; would he think now that she had become +too much like Miss Prudence,--Miss Prudence, with her love of literature, +her ready sympathy and neat, housewifely ways, Prue did not know which +she liked better, Aunt Prue's puddings or her music. + +The color rose in Morris' face, Marjorie's lip trembled slightly. She +seated herself in the chair she had been occupying and asked Morris to +make himself at home in Miss Prudence's chair directly opposite. He +dropped into it, threw his head back and allowed his eyes to rove over +everything in the room, excepting that flushed, half-averted face so near +to him. She was becoming like Miss Prudence, he had decided the matter in +the study of these few moments, that attitude when standing was Miss +Prudence's, and her position at this moment, the head a little drooping, +the hands laid together in her lap, was exactly Miss Prudence's; Miss +Prudence's when she was meditating as Marjorie was meditating now. There +was a poise of the head like the elder lady's, and now and then a +stateliness and dignity that were not Marjorie's own when she was his +little friend and companion in work and study at home. In these first +moments he could discern changes better than to-morrow; to-morrow he +would be accustomed to her again; to-morrow he would find the unchanged +little Marjorie that hunted eggs and went after the cows. He could not +explain to himself why he liked that Marjorie better; he could not +explain to himself that he feared Miss Prudence's Marjorie would hold +herself above the second mate of the barque _Linnet_; a second mate whose +highest ambition to become master. Linnet had not held her self above +Captain Will, but Linnet had never loved books as Marjorie did. Morris +was provoked at himself. Did not he love books, and why then should he +quarrel with Marjorie? It was not for loving books, but for loving books +better than--anything! Had Mrs. Browning loved books better than +anything, or Mary Somerville, or Fredrika Bremer?--yes, Fredrika Bremer +had refused to be married, but there was Marjorie's favorite-- + +"Tell me all about Linnet," said Marjorie, breaking the uncomfortable +silence. + +"I have--and she has written." + +"But you never can write all. Did she bring me the branch of mulberry +from Mt. Vesuvius?" + +"Yes, and will bring it to you next week. She said she would come to you +because she was sure you would not want to leave school; and she wants to +see Miss Prudence. I told her she would wish herself a girl again, and it +was dangerous for her to come, but she only laughed. I have brought you +something, too, Marjorie," he said unsteadily. + +But Marjorie ignored it and asked questions about Linnet and her home on +shipboard. + +"Have I changed, Marjorie?" + +"No," she said. "You cannot change for the better, so why should you +change at all?" + +"I don't like that," he returned seriously; "it is rather hard to attain +to perfection before one is twenty-one. I shall have nothing to strive +for. Don't you know the artist who did kill himself, or wanted to, +because he had done his best?" + +"You are perfect as a boy--I mean, there is all manhood left to you," she +answered very gravely. + +He colored again and his blue eyes grew as cold as steel. Had he come to +her to-night in the storm to have his youth thrown up at him? + +"Marjorie, if that is all you have to say to me, I think I might better +go." + +"O, Morris, don't be angry, don't be angry!" she pleaded. "How can I look +up to somebody who was born on my birthday," she added merrily. + +"I don't want you to look up to me; but that is different from looking +down. You want me to tarry at Jericho, I suppose," he said, rubbing his +smooth chin. + +"I want you not to be nonsensical," she replied energetically. + +How that tiny box burned in his pocket! Should he toss it away, that +circlet of gold with _Semper fidelis_ engraved within it? How he used to +write on his slate: "Morris Kemlo, _Semper fidelis_" and she had never +once scorned it, but had written her own name with the same motto beneath +it. But she had given it a higher significance than he had given it; she +had never once thought of it in connection with any human love. + +"How often do you write to Hollis?" he inquired at last. + +"I do not write to him at all," she answered. + +"Why not? Has something happened?" he said, eagerly. + +"I suppose so." + +"Don't you want to tell me? Does it trouble you?" + +"Yes, I want to tell you, I do not think that it troubles me now. He has +never--answered my last letter." + +"Did you quarrel with him?" + +"Oh, no. I may have displeased him, but I have no idea how I did it." + +She spoke very easily, not flushing at all, meeting his eyes frankly; she +was concealing nothing, there was nothing to be concealed. Marjorie was +a little girl still. Was he glad or sorry? Would he find her grown up +when he came back next time? + +"Do you like school as well as you thought you would?" he asked, with a +change of tone. + +He would not be "nonsensical" any longer. + +"Better! A great deal better," she said, enthusiastically. + +"What are you getting ready for?" + +"_Semper fiddelis_. Don't you remember our motto? I am getting ready to +be always faithful. There's so much to be faithful in, Morris. I am +learning new things every day." + +He had no reply at hand. How that innocent ring burned in his pocket! And +he had thought she would accept that motto from him. + +"I am not the first fellow that has gone through this," he comforted +himself grimly. "I will not throw it overboard; she will listen next +time." + +Next time? Ah, poor Morris, if you had known about next time, would you +have spoken to-night? + +"Marjorie, I have something for you, but I would rather not give it to +you to-night," he said with some confusion. + +"Well," she said, quietly, "I can wait." + +"Do you _want_ to wait." + +"Yes. I think I do," she answered deliberately. + +Miss Prudence's step was at the front parlor door. + +"You young folks are not observing the clock, I see. Marjorie must study +astronomy by starlight to-morrow morning, and I am going to send you +upstairs, Morris. But first, shall we have family worship, together? I +like to have a priest in my house when I can." + +She laid Marjorie's Bible in his hand as she spoke. He read a short +Psalm, and then they knelt together. He had grown; Marjorie felt it in +every word of the simple heartfelt prayer. He prayed like one at home +with God. One petition she long remembered: "Lord, when thou takest +anything away from us, fill us the more with thyself." + + + + +XVIII. + +ONE DAY. + +"Education is the apprenticeship of life."--_Willmott._ + + +Marjorie did not study astronomy by starlight, but she awoke very early +and tripped with bare feet over the carpet into Miss Prudence's chamber. +Deborah kindled the wood fire early in Miss Prudence's chamber that Prue +might have a warm room to dress in. It was rarely that Marjorie studied +in the morning, the morning hours were reserved for practicing and for +fun with Prue. She said if she had guessed how delightful it was to have +a little sister she should have been all her life mourning for one. She +almost envied Linnet because she had had Marjorie. + +The fire was glowing in the airtight when she ran into the chamber, there +was a faint light in the east, but the room was so dark that she just +discerned Prue's curls close to the dark head on the pillow and the +little hand that was touching Miss Prudence's cheek. + +"This is the law of compensation," she thought as she busied herself in +dressing; "one has found a mother and the other a little girl! It isn't +quite like the old lady who said that when she had nothing to eat she had +no appetite! I wonder if Miss Prudence has _all_ her compensations!" + +She stepped noiselessly over the stairs, opened the back parlor door, and +by the dim light found a match and lighted the lamp on the centre table. + +Last night had come again. The face of the clock was the only reminder +she had left the room, the face of the clock and a certain alertness +within herself. As she settled herself near the register and took the +astronomy from the pile her eye fell on her Bible, it was on the table +where Morris had laid it last night. Miss Prudence's words came to her, +warningly. Must she also give the fresh hour of her morning to God? The +tempting astronomy was open in her hand at the chapter _Via Lactea._ +She glanced at it and read half a page, then dropped it suddenly and +reached forward for the Bible. She was afraid her thoughts would wander +to the unlearned lesson: in such a frame of mind, would it be an +acceptable offering? But who was accountable for her frame of mind? She +wavered no longer, with a little prayer that she might understand and +enjoy she opened to Malachi, and, reverently and thoughtfully, with no +feeling of being hurried, read the first and second chapters. She thought +awhile about the "blind for sacrifice," and in the second chapter found +words that meant something to her: "My covenant was with him of life and +peace." Life and peace! Peace! Had she ever known anything that was not +peace? + +Before she had taken the astronomy into her hands again the door opened, +as if under protest of some kind, and Morris stood on the threshold, +looking at her with hesitation in his attitude. + +"Come in," she invited, smiling at his attitude. + +"But you don't want to talk." + +"No; I have to study awhile. But you will not disturb; we have studied +often enough together for you to know how I study." + +"I know! Not a word in edgewise." + +Nevertheless he came to the arm-chair he had occupied last night and sat +down. + +"Did you know the master gave me leave to take as many of his books as I +wanted? He says a literary sailor is a novelty." + +"All his books are in boxes in the trunk room on the second floor." + +"I know it. I am going up to look at them. I wish you could read his +letters. He urges me to live among men, not among books; to live out in +the world and mix with men and women; to live a man's life, and not a +hermit's!" + +"Is he a hermit?" + +"Rather. Will, Captain Will, is a man out among men; no hermit or student +about him; but he has read 'Captain Cook's Voyages' with zest and asked +me for something else, so I gave him 'Mutineers of the Bounty' and he did +have a good time over that. Captain Will will miss me when I'm promoted +to be captain." + +"That will not be this voyage." + +"Don't laugh at me. I have planned it all. Will is to have a big New York +ship, an East Indiaman, and I'm to be content with the little _Linnet_." + +"Does he like that?" + +"Of course. He says he is to take Linnet around the world. Now study, +please. _Via Lactea_" he exclaimed, bending forward and taking the book +out of her hand. "What do you know about the Milky Way?" + +"I never shall know anything unless you give me the book." + +"As saucy as ever. You won't dare, some day." + +Marjorie studied, Morris kept his eyes on a book that he did not read; +neither spoke for fully three quarters of an hour. Marjorie studied with +no pretence: Master McCosh had said that Miss West studied in fifteen +minutes to more purpose than any other of her class did in an hour. She +did not study, she was absorbed; she had no existence excepting in the +lesson; just now there had been no other world for her than the wondrous +Milky Way. + +"I shall have Miss West for a teacher," he had told Miss Prudence. +Marjorie wondered if he ever would. Mrs. Browning has told us: + +"Girls would fain know the end of everything." + +And Marjorie would fain have known the end of herself. She would not be +quite satisfied with Miss Prudence's lovely life, even with this +"compensation" of Prue; there was a perfection of symmetry in Miss +Prudence's character that she was aiming at, her character made her +story, but what Marjorie would be satisfied to become she did not fully +define even to Marjorie West. + +"Now, I'm through," she exclaimed, closing the book as an exclamation +point; "but I won't bother you with what I have learned. Master McCosh +knows the face of the sky as well as I know the alphabet. You should have +heard him and seen him one night, pointing here and there and everywhere: +That's Orion, that's Job's coffin, that's Cassiopeia! As fast as he could +speak. That's the Dipper, that's the North Star!" + +"I know them all," said Morris. + +"Why! when did you see them?" + +"In my watches I've plenty of time to look at the stars! I've plenty of +time for thinking!" + +"Have you seen an iceberg?" + +"Yes, one floated down pretty near us going out--the air was chillier and +we found her glittering majesty was the cause of it." + +"Have you seen a whale?" + +"I've seen black fish; they spout like whales." + +"And a nautilus." + +"Yes." + +"And Mother Carey's chickens?" + +"Yes." + +"Morris, I won't tease you with nonsense! What troubles you this +morning?" + +"My mother," he said concisely. + +"Is she ill? Miss Prudence wrote to her last week" + +"Does she ever reply?" + +"I think so. Miss Prudence has not shown me her letters." + +"Poor mother. I suppose so. I'm glad she writes at all. You don't know +what it is to believe that God does not love you; to pray and have no +answer; to be in despair." + +"Oh, dear, no," exclaimed Marjorie, sympathetically. + +"She is sure God has not forgiven her, she weeps and prays and takes no +interest in anything." + +"I should not think she would. I couldn't." + +"She is with Delia now; the girls toss her back one to the other, and +Clara wants to put her into the Old Lady's Home. She is a shadow on the +house--they have no patience with her. They are not Christians, and their +husbands are not--they do not understand; Delia's husband contends that +she is crazy; but she is not, she is only in despair. They say she is no +help, only a hindrance, and they want to get rid of her. She will not +work about the house, she will not sew or help in anything, she says she +cannot read the Bible--" + +"How long since she has felt so?" + +"Two years now. I would not tell you to worry you, but now I must tell +some one, for something must be done. Delia has never been very kind to +her since she was married. I have no home for her; what am I to do? I +could not ask any happy home to take her in; I cannot bear to think of +the Old Lady's Home for her, she will think her children have turned her +off. And the girls have." + +"Ask Miss Prudence what to do," said Marjorie brightly, "she always +knows." + +"I intend to. But she has been so kind to us all. Indeed, that was one of +my motives in coming here. Between themselves the girls may send her +somewhere while I am gone and I want to make that impossible. When I am +captain I will take mother around the world. I will show her how good God +is everywhere. Poor mother! She is one of those bubbling-over +temperaments like Linnet's and when she is down she is all the way down. +Who would have anything to live for if they did not believe in the love +of God? Would I? Would you?" + +"I could not live; I would _die_," said Marjorie vehemently. + +"She does not live, she exists! She is emaciated; sometimes she fasts day +after day until she is too weak to move around--she says she must fast +while she prays. O, Marjorie, I'm sorry to let you know there is such +sorrow in the world." + +"Why should I not know about sorrow?" asked Marjorie, gravely. "Must I +always be joyful?" + +"I want you to be. There is no sorrow like this sorrow. I know something +about it; before I could believe that God had forgiven me I could not +sleep or eat." + +"I always believed it, I think," said Marjorie simply. + +"I want her to be with some one who loves her and understands her; the +girls scold her and find fault with her, and she has been such a good +mother to them; perhaps she let them have their own way too much, and +this is one of the results of it. She has worked while they slept, and +has taken the hardest of everything for them. And now in her sore +extremity they want to send her among strangers. I wish I had a home of +my own. If I can do no better, I will give up my position, and stay on +land and make some kind of a home for her." + +"Oh, not yet. Don't decide so hastily. Tell Miss Prudence. Telling her a +thing is the next best thing to praying about it," said Marjorie, +earnestly. + +"What now?" Miss Prudence asked. "Morris, this girl is an enthusiast!" + +She was standing behind Marjorie's chair and touched her hair as she +spoke. + +"Oh, have you heard it all?" cried Marjorie, springing up. + +"No, I came in this instant; I only heard that Morris must not decide +hastily, but tell me all about it, which is certainly good advice, and +while we are at breakfast Morris shall tell me." + +"I can't, before Prue," said Morris. + +"Then we will have a conference immediately afterward. Deborah's muffins +must not wait or she will be cross, and she has made muffins for me so +many years that I can't allow her to be cross." + +Morris made an attempt to be his usual entertaining self at the breakfast +table, then broke down suddenly. + +"Miss Prudence, I'm so full of something that I can't talk about anything +else." + +"I'm full of something too," announced Prue. "Aunt Prue, when am I going +to Marjorie's school." + +"I have not decided, dear." + +"Won't you please decide now to let me go to-day?" she pleaded. + +Miss Prudence was sure she had never "spoiled" anybody, but she began to +fear that this irresistible little coaxer might prove a notable +exception. + +"I must think about it awhile, little one." + +"Would I like it, Marjorie, at your school?" + +"I am sure of it." + +"I never went to school. The day I went with you it was ever so nice. I +want a copy-book and a pile of books, and I want the girls to call me +'Miss Holmes.'" + +"We can do that," said Miss Prudence, gravely. "Morris, perhaps Miss +Holmes would like another bit of steak." + +"That isn't it," said Prue, shaking her curls. + +"Not genuine enough? How large is your primary class, Marjorie?" + +"Twenty, I think. And they are all little ladies. It seems so comical to +me to hear the girls call the little ones 'Miss.' Alice Dodd is younger +than Prue, and Master McCosh says 'Miss Dodd' as respectfully as though +she were in the senior class." + +"Why shouldn't he?" demanded Prue. "Miss Dodd looked at me in church +Sunday; perhaps I shall sit next to her. Do the little girls come in +your room, Marjorie?" + +"At the opening of school, always, and you could come in at +intermissions. We have five minute intermissions every hour, and an hour +at noon." + +"O, Aunt Prue! When _shall_ I go? I wish I could go to-day! You say I +read almost well enough. Marjorie will not be ashamed of me now." + +"I'd never be ashamed of you," said Marjorie, warmly. + +"Papa said I must not say my name was 'Jeroma,' shall I write it _Prue_ +Holmes, Aunt Prue?" + +"Prue J. Holmes! How would that do?" + +But Miss Prudence spoke nervously and did not look at the child. Would +she ever have to tell the child her father's story? Would going out among +the children hasten that day? + +"I like that," said Prue, contentedly; "because I keep papa's name tucked +in somewhere. _May_ I go to-day, Aunt Prue?" + +"Not yet, dear. Master McCosh knows you are coming by and by. Marjorie +may bring me a list of the books you will need and by the time the +new quarter commences in February you may be able to overtake them if you +study well. I think that will have to do, Prue." + +"I would _rather_ go to-day," sobbed the child, trying to choke the tears +back. Rolling up her napkin hurriedly, she excused herself almost +inaudibly and left the table. + +"Aunt Prue! she'll cry," remonstrated Marjorie. + +"Little girls have to cry sometimes," returned Miss Prudence, her own +eyes suffused. + +"She is not rebellious," remarked Morris. + +"No, never rebellious--not in words; she told me within the first half +hour of our meeting that she had promised papa she would be obedient. +But for that promise we might have had a contest of wills. She will not +speak of school again till February." + +"How she creeps into one's heart," said Morris. + +Miss Prudence's reply was a flash of sunshine through the mist of her +eyes. + +Marjorie excused herself to find Prue and comfort her a little, promising +to ask Aunt Prue to let her go to school with her one day every week, as +a visitor, until the new quarter commenced. + +Miss Prudence was not usually so strict, she reasoned within herself; why +must she wait for another quarter? Was she afraid of the cold for +Prue? She must be waiting for something. Perhaps it was to hear from Mr. +Holmes, Marjorie reasoned; she consulted him with regard to every +new movement of Prue's. She knew that when she wrote to him she called +her "our little girl." + +While Miss Prudence and Morris lingered at the breakfast table they +caught sounds of romping and laughter on the staircase and in the hall +above. + +"Those two are my sunshine," said Miss Prudence. + +"I wish mother could have some of its shining," answered Morris. "My +sisters do not give poor mother much beside the hard side of their own +lives." + +When Miss Prudence's two sunbeams rushed (if sunbeams do rush) into the +back parlor they found her and Morris talking earnestly in low, rather +suppressed tones, Morris seemed excited, there was an air of resolution +about Miss Prudence's attitude that promised Marjorie there would be some +new plan to be talked about that night. There was no stagnation, even in +the monotony of Miss Prudence's little household. Hardly a day passed +that Marjorie did not find her with some new thing to do for somebody +somewhere outside in the ever-increasing circle of her friends. Miss +Prudence's income as well as herself was kept in constant circulation. +Marjorie enjoyed it; it was the ideal with which she had painted the +bright days of her own future. + +But then--Miss Prudence had money, and she would never have money. In a +little old book of Miss Prudence's there was a list of names,--Miss +Prudence had shown it to her,--against several names was written "Gone +home;" against others, "Done;" and against as many as a dozen, "Something +to do." The name of Morris' mother was included in the last. Marjorie +hoped the opportunity to do that something had come at last; but what +could it be? She could not influence Morris' hardhearted sisters to +understand their mother and be tender towards her: even she could not do +that. What would Miss Prudence think of? Marjorie was sure that his +mother would be comforted and Morris satisfied. She hoped Morris would +not have to settle on the "land," he loved the water with such abounding +enthusiasm, he was so ready for his opportunities and so devoted to +becoming a sailor missionary. What a noble boy he was! She had never +loved him as she loved him at this moment, as he stood there in all his +young strength and beauty, willing to give up his own planned life to +serve the mother whom his sisters had cast off. He was like that hero she +had read about--rather were not all true heroes like him? It was queer, +she had not thought of it once since;--why did she think of it now?--but, +that day Miss Prudence had come to see her so long ago, the day she found +her asleep in her chair, she had been reading in her Sunday school +library about some one like Morris, just as unselfish, just as ready to +serve Christ anywhere, and--perhaps it was foolish and childish--she +would be ashamed to tell any one beside God about it--she had asked him +to let some one love her like him, and then she had fallen asleep. Oh, +and--Morris had not given her that thing he had brought to her. Perhaps +it was a book she wanted, she was always wanting a book--or it might be +some curious thing from Italy. Had he forgotten it? She cared to have it +now more than she cared last night; what was the matter with her last +night that she cared so little? She did "look up" to him more than she +knew herself, she valued his opinion, she was more to herself because she +was so much to him. There was no one in the world that she opened her +heart to as she opened it to him; not Miss Prudence, even, sympathetic as +she was; she would not mind so very, very much if he knew about that +foolish, childish prayer. But she could not ask him what he had brought +her; she had almost, no, quite, refused it last night. How contradictory +and uncomfortable she was! She must say good-bye, now, too. + +During her reverie she had retreated to the front parlor and stood +leaning over the closed piano, her wraps all on for school and shawl +strap of books in her hand. + +"O, Marjorie, ready for school! May I walk with you? I'll come back and +see Miss Prudence afterward." + +"Will you?" she asked, demurely; "but that will only prolong the agony of +saying good-bye." + +"As it is a sort of delicious agony we do not need to shorten it. +Good-bye, Prue," he cried, catching one of Prue's curls in his fingers as +he passed. "You will be a school-girl with a shawl strap of books, by and +by, and you will put on airs and think young men are boys." + +Prue stood in the doorway calling out "goodbye" as they went down the +path to the gate, Miss Prudence's "old man" had been there early +to sweep off the piazzas and shovel paths; he was one of her +beneficiaries with a history. Marjorie said they all had histories: she +believed he had lost some money in a bank years ago, some that he had +hoarded by day labor around the wharves. + +The pavements in this northern city were covered with snow hard packed, +the light snow of last night had frozen and the sidewalks were slippery; +in the city the children were as delighted to see the brick pavement in +spring as the country children were glad to see the green grass. + +"Whew"! ejaculated Morris, as the wind blew sharp in their faces, "this +is a stiff north-wester and no mistake. I don't believe that small +Californian would enjoy walking to school to-day." + +"I think that must be why Aunt Prue keeps her at home; I suppose she +wants to teach her to obey without a reason, and so she does not give her +one." + +"That isn't a bad thing for any of us," said Morris. + +"She has bought her the prettiest winter suit! She is so warm and lovely +in it--and a set of white furs; she is a bluebird with a golden crest. +After she was dressed the first time Miss Prudence looked down at her and +said, as if excusing the expense to herself: 'But I must keep the child +warm--and it is my own money.' I think her father died poor." + +"I'm glad of it," said Morris. + +"Why?" asked Marjorie, wonderingly. + +"Miss Prudence and Mr. Holmes will take care of her; she doesn't need +money," he answered, evasively. "I wouldn't like Prue to be a rich woman +in this city." + +"Isn't it a good city to be a rich woman in?" questioned Marjorie with a +laugh. "As good as any other." + +"Not for everybody; do you know I wonder why Miss Prudence doesn't live +in New York as she did when she sent Linnet to school." + +"She wanted to be home, she said; she was tired of boarding, and she +liked Master McCosh's school for me. I think she will like it for Prue. +I'm so glad she will have Prue when I have to go back home. Mr. Holmes +isn't rich, is he? You said he would take care of Prue." + +"He has a very small income from his mother; his mother was not Prue's +father's mother." + +"Why, do you know all about them?" + +"Yes." + +"Who told you? Aunt Prue hasn't told me." + +"Mother knows. She knew Prue's father. I suspect some of the girls' +fathers in your school knew him, too." + +"I don't know. He was rich once--here--I know that. Deborah told me where +he used to live; it's a handsome house, with handsome grounds, a stable +in the rear and an iron fence in front." + +"I've seen it," said Morris, in his concisest tone. "Mr. Holmes and I +walked past one day. Mayor Parks lives there now." + +"Clarissa Parks' father!" cried Marjorie, in an enlightened tone. "She's +in our first class, and if she studied she would learn something. She's +bright, but she hasn't motive enough." + +"Do you think Mr. Holmes, will ever come home?" he asked. + +"Why not? Of course he will," she answered in astonishment. + +"That depends. Prue might bring him. I want to see him finished; there's +a fine finishment for him somewhere and I want to see it. For all that +is worth anything in me I have to thank him. He made me--as God lets one +man make another. I would like to live long enough to pass it on; to +make some one as he made me." + +It was too cold to walk slowly, their words were spoken in brief, brisk +sentences. + +There was nothing specially memorable in this walk, but Marjorie thought +of it many times; she remembered it because she was longing to ask him +what he had brought her and was ashamed to do it. It might be due to him +after her refusal last night; but still she was ashamed. She would write +about it, she decided; it was like her not to speak of it. + +"I haven't told you about our harbor mission work at Genoa; the work is +not so great in summer, but the chaplain told me that in October there +were over sixty seamen in the Bethel and they were very attentive. One +old captain told me that the average sailor had much improved since he +began to go to sea, and I am sure the harbor mission work is one cause of +it. I wish you could hear some of the old sailors talk and pray. The +_Linnet_ will be a praise meeting in itself some day; four sailors have +become Christians since I first knew the _Linnet_." + +"Linnet wrote that it was your work." + +"I worked and prayed and God blessed. Oh, the blessing! oh, the blessing +of good books! Marjorie, do you know what makes waves?" + +"No," she laughed; "and I'm too cold to remember if I did. I think the +wind must make them. Now we turn and on the next corner is our entrance." + +The side entrance was not a gate, but a door in a high wall; girls were +flocking up the street and down the street, blue veils, brown veils, gray +veils, were streaming in all directions, the wind was blowing laughing +voices all around them. + +Marjorie pushed the door open: + +"Good-bye, Morris," she said, as he caught her hand and held it last. + +"Good-bye, Marjorie,--_dear_" he whispered as a tall girl in blue brushed +past them and entered the door. + +Little Miss Dodd ran up laughing, and Marjorie could say no more; what +more could she say than "good-bye"? But she wanted to say more, she +wanted to say--but Emma Downs was asking her if it were late and Morris +had gone. + +"What a handsome young fellow!" exclaimed Miss Parks to Marjorie, hanging +up her cloak next to Marjorie's in the dressing room. "Is he your +brother?" + +"My twin-brother," replied Marjorie. + +"He doesn't look like you. He is handsome and tall." + +"And I am homely and stumpy," said Marjorie, good-humoredly. "No, he is +not my real brother." + +"I don't believe in that kind." + +"I do," said Marjorie. + +"Master McCosh will give you a mark for transgressing." + +"Oh, I forgot!" exclaimed Marjorie; "but he is so much my brother that it +is not against the rules." + +"Is he a sailor?" asked Emma Downs. + +"Yes," said Marjorie. + +"A common sailor!" + +"No, an uncommon one." + +"Is he before the mast?" she persisted. + +"Does he look so?" asked Marjorie, seriously. + +"No, he looks like a captain; only that cap is not dignified enough." + +"It's becoming," said Miss Parks, "and that's better than dignity." + +The bell rang and the girls passed into the schoolroom in twos and +threes. A table ran almost the length of the long, high apartment; it was +covered with green baize and served as a desk for the second class girls; +the first class girls occupied chairs around three sides of the room, +during recitation the chairs were turned to face the teacher, at other +times the girls sat before a leaf that served as a rest for their books +while they studied, shelves being arranged above to hold the books. The +walls of the room were tinted a pale gray. Mottoes in black and gold were +painted in one straight line above the book shelves, around the three +sides of the room. Marjorie's favorites were: + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO KNOW, IS CURIOSITY. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO BE KNOWN, IS VANITY. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO SELL YOUR KNOWLEDGE, IS COVETOUSNESS. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO EDIFY ONE'S SELF, IS PRUDENCE. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO EDIFY OTHERS, IS CHARITY. + +TO DESIRE TO KNOW--TO GLORIFY GOD, IS RELIGION. + +The words were very ancient, Master McCosh told Marjorie, the last having +been written seven hundred years later than the others. The words "TO +GLORIFY GOD" were over Marjorie's desk. + +The first class numbered thirty. Clarissa Parks was the beauty of the +class, Emma Downs the poet, Lizzie Harrowgate the mathematician, Maggie +Peet the pet, Ella Truman wrote the finest hand, Maria Denyse was the +elocutionist, Pauline Hayes the one most at home in universal history, +Marjorie West did not know what she was: the remaining twenty-two were in +no wise remarkable; one or two were undeniably dull, more were careless, +and most came to school because it was the fashion and they must do +something before they were fully grown up. + +At each recitation the student who had reached the head of the class was +marked "head" and took her place in the next recitation at the foot. +During the first hour and a half there were four recitations--history, +astronomy, chemistry, and English literature. That morning Marjorie, who +did not know what she was in the class, went from the foot through the +class, to the head three times; it would have been four times but she +gave the preference to Pauline Hayes who had written the correct date +half a second after her own was on the slate. "Miss Hayes writes more +slowly than I," she told Master McCosh. "She was as sure of it as I was." + +The replies in every recitation were written upon the slate; there was no +cheating, every slate was before the eyes of its neighbor, every word +must be exact. + +"READING MAKES A FULL MAN, CONFERENCE A READY MAN, WRITING AN EXACT MAN," +was one of the wall mottoes. + +Marjorie had an amusing incident to relate to Miss Prudence about her +first recitation in history. The question was: "What general reigned at +this time?" The name of no general occurred. Marjorie was nonplussed. +Pencils were rapidly in motion around her. "Confusion" read the head +girl. Then to her chagrin Marjorie recalled the words in the lesson: +"General confusion reigned at this time." + +It was one of the master's "catches". She found that he had an abundant +supply. + +Another thing that morning reminded her of that mysterious "vibgyor" of +the old times. + +Master McCosh told them they could _clasp_ Alexander's generals; then +Pauline Hayes gave their names--Cassander, Lysimachus, Antiognus, +Seleucus and Ptolemy. Marjorie had that to tell Miss Prudence. Miss +Prudence lived through her own school days that winter with Marjorie; the +girl's enthusiasm reminded her of her own. Master McCosh, who never +avoided personalities, observed as he marked the last recitation: + +"Miss West studies, young ladies; she has no more brains than one or two +of the rest of you, but she has something that more than half of you +woefully lack--application and conscience." + +"Perhaps she expects to teach," returned Miss Parks, in her most +courteous tone, as she turned the diamond upon her engagement finger. + +"I hope she may teach--this class," retorted the master with equal +courtesy. + +Miss Parks smiled at Marjorie with her lovely eyes and acknowledged the +point of the master's remark with a slight inclination of her pretty +head. + +At the noon intermission a knot of the girls gathered around Marjorie's +chair; Emma Downs took the volume of "Bridgewater Treatises" out of her +hand and marched across the room to the book case with it, the others +clapped their hands and shouted. + +"Now we'll make her talk," said Ella Truman. "She is a queen in the midst +of her court." + +"She isn't tall enough," declared Maria Denyse. + +"Or stately enough," added Pauline Hayes. + +"Or self-possessed enough," supplemented Lizzie Harrowgate. + +"Or imperious enough," said Clarissa Parks. + +"She would always be abdicating in favor of some one who had an equal +right to it," laughed Pauline Hayes. + +"Oh, Miss West, who was that lovely little creature with you in Sunday +school Sunday?" asked Miss Denyse. "She carries herself like a little +princess." + +"She is just the one not to do it," replied Miss Parks. + +"What do you mean?" inquired Miss Harrowgate before Marjorie could speak. + +"I mean," she began, laying a bunch of white grapes in Marjorie's +fingers, "that her name is _Holmes_." + +"Doesn't that belong to the royal line?" asked Pauline, lightly. + +"It belongs to the line of _thieves_." + +Marjorie's fingers dropped the grapes. + +"Her father spent years in state-prison when he should have spent a +lifetime there at hard labor! Ask my father. Jerome Holmes! He is famous +in this city! How dared he send his little girl here to hear all about +it!" + +"Perhaps he thought he sent her among Christians and among ladies," +returned Miss Harrowgate. "I should think you would be ashamed to bring +that old story up, Clarissa." + +Marjorie was paralyzed; she could not move or utter a sound. + +"Father has all the papers with the account in; father lost enough, he +ought to know about it." + +"That child can't help it," said Emma Downs. "She has a face as sweet and +innocent as an apple blossom." + +"I hope she will never come here to school to revive the old scandal," +said Miss Denyse. "Mother told me all about it as soon as she knew who +the child was." + +"Somebody else had the hardest of it," said Miss Parks; "_that's_ a story +for us girls. Mother says she was one of the brightest and sweetest girls +in all the city; she used to drive around with her father, and her +wedding day was set, the cards were out, and then it came out that he had +to go to state-prison instead. She gave up her diamonds and everything of +value he had given her. She was to have lived in the house we live in +now; but he went to prison and she went somewhere and has never been back +for any length of time until this year, and now she has his little girl +with her." + +Miss Prudence! Was that Miss Prudence's story? Was she bearing it like +this? Was that why she loved poor little Prue so? + +"Bring some water, quick!" Marjorie heard some one say. + +"No, take her to the door," suggested another voice. + +"Oh, I'm so sorry, so sorry!" This was Miss Parks. + +Marjorie arose to her feet, pushed some one away from her, and fled from +them all--down the schoolroom, though the cloak-room out to the fresh +air. + +She needed the stiff worth-wester to bring her back to herself. Miss +Prudence had lived through _that!_ And Prue must grow up to know! Did +Miss Prudence mean that she must decide about that before Prue could come +to school? She remembered now that a look, as if she were in pain, had +shot itself across her eyes. Oh, that she would take poor little Prue +back to California where nobody knew. If some one should tell _her_ a +story like that about her own dear honest father it would kill her! She +never could bear such shame and such disappointment in him. But Prue need +never know if Miss Prudence took her away to-day, to-morrow. But Miss +Prudence had had it to bear so long. Was that sorrow--and the blessing +with it--the secret of her lovely life? And Mr. Holmes, the master! +Marjorie was overwhelmed with this new remembrance of him. He was another +one to bear it. Now she understood his solitary life. Now she knew why he +shrank from anything like making himself known. The depth of the meaning +of some of his favorite sayings flashed over her. She even remembered one +of her own childish questions, and his brief, stern affirmative: "Mr. +Holmes, were you ever in a prison?" How much they had borne together, +these two! And now they had Prue to love and to live for. She would never +allow even a shadow of jealousy of poor little Prue again. Poor little +Prue, with such a heritage of shame. How vehemently and innocently she +had declared that she would not be called Jeroma. + +The wind blew sharply against her; she stepped back and closed the door; +she was shivering while her cheeks were blazing. She would go home, she +could not stay through the hour of the afternoon and be looked at and +commented upon. Was not Miss Prudence's shame and sorrow her own? As +she was reaching for her cloak she remembered that she must ask to be +excused, taking it down and throwing it over her arm she re-entered the +schoolroom. + +Master McCosh was writing at the table, a group of girls were clustered +around one of the registers. + +"It was mean! It was real mean!" a voice was exclaiming. + +"I don't see how you _could_ tell her, Clarissa Parks! You know she +adores Miss Pomeroy." + +"You all seemed to listen well enough," retorted Miss Parks. + +"We were spell-bound. We couldn't help it," excused Emma Downs. + +"I knew it before," said Maria Denyse. + +"I didn't know Miss Pomeroy was the lady," said Lizzie Harrowgate. "She +is mother's best friend, so I suppose she wouldn't tell me. They both +came here to school." + +Master McCosh raised his head. + +"What new gossip now, girls?" he inquired sternly. + +"Oh, nothing," answered Miss Parks. + +"You are making quite a hubbub about nothing. The next time that subject +is mentioned the young lady who does it takes her books and goes home. +Miss Holmes expects to come here among you, and the girl who does not +treat her with consideration may better stay at home. Jerome Holmes was +the friend of my boyhood and manhood; he sinned and he suffered for it; +his story does not belong to your generation. It is not through any merit +of yours that your fathers are honorable men. It becomes us all to be +humble?" + +A hush fell upon the group. Clarissa Parks colored with anger; why should +_she_ be rebuked, she was not a thief nor the daughter of a thief. + +Marjorie went to the master and standing before him with her cheeks +blazing and eyes downcast she asked: + +"May I go home? I cannot recite this afternoon." + +"If you prefer, yes," he replied in his usual tone; "but I hardly think +you care to see Miss Pomeroy just now." + +"Oh, no, I didn't think of that; I only thought of getting away from +here." + +"Getting away is not always the best plan," he replied, his pen still +moving rapidly. + +"Is it true? Is it _all_ true?" + +"It is all true. Jerome Holmes was president of a bank in this city. I +want you in moral science this afternoon." + +"Thank you," said Marjorie, after a moment. "I will stay." + +She returned to the dressing-room, taking a volume of Dick from the +book-case as she passed it; and sitting in a warm corner, half concealed +by somebody's shawl and somebody's cloak, she read, or thought she read, +until the bell for the short afternoon session sounded. + +Moral science was especially interesting to her, but the subject this +afternoon kept her trouble fresh in her mind; it was Property, the use of +the institution of Property, the history of Property, and on what the +right of Property is founded. + +A whisper from Miss Parks reached her: + +"Isn't it a poky subject? All I care to know is what is mine and what +isn't, and to know what right people have to take what isn't theirs." + +The hour was ended at last, and she was free. How could she ever enter +that schoolroom again? She hurried along the streets, grown older since +the morning. Home would be her sanctuary; but there was Miss Prudence! +Her face would tell the tale and Miss Prudence's eyes would ask for it. +Would it be better for Prue, for Aunt Prue, to know or not to know? Miss +Prudence had written to her once that some time she would tell her a +story about herself; but could she mean this story? + +As she opened the gate she saw her blue bird with the golden crest +perched on the arm of a chair at the window watching for her. + +She was at the door before Marjorie reached it, ready to spring into her +arms and to exclaim how glad she was that she had come. + +"You begin to look too soon, Kitten." + +"I didn't begin till one o'clock," she said convincingly. + +"But I don't leave school till five minutes past two, childie." + +"But I have something to tell you to-day. Something _de_-licious. Aunt +Prue has gone away with Morris. It isn't that, because I didn't want +her to go." + +Marjorie followed her into the front parlor and began to unfasten her +veil. + +"Morris' mother is coming home with her to-morrow to stay all winter, but +that isn't it. Do guess, Marjorie." + +She was dancing all around her, clapping her hands. + +"Linnet hasn't come! That isn't it!" cried Marjorie, throwing off her +cloak. + +"No; it's all about me. It is going to happen to _me_." + +"I can't think. You have nice things every day." + +"It's this. It's nicer than anything. I am going to school with you +to-morrow! Not for all the time, but to make a visit and see how I like +it." + +The child stood still, waiting for an outburst of joy at her +announcement; but Marjorie only caught her and shook her and tumbled her +curls without saying one word. + +"Aren't you _glad_, Marjorie?" + +"I'm glad I'm home with you, and I'm glad you are to give me my dinner." + +"It's a very nice dinner," answered Prue, gravely; "roast beef and +potatoes and tomatoes and pickled peaches and apple pie, unless you want +lemon pie instead. I took lemon pie. Which will you have?" + +"Lemon," said Marjorie. + +"But you don't look glad about anything. Didn't you know your lessons +to-day?" + +"Oh, yes." + +"I'll put your things on the hat-rack and you can get warm while I tell +Deborah to put your dinner on the table. I think you are cold and that is +why you can't be glad. I don't like to be cold." + +"I'm not cold now," laughed Marjorie. + +"Now you feel better! And I'm to sit up until you go to bed, and you are +to sleep with me; and _won't_ it be splendid for me to go to school and +take my lunch, too? And I can have jelly on my bread and an orange just +as you do." + +Marjorie was awake long before Deborah entered the chamber to kindle the +fire, trying to form some excuse to keep Prue from going to school +with her. How could she take her to-day of all days; for the girls to +look at her, and whisper to each other, and ask her questions, and to +study critically her dress, and to touch her hair, and pity her and kiss +her! And she would be sure to open the round gold locket she wore upon a +tiny gold chain about her neck and tell them it was "my papa who died in +California." + +She was very proud of showing "my papa." + +What excuse could she make to the child? It was not storming, and she did +not have a cold, and her heart did seem so set on it. The last thing +after she came upstairs last night she had opened the inside blinds to +look out to see if it were snowing. And she had charged Deborah to have +the fire kindled early so that she would not be late at breakfast. + +She must go herself. She could concoct no reason for remaining at home +herself; her throat had been a trifle sore last night, but not even the +memory of it could bring it back this morning. + +Deborah had a cough, if she should be taken ill--but there was the fire +crackling in the airtight in confirmation of Deborah's ability to be +about the house; or if Prue--but the child was never ill. Her cheeks were +burning last night, but that was with the excitement of the anticipation. +If somebody should come! But who? She had not stayed at home for Morris, +and Linnet would not come early enough to keep them at home, that is if +she ought to remain at home for Linnet. + +What could happen? She could not make anything happen? She could not tell +the child the naked truth, the horrible truth. And she could not tell her +a lie. And she could not break her heart by saying that she did not want +her to go. Oh, if Miss Prudence were only at home to decide! But would +she tell _her_ the reason? If she did not take Prue she must tell Miss +Prudence the whole story. She would rather go home and never go to school +any more than to do that. Oh, why must things happen all together? Prue +would soon be awake and asking if it were storming. She had let her take +it for granted last night; she could not think of anything to say. Once +she had said in aggrieved voice: + +"I think you might be glad, Marjorie." + +But was it not all selfishness, after all? She was arranging to give Prue +a disappointment merely to spare herself. The child would not understand +anything. But then, would Aunt Prue want her to go? She must do what Miss +Prudence would like; that would decide it all. + +Oh, dear! Marjorie was a big girl, too big for any nonsense, but there +were unmistakable tears on her cheeks, and she turned away from sleeping +Prue and covered her face with both hands. And then, beside this, Morris +was gone and she had not been kind to him. "Good-bye, Marjorie--_dear_" +the words smote her while they gave her a feeling of something to be very +happy about. There did seem to be a good many things to cry about this +morning. + +"Marjorie, are you awake?" whispered a soft voice, while little fingers +were in her hair and tickling her ear. + +Marjorie did not want to be awake. + +"_Marjorie_," with an appeal in the voice. + +Then the tears had to be brushed away, and she turned and put both arms +around the white soft bundle and rubbed her cheek against her hair. + +"Oh, _do_ you think it's storming?" + +"No." + +"You will have to curl my hair." + +"Yes." + +"And mustn't we get up? Shan't we be late?" + +"Listen a minute; I want to tell you something." + +"Is it something _dreadful?_ Your voice sounds so." + +"No not dreadful one bit. But it is a disappointment for a little girl I +know." + +"Oh, is it _me?_" clinging to her. + +"Yes, it is you." + +"Is it about going to school?" she asked with a quick little sob. + +"Yes." + +"_Can't_ I go, Marjorie?" + +"Not to-day, darling." + +"Oh, dear!" she moaned. "I did want to so." + +"I know it, and I'm so sorry. I am more sorry than you are. I was so +sorry that I could not talk about it last night." + +"Can't I know the reason?" she asked patiently. + +"The reason is this: Aunt Prue would not let you go. She would not let +you go if she knew about something that happened in school yesterday." + +"Was it something so bad?" + +"It was something very uncomfortable; something that made me very +unhappy, and if you were old enough to understand you would not want to +go. You wouldn't go for anything." + +"Then what makes you go?" asked Prue quickly. + +"Because I have to." + +"Will it hurt you to-day?" + +"Yes." + +"Then I wouldn't go. Tell Aunt Prue; she won't make you go." + +"I don't want to tell her; it would make her cry." + +"Then don't tell her. I'll stay home then--if I have to. But I want to +go. I can stand it if you can." + +Marjorie laughed at her resignation and resolution and rolling her over +pushed her gently out down to the carpet. Perhaps it would be better +to stay home if there were something so dreadful at school, and Deborah +might let her make molasses candy. + +"Won't you please stay home with me and make molasses candy, or +peppermint drops?" + +"We'll do it after school! won't that do? And you can stay with Deborah +in the kitchen, and she'll tell you stories." + +"Her stories are sad," said Prue, mournfully. + +"Ask her to tell you a funny one, then." + +"I don't believe she knows any. She told me yesterday about her little +boy who didn't want to go to school one day and she was washing and +said he might stay home because he coaxed so hard. And she went to find +him on the wharf and nobody could tell her where he was. And she went +down close to the water and looked in and he was there with his face up +and a stick in his hand and he was dead in the water and she saw him." + +"Is that true?" asked Marjorie, in surprise. + +"Yes, true every word. And then her husband died and she came to live +with Aunt Prue's father and mother ever so long ago. And she cried and +it was sad." + +"But I know she knows some funny stories. She will tell you about Aunt +Prue when she was little." + +"She has told me. And about my papa. He used to like to have muffins for +tea." + +"Oh, I know! Now I know! I'll take you to Lizzie Harrowgate's to stay +until I come from school. You will like that. There is a baby there +and a little girl four years old. Do you want to go?" + +"If I can't go to school, I do," in a resigned voice. + +"And you must not speak of school; remember, Prue, do not say that you +wanted to go, or that I wouldn't take you; do not speak of school at +all." + +"No, I will not," promised Prue; "and when that thing doesn't happen any +more you will take me?" + + + + +XIX. + +A STORY THAT WAS NOT VERY SAD. + +"Children have neither past nor future; and, what scarcely ever happens +to us, they enjoy the present."--_Bruyere._ + + +Prue was watching at the window with Minnie Harrowgate, and was joyfully +ready to go home to see Aunt Prue when Marjorie and Lizzie Harrowgate +appeared. + +Standing a few moments near the parlor register, while Prue ran to put on +her wraps, Marjorie's eye would wander to the Holland plate on the +bracket. She walked home under a depression that was not all caused by +the dread of meeting Miss Prudence. They found Miss Prudence on the +stairs, coming down with a tray of dishes. + +"O, Aunt Prue! Aunt Prue!" was Prue's exclamation. "I didn't go to +school, I went to Mrs. Harrowgate's instead. Marjorie said I must, +because something dreadful happened in school and I never could go until +it never happened again. But I've had a splendid time, and I want to go +again." + +Miss Prudence bent over to kiss her, and gave her the tray to take into +the kitchen. + +"You may stay with Deborah, dear, till I call you." + +Marjorie dropped her shawl-strap of books on the carpet of the hall and +stood at the hat-stand hanging up her cloak and hat. Miss Prudence +had kissed her, but they had not looked into each other's eyes. + +Was it possible that Miss Prudence suspected? Marjorie asked herself as +she took off her rubbers. She suffered her to pass into the front parlor, +and waited alone in the hall until she could gather courage to follow +her. But the courage did not come, she trembled and choked, and the slow +tears rolled over her cheeks. + +"Marjorie!" + +Miss Prudence was at her side. + +"O, Miss Prudence! O, dear Aunt Prue, I don't want to tell you," she +burst out; "they said things about her father and about you, and I can't +tell you." + +Miss Prudence's arm was about her, and she was gently drawn into the +parlor; not to sit down, for Miss Prudence began slowly to walk up and +down the long length of the room, keeping Marjorie at her side. They +paused an instant before the mirror, between the windows in the front +parlor, and both glanced in: a slight figure in gray, for she had put off +her mourning at last, with a pale, calm face, and a plump little creature +in brown, with a flushed face and full eyes--the girl growing up, and the +girl grown up. + +For fully fifteen minutes they paced slowly and in silence up and down +the soft carpet. Miss Prudence knew when they stood upon the very spot +where Prue's father--not Prue's father then--had bidden her that lifetime +long farewell. God had blessed her and forgiven him. Was it such a very +sad story then? + +Miss Prudence dropped into a chair as if her strength were spent, and +Marjorie knelt beside her and laid her head on the arm of her chair. + +"It is true, Marjorie." + +"I know it. Master McCosh heard it and he said it was true." + +"It will make a difference, a great difference. I shall take Prue away. I +must write to John to-night." + +"I'm so glad you have him, Aunt Prue. I'm so glad you and Prue have him." + +Miss Prudence knew now, herself: never before had she known how glad she +was to have him; how glad she had been to have him all her life. She +would tell him that, to-night, also. She was not the woman to withhold a +joy that belonged to another. + +Marjorie did not raise her head, and therefore did not catch the first +flash of the new life that John Holmes would see when he looked into +them. + +"He is so good, Aunt Prue," Marjorie went on. "_He_ is a Christian when +he speaks to a dog." + +"Don't you want to go upstairs and see Morris' mother? She was excited a +little, and I promised her that she should not come down-stairs +to-night." + +"But I don't know her," said Marjorie rising. + +"I think you do. And she knows you. She has come here to learn how good +God is, and I want you to help me show it to her." + +"I don't know how." + +"Be your sweet, bright self, and sing all over the house all the +comforting hymns you know." + +"Will she like that?" + +"She likes nothing so well. I sung her to sleep last night." + +"I wish mother could talk to her." + +"Marjorie! you have said it. Your mother is the one. I will send her to +your mother in the spring. Morris and I will pay her board, and she +shall keep close to your happy mother as long as they are both willing." + +"Will Morris let you help pay her board?" + +"Morris cannot help himself. He never resists me. Now go upstairs and +kiss her, and tell her you are her boy's twin-sister." + +Before the light tap on her door Mrs. Kemlo heard, and her heart was +stirred as she heard it, the pleading, hopeful, trusting strains of +"Jesus, lover of my soul." + +Moving about in her own chamber, with her door open, Marjorie sang it all +before she crossed the hall and gave her light tap on Mrs. Kemlo's door. + +When Marjorie saw the face--the sorrowful, delicate face, and listened to +the refined accent and pretty choice of words, she knew that Morris Kemlo +was a gentleman because his mother was a lady. + +Prue wandered around the kitchen, looking at things and asking questions. +Deborah was never cross to Prue. + +It was a sunny kitchen in the afternoon, the windows faced west and south +and Deborah's plants throve. Miss Prudence had taken great pleasure in +making Deborah's living room a room for body and spirit to keep strong +in. Old Deborah said there was not another room in the house like the +kitchen; "and to think that Miss Prudence should put a lounge there for +my old bones to rest on." + +Prue liked the kitchen because of the plants. It was very funny to see +such tiny sweet alyssum, such dwarfs of geranium, such a little bit of +heliotrope, and only one calla among those small leaves. + +"Just wait till you go to California with us, Deborah," she remarked this +afternoon. "I'll show you flowers." + +"I'm too old to travel, Miss Prue." + +"No, you are not. I shall take you when I go. I can wait on Morris' +mother, can't I? Marjorie said she and I were to help you if she came." + +"Miss Marjorie is good help." + +"So am I," said Prue, hopping into the dining-room and amusing herself by +stepping from one green pattern in the carpet to another green one, and +then from one red to another red one, and then, as her summons did not +come, from a green to a red and a red to a green, and still Aunt Prue did +not call her. Then she went back to Deborah, who was making lemon jelly, +at one of the kitchen tables, in a great yellow bowl. She told Prue that +some of it was to go to a lady in consumption, and some to a little boy +who had a hump on his back. Prue said that she would take it to the +little boy, because she had never seen a hump on a boy's back; she had +seen it on camels in a picture. + +Still Aunt Prue did not come for her, and she counted thirty-five bells +on the arbutilon, and four buds on the monthly rose, and pulled off three +drooping daisies that Deborah had not attended to, and then listened, and +"Prue! Prue!" did not come. + +Aunt Prue and Marjorie must be talking "secrets." + +"Deborah," standing beside her and looking seriously up into the kindly, +wrinkled face, "I wish you knew some secrets." + +"La! child, I know too many." + +"Will you tell me one. Just one. I never heard a secret in my life. +Marjorie knows one, and she's telling Aunt Prue now." + +"Secrets are not for little girls." + +"I would never, never tell," promised Prue, coaxingly. + +"Not even me!" cried Marjorie behind her. "Now come upstairs with me and +see Morris' mother. Aunt Prue is not ready for you yet awhile." + +Mrs. Kemlo's chamber was the guest chamber; many among the poor and +suffering whom Miss Prudence had delighted to honor had "warmed both +hands before the fire of life" in that luxurious chamber. + +Everything in the room had been among her father's wedding presents to +herself--the rosewood furniture, the lace curtains, the rare engravings, +the carpet that was at once perfect to the tread and to the eye, the +ornaments everywhere: everything excepting the narrow gilt frame over the +dressing bureau, enclosing on a gray ground, painted in black, crimson, +and gold the words: "I HAVE SEEN THY TEARS." Miss Prudence had placed it +there especially for Mrs. Kemlo. + +Deborah had never been alone in the house in the years when her mistress +was making a home for herself elsewhere. + +Over the mantel hung an exquisite engraving of the thorn-crowned head of +Christ. The eyes that had wept so many hopeless tears were fixed upon +it as Marjorie and Prue entered the chamber. + +"This is Miss Prudence's little girl Prue," was Marjorie's introduction. + +Prue kissed her and stood at her side waiting for her to speak. + +"That is the Lord," Prue said, at last, breaking the silence after +Marjorie had left them; "our dear Lord." + +Mrs. Kemlo kept her eyes upon it, but made no response. + +"What makes him look so sorry, Morris' mother?" + +"Because he is grieving for our sins." + +"I thought the thorns hurt his head." + +"Not so much as our sins pierced his heart." + +"I'm sorry if I have hurt him. What made our sins hurt him so?" + +"His great love to us." + +"Nobody's sins ever hurt me so." + +"You do not love anybody well enough." + +The spirit of peace was brooding, at last, over the worn face. Morris had +left her with his heart at rest, for the pain on lip and brow began to +pass away in the first hour of Miss Prudence's presence. + +Prue was summoned after what to her seemed endless waiting, and, nestling +in Aunt Prue's lap, with her head on her shoulder and her hand in hers, +she sat still in a content that would not stir itself by one word. + +"Little Prue, I want to tell you a story." + +"Oh, good!" cried Prue, nestling closer to express her appreciation. + +"What kind of stories do you like best?" + +"Not sad ones. Don't let anybody die." + +"This story is about a boy. He was like other boys, he was bright and +quick and eager to get on in the world. He loved his mother and his +brother and sister, and he worked for them on the farm at home. And then +he came to the city and did so well that all his friends were proud of +him; everybody liked him and admired him. He was large and fine looking +and a gentleman. People thought he was rich, for he soon had a handsome +house and drove fine horses. He had a lovely wife, but she died and left +him all alone. He always went to church and gave money to the church; but +he never said that he was a Christian. I think he trusted in himself, +people trusted him so much that he began to trust himself. They let him +have their money to take care of; they were sure he would take good care +of it and give it safe back, and he was sure, too. And he did take good +care of it, and they were satisfied. He was generous and kind and loving. +But he was so sure that he was strong that he did not ask God to keep him +strong, and God let him become weaker and weaker, until temptation became +too great for him and he took this money and spent it for himself; this +money that belonged to other people. And some belonged to widows who had +no husbands to take care of them, and to children who had no fathers, and +to people who had worked hard to save money for their children and to +take care of themselves in their old age; but he took it and spent it +trying to make more money for himself, and instead of making more money +always he lost their money that he took away from them. He meant to give +their money back, he did not mean to steal from any one, but he took what +was not his own and lost it and the people had to suffer, for he had no +money to pay them with." + +"That is sad," said Prue. + +"Yes, it was very sad, for he had done a dreadful thing and sinned +against God. Do you think he ought to be punished?" + +"Yes, if he took poor people's money and little children's money and +could not give it back." + +"So people thought, and he was punished: he was sent to prison." + +"To _prison_! Oh, that was dreadful." + +"And he had to stay there for years and work hard, with other wicked +men." + +"Wasn't he sorry?" + +"He was very sorry. It almost killed him. He would gladly have worked to +give the money back but he could not earn so much. He saw how foolish +and wicked he had been to think himself so strong and trustworthy and +good when he was so weak. And when he saw how wicked he was he fell down +before God and asked God to forgive him. His life was spoiled, he could +not be happy in this world; but, as God forgave him, he could begin +again and be honest and trustworthy, and be happy in Heaven because he +was a great sinner and Christ had died for him." + +"Did his sins _hurt_ Christ?" Prue asked. + +"Yes." + +"I'm sorry he hurt Christ," said Prue sorrowfully. + +"He was sorry, too." + +"Is that all?" + +"Yes, he died, and we hope he is in Heaven tonight, praising God for +saving sinners." + +"I don't think that is such a sad story. It would be sad if God never did +forgive him. It was bad to be in prison, but he got out and wasn't wicked +any more. Did you ever see him, Aunt Prue?" + +"Yes, dear, many times." + +"Did you love him?" + +"I loved him better than I loved anybody, and Uncle John loved him." + +"Was he ever in this room?" + +"Yes. He has been many times in this chair in which you and I are +sitting; he used to love to hear me play on that piano; and we used to +walk in the garden together, and he called me 'Prue' and not Aunt Prue, +as you do." + +"Aunt Prue!" the child's voice was frightened. "I know who your story is +about." + +"Your dear papa!" + +"Yes, my dear papa!" + +"And aren't you glad he is safe through it all, and God his forgiven +him?" + +"Yes, I'm glad; but I'm sorry he was in that prison." + +"He was happy with you, afterward, you know. He had your mamma and she +loved him, and then he had you and you loved him." + +"But I'm sorry." + +"So am I, darling, and so is Uncle John; we are all sorry, but we are +glad now because it is all over and he cannot sin any more or suffer any +more. I wanted to tell you while you were little, so that somebody would +not tell you when you grow up. When you think about him, thank God that +he forgave him,--that is the happy part of it." + +"Why didn't papa tell me?" + +"He knew I would tell you some day, if you had to know. I would rather +tell you than have any one else in the world tell you." + +"I won't tell anybody, ever. I don't want people to know my papa was in a +prison. I asked him once what a prison was like and he would not tell +me much." + +She kept her head on Miss Prudence's shoulder and rubbed her fingers over +Miss Prudence's hand. + +There were no tears in her eyes, Miss Prudence's quiet, hopeful voice +had kept the tears from coming. Some day she would understand it, but +to-night it was a story that was not very sad, because he had got out of +the prison and God had forgiven him. It would never come as a shock to +her; Miss Prudence had saved her that. + + + + +XX. + +"HEIRS TOGETHER." + +"Oh, for a mind more clear to see, +A hand to work more earnestly, +For every good intent."--_Phebe Cary_. + + +"Aunt Prue," began Marjorie, "I can't help thinking about beauty." + +"I don't see why you should, child, when there are so many beautiful +things for you to think about." + +It was the morning after Prue had heard the story of her father; it was +Saturday morning and she was in the kitchen "helping Deborah bake." +Mrs. Kemlo was resting in a steamer chair near the register in the back +parlor, resting and listening; the listening was in itself a rest. It was +a rest not to speak unless she pleased; it was a rest to listen to the +low tones of cultured voices, to catch bits of bright talk about things +that brought her out of herself; it was a rest, above all, to dwell in a +home where God was in the midst; it was a rest to be free from the care +of herself. Was Miss Prudence taking care of her? Was not God taking care +of her through the love of Miss Prudence? + +Marjorie was busy about her weekly mending, sitting at one of the front +windows. It was pleasant to sit there and see the sleighs pass and hear +the bells jingle; it was pleasant to look over towards the church and the +parsonage; and pleasantest of all to bring her eyes into Miss Prudence's +face and work basket and the work in her lap for Prue. + +"But I mean--faces," acknowledged Marjorie. "I mean faces--too. I don't +see why, of all the beautiful things God has made, faces should be +ignored. The human face, with the love of God in it, is more glorious +than any painting, more glorious than any view of mountain, lake, or +river." + +"I don't believe I know what beauty is." + +"You know what you think it is." + +"Yes; Prue is beautiful to me, and you are, and Linnet, and mother,--you +see how confused I am. The girls think so much of it. One of them hurts +her feet with three and a half shoes when she ought to wear larger. And +another laces so tight! And another thinks so much of being slight and +slender that she will not dress warmly enough in the street; she always +looks cold and she has a cough, too. And another said she would rather +have tubercles on her lungs than sores on her face! We had a talk about +personal beauty yesterday and one girl said she would rather have it than +anything else in the world. But _do_ you think so much depends upon +beauty?" + +"How much?" + +"Why, ever so much? Friends, and being loved, and marriage." + +"Did you ever see a homely girl with plenty of friends? And are wives +always beautiful?" + +"Why, no." + +"One of the greatest favorites I know is a middle-aged lady,--a maiden +lady,--not only with a plain face, but with a defect in the upper lip. +She is loved; her company is sought. She is not rich; she has only an +ordinary position--she is a saleswoman down town. She is not educated. +Some of your school girl friends are very fond of her. She is attractive, +and you look at her and wonder why; but you hear her speak, and you +wonder no longer. She always has something bright to say. I do not know +of another attraction that she has, beside her willingness to help +everybody." + +"And she's neither young nor pretty." + +"No; she is what you girls call an old maid." + +Marjorie was mending the elbow of her brown school dress; she wore that +dress in all weathers every day, and on rainy Sundays. Some of the +girls said that she did not care enough about dress. She forgot that she +wore the same dress every day until one of the dressy little things in +the primary class reminded her of the fact. And then she laughed. + +"In the Bible stories Sarah and Rebekah and Esther and Abigail are spoken +of as being beautiful." + +"Does their fortune depend upon their beautiful faces?" + +"Didn't Esther's?" + +"She was chosen by the king on account of her beauty, but I think it was +God who brought her into favor and tender love, as he did Daniel; and +rather more depended upon her praying and fasting than upon her beautiful +face." + +"Then you mean that beauty goes for a great deal with the world and not +with God?" + +"One of Jesse's sons was so tall and handsome that Samuel thought surely +the Lord had chosen him to be king over his people. Do you remember +what the Lord said about that?" + +"Not quite." + +"He said: 'Look not on his countenance or the height of his stature, +because I have refused him; for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man +looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart!'" + +"Then it does make a difference to man." + +"It seems as if it made a difference to Samuel; and the Lord declares +that man is influenced by the outward appearance. Well, now, taking it +for granted from the Lord's own words, what then?" + +"Then it is rather hard not to be beautiful, isn't it?" + +"Genius makes a difference; is it rather hard not to be a genius? Money +makes a difference; is it rather hard not to be rich? Position makes a +difference; is it rather hard not to be noble?" + +"I never thought about those things. They give you advantage in the +world; but beauty makes people love you." + +"What kind of beauty?" + +"Lovable beauty," confessed Marjorie, smiling, feeling that she was being +cornered. + +"What makes lovable beauty?" + +"A lovable heart, I suppose." + +"Then I shouldn't wonder if you might have it as well as another. Is +Clarissa Parks more loved than any one in your class?" + +"Oh, no. She is not a favorite at all." + +"Then, child, I don't see that you are proving your assertion." + +"I know I'm not," laughed Marjorie. "Clarissa Parks is engaged; but so is +Fanny Hunting, and Fanny is the plainest little body. But I did begin by +really believing that beautiful faces had the best of it in the world, +and I was feeling rather aggrieved because somebody described me +yesterday as 'that girl in the first class who is always getting up head; +she is short and rather stout and wears her hair in a knot at the back of +her head?' Now wasn't that humiliating? Not a word about my eyes or +complexion or manner!" + +Miss Prudence laughed at her comically aggrieved tone. + +"It is hard to be nothing distinctive but short and stout and to wear +your hair in a knot, as your grandmother does! But the getting up head is +something." + +"It doesn't add to my beauty. Miss Prudence, I'm afraid I'll be a homely +blue stocking. And if I don't teach, how shall I use my knowledge? I +cannot write a book, or even articles for the papers; and I must do +something with the things I learn." + +"Every educated lady does not teach or write." + +"You do not," answered Marjorie, thoughtfully; "only you teach Prue. And +I think it increases your influence, Miss Prudence. How much you have +taught Linnet and me!" + +"I'm thinking about two faces I saw the other night at Mrs. Harrowgate's +tea table. Both were strangers to me. As the light fell over the face of +one I thought I never saw anything so exquisite as to coloring: the hair +was shining like threads of gold; the eyes were the azure you see in the +sky; lips and cheeks were tinted; the complexion I never saw excelled for +dazzling fairness,--we see it in a child's face, sometimes. At her side +sat a lady: older, with a quiet, grave face; complexion dark and not +noticeable; hair the brown we see every day; eyes brown and expressive, +but not finer than we often see. Something about it attracted me from her +bewitching neighbor, and I looked and compared. One face was quiet, +listening; the other was sparkling as she talked. The grave dark face +grew upon me; it was not a face, it was a soul, a human life with a +history. The lovely face was lovely still, but I do not care to see it +again; the other I shall not soon forget." + +"But it was beauty you saw," persisted Marjorie. + +"Not the kind you girls were talking about. A stranger passing through +the room would not have noticed her beside the other. The lovely face has +a history, I was told after supper, and she is a girl of character." + +"Still--I wish--story books would not dwell so much on attitudes; and how +the head sets on the shoulders; and the pretty hands and slender figures. +It makes girls think of their hands and their figures. It makes this girl +I know not wrap up carefully for fear of losing her 'slender' figure. And +the eyelashes and the complexion! It makes us dissatisfied with +ourselves." + +"The Lord knew what kind of books would be written when he said that man +looketh on the out ward appearance--" + +"But don't Christian writers ever do it?" + +"Christian writers fall into worldly ways. There are lovely girls and +lovely women in the world; we meet them every day. But if we think of +beauty, and write of it, and exalt it unduly, we are making a use of it +that God does not approve; a use that he does not make of it himself. How +beauty and money are scattered everywhere. God's saints are not the +richest and most beautiful. He does not lavish beauty and money upon +those he loves the best. I called last week on an Irish washerwoman and I +was struck with the beauty of her girls--four of them, the eldest +seventeen, the youngest six. The eldest had black eyes and black curls; +the second soft brown eyes and soft brown curls to match; the third curls +of gold, as pretty as Prue's, and black eyes; the youngest blue eyes and +yellow curls. I never saw such a variety of beauty in one family. The +mother was at the washtub, the oldest daughter was ironing, the second +getting supper of potatoes and indian meal bread, the third beauty was +brushing the youngest beauty's hair. As I stood and looked at them I +thought, how many girls in this city would be vain if they owned their +eyes and hair, and how God had thrown the beauty down among them who had +no thought about it. He gives beauty to those who hate him and use it to +dishonor him, just as he gives money to those who spend it in sinning. I +almost think, that he holds cheaply those two things the world prizes so +highly; money and beauty." + +After a moment Marjorie said: "I do not mean to live for the world." + +"And you do not sigh for beauty?" smiled Miss Prudence. + +"No, not really. But I do want to be something beside short and stout, +with my hair in a knot." + +The fun in her eyes did not conceal the vexation. + +"Miss Prudence, it's hard to care only for the things God cares about," +she said, earnestly. + +"Yes, very hard." + +"I think _you_ care only for such things. You are not worldly one single +bit." + +"I do not want to be--one single bit." + +"I know you do give up things. But you have so much; you have the best +things. I don't want things you have given up. I think God cares for the +things you care for." + +"I hope he does," said Miss Prudence, gently. "Marjorie, if he has given +you a plain face give it back to him to glorify himself with; if a +beautiful face, give that back to him to glorify himself with. You are +not your own; your face is not yours; it is bought with a price." + +Marjorie's face was radiant just then. The love, the surprise, the joy, +made it beautiful. + +Miss Prudence could not forbear, she drew the beautiful face down to kiss +it. + +"People will always call you plain, dear, but keep your soul in your +face, and no matter." + +"Can I help Deborah now? Or isn't there something for me to do upstairs? +I can study and practice this afternoon." + +"I don't believe you will. Look out in the path." + +Marjorie looked, then with a shout that was almost like Linnet's she +dropped her work, and sprang towards the door. + +For there stood Linnet herself, in the travelling dress Marjorie had seen +her last in; not older or graver, but with her eyes shining like stars, +ready to jump into Marjorie's arms. + +How Miss Prudence enjoyed the girls' chatter. Marjorie wheeled a chair to +the grate for Linnet, and then, having taken her wraps, kneeled down +on the rug beside her and leaned both elbows on the arm of her chair. + +How fast she asked questions, and how Linnet talked and laughed and +brushed a tear away now and then! Was there ever so much to tell before? +Miss Prudence had her questions to ask; and Morris' mother, who had been +coaxed to come in to the grate, steamer chair and all, had many questions +to ask about her boy. + +Marjorie was searching her through and through to discover if marriage +and travel had changed her; but, no, she was the same happy, laughing +Linnet; full of bright talk and funny ways of putting things, with the +same old attitudes and the same old way of rubbing Marjorie's fingers as +she talked. Marriage had not spoiled her. But had it helped her? That +could not be decided in one hour or two. + +When she was quiet there was a sweeter look about her mouth than there +had ever used to be; and there was an assurance, no, it was not so +strong as that, there was an ease of manner, that she had brought home +with her. Marjorie was more her little sister that ever. + +Marjorie laughed to herself because everything began with Linnet's +husband and ended in him: the stories about Genoa seemed to consist in +what Will said and did; Will was the attraction of Naples and the summit +of Mt. Vesuvius; the run down to Sicily and the glimpse of Vesuvius were +somehow all mingled with Will's doings; the stories about the priest at +Naples were all how he and Will spent hours and hours together comparing +their two Bibles; and the tract the priest promised to translate into +Italian was "The Amiable Louisa" that Will had chosen; and, when the +priest said he would have to change the title to suit his readers, Will +had suggested "A Moral Tale." This priest was confessor to a noble family +in the suburbs; and once, when driving out to confess them, had taken +Will with him, and both had stayed to lunch. The priest had given them +his address, and Will had promised to write to him; he had brought her +what he called his "paintings," from his "studio," and she had pinned +them up in her little parlor; they were painted on paper and were not +remarkable evidences of genius. Not quite the old masters, although +painted in Italy by an Italian. His English was excellent; he was +expecting to come to America some day. A sea captain in Brooklyn had a +portrait of him in oil, and when Miss Prudence went to New York she must +call and see it; Morris and he were great friends. That naughty Will had +asked him one day if he never wished to marry, and he had colored so, +poor fellow, and said, 'It is better to live for Christ.' And Will had +said he hoped he lived for Christ, too. The priest had a smooth face and +a little round spot shaven on top of his head. She used to wish Marjorie +might see that little round spot. + +And the pilot, they had such a funny pilot! When anything was passed him +at the table, or you did him a favor, he said "thank you" in Italian +and in English. + +And how they used to walk the little deck! And the sunsets! She had to +confess that she did not see one sunrise till they were off Sandy Hook +coming home. But the moonlight on the water was most wonderful of all! +That golden ladder rising and falling in the sea! They used to look at it +and talk about home and plan what she would do in that little house. + +She used to be sorry for Morris; but he did not seem lonesome: he was +always buried in a book at leisure times; and he said he would be sailing +over the seas with his wife some day. + +"Morris is so _good_" she added. "Sometimes he has reminded me of the +angels who came down to earth as young men." + +"I think he was a Christian before he was seven years old," said his +mother. + +At night Marjorie said, when she conducted Linnet up to her chamber, that +they would go back to the blessed old times, and build castles, and +forget that Linnet was married and had crossed the ocean. + +"I'm living in my castle now," returned Linnet. "I don't want to build +any more. And this is lovelier than any we ever built." + +Marjorie looked at her, but she did not speak her thought; she almost +wished that she might "grow up," and be happy in Linnet's way. + +With a serious face Linnet lay awake after Marjorie had fallen asleep, +thinking over and over Miss Prudence's words when she bade her +goodnight:-- + +"It is an experience to be married, Linnet; for God holds your two lives +as one, and each must share his will for the other; if joyful, it is +twice as joyful; if hard, twice as hard." + +"Yes," she had replied, "Will says we are _heirs together_ of the grace +of life." + + + + +XXI. + +MORRIS AGAIN. + +"Overshadow me, O Lord, +With the comfort of thy wings." + + +Marjorie stood before the parlor grate; it was Saturday afternoon, and +she was dressed for travelling--not for a long journey, for she was only +going home to remain over Sunday and Monday, Monday being Washington's +Birthday, and a holiday. She had seen Linnet those few days that she +visited them on her return from her voyage, and her father and mother not +once since she came to Maple Street in September. She was hungry for +home; she said she was almost starving. + +"I wish you a very happy time," said Miss Prudence as she opened +Marjorie's pocketbook to drop a five-dollar bill into its emptiness. + +"I know it will be a happy time," Marjorie affirmed; "but I shall think +of you and Prue, and want to be here, too." + +"I wish I could go, too," said Prue, dancing around her with Marjorie's +shawl strap in her hand. + +There was a book for her father in the shawl strap, "The Old Bibie and +the New Science"; a pretty white cap for her mother, that Miss Prudence +had fashioned; a cherry-silk tie for Linnet; and a couple of white aprons +for Annie Grey, her mother's handmaiden, these last being also Miss +Prudence's handiwork. + +"Wait till next summer, Prue. Aunt Prue wants to bring you for the sea +bathing." + +"Don't be too sure, Marjorie; if Uncle John comes home he may have other +plans for her." + +"Oh, _is_ he coming home?" inquired Marjorie. + +"He would be here to-day if I had not threatened to lock him out and keep +him standing in a snowdrift until June. He expects to be here the first +day of summer." + +"And what will happen then?" queried Prue. "Is it a secret?" + +"Yes, it's a secret," said Miss Prudence, stepping behind Marjorie to +fasten her veil. + +"Does Marjorie know?" asked Prue anxiously. + +"I never can guess," said Marjorie. "Now, Kitten, good-bye; and sing to +Mrs. Kemlo while I am gone, and be good to Aunt Prue." + +"Marjorie, dear, I shall miss you," said Miss Prudence. + +"But you will be so glad that I am taking supper at home in that dear old +kitchen. And Linnet will be there; and then I am to go home with her to +stay all night. I don't see how I ever waited so long to see her keep +house. Will calls the house Linnet's Nest. I'll come back and tell you +stories about everything." + +"Don't wait any longer, dear; I'm afraid you'll lose the train. I must +give you a watch like Linnet's for a graduating present." + +Marjorie stopped at the gate to toss back a kiss to Prue watching at the +window. Miss Prudence remembered her face years afterward, flushed and +radiant, round and dimpled; such an innocent, girlish face, without one +trace of care or sorrow. Not a breath of real sorrow had touched her in +all her eighteen years. Her laugh that day was as light hearted as +Prue's. + +"That girl lives in a happy world," Mrs. Kemlo had said to Miss Prudence +that morning. + +"She always will," Miss Prudence replied; "she has the gift of living in +the sunshine." + +Miss Prudence looked at the long mirror after Marjorie had gone down the +street, and wished that it might always keep that last reflection of +Marjorie. The very spirit of pure and lovely girlhood! But the same +mirror had not kept her own self there, and the self reflected now was +the woman grown out of the girlhood; would she keep Marjorie from +womanhood? + +Miss Prudence thought in these days that her own youth was being restored +to her; but it had never been lost, for God cannot grow old, neither +can any of himself grow old in the human heart which is his temple. + +Marjorie's quick feet hurried along the street. She found herself at the +depot with not one moment to lose. She had brought her "English +Literature" that she might read Tuesday's lesson in the train. She opened +it as the train started, and was soon so absorbed that she was startled +at a voice inquiring, "Is this seat engaged?" + +"No," she replied, without raising her eyes. But there was something +familiar in the voice; or was she thinking of somebody? She moved +slightly as a gentleman seated himself beside her. Her veil was shading +her face; she pushed it back to give a quick glance at him. The voice had +been familiar; there was still something more familiar in the hair, the +contour of the cheek, and the blonde moustache. + +"Hollis!" she exclaimed, as his eyes looked into hers. She caught her +breath a little, hardly knowing whether she were glad or sorry. + +"Why, Marjorie!" he returned, surprise and embarrassment mingled in his +voice. He did not seem sure, either, whether to be glad or sorry. + +For several moments neither spoke; both were too shy and too conscious of +something uncomfortable. + +"It isn't so very remarkable to find you here, I suppose," he remarked, +after considering for some time an advertisement in a daily paper which +he held in his hand. + +"No, nor so strange to encounter you." + +"You have not been home for some time." + +"Not since I came in September." + +"And I have not since Will's wedding day. There was a shower that night, +and your mother tried to keep me; and I wished she had more than a few +times on my dark way home." + +"It is almost time to hear from Will." Marjorie had no taste for +reminiscences. + +"I expect to hear every day." + +"So do we. Mrs. Kemlo watches up the street and down the street for the +postman." + +"Oh, yes. Morris. I forgot. Does he like the life?" + +"He is enthusiastic." + +She turned a leaf, and read a page of extracts from Donald Grant +Mitchell; but she had not understood one word, so she began again and +read slowly, trying to understand; then she found her ticket in her +glove, and examined it with profound interest, the color burning in her +cheeks; then she gazed long out of the window at the snow and the bare +trees and the scattered farmhouses; then she turned to study the lady's +bonnet in front of her, and to pity the mother with the child in front of +_her_; she looked before and behind and out the windows; she looked +everywhere but at the face beside her; she saw his overcoat, his black +travelling bag, and wondered what he had brought his mother; she looked +at his brown kid gloves, at his black rubber watch chain, from which a +gold anchor was dangling; but it was dangerous to raise her eyes higher, +so they sought his boots and the newspaper on his knee. Had he spoken +last, or had she? What was the last remark? About Morris? It was +certainly not about Donald Grant Mitchell. Yes, she had spoken last; she +had said Morris was-- + +Would he speak of her long unanswered letter? Would he make an excuse for +not noticing it? A sentence in rhetoric was before her eyes: "Any letter, +not insulting, merits a reply." Perhaps he had never studied rhetoric. +Her lips were curving into a smile; wouldn't it be fun to ask him? + +"I am going to London next week. I came home to say good-bye to mother." + +"Will you stay long?" was all that occurred to her to remark. Her voice +was quite devoid of interest. + +"Where? In London, or at home?" + +"Both," she said smiling. + +"I must return to New York on Monday; and I shall stay in London only +long enough to attend to business. I shall go to Manchester and to Paris. +My route is not all mapped out for me yet. Do you like school as well as +you expected to?" + +"Oh, yes, indeed." + +"You expect to finish this year?" + +"I suppose I shall leave school." + +"And go home?" + +"Oh, yes. What else should I do?" + +"And learn housekeeping from Linnet." + +"It is not new work to me." + +"How is Miss Prudence?" + +"As lovely as ever." + +"And the little girl?" + +"Sweet and good and bright." + +"And Mrs. Kemlo?" + +"She is--happier." + +"Hasn't she always been happy?" + +"No; she was like your mother; only hers has lasted so long. I am so +sorry for such--unhappiness." + +"So am I. I endured enough of it at one time." + +"I cannot even think of it. She is going home with me in June. Morris +will be glad to have her with mother." + +"When is Mr. Holmes coming here?" + +"In June." + +"June is to be a month of happenings in your calendar." + +"Every month is--in my calendar." + +He was bending towards her that she might listen easily, as he did not +wish to raise his voice. + +"I haven't told you about my class in Sunday school." + +"Oh, have you a class?" + +"Yes, a class of girls--girls about fourteen. I thought I never could +interest them. I don't know how to talk to little girls; but I am full of +the lesson, and so are they, and the time is up before we know it." + +"I'm very glad. It will be good for you," said Marjorie, quite in Miss +Prudence's manner. + +"It is, already," he said gravely and earnestly "I imagine it is better +for me than for them." + +"I don't believe that" + +"Our lesson last Sunday was about the Lord's Supper; and one of them +asked me if Christ partook of the Supper with his disciples. I had not +thought of it. I do not know. Do you?" + +"He ate the passover with them." + +"But this was afterward. Why should he do it in remembrance of his own +death? He gave them the bread and the cup." + +Marjorie was interested. She said she would ask her father and Miss +Prudence; and her mother must certainly have thought about it. + +The conductor nudged Hollis twice before he noticed him and produced his +ticket; then the candy boy came along, and Hollis laid a paper of +chocolate creams in Marjorie's lap. It was almost like going back to the +times when he brought apples to school for her. If he would only explain +about the letter-- + +The next station would be Middlefield! What a short hour and a half! She +buttoned her glove, took her shawl strap into her lap, loosening the +strap so that she might slip her "English Literature" in, tightened it +again, ate the last cream drop, tossed aside the paper, and was ready for +Middlefield. + +As the train stopped he took the shawl strap from her hand. She followed +him through the car, gave him her hand to assist her to the platform, and +then there was a welcome in her ears, and Linnet and her father seemed to +be surrounding her. Captain Rheid had brought Linnet to the train, +intending to take Hollis back. Linnet was jubilant over the news of +Will's safe arrival; they had found the letter at the office. + +"Father has letters too," she said to Hollis; "he will give you his +news." + +As the sleigh containing Linnet, her father, and Marjorie sped away +before them, Captain Rheid said to Hollis:-- + +"How shall I ever break it to them? Morris is dead." + +"Dead!" repeated Hollis. + +"He died on the voyage out. Will gives a long account of it for his +mother and Marjorie. It seems the poor fellow was engaged to her, and has +given Will a parting present for her." + +"How did it happen?" + +Will has tried to give details; but he is rather confusing. He is in +great trouble. He wanted to bring him home; but that was impossible. They +came upon a ship in distress, and laid by her a day and a night in foul +weather to take them off. Morris went to them with a part of the crew, +and got them all safely aboard the _Linnet_; but he had received some +injury, nobody seemed to know how. His head was hurt, for he was +delirious after the first night. He sent his love to his mother, and +gave Will something for Marjorie, and then did not know anything after +that. Will is heartbroken. He wants me to break it to Linnet; but I +didn't see how I can. Your mother will have to do it. The letter can go +to his mother; Miss Prudence will see to that. + +"But Marjorie," said Hollis slowly. + +"Yes, poor little Marjorie!" said the old man compassionately. "It will +go hard with her." + +"Linnet or her mother can tell her." + +The captain touched his horse, and they flew past the laughing +sleighload. Linnet waved her handkerchief, Marjorie laughed, and their +father took off his hat to them. + +"Oh, _dear_," groaned the captain. + +"Lord, help her; poor little thing," prayed Hollis, with motionless lips. + +He remembered that last letter of hers that he had not answered. His +mother had written to him that she surmised that Marjorie was engaged +to Morris; and he had felt it wrong--"almost interfering," he had put it +to himself--to push their boy and girl friendship any further. And, +again--Hollis was cautious in the extreme--if she did not belong to +Morris, she might infer that he was caring with a grown up feeling, which +he was not at all sure was true--he was not sure about himself in +anything just then; and, after he became a Christian, he saw all things +in a new light, and felt that a "flirtation" was not becoming a disciple +of Christ. He had become a whole-hearted disciple of Christ. His Aunt +Helen and his mother were very eager for him to study for the ministry; +but he had told them decidedly that he was not "called." + +"And I _am_ called to serve Christ as a businessman. Commercial +travellers, as a rule, are men of the world; but, as I go about, I want +to go about my Father's business." + +"But he would be so enthusiastic," lamented Aunt Helen. + +"And he has such a nice voice," bewailed his mother; "and I did hope to +see one of my five boys in the pulpit." + + + + +XXII. + +TIDINGS. + +"He giveth his beloved sleep." + + +Sunday in the twilight Linnet and Marjorie were alone in Linnet's little +kitchen. Linnet was bending over the stove stirring the chocolate, and +Marjorie was setting the table for two. + +"Linnet!" she exclaimed, "it's like playing house." + +"I feel very much in earnest." + +"So do I. That chocolate makes me feel so. Have you had time to watch the +light over the fields? Or is it too poor a sight after gazing at the +sunset on the ocean?" + +"Marjorie!" she said, turning around to face her, and leaving the spoon +idle in the steaming pot, "do you know, I think there's something the +matter?" + +"Something the matter? Where?" + +"I don't know where. I was wondering this afternoon if people always had +a presentiment when trouble was coming." + +"Did you ever have any trouble?" asked Marjorie seriously. + +"Not real, dreadful trouble. But when I hear of things happening +suddenly, I wonder if it is so sudden, really; or if they are not +prepared in some way for the very thing, or for something." + +"We always know that our friends may die--that is trouble. I feel as if +it would kill me for any one I love to die." + +"Will is safe and well," said Linnet, "and father and mother." + +"And Morris--I shall find a letter for me at home, I expect. I suppose +his mother had hers last night. How she lives in him! She loves him +more than any of us. But what kind of a feeling have you?" + +"I don't know." + +"You are tired and want to go to sleep," said Marjorie, practically. +"I'll sing you to sleep after supper. Or read to you! We have 'Stepping +Heavenward' to read. That will make you forget all your nonsense." + +"Hollis' face isn't nonsense." + +"He hasn't talked to me since last night. I didn't see him in church." + +"I did. And that is what I mean. I should think his trouble was about +Will, if I hadn't the letter. And Father Rheid! Do you see how fidgety +he is? He has been over here four times to-day." + +"He is always stern." + +"No; he isn't. Not like this. And Mother Rheid looked so--too." + +"How?" laughed Marjorie. "O, you funny Linnet." + +"I wish I could laugh at it. But I heard something, too. Mother Rheid was +talking to mother after church this afternoon, and I heard her say, +'distressing.' Father Rheid hurried me into the sleigh, and mother put +her veil down; and I was too frightened to ask questions." + +"She meant that she had a distressing cold," said Marjorie lightly. +"'Distressing' is one of her pet words. She is distressed over the +coldness of the church, and she is distressed when all her eggs do not +hatch. I wouldn't be distressed about that, Linnet. And mother put her +veil down because the wind was blowing I put mine down, too." + +Linnet stirred the chocolate; but her face was still anxious. Will had +not spoken of Morris. Could it be Morris? It was not like Will not to +speak of Morris. + +"Will did not speak of Morris. Did you notice that?" + +"Does he always? I suppose Morris has spoken for himself." + +"If Hollis doesn't come over by the time we are through tea, I'll go over +there. I can't wait any longer." + +"Well, I'll go with you to ease your mind. But you must eat some supper." + +As Linnet placed the chocolate pot on the table, Marjorie exclaimed, +"There they are! Mother Rheid and Hollis. They are coming by the road; +of course the field is blocked with snow. Now your anxious heart shall +laugh at itself. I'll put on plates for two more. Is there chocolate +enough? And it won't seem so much like playing house." + +While Marjorie put on the extra plates and cut a few more slices of +sponge cake, Linnet went to the front door, and stood waiting for them. + +Through the open kitchen door Marjorie heard her ask, "Is anything the +matter?" + +"Hush! Where's Marjorie?" asked Hollis' voice. + +Was it her trouble? Was it Miss Prudence? Or Prue--it could not be her +father and mother; she had seen them at church. Morris! _Morris!_ Had +they not just heard from Will? He went away, and she was not kind to him. + +Who was saying "dead"? Was somebody dead? + +She was trembling so that she would have fallen had she not caught at the +back of a chair for support. There was a buzzing in her ears; she was +sinking down, sinking down. Linnet was clinging to her, or holding her +up. Linnet must be comforted. + +"Is somebody--dead?" she asked, her dry lips parting with an effort. + +"Yes, dear; it's Morris," said Mrs. Rheid. "Lay her down flat, Linnet. +It's the shock? Hollis, bring some water." + +"Oh, no, no," shivered Marjorie, "don't touch me. What shall I say to his +mother? His mother hasn't any one else to care for her. Where is he? +Won't somebody tell me all about it?" + +"Oh, dear; I can't," sobbed Mrs. Rheid. + +Hollis drew her into a chair and seated himself beside her, keeping her +cold hand in his. + +"I will tell you, Marjorie." + +But Marjorie did not hear; she only heard, "Good-bye, Marjorie--_dear_." + +"Are you listening, Marjorie?" + +"Oh, yes." + +Linnet stood very white beside her. Mrs. Rheid was weeping softly. + +"They were near a ship in distress; the wind was high, and they could not +go to her for many hours; at last Morris went in a boat, with some of the +crew, and helped them off the wreck; he saved them all, but he was hurt +in some way,--Will does not know how; the men tried to tell him, but they +contradicted themselves,--and after getting safe aboard his own ship--do +you understand it all?" + +"Yes. Morris got back safe to the _Linnet_, but he was injured--" + +"And then taken very ill, so ill that he was delirious. Will did +everything for his comfort that he could do; he was with him night and +day; he lived nine days. But, before he became delirious, he sent his +love to his mother, and he gave Will something to give to you." + +"Yes. I know," said Marjorie. "I don't deserve it. I refused it when he +wanted to give it to me. I wasn't kind to him." + +"Yes, you were," said Linnet, "you don't know what you are saying. You +were always kind to him, and he loved you." + +"Yes; but I might have been kinder," she said. "Must I tell his mother?" + +"No; Miss Prudence will do that," answered Hollis. "I have Will's letter +for you to take to her." + +"Where is he? Where _is_ Morris?" + +"Buried in England. Will could not bring him home," said Hollis. + +"His mother! What will she do?" moaned Marjorie. + +"Marjorie, you talk as if there was no one to comfort her," rebuked Mrs. +Rheid. + +"You have all your boys, Mrs. Rheid, and she had only Morris," said +Marjorie. + +"Yes; that is true; and I cannot spare one of them. Do cry, child. Don't +sit there with your eyes so wide open and big." + +Marjorie closed her eyes and leaned back against Linnet. Morris had gone +to God. + +It was hours before the tears came. She sobbed herself to sleep towards +morning. She did not deserve it; but she would keep the thing he had sent +to her. Another beautiful life was ended; who would do his work on the +earth. Would Hollis? Could she do a part of it? She would love his +mother. Oh, how thankful she was that he had known that rest had begun to +come to his mother, that he had known that she was safe with Miss +Prudence. + +It was like Marjorie, even in her first great sorrow, to fall asleep +thanking God. + + + + +XXIII. + +GOD'S LOVE. + +"As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." + + +Marjorie opened her "English Literature." She must recite to-morrow. She +had forgotten whom she had studied about Saturday afternoon. + +Again Hollis was beside her in the train. Her shawl strap was at her +feet; her ticket was tucked into her glove; she opened at the same place +in "English Literature." Now she remembered "Donald Grant Mitchell." His +"Dream Life" was one of Morris' favorites. They had read it together one +summer under the apple-tree. He had coaxed her to read aloud, saying that +her voice suited it. She closed the book; she could not study; how +strange it would be to go among the girls and hear them laugh and talk; +would any of them ask her if she were in trouble? They would remember her +sailor boy. + +Was it Saturday afternoon? Hollis wore those brown kid gloves, and there +was the anchor dangling from his black chain. She was not too shy to look +higher, and meet the smile of his eyes to-day. Was she going home and +expecting a letter from Morris? There was a letter in her pocket; but it +was not from Morris. Hollis had said he expected to hear from Will; and +they had heard from Will. He would be home before very long, and tell +them all the rest. The train rushed on; a girl was eating peanuts behind +her, and a boy was studying his Latin Grammar in front of her. She was +going to Morris' mother; the rushing train was hurrying her on. How could +she say to Miss Prudence, "Morris is dead." + +"Marjorie." + +"Well," she answered, rousing herself. + +"Are you comfortable?" + +The voice was sympathetic; tears started, she could only nod in reply. + +There seemed to be nothing to talk about to-day. + +She had replied in monosyllables so long that he was discouraged with his +own efforts at conversation, and lapsed into silence. But it was a +silence that she felt she might break at any moment. + +The train stopped at last; it had seemed as if it would never stop, and +then as if it would stop before she could catch her breath and be ready +to speak. If she had not refused that something he had brought her this +would not have been so hard. Had he cared so very much? Would she have +cared very much if he had refused those handkerchiefs she had marked for +him? But Hollis had taken her shawl strap, and was rising. + +"You will not have time to get out." + +"Did you think I would leave you anywhere but with your friends? Have you +forgotten me so far as that?" + +"I was thinking of your time." + +"Never mind. One has always time for what he wants to do most." + +"Is that an original proverb?" + +"I do not know that it is a quotation." + +She dropped her veil over her face, and walked along the platform at his +side. There were no street cars in the small city, and she had protested +against a carriage. + +"I like the air against my face." + +That last walk with Morris had been so full of talk; this was taken in +absolute silence. The wind was keen and they walked rapidly. Prue was +watching at the window, loving little Prue, as Marjorie knew she would +be. + +"There's a tall man with Marjorie, Aunt Prue." + +Aunt Prue left the piano and followed her to the door. Mrs. Kemlo was +knitting stockings for Morris in her steamer chair. + +Marjorie was glad of Prue's encircling arms. She hid her face in the +child's hair while Hollis passed her and spoke to Miss Prudence. + +Miss Prudence would be strong. Marjorie did not fear anything for her. It +might be cowardly, but she must run away from his mother. She laid Will's +letter in Hollis' hand, and slipping past him hastened up the stairway. +Prue followed her, laughing and pulling at her cloak. + +She could tell Prue; it would relieve her to talk to Prue. + +They were both weeping, Prue in Marjorie's arms, when Miss Prudence found +them in her chamber an hour later. The only light in the room came +through the open door of the airtight. + +"Does she know?" asked Marjorie, springing up to greet Miss Prudence. + +"Yes; she is very quiet, I have prayed with her twice; and we have talked +about his life and his death. She says that it was unselfish to the end." + +"He sent his love to her; did Hollis tell you?" + +"I read the letter--I read it twice. She holds it in her hand now." + +"Has the tall man gone?" asked Prue. + +"Yes, he did not stay long. Marjorie, you did not bid him good-night." + +"I know it; I did not think." + +"Marjorie, dear;" Miss Prudence opened her arms, and Marjorie crept into +them. + +"Oh, Aunt Prue, I would not be so troubled, but he wanted to give me +something--some little thing he had brought me--because he always did +remember me, and I would not even look at it. I don't know what it was. I +refused it; and I know he was so hurt. I was almost tempted to take it +when I saw his eyes; and then I wanted to be true." + +"Were you true?" + +"I tried to be." + +"Then there is nothing to be troubled about. He is comforted for it now. +Don't you want to go down and see his mother?" + +"I'm afraid to see her." + +"She will comfort you. She is sure now that God loves her. I have been +trying to teach her, and now God has taught her so that she can rejoice +in his love. Whom the Lord loveth, she says, he chastens; and he knows +how he has chastened her. If it were not for his love, Marjorie, what +would keep our hearts from breaking?" + +"Papa died, too," said Prue. + +Marjorie went down to the parlor. Mrs. Kemlo was sitting at the grate, +leaning back in her steamer chair. Marjorie kissed her without a word. + +"Marjorie! The girls ought to know. I don't believe I can write." + +"I can. I will write to-night." + +"And copy this letter; then they will know it just as it is. He was with +you so long they will not miss him as we do. They were older, and they +loved each other, and left him to me. And, Marjorie--" + +"Yes'm." + +"Tell them I am going to your mother's as soon as warm weather comes, +unless one of them would rather take me home; tell them Miss Prudence has +become a daughter to me; I am not in need of anything. Give them my love, +and say that when they love their little ones, they must think of how +I loved them." + +"I will," said Marjorie, "You and mother will enjoy each other so much." + +Marjorie wrote the letters that evening, her eyes so blinded with tears +that she wrote very crookedly. No one would ever know what she had lost +in Morris. He had been a part of herself that even Linnet had never been. +She was lost without him, and for months wandered in a new world. She +suffered more keenly upon the anniversary of the day of the tidings of +his death than she suffered that day. Then, she could appreciate more +fully what God had taken from her. But the letters were written, and +mailed on her way to school in the morning; her recitations were gone +through with; and night came, when she could have the rest of sleep. The +days went on outwardly as usual. Prue was daily becoming more and more a +delight to them all. Mrs. Kemlo's sad face was sweet and chastened; and +Miss Prudence's days were more full of busy doings, with a certain +something of a new life about them that Marjorie did not understand. She +could almost imagine what Miss Prudence had been twenty years ago. +Despite her lightness of foot, her inspiriting voice, and her _young_ +interest in every question that pertained to life and work and study, +Miss Prudence seemed old to eighteen-years-old Marjorie. Not as old as +her mother; but nearly forty-five was very old. When she was forty-five, +she thought, her life would be almost ended; and here was Miss Prudence +always _beginning again_. + +Answers to her letters arrived duly. They were not long; but they were +conventionally sympathetic. + +One daughter wrote: "Morris took you away from us to place you with +friends whom he thought would take good care of you; if you are satisfied +to stay with them, I think you will be better off than with me. Business +is dull, and Peter thinks he has enough on his hands." + +The other wrote: "I am glad you are among such kind friends. If Miss +Pomeroy thinks she owes you anything, now is her time to repay it. But +she could pay your board with me as well as with strangers, and you could +help me with the children. I am glad you can be submissive, and that you +are in a pleasanter frame of mind. Henry sends love, and says you never +shall want a home while he has a roof over his own head." + +The mother sighed over both letters. They both left so much unsaid. They +were wrapped up in their husbands and children. + +"I hope their children will love them when they are old," was the only +remark she made about the letters. + +"I am your child, too," said Marjorie. "Won't you take me instead--no, +not instead of Morris, but _with_ him?" + +In April Will came home. He spent a night in Maple Street, and almost +satisfied the mother's hungry heart with the comfort he gave her. +Marjorie listened with tears. She went away by herself to open the tiny +box that Will placed in her hand. Kissing the ring with loving and +reverent lips, she slipped it on the finger that Morris would have +chosen, the finger on which Linnet wore her wedding ring. "_Semper +fidelis._" She could see the words now as he used to write them on the +slate. If he might only know that she cared for the ring! If he might +only know that she was waiting for him to come back to bring it to her. +If he might only know--But he had God now; he was in the presence of +Jesus Christ. There was no marrying or giving in marriage in the +presence of Christ in Heaven. Giving in marriage and marrying had been in +his presence on the earth; but where fullness of joy was, there was +something better. Marriage belonged to the earth. She belonged to the +earth; but he belonged to Heaven. The ring did not signify that she was +married to him--I think it might have meant that to her, if she had read +the shallow sentimentalism of some love stories; but Miss Prudence had +kept her from false ideas, and given her the truth; the truth, that +marriage was the symbol of the union of Christ and his people; a pure +marriage was the type of this union. Linnet's marriage was holier and +happier because of Miss Prudence's teaching. Miss Prudence was an old +maid; but she had helped others beside Linnet and Marjorie towards the +happiest marriage. Marjorie had not one selfish, or shallow, or false +idea with regard to marriage. And why should girls have, who have good +mothers and the Old and New Testaments? + +With no shamefacedness, no foolish consciousness, she went down among +them with Morris' ring upon her finger. She would as soon have been +ashamed to say that an angel had spoken to her. Perhaps she was not a +modern school-girl, perhaps she was as old-fashioned as Miss Prudence +herself. + + + + +XXIV. + +JUST AS IT OUGHT TO BE. + +"I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would +wear well."--_Goldsmith._ + + +"Prudence!" + +"Well, John," she returned, as he seemed to hesitate. + +"Have we arranged everything?" + +"Everything! And you have been home three hours." + +"Three and a half, if you please; it is now six o'clock." + +"Then the tea-bell will ring." + +"No; I told Deborah to ring at seven to-night." + +"She will think you are putting on the airs of the master." + +"Don't you think it is about time? Or, it will be at half past six." + +"Why, in half an hour?" + +"Half an hour may make all the difference in the world." + +"In some instances, yes?" + +They were walking up and down the walk they had named years ago "the +shrubbery path." He had found her in the shrubbery path in the old days +when she used to walk up and down and dream her girlish dreams. Like +Linnet she liked her real life better than anything she had dreamed. + +Mr. Holmes had returned with his shoulders thrown back, the lines of care +softened into lines of thought, and the slouched hat replaced by a +broad-brimmed panama; his step was quick, his voice had a ring in it, the +stern, determined expression was altogether gone; there was a loveliness +in his face that was not in Miss Prudence's own; when his sterner and +stronger nature became sweet, it was very sweet. Life had been a long +fight; in yielding, he had conquered. He bubbled over into nonsense now +and then. Twenty years ago he had walked this path with Prudence Pomeroy, +when there was hatred in his heart and an overwhelming sorrow in hers. +There always comes a time when we are _through_. He believed that +tonight. Prue was not lighter of heart than he. + +"Twenty years is a large piece out of a man's lifetime; but I would have +waited twice twenty for this hour, Prudence." + +"I wish I deserved my happiness as much as you do yours, John." + +"Perhaps you haven't as much to deserve." + +"I'm glad I don't deserve it. I want it to be all God's gift and his +goodness." + +"It is, dear." + +"I wish we might take Marjorie with us," she said, after a moment; "she +would have such an unalloyed good time." + +"Any one else?" + +"Mrs. Kemlo." + +"Is that all?" + +"There's Deborah." + +"Prudence, you ought to be satisfied with me. You don't know how to be +married." + +"Suppose I wait twenty years longer and learn." + +"No, it is like learning to swim; the best way is to plunge at once. And +at once will be in about twenty minutes, instead of twenty years." + +"What do you mean?" she asked, standing still in unfeigned astonishment. + +"I mean that your neighbor across the way has been invited to call at +half past six this evening to marry me, and I supposed you were willing +to be married at the same time." + +"John Holmes!" + +"Do you want to send me off again?" + +"But I never thought of such a thing." + +"It wasn't necessary; one brilliant mind is enough to plan. What did you +ask me to come home for?" + +"But not now--not immediately." + +"Why not?" he asked, gravely. + +"Because," she smiled at her woman's reason, "I'm not ready." + +"Don't you know whether you are willing or not?" + +"Yes, I know that." + +"Aren't you well enough acquainted with me? Haven't you proved me long +enough?" + +"O, John," her eyes filling with tears. + +"What else can you mean by 'ready'?" + +She looked down at her dress; a gray flannel--an iron gray flannel--a +gray flannel and linen collar and cuffs to be married in. But was it not +befitting her gray locks? + +"John, look at me!" + +"I am looking at you." + +"What do you see?" + +"You were never so lovely in your life." + +"You were never so obstinate in your life." + +"I never had such a good right before. Now listen to reason. You say this +house is to be sold; and the furniture, for future housekeeping, is to be +packed and stored; that you and Prue are to sail for Havre the first +steamer in July; and who beside your husband is to attend to this, and to +get you on board the steamer in time?" + +"But, John!" laying her hand in expostulation upon his arm. + +"But, Prudence!" he laughed. "Is Deborah to go with us? Shall we need her +in our Italian palace, or are we to dwell amid ruins?" + +"Nothing else would make her old heart so glad." + +"Marjorie and Mrs. Kemlo expect to go home to-morrow." + +"Yes." + +"Don't you want Marjorie to stay and help you?" + +"With such a valiant husband at the front! I suspect you mean to create +emergencies simply to help me out of them." + +"I'm creating one now; and all I want you to do is to be helped out--or +in." + +"But, John, I must go in and fix my hair." + +"Your hair looks as usual." + +"But I don't want it to look as usual. Do you want the bride to forget +her attire and her ornaments?" + +A blue figure with curls flying and arms outstretched was flying down +towards them from the upper end of the path. + +"O, Aunt Prue! Mr. March has come over--without Mrs. March, and he asked +for you. I told him Uncle John had come home, and he smiled, and said he +could not get along without him." + +"John, you should have asked Mrs. March, too." + +"I forgot the etiquette of it. I forgot she was your pastor's wife. But +it's too late now." + +"Prue!" Miss Prudence laid her hand on Prue's head to keep her quiet. +"Ask Marjorie and Mrs. Kemlo and Deborah to come into the parlor." + +"We are to be married, Prue!" said John Holmes. + +"_Who_ is?" asked Prue. + +"Aunt Prue and I. Don't you want papa and mamma instead of Uncle John and +Aunt Prue?" + +"Yes; I do! Wait for us to come. I'll run and tell them," she answered, +fleeing away. + +"John, this is a very irregular proceeding!" + +"It quite befits the occasion, however," he answered gravely. Very slowly +they walked toward the house. + +All color had left Miss Prudence's cheeks and lips. Deborah was sure she +would faint; but Mrs. Kemlo watched her lips, and knew by the firm lines +that she would not. + +No one thought about the bridegroom, because no one ever does. Prue kept +close to Miss Prudence, and said afterward that she was mamma's +bridesmaid. Marjorie thought that Morris would be glad if he could know +it; he had loved Mr. Holmes. + +The few words were solemnly spoken. + +Prudence Pomeroy and John Holmes were husband and wife. + +"What God hath joined--" + +Oh, how God had joined them. She had belonged to him so long. + +The bridegroom and bride went on their wedding tour by walking up and +down the long parlor in the summer twilight. Not many words were spoken. + +Deborah went out to the dining-room to change the table cloth for one of +the best damasks, saying to herself, "It's just as it ought to be! Just +as it ought to be! And things do happen so once in a while in this +crooked world." + + + + +XXV. + +THE WILL OF GOD. + +"To see in all things good and fair, +Thy love attested is my prayer."--_Alice Cary._ + + +"Linnet is happy enough," said their mother; "but there's Marjorie!" + +Yes; there was Marjorie! She was not happy enough. She was twenty-one +this summer, and not many events had stirred her uneventful life since we +left her the night of Miss Prudence's marriage. She came home the next +day bringing Mrs. Kemlo with her, and the same day she began to take the +old household steps. She had been away but a year, and had not fallen out +of the old ways as Linnet had in her three years of study; and she had +not come home to be married as Linnet had; she came home to do the next +thing, and the next thing had even been something for her father and +mother, or Morris' mother. + +Annie Grey went immediately, upon the homecoming of the daughter of the +house, to Middlefield to learn dressmaking, boarding with Linnet and +"working her board." Linnet was lonely at night; she began to feel lonely +as dusk came on; and the arrangement of board for one and pleasant +companionship for the other, was satisfactory to both. Not that there was +very much for Annie to do, beside staying at home Monday mornings to help +with the washing, and ironing Monday evening or early Tuesday. Linnet +loved her housekeeping too well to let any other fingers intermeddle. +Will decided that she must stay, for company, especially through the +winter nights, if he had to pay her board. + +Therefore Marjorie took the place that she left vacant in the farmhouse, +and more than filled it, but she did not love housekeeping for its own +comfortable sake, as Linnet did; she did it as "by God's law." + +Her father's health failed signally this first summer. He was weakened by +several hemorrhages, and became nervous and unfitted even to superintend +the work of the "hired man." That general superintendence fell to Mrs. +West, and she took no little pride in the flourishing state of the few +acres. Now she could farm as she wanted to; Graham had not always +listened to her. The next summer he died. That was the summer Marjorie +was twenty. The chief business of the nursing fell to Marjorie; her +mother was rather too energetic for the comfort of the sickroom, and +there was always so much to be attended to outside that quiet chamber. + +"Marjorie knows her father's way," Mrs. West apologized to Mrs. Kemlo. +"He never has to tell her what he wants; but I have to make him explain. +There are born nurses, and I'm not one of them. I'll keep things running +outside, and that's for his comfort. He is as satisfied as though he were +about himself. If one of us must be down, he knows that he'd better be +the one." + +During their last talk--how many talks Marjorie and her father had!--he +made one remark that she had not forgotten, and would never forget:-- + +"My life has been of little account, as the world goes; but I have sought +to do God's will, and that is success to a man on his death-bed." + +Would not her life be a success, then? For what else did she desire but +the will of God. + +The minister told Marjorie that there was no man in the church whose life +had had such a resistless influence as her father's. + +The same hired man was retained; the farm work was done to Mrs. West's +satisfaction. The farm was her own as long as she lived; and then it was +to belong equally to the daughters. There were no debts. + +The gentle, patient life was missed with sore hearts; but there was no +outward difference within doors or without. Marjorie took his seat at +table; Mrs. Kemlo sat in his armchair at the fireside; his wife read his +_Agriculturist_; and his daughter read his special devotional books. His +wife admitted to herself that Graham lacked force of character. She +herself was a _pusher_. She did not understand his favorite quotation: +"He that believeth shall not make haste." + +Marjorie had her piano--this piano was a graduating present from Miss +Prudence; more books than she could read, from the libraries of Mr. and +Mrs. Holmes; her busy work in the household; an occasional visit to the +farmhouse on the sea shore, to read to the old people and sing to them, +and even to cut and string apples and laugh over her childish abhorrence +of the work. She never opened the door of the chamber they still called +"Miss Prudence's," without feeling that it held a history. How different +her life would have been but for Miss Prudence. And Linnet's. And +Morris's! And how many other lives, who knew? There were, beside, her +class in Sunday school; and her visits to Linnet, and exchanging visits +with the school-girls,--not with the girls at Master McCosh's; she had +made no intimate friendships among them. And then there were letters from +Aunt Prue, and childish, affectionate notes from dear little Prue. + +Marjorie's life was not meagre; still she was not "happy enough." She +wrote to Aunt Prue that she was not "satisfied." + +"That's a girl's old story," Mrs. Holmes said to her husband. "She must +_evolve_, John. There's enough in her for something to come out of her." + +"What do girls want to _do_?" he asked, looking up from his writing. + +"Be satisfied," laughed his wife. + +"Did you go through that delusive period?" + +"Was I not a girl?" + +"And here's Prue growing up, to say some day that she isn't satisfied." + +"No; to say some day that she is." + +"_When_ were you satisfied?" + +"At what age? You will not believe that I was thirty-five, before I was +satisfied with my life. And then I was satisfied, because I was willing +for God to have his way with me. If it were not for that willingness, I +shouldn't be satisfied yet." + +"Then you can tell Marjorie not to wait until she is half of three score +and ten before she gives herself up." + +"Her will is more yielding than mine; she doesn't seek great things for +herself." + +The letter from Switzerland about being "satisfied" Marjorie read again +and again. There was only one way for childhood, girlhood, or womanhood +to be satisfied; and that one way was to acknowledge God in every thing, +and let him direct every step. Then if one were not satisfied, it was +dissatisfaction with God's will; God's will was not enough. + +Hollis had made short visits at home twice since she had left school. The +first time, she had been at her grandfather's and saw him but half an +hour; the second time, they met not at all, as she was attending to some +business for Mrs. Holmes, and spending a day and night with Mrs. +Harrowgate. + +This twenty-first summer she was not happy; she had not been happy for +months. It was a new experience, not to be happy. She had been born +happy. I do not think any trial, excepting the one she was suffering, +would have so utterly unsettled her. It was a strange thing--but, no, I +do not know that it was a strange thing; but it may be that you are +surprised that she could have this kind of trial; as she expressed it, +she was not sure that she was a Christian! All her life she had thought +about God; now, when she thought about herself, she began to fear and +doubt and tremble. + +No wonder that she slept fitfully, that she awoke in the night to weep, +that she ate little and grew pale and thin. It was a strange thing to +befall my happy Marjorie. Her mother could not understand it. She tempted +her appetite in various ways, sent her to her grandfather's for a change, +and to Linnet's; but she came home as pale and dispirited as she went. + +"She works too hard," thought the anxious mother; and sent for a woman to +wash and iron, that the child might be spared. Marjorie protested, saying +that she was not ill; but as the summer days came, she did not grow +stronger. Then a physician was called; who pronounced the malady nervous +exhaustion, prescribed a tonic--cheerful society, sea bathing, horseback +riding--and said he would be in again. + +Marjorie smiled and knew it would do no good. If Aunt Prue were near her +she would open her heart to her; she could have told her father all +about it; but she shrank from making known to her mother that she was not +ill, but grieving because she was not a Christian. Her mother would +give her energetic advice, and bid her wrestle in prayer until peace +came. Could her mother understand, when she had lived in the very +sunshine of faith for thirty years? + +She had prayed--she prayed for hours at a time; but peace came not. She +had fasted and prayed, and still peace did not come. + +Her mother was as blithe and cheery as the day was long. Linnet was as +full of song as a bird, because Will was on the passage home. In Mrs. +Kemlo's face and voice and words and manner, was perfect peace. Aunt +Prue's letters were overflowing with joy in her husband and child, and +joy in God. Only Marjorie was left outside. Mrs. Rheid had become zealous +in good works. She read extracts from Hollis' letters to her, where he +wrote of his enjoyment in church work, his Bible class, the Young Men's +Christian Association, the prayer-meeting. But Marjorie had no heart for +work. She had attempted to resign as teacher in Sunday school; but the +superintendent and her class of bright little girls persuaded her to +remain. She had sighed and yielded. How could she help them to be what +she was not herself? No one understood and no one helped her. For the +first time in her life she was tempted to be cross. She was weary at +night with the effort all day to keep in good humor. + +And she was a member of the church? Had she a right to go to the +communion? Was she not living a lie? She stayed at home the Sabbath of +the summer communion, and spent the morning in tears in her own chamber. + +Her mother prayed for her, but she did not question her. + +"Marjorie, dear," Morris' mother said, "can you not feel that God loves +you?" + +"I _know_ he does," she replied, bursting into tears; "but I don't love +him." + +In August of this summer Captain Will was loading in Portland for Havana. +She was ready for sea, but the wind was ahead. After two days of +persistent head wind Saturday night came, and it was ahead still. Captain +Will rushed ashore and hurried out to Linnet. He would have one Sunday +more at home. + +Annie was spending a week in Middlefield, and Linnet was alone. She had +decided not to go home, but to send for Marjorie; and was standing at the +gate watching for some one to pass, by whom she might send her message, +when Will himself appeared, having walked from the train. + +Linnet shouted; he caught her in his arms and ran around the house with +her, depositing her at last in the middle of the grass plat in front of +the house. + +"One more Sunday with you, sweetheart! Have you been praying for a head +wind?" + +"Suppose I should pray for it to be ahead as long as we live!" + +"Poor little girl! It's hard for you to be a sailor's wife, isn't it?" + +"It isn't hard to be your wife. It would be hard not to be," said +demonstrative Linnet. + +"You are going with me next voyage, you have promised." + +"Your father has not said I might." + +"He won't grumble; the _Linnet_ is making money for him." + +"You haven't had any supper, Will! And I am forgetting it." + +"Have you?" + +"I didn't feel like eating, but I did eat a bowl of bread and milk." + +"Do you intend to feed me on that?" + +"No; come in and help, and I'll get you the nicest supper you ever had." + +"I suppose I ought to go over and see father." + +"Wait till afterward, and I'll go with you. O, Will! suppose it is fair +to-morrow, will he make you sail on Sunday?" + +"I never _have_ sailed on Sunday." + +"But he has! He says it is all nonsense not to take advantage of the +wind." + +"I have been in ships that did do it. But I prefer not to. The _Linnet_ +is ready as far as she can be, and not be in motion; there will not be as +much to do as there is often in a storm at sea; but this is not an +emergency, and I won't do it if I can help it." + +"But your father is so determined." + +"So am I," said Will in a determined voice. + +"But you do not own a plank in her," said Linnet anxiously. "Oh, I hope +it _won't_ be fair to-morrow." + +"It isn't fair to-night, at any rate. I believe you were to give a hungry +traveller some supper." + +Linnet ran in to kindle the fire and make a cup of tea; Will cut the cold +boiled ham and the bread, while Linnet brought the cake and sugared the +blueberries. + +"Linnet, we have a precious little home." + +"Thanks to your good father." + +"Yes, thanks to my father. I ought not to displease him," Will returned +seriously. + +"You do please him; you satisfy him in everything. He told Hollis so." + +"Why, I didn't tell you that Hollis came in the train with me. See how +you make me forget everything. He is to stay here a day or so, and then +go on a fishing excursion with some friends, and then come back here for +another day or so. What a fine fellow he is. He is the gentleman among us +boys." + +"I would like to know what you are," said Linnet indignantly. + +"A rough old tar," laughed Will, for the sake of the flash in his wife's +eyes. + +"Then I'm a rough old tar too," said Linnet decidedly. + +How short the evening was! They went across the fields to see Hollis, and +to talk over affairs with the largest owner of the _Linnet_. Linnet +wondered when she knelt beside Will that night if it would be wrong to +ask God to keep the wind ahead until Monday morning. Marjorie moaned in +her sleep in real trouble. Linnet dreamed that she awoke Sunday morning +and the wind had not changed. + +But she did not awake until she heard a heavy rap on the window pane. It +was scarcely light, and Will had sprung out of bed and had raised the +window and was talking to his father. + +"I'll be here in an hour or less time to drive you into Portland. Hollis +won't drive you; but I'll be here on time." + +"But, father," expostulated Will. He had never resisted his father's will +as the others had done. He inherited his mother's peace-loving +disposition; he could only expostulate and yield. + +"The Linnet must sail, or I'll find another master," said his father in +his harshest voice. + +Linnet kept the tears back bravely for Will's sake; but she clung to him +sobbing at the last, and he wept with her; he had never wept on leaving +her before; but this time it was so hard, so hard. + +"Will, how _can_ I let you go?" + +"Keep up, sweetheart. It isn't a long trip--I'll soon be home. Let us +have a prayer together before I go." + +It was a simple prayer, interrupted by Linnet's sobbing. He asked only +that God would keep his wife safe, and bring him home safe to her, for +Jesus' sake. And then his father's voice was shouting, and he was gone; +and Linnet threw herself across the foot of the bed, sobbing like a +little child, with quick short breaths, and hopeless tears. + +"It isn't _right_" she cried vehemently; "and Will oughtn't to have gone; +but he never will withstand his father." + +All day she lived on the hope that something might happen to bring him +back at night; but before sundown Captain Rheid drove triumphantly into +his own yard, shouting out to his wife in the kitchen doorway that the +_Linnet_ was well on her way. + +At dusk, Linnet's lonely time, Marjorie stepped softly through the entry +and stood beside her. + +"O, Marjorie! I'm _so_ glad," she exclaimed, between laughing and crying. +"I've had a miserable day." + +"Didn't you know I would come?" + +"How bright you look!" said Linnet, looking up into the changed face; for +Marjorie's trouble was all gone, there was a happy tremor about the lips, +and peace was shining in her eyes. + +"I _am_ bright." + +"What has happened to you?" + +"I can tell you about it now. I have been troubled--more than troubled, +almost in despair--because I could not feel that I was a Christian. I +thought I was all the more wicked because I professed to be one. And +to-day it is all gone--the trouble. And in such a simple way. As I was +coming out of Sunday school I overheard somebody say to Mrs. Rich, 'I +know I'm not a Christian.' 'Then,' said Mrs. Rich, 'I'd begin this very +hour to be one, if I were you.' And it flashed over me why need I bemoan +myself any longer; why not begin this very hour; _and I did._" + +"I'm very glad," said Linnet, in her simple, hearty way. "I never had +anything like that on my mind, and I know it must be dreadful." + +"Dreadful?" repeated Marjorie. "It is being lost away from Christ." + +"Mrs. Rheid told Hollis that you were going into a decline, that mother +said so, and Will and I were planning what we could do for you." + +"Nobody need plan now," smiled Marjorie. "Shall we have some music? We'll +sing Will's hymns." + +"How your voice sounds!" + +"That's why I want to sing. I want to pour it all out." + +The next evening Hollis accompanied Linnet on her way to Marjorie's to +spend the evening. Marjorie's pale face and mourning dress had touched +him deeply. He had taught a class of boys near her class in Sunday +school, and had been struck with the dull, mechanical tone in which she +had questioned the attentive little girls who crowded around her. + +It was not Marjorie; but it was the Marjorie who had lost Morris and her +father. Was she so weak that she sank under grief? In his thought she was +always strong. But it was another Marjorie who met him at the gate the +next evening; the cheeks were still thin, but they were tinted and there +was not a trace of yesterday's dullness in face or voice; it was a joyful +face, and her voice was as light-hearted as a child's. Something had +wrought a change since yesterday. + +Such a quiet, unobtrusive little figure in a black and white gingham, +with a knot of black ribbon at her throat and a cluster of white roses in +her belt. Miss Prudence had done her best with the little country girl, +and she was become only a sweet and girlish-looking woman; she had not +marked out for herself a "career"; she had done nothing that no other +girl might do. But she was the lady that some other girls had not become, +he argued. + +The three, Hollis, Linnet, and Marjorie, sat in the moon lighted parlor +and talked over old times. Hollis had begun it by saying that his father +had shown him "Flyaway" stowed away in the granary chamber. + +He was sitting beside Linnet in a good position to study Marjorie's face +unobserved. The girl's face bore the marks of having gone through +something; there was a flutter about her lips, and her soft laugh and the +joy about the lips was almost contradicted by the mistiness that now and +then veiled the eyes. She had planned to go up to her chamber early, and +have this evening alone by herself,--alone on her knees at the open +window, with the stars above her and the rustle of the leaves and the +breath of the sea about her. It had been a long sorrow; all she wanted +was to rest, as Mary did, at the feet of the Lord; to look up into his +face, and feel his eyes upon her face; to shed sweetest tears over the +peace of forgiven sin. + +She had written to Aunt Prue all about it that afternoon. She was tempted +to show the letter to her mother, but was restrained by her usual shyness +and timidity. + +"Marjorie, why don't you talk?" questioned Linnet. + +Marjorie was on the music stool, and had turned from them to play the air +of one of the songs they used to sing in school. + +"I thought I had been talking a great deal. I am thinking of so many +things and I thought I had spoken of them all." + +"I wish you would," said Hollis. + +"I was thinking of Morris just then. But he was not in your school days, +nor in Linnet's. He belongs to mine." + +"What else? Go on please," said Hollis. + +"And then I was thinking that his life was a success, as father's was. +They both did the will of the Lord." + +"I've been trying all day to submit to that will," said Linnet, in a +thick voice. + +"Is that all we have to do with it--submit to it?" asked Hollis with a +grave smile. "Why do we always groan over 'Thy will be done,' as though +there never was anything pleasant in it?" + +"That's true," returned Linnet emphatically. "When Will came Saturday, I +didn't rejoice and say 'It is the Lord's will,' but Sunday morning I +thought it was, because it was so hard! All the lovely things that happen +to us _are_ his will of course." + +"Suppose we study up every time where the Lord speaks of his father's +will, and learn what that will is. Shall we, Marjorie?" proposed Hollis. + +"Oh, yes; it will be delightful!" she assented. + +"And when I come back from my fishing excursion we will compare notes, +and give each other our thoughts. I must give that topic in our +prayer-meeting and take it in my Bible class." + +"We know the will of God is our sanctification," said Marjorie slowly. "I +don't want to sigh, 'Thy will be done,' about that." + +"Hollis, I mean to hold on to that--every happy thing is God's will as +well as the hard ones," said Linnet. + +"And here come the mothers for some music," exclaimed Marjorie. "They +cannot go to sleep without it." + +And Marjorie's mother did not go to sleep with it. Hollis had invited +himself to remain all night, saying that he was responsible for Linnet +and could not go home unless she went home. + + + + +XXVI. + + +MARJORIE'S MOTHER. + +"Leave to Heaven the measure and the choice."--_Johnson_. + + +Marjorie fell asleep as happy as she wanted to be; but her mother did not +close her eyes in sleep all that night. She closed them in prayer, +however, and told Miss Prudence afterward that she "did not catch one +wink of sleep." All night long she was asking the Lord if she might +intermeddle between Marjorie and Hollis. As we look at them there was +nothing to intermeddle with. Marjorie herself did not know of anything. +Perhaps, more than anything, she laid before the Lord what she wanted him +to do. She told him how Marjorie looked, and how depressed she had been, +and her own fear that it was disappointment that was breaking her heart. +The prayer was characteristic. + +"Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest the hearts of both, and what +is in thy will for both; but thou dost choose means, thou hast chosen +means since the world began; and if thou hast chosen me, make me ready to +speak. Soften the heart of the young man; show him how ill he has done; +and knit their hearts to each other as thou didst the hearts of David and +Jonathan. Make her willing as thou didst make Rebekah willing to go with +the servant of Abraham. Give her favor in his eyes, as thou gavest favor +to Abigail in the eyes of David. Bring her into favor and tender love, as +thou broughtest Daniel. Let it not be beneath thy notice; the sparrows +are not, and she is more than many sparrows to thee. Give me words to +speak, and prepare his heart to listen. The king's heart is in thine +hand, and so is his heart. If we acknowledge thee in all our ways, thou +wilt direct our steps. I do acknowledge thee. Oh, direct my steps and +my words." + +With variety of phrasing, she poured out this prayer all through the +hours of the night; she spread the matter before the Lord as Hezekiah +did the letter that troubled him. Something must be _done_. She forgot +all the commands to _wait_, to _sit still_ and see the salvation of the +Lord; she forgot, or put away from her, the description of one who +believeth: "He that believeth shall not make haste." And she was making +haste with all her might. + +In the earliest dawn she arose, feeling assured that the Lord had heard +her cry and had answered her; he had given her permission to speak to +Hollis. + +That he permitted her to speak to Hollis, I know; that it was his will, I +do not know; but she was assured that she knew, and she never changed +her mind. It may be that it was his will for her to make a mistake and +bring sorrow upon Marjorie; the Lord does not shrink from mistakes; he +knows what to do with them. + +Before the house was astir, Hollis found her in the kitchen; she had +kindled the fire, and was filling the tea-kettle at the pump in the sink. + +"Good morning, Mrs. West. Excuse my early leave; but I must meet my +friends to-day." + +"Hollis!" + +She set the tea-kettle on the stove, and turned and looked at him. The +solemn weight of her eye rooted him to the spot. + +"Hollis, I've known you ever since you were born." + +"And now you are going to find fault with me!" he returned, with an easy +laugh. + +"No, not to find fault, but to speak with great plainness. Do you see how +changed Marjorie is!" + +"Yes. I could not fail to notice it. Has she been ill?" + +"Yes, very ill. You see the effect of something." + +"But she is better. She was so bright last night." + +"Yes, last night," she returned impressively, setting the lid of the +tea-kettle firmly in its place. "Did you ever think that you did wrong in +writing to her so many years and then stopping short all of a sudden, +giving her no reason at all?" + +"Do you mean _that_ has changed her, and hurt her?" he asked, in extreme +surprise. + +"I do. I mean that. I mean that you gained her affections and then left +her," she returned with severity. + +Hollis was now trembling in every limb, strong man as he was; he caught +at the back of a chair, and leaned on his two hands as he stood behind +it gazing into her face with mute lips. + +"And now, what do you intend to do?" + +"I never did that! It was not in my heart to do that! I would scorn to do +it!" he declared with vehemence. + +"Then what did you do?" she asked quietly. + +"We were good friends. We liked to write to each other. I left off +writing because I thought it not fair to interfere with Morris." + +"Morris! What did he have to do with it?" + +"She wears his ring," he said in a reasoning voice. + +"She wears it as she would wear it if a brother had given it to her. They +were brother and sister." + +Hollis stood with his eyes upon the floor. Afterward Mrs. West told Miss +Prudence that when it came to that, she pitied him with all her heart, +"he shook all over and looked as if he would faint." + +"Mrs. West!" he lifted his eyes and spoke in his usual clear, manly +voice, "I have never thought of marrying any one beside Marjorie. I gave +that up when mother wrote me that she cared for Morris. I have never +sought any one since. I have been waiting--if she loved Morris, she could +not love me. I have been giving her time to think of me if she wanted +to--" + +"I'd like to know how. You haven't given her the first sign." + +"She does not know me; she is shy with me. I do not know her; we do not +feel at home with each other." + +"How are you going to get to feel at home with each other five hundred +miles apart?" inquired the practical mother. + +"It will take time." + +"Time! I should think it would." Mrs. West pushed a stick of wood into +the stove with some energy. + +"But if you think it is because--" + +"I do think so." + +"Then she must know me better than I thought she did," he continued, +thoughtfully. + +"Didn't she go to school with you?" + +"Not with me grown up." + +"That's a distinction that doesn't mean anything." + +"It means something to me. I am more at home with Linnet than I am with +her. She has changed; she keeps within herself." + +"Then you must bring her out." + +"How can she care, if she thinks I have trifled with her?" + +"I didn't say she thought so, I said _I_ thought so!" + +"You have hastened this very much. I wanted her to know me and trust me. +I want my wife to love me, Mrs. West." + +"No doubt of that, Master Hollis," with a sigh of congratulation to +herself. "All you have to do is to tell her what you have told me. She +will throw you off." + +"Has she _said_ so?" he inquired eagerly. + +"Do you think she is the girl to say so?" + +"I am sure not," he answered proudly. + +"Hollis, this is a great relief," said Marjorie's mother. + +"Well, good-bye," he said, after hesitating a moment with his eyes on the +kitchen floor, and extending his hand. "I will speak to her when I come +back." + +"The Lord bless you," she answered fervently. + +Just then Marjorie ran lightly down-stairs singing a morning hymn, +entering the kitchen as he closed the door and went out. + +"Hollis just went," said her mother. + +"Why didn't he stay to breakfast?" she asked, without embarrassment. + +"He had to meet his friends early," replied her mother, averting her face +and busying herself at the sink. + +"He will have to eat breakfast somewhere; but perhaps he expects to take +a late breakfast on the fish he has caught. Mother, Linnet and I are to +be little girls, and go berrying." + +"Only be happy, children; that's all I want," returned Mrs. West, her +voice breaking. + +While Marjorie fried the fish for breakfast her mother went to her +chamber to kneel down and give thanks. + + + + +XXVII. + +ANOTHER WALK AND ANOTHER TALK. + +"We are not to lead events but to follow them."--_Epictetus_. + + +Marjorie was so happy that she trembled with the joy of it. The relief +from her burden, at times, was almost harder to bear than the burden +itself. She sang all day hymns that were the outpouring of her soul in +love to Christ. + +"What a child you are, Marjorie," her mother said one day. "You were as +doleful as you could be, and now you are as happy as a bird." + +"Do you remember what Luther says?" + +"Luther says several wise and good things." + +"And this is one of them; it is one of Aunt Prue's favorite sayings: 'The +Christian should be like a little bird, which sits on its twig and sings, +and lets God think for it.'" + +"That's all very well for a bird; but we have to _do_," replied her +mother sharply. + +"We have to _do_ what God _thinks_, though," returned Marjorie quickly. + +"Child, you are your father all over again; he always wanted to wait and +see; but mine was the faith that acted." + +"But now can we act, until we wait and see?" persisted Marjorie. "I want +to be sure that God means for us to do things." + +"Many a thing wouldn't have happened if I hadn't pushed through--why, +your father would have been willing for Linnet to be engaged years +and years." + +"So would I," said Marjorie seriously. + +A week later, one afternoon towards dusk, Marjorie was walking home from +her grandfather's. Her happy face was shaded by a brown straw hat, her +hands were sunburned, and her fingers were scratched with numerous +berrying expeditions. There was a deepened color in the roundness of +her cheeks; she was a country maiden this afternoon, swinging an empty +basket in her hand. She was humming to herself as she walked along, +hurrying her steps a little as she remembered that it was the mail for +her long, foreign letter. This afternoon she was as happy as she wanted +to be. Within half a mile of home she espied a tall figure coming towards +her,--a figure in a long linen duster, wearing a gray, low-crowned, felt +hat. After an instant she recognized Hollis and remembered that to-day he +was expected home. She had not thought of it all day. + +"Your mother sent me to meet you," he said, without formal greeting. +Instantly she detected a change in his manner towards her; it was as +easy as if he were speaking to Linnet. + +"I've been off on one of my long walks." + +"Do you remember our walk together from your grandfather's--how many +years ago?" + +"When I appealed to your sympathies and enlisted you in my behalf?" + +"You were in trouble, weren't you? I believe it is just seven years ago." + +"Physiologists tell us we are made over new every seven years, therefore +you and I are another Hollis and another Marjorie." + +"I hope I am another Hollis," he answered gravely. + +"And I am _sure_ I am another Marjorie," she said more lightly. "How you +lectured me then!" + +"I never lectured any one." + +"You lectured me. I never forgot it. From that hour I wanted to be like +your cousin Helen." + +"You do not need to copy any one. I like you best as yourself." + +"You do not know me." + +"No; I do not know you; but I want to know you." + +"That depends upon yourself as well as upon me." + +"I do not forget that. I am not quick to read and you are written in many +languages." + +"Are you fond of the study--of languages? Did you succeed in French?" + +"Fairly. And I can express my wants in German. Will you write to me +again?" + +There was a flush now that was not sunburn; but she did not speak; she +seemed to be considering. + +"Will you, Marjorie?" he urged, with gentle persistence. + +"I--don't know." + +"Why don't you know." + +"I have not thought about it for so long. Let me see--what kind of +letters did you write. Were they interesting?" + +"_Yours_ were interesting. Were you hurt because--" + +It happened so long ago that she smiled as she looked up at him. + +"I have never told you the reason. I thought Morris Kemlo had a prior +claim." + +"What right had you to think that?" + +"From what I heard--and saw." + +"I am ignorant of what you could hear or see. Morris was my twin-brother; +he was my blessing; he _is_ my blessing." + +"Is not my reason sufficient?" + +"Oh, yes; it doesn't matter. But see that sumach. I have not seen +anything so pretty this summer; mother must have them. You wouldn't think +it, but she is very fond of wild flowers." + +She stepped aside to pluck the sumach and sprays of goldenrod; they were +growing beside a stone wall, and she crossed the road to them. He stood +watching her. She was as unconscious as the goldenrod herself. + +What had her mother meant? Was it all a mistake? Had his wretched days +and wakeful nights been for nothing? Was there nothing for him to be +grieved about? He knew now how much he loved her--and she? He was not a +part of her life, at all. Would he dare speak the words he had planned to +speak? + +"Then, Marjorie, you will not write to me," he began afresh, after +admiring the sumach. + +"Oh, yes, I will! If you want to! I love to write letters; and my life +isn't half full enough yet. I want new people in it." + +"And you would as readily take me as another," he said, in a tone that +she did not understand. + +"More readily than one whom I do not know. I want you to hear extracts +from one of Mrs. Holmes' delicious letters to-night." + +"You are as happy as a lark to-day. + +"That is what mother told me, only she did not specify the bird. Morris, +I _am_ happier than I was Sunday morning." + +He colored over the name. She smiled and said, "I've been thinking about +him to-day, and wanting to tell him how changed I am." + +"What has changed you?" he asked. + +Her eyes filled before she could answer him. In a few brief sentences, +sentences in which each word told, she gave him the story of her dark +year. + +"Poor little Mousie," he said tenderly. "And you bore the dark time all +by yourself." + +"That's the way I have my times. But I do not have my happy times by +myself, you see." + +"Did nothing else trouble you?" + +"No; oh, no! Nothing like that. Father's death was not a trouble. I went +with him as far as I could--I almost wanted to go all the way." + +"And there was nothing else to hurt you?" he asked very earnestly. + +"Oh, no; why should there be?" she answered, meeting his questioning eyes +frankly. "Do you know of anything else that should have troubled me?" + +"No, nothing else. But girls do have sometimes. Didn't your mother help +you any? She helps other people." + +"I could not tell her. I could not talk about it. She only thought I was +ill, and sent for a physician. Perhaps I did worry myself into feeling +ill." + +"You take life easily," he said. + +"Do I? I like to take it as God gives it to me; not before he gives it to +me. This slowness--or faith--or whatever it is, is one of my inheritances +from my blessed father. Who is it that says, 'I'd see to it pretty sharp +that I didn't hurry Providence.' That has helped me." + +"I wish it would some one else," he said grimly. + +"I wish it would help _every one_ else. Everything is helping me now; if +I were writing to you I could tell you some of them." + +"I like to hear you talk, Marjorie." + +"Do you?" she asked wonderingly. "Linnet does, too, and Mrs. Kemlo. As I +shall never write a book, I must learn to talk, and talk myself all out. +Aunt Prue is living her book." + +"Tell me something that has helped you," he urged. + +She looked at the goldenrod in her hand, and raised it to her lips. + +"It is coming to me that Christ made everything. He made those lilies of +which he said, 'Consider the lilies.' Isn't it queer that we will not let +him clothe us as he did the lilies? What girl ever had a white dress of +the texture and whiteness and richness of the lily?" + +"But the lily has but one dress; girls like a new dress for every +occasion and a different one." + +"'Shall he not much more clothe you?' But we do not let him clothe us. +When one lily fades, he makes another in a fresh dress. I wish I could +live as he wants me to. Not think about dress or what we eat or drink? +Only do his beautiful work, and not have to worry and be anxious about +things." + +"Do you _have_ to be?" he asked smiling. + +"My life is a part of lives that are anxious about these things. But I +don't think about dress as some girls do. I never like to talk about it. +It is not a temptation to me. It would not trouble me to wear one dress +all my life--one color, as the flowers do; it should be a soft gray--a +cashmere, and when one was soiled or worn out I would have another like +it--and never spend any more thought about it. Aunt Prue loves gray--she +almost does that--she spends no thought on dress. If we didn't have to +'take thought,' how much time we would have--and how our minds would be +at rest--to work for people and to study God's works and will." + +Hollis smiled as he looked down at her. + +"Girls don't usually talk like that," he said. + +"Perhaps I don't--usually. What are you reading now?" + +"History, chiefly--the history of the world and the history of the +church." + +They walked more and more slowly as they drifted into talk about books +and then into his life in New York and the experiences he had had in his +business tours and the people whom he had met. + +"Do you like your life?" she asked. + +"Yes, I like the movement and the life: I like to be 'on the go.' I +expect to take my third trip across the ocean by and by. I like to mingle +with men. I never could settle down into farming; not till I am old, at +any rate." + +They found Marjorie's mother standing in the front doorway, looking for +them. She glanced at Hollis, but he was fastening the gate and would not +be glanced at. Marjorie's face was no brighter than when she had set out +for her walk. Linnet was setting the tea-table and singing, "A life on +the ocean wave." + +After tea the letter from Switzerland was read and discussed. Miss +Prudence, as Mrs. West could not refrain from calling her, always gave +them something to talk about. To give people something to think about +that was worth thinking about, was something to live for, she had said +once to Marjorie. + +And then there was music and talk. Marjorie and Hollis seemed to find +endless themes for conversation. And then Hollis and Linnet went home. +Hollis bade them good-bye; he was to take an early train in the morning. +Marjorie's mother scanned Marjorie's face, and stood with a lighted +candle in her hand at bedtime, waiting for her confidence; but +unconscious Marjorie closed the piano, piled away the sheets of music, +arranged the chairs, and then went out to the milkroom for a glass of +milk. + +"Good-night, mother," she called back. "Are you waiting for anything?" + +"Did you set the sponge for the bread?" + +"Oh, yes," in a laughing voice. + +And then the mother went slowly and wonderingly up the stairs, muttering +"Well! well! Of all things!" + +Marjorie drew Aunt Prue's letter from her pocket to think it all over +again by herself. Mr. Holmes was buried in manuscript. Prue was studying +with her, beside studying French and German with the pastor's daughter in +the village, and she herself was full of many things. They were coming +home by and by to choose a home in America. + +"When I was your age, Marjorie, and older, I used to fall asleep at night +thinking over the doings of the day and finding my life in them; and +in the morning when I awoke, my thought was, 'What shall I _do_ to-day?' +And now when I awake--now, when my life is at its happiest and as full +of doings as I can wish, I think, instead, of Christ, and find my joy in +nearness to him, in doing all with his eye upon me. You have not come to +this yet; but it is waiting for you. Your first thought to-morrow morning +may be of some plan to go somewhere, of some one you expect to see, of +something you have promised to-day; but, by and by, when you love him as +you are praying to love him, your first thought will be that you are with +him. You can imagine the mother awaking with joy at finding her child +asleep beside her, or the wife awaking to another day with her husband; +but blessed more than all is it to awake and find the Lord himself near +enough for you to speak to." + +Marjorie went to sleep with the thought in her heart, and awoke with it; +and then she remembered that Hollis must be on his way to the train, and +then that she and Linnet were to drive to Portland that day on a small +shopping excursion and to find something for the birthday present of +Morris' mother. + +Several days afterward when the mail was brought in Mrs. West beckoned +Marjorie aside in a mysterious manner and laid in her hand a letter from +Hollis. + +"Yes," said Marjorie. + +"Did you expect it?" + +"Oh, yes." + +Mrs. West waited until Marjorie opened it, and felt in her pocket for her +glasses. In the other time she had always read his letters. But Marjorie +moved away with it, and only said afterward that there was no "news" in +it. + +It was not like the letters of the other time. He had learned to write as +she had learned to talk. Her reply was as full of herself as it would +have been to Morris. Hollis could never be a stranger again. + + + + +XXVIII. + +THE LINNET. + +"He who sends the storm steers the vessel."--_Rev. T. Adams_ + + +August passed and September was almost through and not one word had been +heard of the _Linnet_. Linnet lived through the days and through the +nights, but she thought she would choke to death every night. Days before +she had consented, her mother had gone to her and urged her with every +argument at her command to lock up her house and come home until they +heard. At first, she resented the very thought of it; but Annie Grey was +busy in Middlefield, Marjorie was needed at home, and the hours of the +days seemed never to pass away; at last, worn out with her anguish, she +allowed Captain Rheid to lift her into his carriage and take her to her +mother. + +As the days went on Will's father neither ate nor slept; he drove into +Portland every day, and returned at night more stern and more pale than +he went away in the morning. + +Linnet lay on her mother's bed and wept, and then slept from exhaustion, +to awake with the cry, "Oh, why didn't I die in my sleep?" + +One evening Mrs. Rheid appeared at the kitchen door; her cap and +sunbonnet had fallen off, her gray hair was roughened over her forehead, +her eyes were wild, her lips apart. Her husband had brought her, and sat +outside in his wagon too stupefied to remember that he was leaving his +old wife to stagger into the house alone. + +Mrs. West turned from the table, where she was reading her evening +chapter by candle light, and rising caught her before she fell into her +arms. The two old mothers clung to each other and wept together; it +seemed such a little time since they had washed up Linnet's dishes and +set her house in order on the wedding day. Mrs. Rheid thrust a newspaper +into her hand as she heard her husband's step, and went out to meet him +as Mrs. West called Marjorie. Linnet was asleep upon her mother's bed. + +"My baby, my poor baby!" cried her mother, falling on her knees beside +the bed, "must you wake up to this?" + +She awoke at midnight; but her mother lay quiet beside her, and she did +not arouse her. In the early light she discerned something in her +mother's face, and begged to know what she had to tell. + +Taking her into her arms she told her all she knew. It was in the +newspaper. A homeward-bound ship had brought the news. The _Linnet_ +had been seen; wrecked, all her masts gone, deserted, not a soul on +board--the captain supposed she went down that night; there was a storm, +and he could not find her again in the morning. He had tried to keep near +her, thinking it worth while to tow her in. Before she ended, the child +was a dead weight in her arms. For an hour they all believed her dead. A +long illness followed; it was Christmas before she crossed the chamber, +and in April Captain Rheid brought her downstairs in his arms. + +His wife said he loved Linnet as he would have loved an own daughter. His +heart was more broken than hers. + +"Poor father," she would say, stroking his grizzly beard with her thin +fingers; "poor father." + +"Cynthy," African John's wife, had a new suggestion every time she was +allowed to see Linnet. Hadn't she waited, and didn't she know? Mightn't +an East Indian have taken him off and carried him to Madras, or somewhere +there, and wasn't he now working his passage home as she had once heard +of a shipwrecked captain doing! Or, perhaps some ship was taking him +around the Horn--it took time to go around that Horn, as everybody +knew--or suppose a whaler had taken him off and carried him up north, +could he expect to get back in a day, and did she want him to find her in +such a plight? + +So Linnet hoped and hoped. His mother put on mourning, and had a funeral +sermon preached; and his father put up a grave-stone in the churchyard, +with his name and age engraved on it, and underneath, "Lost at sea." +There were, many such in that country churchyard. + +It was two years before Linnet could be persuaded to put on her widow's +mourning, and then she did it to please the two mothers. The color +gradually came back to her cheeks and lips; she moved around with a grave +step, but her hands were never idle. After two years she insisted upon +going back to Will's home, where the shutters had been barred so long, +and the only signs of life were the corn and rye growing in the fields +about it. + +Annie Grey was glad to be with her again. She worked at dressmaking; and +spent every night at home with Linnet. + +The next summer the travellers returned from abroad; Mr. Holmes, more +perfectly his developed self; little Prue growing up and as charming a +girl as ever papa and mamma had hoped for, prayed for, and worked for; +and Mrs. Holmes, or "Miss Prudence" and "Aunt Prue," as she was called, +a lady whose slight figure had become rounded and whose white hair shaded +a fair face full of peace. + +There was no resisting such persuasions as those of Mrs. Kemlo, the +girls' mother, and the "girls" themselves; and almost before they had +decided upon it they found themselves installed at Mrs. West's for the +summer. Before the first snow, however, a house was rented in New York +City, the old, homelike furniture removed to it, and they had but to +believe it to feel themselves at home in the long parlor in Maple Street. + +Linnet was taken from her lonely home by loving force, and kept all +winter. She could be at rest with Miss Prudence; she could be at rest and +enjoy and be busy. It was wonderful how many things she became busied +about and deeply interested in. Her letters to Marjorie were as full of +life as in her school days. She was Linnet, Mrs. Holmes wrote to her +mother; but she was Linnet chastened and sanctified. + +And all this time Hollis and Marjorie had written to each other, and had +seen each other for two weeks every day each year. + +During the winter Linnet spent in New York the firm for which he +travelled became involved; the business was greatly decreased; changes +were made: one of the partners left the firm; the remaining head had a +nephew, whom he preferred to his partner's favorite, Hollis Rheid; and +Hollis Rheid found himself with nothing to do but to look around for +something to do. + +"Come home," wrote his father. "I will build you a house, and give you +fifty acres of good land." + +With the letter in his pocket, he sought his friends, the Holmes'. He was +not so averse to a farmer's life as he had been when he once spoke of it +to Marjorie. + +He found Prue practicing; papa was in the study, she said, and mamma and +Linnet had gone to the train to meet Marjorie. + +"Marjorie did not tell me that she was coming." + +"It was to be your surprise, and now I've spoiled it." + +"Nothing can spoil the pleasure of it," he returned. + +Prue stationed herself at the window, as when she was a little girl, to +watch for Marjorie. She was still the blue bird with the golden crest. + + + + +XXIX. + +ONE NIGHT. + +"We are often prophets to others only because we are our own +historians."--_Madame Swetchine_. + + +The evening before Marjorie started for New York she was sitting alone in +her father's arm chair before the sitting-room fire. Her mother had left +her to go up to Mrs. Kemlo's chamber for her usual evening chat. Mrs. +Kemlo was not strong this winter, and on very cold days did not venture +down-stairs to the sitting-room. Marjorie, her mother, and the young +farmer who had charge of the farm, were often the only ones at the table, +and the only occupants of the sitting-room during the long winter +evenings. Marjorie sighed for Linnet, or she would have sighed for her, +if she had been selfish; she remembered the evenings of studying with +Morris, and the master's tread as he walked up and down and talked to her +father. + +Now she was alone in the dim light of two tallow candles. It was so cold +that the small wood stove did not sufficiently heat the room, and she +had wrapped the shawl about her that Linnet used to wear to school when +Mr. Holmes taught. She hid herself in it, gathering her feet up under +the skirt of her dress, in a position very comfortable and lazy, and very +undignified for a maiden who would be twenty-five on her next birthday. + +The last letter from Hollis had stated that he was seeking a position in +the city. He thought he understood his business fairly, and the outlook +was not discouraging. He had a little money well invested; his life was +simple; and, beyond the having nothing to do, he was not anxious. He had +thought of farming as a last resort; but there was rather a wide +difference between tossing over laces and following the plow. + +"Not that I dread hard work, but I do not love the _solitude_ of country +life. 'A wise man is never less alone than when he is alone,' Swift +writes; but I am not a wise man, nor a wild beast. I love men and the +homes of men, the business of men, the opportunities that I find among +men." + +She had not replied to this letter; what a talk they would have over it! +She had learned Hollis; she knew him by heart; she could talk to him now +almost as easily as she could write. These years of writing had been a +great deal to both of them. They had educated each other. + +The last time Mrs. West had seen Hollis she had wondered how she had ever +dared speak to him as she had spoken that morning in the kitchen. Had +she effected anything? She was not sure that they were engaged; she had +"talked it over" with his mother, and that mother was equally in the +dark. + +"I know what his intentions are," confided Marjorie's mother "I know he +means to have her, for he told me so." + +"He has never told me so," said Hollis' mother. + +"You haven't asked him," suggested Mrs. West comfortably. + +"Have _you_?" + +"I made an opportunity for it to be easy for him to tell me." + +"I don't know how to make opportunities," returned Mrs. Rheid with some +dignity. + +"Everybody doesn't," was the complacent reply. + +Marjorie had had a busy day arranging household matters for her mother +while she should be gone, and was dozing with her head nestled in the +soft folds of the shawl when her mother's step aroused her. + +"Child, you are asleep and letting the fire go down." + +"Am I?" she asked drowsily, "the room _is_ cold." + +She wrapped the shawl about her more closely and nestled into it again. + +"Perhaps Hollis will come home with you," her mother began, drawing her +own especial chair nearer the fire and settling down as if for a long +conversation. + +"Mother, you will be chilly;" and, with the instinct that her mother must +be taken care of, she sprang up with her eyes still half asleep and +attended to the fire. + +The dry chips soon kindled a blaze, and she was wide awake with the flush +of sleep in her cheeks. + +"Why do you think he will?" she asked. + +"It looks like it. Mrs. Rheid ran over to-day to tell me that the Captain +had offered to give him fifty acres and build him a house, if he would +come home for good." + +"I wonder if he will like it." + +"You ought to know," in a suggestive tone. + +"I am not sure. He does not like farming." + +"A farm of his own may make a difference. And a house of his own. I +suppose the Captain thinks he is engaged to you." + +Mrs. West was rubbing her thumb nail and not looking at Marjorie. +Marjorie was playing with a chip, thrusting it into the fire and bringing +it out lighted as she and Linnet used to like to do. + +"Marjorie, _is_ he?" + +"No, ma'am," answered Marjorie, the corners of her lips twitching. + +"I'd like to know why he isn't," with some asperity. + +"Perhaps he knows," suggested Marjorie, looking at her lighted chip. It +was childish; but she must be doing something, if her mother would insist +upon talking about Hollis. + +"Do _you_ know?" + +Marjorie dropped her chip into the stove and looked up at the broad +figure in the wooden rocker--a figure in a black dress and gingham apron, +with a neat white cap covering her gray hair, a round face, from which +Marjorie had taken her roundness and dimples, a shrewd face with a +determined mouth and the kindliest eyes that ever looked out upon the +world. Marjorie looked at her and loved her. + +"Mother, do you want to know? I haven't anything to tell you." + +"Seems to me he's a long time about it." + +Marjorie colored now, and, rising from her seat in front of the fire, +wrapped the shawl again around her. + +"Mother, dear, I'm not a child now; I am a woman grown." + +"Too old to be advised," sighed her mother. + +"I don't know what I need to be advised about." + +"People never do. It is more than three years ago that he told me that he +had never thought of any one but you." + +"Why should he tell you that?" Marjorie's tone could be sharp as well as +her mother's. + +"I was talking about you. I said you were not well--I was afraid you were +troubled--and he told me--that." + +"Troubled about _what_?" Marjorie demanded. + +"About his not answering your letter," in a wavering voice. + +The words had to come; Mrs. West knew that Marjorie would have her +answer. + +"And--after that--he asked me--to write to him. Mother, mother, you do +not know what you have done!" + +Marjorie fled away in the dark up to her own little chamber, threw +herself down on the bed without undressing, and lay all night, moaning +and weeping. + +She prayed beside; she could not be in trouble and not give the first +breath of it to the Lord. Hollis had asked her to write because of what +her mother had said to him. He believed--what did he believe? + +"O, mother! mother!" she moaned, "you are so good and so lovely, and yet +you have hurt me so. How could you? How could you?" + +While the clock in Mrs. Kemlo's room was striking six, a light flashed +across her eyes. Her mother stood at the bedside with a lighted candle in +her hand. + +"I was afraid you would oversleep. Why, child! Didn't you undress? +Haven't you had anything but that quilt over you?" + +"Mother, I am not going; I never want to see Hollis again," cried +Marjorie weakly. + +"Nonsense child," answered her mother energetically. + +"It is not nonsense. I will not go to New York." + +"What will they all think?" + +"I will write that I cannot come. I could not travel to-day; I have not +slept at all." + +"You look so. But you are very foolish. Why should he not speak to me +first?" + +"It was your speaking to him first. What must he think of me! O, mother, +mother, how could you?" + +The hopeless cry went to her mother's heart. + +"Marjorie, I believe the Lord allows us to be self-willed. I have not +slept either; but I have sat up by the fire. Your father used to say that +we would not make haste if we trusted, and I have learned that it is so. +All I have done is to break your heart." + +"Not quite that, poor mother. But I shall never write to Hollis again." + +Mrs. West turned away and set the candle on the bureau. "But I can," she +said to herself. + +"Come down-stairs where it is warm, and I'll make you a cup of coffee. +I'm afraid you have caught your death of cold." + +"I _am_ cold," confessed Marjorie, rising with a weak motion. + +Her new gray travelling dress was thrown over a chair, her small trunk +was packed, even her gloves were laid out on the bureau beside her +pocket-book. + +"Linnet has counted on it so," sighed her mother. + +"Mother!" rising to her feet and standing by the bedside. "I will go. +Linnet shall not be disappointed." + +"That's a good child! Now hurry down, and I'll hurry you off," said her +mother, in her usual brisk tone. + +An hour and a half later Mrs. West kissed Marjorie's pale lips, and bade +her stay a good while and have a good time. And before she washed up the +breakfast dishes she put on a clean apron, burnished her glasses, and sat +down to write to Hollis. The letter was as plain as her talk had been. He +had understood then, he should understand now. But with Marjorie would be +the difficulty; could he manage her? + + + + +XXX. + +THE COSEY CORNER. + +"God takes men's hearty desires and will instead of the deed where they +have not the power to fulfill it; but he never took the bare deed instead +of the will."--_Richard Baxter_. + + +Prue opened the door, and sprang into Marjorie's arms in her old, +affectionate way; and Marjorie almost forgot that she was not in Maple +Street, when she was led into the front parlor; there was as much of the +Maple Street parlor in it as could be well arranged. Hollis was there on +the hearth rug, waiting modestly in the background for his greeting; +he had not been a part of Maple Street. The greeting he waited for was +tardy in coming, and was shy and constrained, and it seemed impossible to +have a word with her alone all the evening: she was at the piano, or +chatting in the kitchen with old Deborah, or laughing with Prue, or +asking questions of Linnet, and when, at last, Mr. Holmes took her +upstairs to show her his study, he said good night abruptly and went +away. + +Marjorie chided herself for her naughty pride and passed another +sleepless night; in the morning she looked so ill that the plans for the +day were postponed, and she was taken into Mrs. Holmes own chamber to be +petted and nursed to sleep. She awoke in the dusk to find Aunt Prue's +dear face beside her. + +"Aunt Prue," she said, stretching up her hands to encircle her neck, "I +don't know what to do." + +"I do. Tell me." + +"Perhaps I oughtn't to. It's mother's secret." + +"Suppose I know all about it." + +"You can't! How can you?" + +"Lie still," pushing her back gently among the pillows, "and let me tell +you." + +"I thought I was to tell you." + +"A while ago the postman brought me a note from your mother. She told me +that she had confessed to you something she told me last summer." + +"Oh," exclaimed Marjorie, covering her face with both hands, "isn't it +too dreadful!" + +"I think your mother saw clearly that she had taken your life into her +own hands without waiting to let God work for you and in you. I assured +her that I knew all about that dark time of yours, and she wept some very +sorrowful tears to think how heartbroken you would be if you knew. +Perhaps she thought you ought to know it; she is not one to spare +herself; she is even harder upon herself than upon other sinners." + +"But, Aunt Prue, what ought I to do now? What can I do to make it right?" + +"Do you want to meddle?" + +"No, oh no; but it takes my breath away. I'm afraid he began to write to +me again because he thought I wanted him to." + +"Didn't you want him to?" + +"Yes--but not--but not as mother thought I did. I never once asked God to +give him back to me; and I should if I had wanted it very much, because I +always ask him for everything." + +"Your pride need not be wounded, poor little Marjorie! Do you remember +telling Hollis about your dark time, that night he met you on your way +from your grandfather's?" + +"Yes; I think I do. Yes, I know I told him; for he called me 'Mousie,' +and he had not said that since I was little; and with it he seemed to +come back to me, and I was not afraid or timid with him after that." + +"You wrote me about the talk, and he has told me about it since. To be +frank, Marjorie, he told me about the conversation with your mother, and +how startled he was. After that talk with you he was assured that she was +mistaken--but, child, there was no harm, no sin--even if it had been +true. The only sin I find was your mother's want of faith in making +haste. And she sees it now and laments it. She says making haste has been +the sin of her lifetime. Her unbelief has taken that form. You were very +chilly to Hollis last night." + +"I couldn't help it," said Marjorie. "I would not have come if I could +have stayed at home." + +"Is that proud heart satisfied now?" + +"Perhaps it oughtn't to be--if it is proud." + +"We will not argue about it now as there's somebody waiting for you +down-stairs." + +"I don't want to see him--now." + +"Suppose he wants to see you." + +"Aunt Prue! I wish I could be selfish just a few minutes." + +"You may. A whole hour. You may be selfish up here all by yourself until +the dinner bell rings." + +Marjorie laughed and drew the lounge afghan up about her shoulders. She +was so happy that she wanted to go to sleep;--to go to sleep and be +thankful. But the dinner bell found her in the parlor talking to Linnet; +Prue and Hollis were chattering together in French. Prue corrected his +pronunciation and promised to lend him books. + +The most inviting corner in the house to Marjorie was a cosey corner in +the library; she found her way thither after dinner, and there Hollis +found her, after searching parlors, dining-room, and halls for her. The +cosey corner itself was an arm-chair near the revolving bookcase; Prue +said that papa kept his "pets" in that bookcase. + +Marjorie had taken a book into her hand and was gathering a thought here +and there when Hollis entered; he pushed a chair to her side, and, +seating himself, took the book from her fingers. + +"Marjorie, I have come to ask you what to do?" + +"About your father's offer?" + +"Yes. I should have written to-day. I fancy how he watches the mail. But +I am in a great state of indecision. My heart is not in his plan." + +"Is your heart in buying and selling laces?" + +"I don't see why you need put it that way," he returned, with some +irritation. "Don't you like my business?" + +"Do you?" + +"I like what it gives me to do." + +"I should not choose it if I were a man." + +"What would you choose?" + +"I have not considered sufficiently to choose, I suppose. I should want +to be one of the mediums through which good passed to my neighbor." + +"What would you choose for me to do?" + +"The thing God bids you do." + +"That may be to buy and sell laces." + +"It may be. I hope it was while you were doing it." + +"You mean that through this offer of father's God may be indicating his +will." + +"He is certainly giving you an opportunity to choose." + +"I had not looked upon it in that light. Marjorie, I'm afraid the thought +of his will is not always as present with me as with you." + +"I used to think I needed money, like Aunt Prue, if I would bless my +neighbor; but once it came to me that Christ through his _poverty_ made +us rich: the world's workers have not always been the men and the women +with most money. You see I am taking it for granted that you do not +intend to decide for yourself, or work for yourself." + +"No; I am thinking of working for you." + +"I am too small a field." + +"But you must be included." + +"I can be one little corner; there's all Middlefield beside. Isn't there +work for you as a citizen and as a Christian in our little town? Suppose +you go to Middlefield with the same motives that you would go on a +mission to India, Africa, or the Isles of the Sea! You will not be sent +by any Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, but by him who has +sent you, his disciple, into the world. You have your experience, you +have your strength, you have your love to Christ and your neighbor, to +give them. They need everything in Middlefield. They need young men, +Christian young men. The village needs you, the Church needs you. It +seems too bad for all the young men to rush away from their native place +to make a name, or to make money. Somebody must work for Middlefield. Our +church needs a lecture room and a Sunday school room; the village needs a +reading room--the village needs more than I know. It needs Christian +_push_. Perhaps it needs Hollis Rheid." + +"Marjorie, it will change all my life for me." + +"So it would if you should go West, as you spoke last night of doing. If +you should study law, as you said you had thought of doing, that would +change the course of your life. You can't do a new thing and keep to the +old ways." + +"If I go I shall settle down for life." + +"You mean you will settle down until you are unsettled again." + +"What will unsettle me?" + +"What unsettled you now?" + +"Circumstances." + +"Circumstances will keep on being in existence as long as we are in +existence. I never forget a motto I chose for my birthday once on a time. +'The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.'" + +"He commands us to fight, sometimes." + +"And then we must fight. You seem to be undergoing some struggles now. +Have you any opening here?" + +"I answered an advertisement this morning, but we could not come to +terms. Marjorie, what you say about Middlefield is worth thinking of." + +"That is why I said it," she said archly. + +"Would _you _like that life better?" + +"Better for you?" + +"No, better for yourself." + +"I am there already, you know," with rising color. + +"I believe I will write to father and tell him I will take his kindness +into serious consideration." + +"There is no need of haste." + +"He will want to begin to make plans. He is a great planner. Marjorie! I +just thought of it. We will rent Linnet's house this summer--or board +with her, and superintend the building of our own, Do you agree to that?" + +"You haven't taken it into serious consideration yet." + +"Will it make any difference to you--my decision? Will you share my +life--any way?" + +Prue ran in at that instant, Linnet following. Hollis arose and walked +around among the books. Prue squeezed herself into Marjorie's broad +chair; and Linnet dropped herself on the hassock at Marjorie's feet, and +laid her head in Marjorie's lap. + +There was no trouble in Linnet's face, only an accepted sorrow. + +"Marjorie, will you read to us?" coaxed Prue. "Don't you know how you +used to read in Maple Street?" + +"What do you feel like listening to?" + +"Your voice," said Prue, demurely. + + + + +XXXI. + +AND WHAT ELSE? + +"What is the highest secret of victory and peace? +To will what God wills."--_W.R. Alger_. + + +And now what further remains to be told? + +Would you like to see Marjorie in her new home, with Linnet's chimneys +across the fields? Would you like to know about Hollis' success as a +Christian and a Christian citizen in his native town? Would you like to +see the proud, indulgent grandmothers the day baby Will takes his +first steps? For Aunt Linnet named him, and the grandfather declares "she +loves him better than his mother, if anything!" + +One day dear Grandma West came to see the baby, and bring him some +scarlet stockings of her own knitting; she looked pale and did not feel +well, and Marjorie persuaded her to remain all night. + +In the morning Baby went into her chamber to awaken her with a kiss; but +her lips were cold, and she would not open her eyes. She had gone home, +as she always wanted to go, in her sleep. + +That summer Mrs. Kemlo received a letter from her elder daughter; she was +ill and helpless; she wanted her mother, and the children wanted her. + +"They _need_ me now," she said to Marjorie, with a quiver of the lip, +"and nobody else seems to. When one door is shut another door is opened." + +And then the question came up, what should Linnet and Marjorie do with +their father's home? And then the Holmeses came to Middlefield for +the summer in time to solve the problem. Mrs. Holmes would purchase it +for their summer home; and, she whispered to Marjorie, "When Prue marries +the medical student that papa admires so much, we old folks will settle +down here and be grandpa and grandma to you all." + +In time Linnet gave up "waiting for Will," and began to think of him as +waiting for her. And, in time, they all knew God's will concerning them; +as you may know if you do the best you can before you see it clearly. + +THE END. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Miss Prudence, by Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS PRUDENCE *** + +***** This file should be named 10322.txt or 10322.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/2/10322/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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