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diff --git a/11141-h/11141-h.htm b/11141-h/11141-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..922afb1 --- /dev/null +++ b/11141-h/11141-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6748 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta name="generator" content= +"HTML Tidy for Windows (vers 1st February 2004), see www.w3.org"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= +"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> +<meta content="pg2html (binary version 0.12a)" name="generator"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Summer in Leslie +Goldthwaite's Life, by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney.</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + * { font-family: Times; + } + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + font-size: 12pt; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + margin-left: 15% ; + margin-right: 15%; } + + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + PRE { font-family: Courier, monospaced; margin-left: 15%; } + .toc { margin-left: 15%; font-size: 10pt; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. +by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + +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: A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. + +Author: Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney + +Release Date: February 18, 2004 [EBook #11141] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SUMMER *** + + + + +Produced by Janet Kegg and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +</pre> + + +<a name="image-1"><!--IMG--></a> +<center><img src="design.jpg" width="200" height="191" alt= +"Design from Cover. "></center> +<!--IMAGE END--> +<p> </p> +<h1>A SUMMER IN<br> +LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE</h1> +<p> </p> +<center><b>By</b></center> +<h2>Mrs. A. D. T. WHITNEY</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<center><small>1866, 1894</small></center> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<center>TO<br> +THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR FRIEND<br> +<b>MARIA S. CUMMINS</b><br> +OF DAYS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS MADE<br> +BEAUTIFUL BY HER COMPANIONSHIP<br> +I DEDICATE THIS LITTLE STORY</center> +<hr> +<a name="2HPRE1"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>PREFACE TO REAL FOLKS SERIES.</h2> +<p> </p> +<p>"Leslie Goldthwaite" was the first of a series of four, which +grew from this beginning, and was written in 1866 and the years +nearly following; the first two stories—this and "We +Girls"—having been furnished, by request, for the magazine +"Our Young Folks," published at that time with such success by +Messrs. Fields, Osgood & Co., and edited by Mr. Howard M. +Ticknor and Miss Lucy Larcom. The last two volumes—"Real +Folks" and "The Other Girls"—were asked for to complete the +set, and were not delayed by serial publication, but issued at +once, in their order of completion, in book form.</p> +<p>There is a sequence of purpose, character, and incident in the +four stories, of which it is well to remind new readers, upon their +reappearance in fresh editions. They all deal especially with +girl-life and home-life; endeavoring, even in the narration of +experiences outside the home and seeming to preclude its life, to +keep for girlhood and womanhood the true motive and tendency, +through whatever temporary interruption and necessity, of and +toward the best spirit and shaping of womanly work and surrounding; +making the home-life the ideal one, and home itself the centre and +goal of effort and hope.</p> +<p>The writing of "The Other Girls" was interrupted by the Great +Fire of 1872, and the work upon the Women's Relief Committee, which +brought close contact and personal knowledge to reinforce mere +sympathy and theory,—and so, I hope, into this last of the +series, a touch of something that may deepen the influence of them +all to stronger help.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>I wish, without withdrawing or superseding the special +dedication of "Leslie Goldthwaite" to the memory of the dear friend +with whom the weeks were spent in which I gathered material for +Leslie's "Summer," to remember, in this new presentation of the +whole series, that other friend, with whom all the after work in it +was associated and made the first links of a long regard and +fellowship, now lifted up and reaching onward into the hopes and +certainties of the "Land o' the Leal."</p> +<p>I wish to join to my own name in this, the name of Lucy Larcom, +which stands representative of most brave and earnest work, in most +gentle, womanly living.</p> +<p> </p> +<p> ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY.<br> +Milton, 1893.</p> + <br> +<br> +<hr> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> +<center><a href="#2HCH2">CHAPTER I. THE GREEN OF THE +LEAF</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH3">CHAPTER II. WAYSIDE GLIMPSES</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH4">CHAPTER III. EYESTONES</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH5">CHAPTER IV. MARMADUKE WHARNE</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH6">CHAPTER V. HUMMOCKS</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH7">CHAPTER VI. DAKIE THAYNE</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH8">CHAPTER VII. DOWN AT OUTLEDGE</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH9">CHAPTER VIII. SIXTEEN AND +SIXTY</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH10">CHAPTER IX. "I DON'T SEE +WHY"</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH11">CHAPTER X. GEODES</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH12">CHAPTER XI. IN THE PINES</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH13">CHAPTER XII. CROWDED OUT</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH14">CHAPTER XIII. A HOWL</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH15">CHAPTER XIV. "FRIENDS OF +MAMMON"</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH16">CHAPTER XV. QUICKSILVER AND +GOLD</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH17">CHAPTER XVI. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL +US?"</a></center> +<center><a href="#2HCH18">CHAPTER XVII. LEAF-GLORY</a></center> +<p> </p> +<hr> +<p> </p> +<h2>A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE.</h2> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<a name="2HCH2"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<center><big>THE GREEN OF THE LEAF.</big></center> +<p>"Nothing but leaves—leaves—leaves! The green things +don't know enough to do anything better!"</p> +<p>Leslie Goldthwaite said this, standing in the bay-window among +her plants, which had been green and flourishing, but persistently +blossomless, all winter, and now the spring days were come.</p> +<p>Cousin Delight looked up; and her white ruffling, that she was +daintily hemstitching, fell to her lap, as she looked, still with a +certain wide intentness in her eyes, upon the pleasant window, and +the bright, fresh things it framed. Not the least bright and fresh +among them was the human creature in her early girlhood, tender and +pleasant in its beautiful leafage, but waiting, like any other +young and growing life, to prove what sort of flower should come of +it.</p> +<p>"Now you've got one of your 'thoughts,' Cousin Delight! I see it +'biggening,' as Elspie says." Leslie turned round, with her little +green watering-pot suspended in her hand, waiting for the +thought.</p> +<p>To have a thought, and to give it, were nearly simultaneous +things with Cousin Delight; so true, so pure, so unselfish, so made +to give,—like perfume or music, which cannot be, and be +withheld,—were thoughts with her.</p> +<p>I must say a word, before I go further, of Delight Goldthwaite. +I think of her as of quite a young person; you, youthful readers, +would doubtless have declared that she was old,—very old, at +least for a young lady. She was twenty-eight, at this time of which +I write; Leslie, her young cousin, was just "past the half, and +catching up," as she said herself,—being fifteen. Leslie's +mother called Miss Goldthwaite, playfully, "Ladies' Delight;" and, +taking up the idea, half her women friends knew her by this +significant and epigrammatic title. There was something doubly +pertinent in it. She made you think at once of nothing so much as +heart's-ease,—a garden heart's-ease, that flower of many +names; not of the frail, scentless, wild wood-violet,—she had +been cultured to something larger. The violet nature was there, +colored and shaped more richly, and gifted with rare +fragrance—for those whose delicate sense could perceive it. +The very face was a pansy face; with its deep, large, purple-blue +eyes, and golden brows and lashes, the color of her +hair,—pale gold, so pale that careless people who had +perception only for such beauty as can flash upon you from a crowd, +or across a drawing-room, said hastily that she had <i>no</i> brows +or lashes, and that this spoiled her. She was not a beauty, +therefore; nor was she, in any sort, a belle. She never drew around +her the common attention that is paid eagerly to very pretty, +outwardly bewitching girls; and she never seemed to care for this. +At a party, she was as apt as not to sit in a corner; but the quiet +people,—the mothers, looking on, or the girls, waiting for +partners,—getting into that same corner also, found the best +pleasure of their evening there. There was something about her +dress, too, that women appreciated most fully; the delicate +textures, the finishings—and only those—of rare, +exquisite lace, the perfect harmony of the whole unobtrusive +toilet,—women looked at these in wonder at the unerring +instinct of her taste; in wonder, also, that they only with each +other raved about her. Nobody had ever been supposed to be devoted +to her; she had never been reported as "engaged;" there had never +been any of this sort of gossip about her; gentlemen found her, +they said, hard to get acquainted with; she had not much of the +small talk which must usually begin an acquaintance; a +few—her relatives, or her elders, or the husbands of her +intimate married friends—understood and valued her; but it +was her girl friends and women friends who knew her best, and +declared that there was nobody like her; and so came her sobriquet, +and the double pertinence of it.</p> +<p>Especially she was Leslie Goldthwaite's delight. Leslie had no +sisters, and her aunts were old,—far older than her mother; +on her father's side, a broken and scattered family had left few +ties for her; next to her mother, and even closer, in some young +sympathies, she clung to Cousin Delight.</p> +<p>With this diversion, we will go back now to her, and to her +thought.</p> +<p>"I was thinking," she said, with that intent look in her eyes, +"I often think, of how something else was found, once, having +nothing but leaves; and of what came to it."</p> +<p>"I know," answered Leslie, with an evasive quickness, and turned +round with her watering-pot to her plants again.</p> +<p>There was sometimes a bit of waywardness about Leslie +Goldthwaite; there was a fitfulness of frankness and reserve. She +was eager for truth; yet now and then she would thrust it aside. +She said that "nobody liked a nicely pointed moral better than she +did; only she would just as lief it shouldn't be pointed at her." +The fact was, she was in that sensitive state in which many a young +girl finds herself, when she begins to ask and to weigh with +herself the great questions of life, and shrinks shyly from the +open mention of the very thing she longs more fully to +apprehend.</p> +<p>Cousin Delight took no notice; it is perhaps likely that she +understood sufficiently well for that. She turned toward the table +by which she sat, and pulled toward her a heavy Atlas that lay open +at the map of Connecticut. Beside it was Lippincott's +Gazetteer,—open, also.</p> +<p>"Traveling, Leslie?"</p> +<p>"Yes. I've been a charming journey this morning, before you +came. I wonder if I ever <i>shall</i> travel, in reality. I've done +a monstrous deal of it with maps and gazetteers."</p> +<p>"This hasn't been one of the stereotyped tours, it seems."</p> +<p>"Oh, no! What's the use of doing Niagara or the White Mountains, +or even New York and Philadelphia and Washington, on the map? I've +been one of my little by-way trips, round among the villages; +stopping wherever I found one cuddled in between a river and a +hill, or in a little seashore nook. Those are the places, after +all, that I would hunt out, if I had plenty of money to go where I +liked with. It's so pleasant to imagine how the people live there, +and what sort of folks they would be likely to be. It isn't so much +traveling as living round,—awhile in one home, and then in +another. How many different little biding-places there are in the +world! And how queer it is only really to know about one or two of +them!"</p> +<p>"What's this place you're at just now? Winsted?"</p> +<p>"Yes; there's where I've brought up, at the end of that bit of +railroad. It's a bigger place than I fancied, though. I always +steer clear of the names that end in 'ville.' They're sure to be +stupid, money-making towns, all grown up in a minute, with some +common man's name tacked on to them, that happened to build a +saw-mill, or something, first. But Winsted has such a sweet, +little, quiet, English sound. I know it never <i>began</i> with a +mill. They make pins and clocks and tools and machines there now; +and it's 'the largest and most prosperous post-village of +Litchfield County.' But I don't care for the pins and machinery. +It's got a lake alongside of it; and Still River—don't that +sound nice?—runs through; and there are the great hills, big +enough to put on the map, out beyond. I can fancy where the girls +take their sunset walks; and the moonlight parties, boating on the +pond, and the way the woods look, round Still River. Oh, yes! +that's one of the places I mean to go to."</p> +<p>Leslie Goldthwaite lived in one of the inland cities of +Massachusetts. She had grown up and gone to school there, and had +never yet been thirty miles away. Her father was a busy lawyer, +making a handsome living for his family, and laying aside +abundantly for their future provision, but giving himself no +lengthened recreations, and scarcely thinking of them as needful +for the rest.</p> +<p>It was a pleasant, large, brown, wooden house they lived in, on +the corner of two streets; with a great green door-yard about it on +two sides, where chestnut and cherry trees shaded it from the +public way, and flower-beds brightened under the parlor windows and +about the porch. Just greenness and bloom enough to suggest, +always, more; just sweetness and sunshine and bird-song enough, in +the early summer days, to whisper of broad fields and deep woods +where they rioted without stint; and these days always put Leslie +into a certain happy impatience, and set her dreaming and +imagining; and she learned a great deal of her geography in the +fashion that we have hinted at.</p> +<p>Miss Goldthwaite was singularly discursive and fragmentary in +her conversation this morning, somehow. She dropped the +map-traveling suddenly, and asked a new question. "And how comes on +the linen-drawer?"</p> +<p>"O Cousin Del! I'm humiliated,—disgusted! I feel as small +as butterflies' pinfeathers! I've been to see the Haddens. Mrs. +Linceford has just got home from Paris, and brought them wardrobes +to last to remotest posterity! And <i>such</i> things! Such +rufflings, and stitchings, and embroiderings! Why, mine +look—as if they'd been made by the blacksmith!"</p> +<p>The "linen-drawer" was an institution of Mrs. Goldthwaite's; +resultant, partly, from her old-fashioned New England ideas of +womanly industry and thrift,—born and brought up, as she had +been, in a family whose traditions were of house-linen sufficient +for a lifetime spun and woven by girls before their twenty-first +year, and whose inheritance, from mother to daughter, was +invariably of heedfully stored personal and household plenishings, +made of pure material that was worth the laying by, and carefully +bleached and looked to year by year; partly, also, from a certain +theory of wisdom which she had adopted, that when girls were once +old enough to care for and pride themselves on a plentiful outfit, +it was best they should have it as a natural prerogative of +young-ladyhood, rather than that the "trousseau" should come to be, +as she believed it so apt to be, one of the inciting temptations to +heedless matrimony. I have heard of a mother whose passion was for +elegant old lace; and who boasted to her female friends that, when +her little daughter was ten years old, she had her "lace-box," with +the beginning of her hoard in costly contributions from the stores +of herself and of the child's maiden aunts. Mrs. Goldthwaite did a +better and more sensible thing than this; when Leslie was fifteen, +she presented her with pieces of beautiful linen and cotton and +cambric, and bade her begin to make garments which should be in +dozens, to be laid by, in reserve, as she completed them, until she +had a well-filled bureau that should defend her from the necessity +of what she called a "wretched living from hand to +mouth,—always having underclothing to make up, in the midst +of all else that she would find to do and to learn."</p> +<p>Leslie need not have been ashamed, and I don't think in her +heart she was, of the fresh, white, light-lying piles that had +already begun to make promise of filling a drawer, which she drew +out as she answered Cousin Delight's question.</p> +<p>The fine-lined gathers; the tiny dots of stitches that held them +to their delicate bindings; the hems and tucks, true to a thread, +and dotted with the same fairy needle dimples (no machine-work, but +all real, dainty finger-craft); the bits of ruffling peeping out +from the folds, with their edges in almost invisible whip-hems; and +here and there a finishing of lovely, lace-like crochet, done at +odd minutes, and for "visiting work,"—there was something +prettier and more precious, really, in all this than in the +imported fineries which had come, without labor and without +thought, to her friends the Haddens. Besides, there were the +pleasant talks and readings of the winter evenings, all threaded in +and out, and associated indelibly with every seam. There was the +whole of "David Copperfield," and the beginning of "Our Mutual +Friend," ruffled up into the night-dresses; and some of the crochet +was beautiful with the rhymed pathos of "Enoch Arden," and some +with the poetry of the "Wayside Inn;" and there were places where +stitches had had to be picked out and done over, when the eye grew +dim and the hand trembled while the great war news was being +read.</p> +<p>Leslie loved it, and had a pride in it all; it was not, truly +and only, humiliation and disgust at self-comparison with the +Haddens, but some other and unexplained doubt which moved her now, +and which was stirred often by this, or any other of the objects +and circumstances of her life, and which kept her standing there +with her hand upon the bureau-knob, in a sort of absence, while +Cousin Delight looked in, approved, and presently dropped quietly +among the rest, like a bit of money into a contribution-box, the +delicate breadths of linen cambric she had just finished +hemstitching and rolled together.</p> +<p>"Oh, thank you! But, Cousin Delight," said Leslie, shutting the +drawer, and turning short round, suddenly, "I wish you'd just tell +me—what you think—is the sense of that—about the +fig-tree! I suppose it's awfully wicked, but I never could see. Is +everything fig-leaves that isn't out and out fruit, and is it all +to be cursed, and why <i>should</i> there be anything but leaves +when 'the time of figs was not yet'?" After her first hesitation, +she spoke quickly, impetuously, and without pause, as something +that <i>would</i> come out.</p> +<p>"I suppose that has troubled you, as I dare say it has troubled +a great many other people," said Cousin Delight. "It used to be a +puzzle and a trouble to me. But now it seems to me one of the most +beautiful things of all." She paused.</p> +<p>"I can<i>not</i> see how," said Leslie emphatically. "It always +seems to me so—somehow—unreasonable; +and—angry."</p> +<p>She said this in a lower tone, as afraid of the uttered audacity +of her own thought; and she walked off, as she spoke, towards the +window once more, and stood with her back to Miss Goldthwaite, +almost as if she wished to have done, again, with the topic. It was +not easy for Leslie to speak out upon such things; it almost made +her feel cross when she had done it.</p> +<p>"People mistake the true cause and effect, I think," said +Delight Goldthwaite, "and so lose all the wonderful enforcement of +that acted parable. It was not, 'Cursed be the fig-tree because I +have found nothing thereon;' but, 'Let <i>no fruit</i> grow on +thee, henceforward, forever.' It seems to me I can hear the tone of +tender solemnity in which Jesus would say such words; knowing, as +only he knew, all that they meant, and what should come, +inevitably, of such a sentence. 'And presently the fig-tree +withered away.' The life was nothing, any longer, from the moment +when it might not be, what all life is, a reaching forward to the +perfecting of some fruit. There was nothing to come, ever again, of +all its greenness and beauty, and the greenness and beauty, which +were only a form and a promise, ceased to be. It was the way he +took to show his disciples, in a manner they should never forget, +the inexorable condition upon which all life is given, and that the +barren life, so soon as its barrenness is absolutely hopeless, +becomes a literal death."</p> +<p>Leslie stood still, with her back to Miss Goldthwaite, and her +face to the window. Her perplexity was changed, but hardly cleared. +There were many things that crowded into her thoughts, and might +have been spoken; but it was quite impossible for her to speak. +Impossible on this topic, and she certainly could not speak, at +once, on any other.</p> +<p>Many seconds of silence counted themselves between the two. Then +Cousin Delight, feeling an intuition of much that held and hindered +the young girl, spoke again. "Does this make life seem hard?"</p> +<p>"Yes," said Leslie then, with an effort that hoarsened her very +voice, "frightful." And as she spoke, she turned again quickly, as +if to be motionless longer were to invite more talk, and went over +to the other window, where her bird-cage hung, and began to take +down the glasses.</p> +<p>"Like all parables, it is manifold," said Delight gently. "There +is a great hope in it, too."</p> +<p>Leslie was at her basin, now, turning the water faucet, to rinse +and refill the little drinking-vessel. She handled the things +quietly, but she made no pause.</p> +<p>"It shows that, while we see the leaf, we may have hope of the +fruit, in ourselves or in others."</p> +<p>She could not see Leslie's face. If she had, she would have +perceived a quick lifting and lightening upon it; then a +questioning that would not very long be repressed to silence.</p> +<p>The glasses were put in the cage again, and presently Leslie +came back to a little low seat by Miss Goldthwaite's side, which +she had been occupying before all this talk began. "Other people +puzzle me as much as myself," she said. "I think the whole world is +running to leaves, sometimes."</p> +<p>"Some things flower almost invisibly, and hide away their fruit +under thick foliage. It is often only when the winds shake their +leaves down, and strip the branches bare, that we find the best +that has been growing."</p> +<p>"They make a great fuss and flourish with the leaves, though, as +long as they can. And it's who shall grow the broadest and tallest, +and flaunt out, with the most of them. After all, it's natural; and +they <i>are</i> beautiful in themselves. And there's a 'time' for +leaves, too, before the figs."</p> +<p>"Exactly. We have a right to look for the leaves, and to be glad +of them. That is a part of the parable."</p> +<p>"Cousin Delight! Let's talk of real things, and let the parable +alone a minute."</p> +<p>Leslie sprang impulsively to her bureau again, and flung forth +the linen drawer.</p> +<p>"There are my fig-leaves,—some of them; and here are +more." She turned, with a quick movement, to her wardrobe; pulled +out and uncovered a bonnet-box which held a dainty headgear of the +new spring fashion, and then took down from a hook and tossed upon +it a silken garment that fluttered with fresh ribbons. "How much of +this outside business is right, and how much wrong, I should be +glad to know? It all takes time and thoughts; and those are life. +How much life must go into the leaves? That's what puzzles me. I +can't do without the things; and I can't be let to take 'clear +comfort' in them, as grandma says, either." She was on the floor, +now, beside her little fineries; her hands clasped together about +one knee, and her face turned up to Cousin Delight's. She looked as +if she half believed herself to be ill-used.</p> +<p>"And clothes are but the first want,—the primitive +fig-leaves; the world is full of other outside business,—as +much outside as these," pursued Miss Goldthwaite, thoughtfully.</p> +<p>"Everything is outside," said Leslie. "Learning, and behaving, +and going, and doing, and seeing, and hearing, and having. 'It's +all a muddle,' as the poor man says in 'Hard Times.'"</p> +<p>"I don't think I can do without the parable," said Cousin +Delight. "The real inward principle of the tree—that which +corresponds to thought and purpose in the soul—urges always +to the finishing of its life in the fruit. The leaves are only by +the way,—an outgrowth of the same vitality, and a process +toward the end; but never, in any living thing, the end +itself."</p> +<p>"Um," said Leslie, in her nonchalant fashion again; her chin +between her two hands now, and her head making little appreciative +nods. "That's like condensed milk; a great deal in a little of it. +I'll put the fig-leaves away now, and think it over."</p> +<p>But, as she sprang up, and came round behind Miss Goldthwaite's +chair, she stopped and gave her a little kiss on the top of her +head. If Cousin Delight had seen, there was a bright softness in +the eyes, which told of feeling, and of gladness that welcomed the +quick touch of truth.</p> +<p>Miss Goldthwaite knew one good thing,—when she had driven +her nail. "She never hammered in the head with a punch, like a +carpenter," Leslie said of her. She believed that, in moral +tool-craft, that finishing implement belonged properly to the hand +of an after-workman.</p> +<a name="2HCH3"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<center><big>WAYSIDE GLIMPSES.</big></center> +<p>I have mentioned one little theory, relating solely to domestic +thrift, which guided Mrs. Goldthwaite in her arrangements for her +daughter. I believe that, with this exception, she brought up her +family very nearly without any theory whatever. She did it very +much on the taking-for-granted system. She took for granted that +her children were born with the same natural perceptions as +herself; that they could recognize, little by little, as they grew +into it, the principles of the moral world,—reason, right, +propriety,—as they recognized, growing into them, the +conditions of their outward living. She made her own life a +consistent recognition of these, and she lived <i>openly</i> before +them. There was never any course pursued with sole calculation as +to its effect on the children. Family discussion and deliberation +was seldom with closed doors. Questions that came up were +considered as they came; and the young members of the household +perceived as soon as their elders the "reasons why" of most +decisions. They were part and parcel of the whole régime. +They learned politeness by being as politely attended to as +company. They learned to be reasonable by seeing how the +<i>reason</i> compelled father and mother, and not by having their +vision stopped short at the arbitrary fact that father and mother +compelled them. I think, on the whole, the Goldthwaite no-method +turned out as good a method as any. Men have found out lately that +even horses may be guided without reins.</p> +<p>It was characteristic, therefore, that Mrs. +Goldthwaite—receiving one day a confidential note proposing +to her a pleasant plan in behalf of Leslie, and intended to guard +against a premature delight and eagerness, and so perhaps an +ultimate disappointment for that young lady—should instantly, +on reading it, lay it open upon the table before her daughter. +"From Mrs. Linceford," she said, "and concerning you."</p> +<p>Leslie took it up, expecting, possibly, an invitation to tea. +When she saw what it really was, her dark eyes almost blazed with +sudden, joyous excitement.</p> +<p>"Of course, I should be delighted to say yes for you," said Mrs. +Goldthwaite, "but there are things to be considered. I can't tell +how it will strike your father."</p> +<p>"School," suggested Leslie, the light in her eyes quieting a +little.</p> +<p>"Yes, and expense; though I don't think he would refuse on that +score. I should have <i>liked</i>"—Mrs. Goldthwaite's tone +was only half, and very gently, objecting; there was an inflection +of ready self-relinquishment in it, also—"to have had your +<i>first</i> journey with me. But you might have waited a long time +for that."</p> +<p>If Leslie were disappointed in the end, she would have known +that her mother's heart had been with her from the beginning, and +grown people seldom realize how this helps even the merest child to +bear a denial.</p> +<p>"There is only a month now to vacation," said the young +girl.</p> +<p>"What do you think Mr. Waylie would say?"</p> +<p>"I really think," answered Leslie, after a pause, "that he would +say it was better than books."</p> +<p>They sat at their sewing together, after this, without speaking +very much more, at the present time, about it. Mrs. Goldthwaite was +thinking it over in her motherly mind, and in the mind of Leslie +thought and hope and anticipation were dancing a reel with each +other. It is time to tell the reader of the what and why.</p> +<p>Mrs. Linceford, the elder married daughter of the Hadden +family,—many years the elder of her sisters, Jeannie and +Elinor,—was about to take them, under her care, to the +mountains for the summer, and she kindly proposed joining Leslie +Goldthwaite to her charge. "The mountains" in New England means +usually, in common speech, the one royal range of the White +Hills.</p> +<p>You can think what this opportunity was to a young girl full of +fancy, loving to hunt out, even by map and gazetteer, the by-nooks +of travel, and wondering already if she should ever really journey +otherwise. You can think how she waited, trying to believe she +could bear any decision, for the final determination concerning +her.</p> +<p>"If it had been to Newport or Saratoga, I should have said no at +once," said Mr. Goldthwaite. "Mrs. Linceford is a gay, extravagant +woman, and the Haddens' ideas don't precisely suit mine. But the +mountains,—she can't get into much harm there."</p> +<p>"I shouldn't have cared for Newport or the Springs, father, +truly," said Leslie, with a little hopeful flutter of eagerness in +her voice; "but the real mountains,—O father!"</p> +<p>The "O father!" was not without its weight. Also Mr. Waylie, +whom Mr. Goldthwaite called on and consulted, threw his opinion +into the favoring scale, precisely as Leslie had foreseen. He was a +teacher who did not imagine all possible educational advantage to +be shut up within the four walls of his or any other schoolroom. +"She is just the girl to whom it will do great good," he said. +Leslie's last week's lessons were not accomplished the less +satisfactorily for this word of his, and the pleasure it opened to +her.</p> +<p>There came a few busy days of stitching and starching, and +crimping and packing, and then, in the last of June, they would be +off. They were to go on Monday. The Haddens came over on Saturday +afternoon, just as Leslie had nearly put the last things into her +trunk,—a new trunk, quite her own, with her initials in black +paint upon the russet leather at each end. On the bed lay her +pretty balmoral suit, made purposely for mountain wears and just +finished. The young girls got together here, in Leslie's chamber, +of course.</p> +<p>"Oh, how pretty! It's perfectly charming,—the loveliest +balmoral I ever saw in my life!" cried Jeannie Hadden, seizing upon +it instantly as she entered the room. "Why, you'll look like a +hamadryad, all in these wood browns!"</p> +<p>It was an uncommonly pretty striped petticoat, in two +alternating shades of dark and golden brown, with just a hair-line +of black defining their edges; and the border was one broad, soft, +velvety band of black, and a narrower one following it above and +below, easing the contrast and blending the colors. The jacket, or +rather shirt, finished at the waist with a bit of a polka frill, +was a soft flannel, of the bright brown shade, braided with the +darker hue and with black; and two pairs of bright brown raw-silk +stockings, marked transversely with mere thread-lines of black, +completed the mountain outfit.</p> +<p>"Yes; all I want is"—said Leslie, stopping short as she +took up the hat that lay there also,—last summer's hat, a +plain black straw, with a slight brim, and ornamented only with a +round lace veil and two bits of ostrich feather. "But never mind! +It'll do well enough!"</p> +<p>As she laid it down again and ceased speaking, Cousin Delight +came in, straight from Boston, where she had been doing two days' +shopping; and in her hand she carried a parcel in white paper. I +was going to say a round parcel, which it would have been but for +something which ran out in a sharp tangent from one side, and +pushed the wrappings into an odd angle. This she put into Leslie's +hands.</p> +<p>"A fresh—fig-leaf—for you, my dear."</p> +<p>"What <i>does</i> she mean?" cried the Haddens, coming close to +see.</p> +<p>"Only a little Paradise fashion of speech between Cousin Del and +me," said Leslie, coloring a little and laughing, while she began, +somewhat hurriedly, to remove the wrappings.</p> +<p>"What have you done? And how did you come to think?" she +exclaimed, as the thing inclosed appeared: a round brown straw +turban,—not a staring turban, but one of those that slope +with a little graceful downward droop upon the brow,—bound +with a pheasant's breast, the wing shooting out jauntily, in the +tangent I mentioned, over the right ear; all in bright browns, in +lovely harmony with the rest of the hamadryad costume.</p> +<p>"It's no use to begin to thank you, Cousin Del. It's just one of +the things you re always doing, and rejoice in doing." The happy +face was full of loving thanks, plainer than many words. "Only +you're a kind of a <i>sarpent</i> yourself after all, I'm afraid, +with your beguilements. I wonder if you thought of that," whispered +Leslie merrily, while the others oh-oh'd over the gift. "What else +do you think I shall be good for when I get all those on?"</p> +<p>"I'll venture you," said Cousin Delight; and the trifling words +conveyed a real, earnest confidence, the best possible antidote to +the "beguilement."</p> +<p>"One thing is funny," said Jeannie Hadden suddenly, with an +accent of demur. "We're all pheasants. <i>Our</i> new hats are +pheasants, too. I don't know what Augusta will think of such a +covey of us."</p> +<p>"Oh, it's no matter," said Elinor. "This is a golden pheasant, +on brown straw, and ours are purple, on black. Besides, we all +<i>look</i> different enough."</p> +<p>"I suppose it doesn't signify," returned Jeannie; "and if +Augusta thinks it does, she may just give me that black and white +plover of hers I wanted so. I think our complexions <i>are</i> all +pretty well suited."</p> +<p>This was true. The fair hair and deep blue eyes of Elinor were +as pretty under the purple plumage as Jeannie's darker locks and +brilliant bloom; and there was a wonderful bright mingling of color +between the golden pheasant's breast and the gleaming chestnut +waves it crowned, as Leslie took her hat and tried it on.</p> +<p>This was one of the little touches of perfect taste and +adaptation which could sometimes make Leslie Goldthwaite almost +beautiful, and was there ever a girl of fifteen who would not like +to be beautiful if she could? This wish, and the thought and effort +it would induce, were likely to be her great temptation. Passably +pretty girls, who may, with care, make themselves often more than +passable, have far the hardest of it with their consciences about +these things; and Leslie had a conscience, and was reflective for +her age,—and we have seen how questions had begun to trouble +her.</p> +<p>A Sunday between a packing and a journey is a trying day always. +There are the trunks, and it is impossible not to think of the +getting up and getting off to-morrow; and one hates so to take out +fresh sleeves and collars and pocket-handkerchiefs, and to wear +one's nice white skirts. It is a Sunday put off, too probably, with +but odds and ends of thought as well as apparel.</p> +<p>Leslie went to church, of course,—the Goldthwaites were +always regular in this; and she wore her quiet straw bonnet. Mrs. +Goldthwaite had a feeling that hats were rather pert and coquettish +for the sanctuary. Nevertheless they met the Haddens in the porch, +in the glory of their purple pheasant plumes, whereof the long +tail-feathers made great circles in the air as the young heads +turned this way and that, in the excitement of a few snatched words +before they entered.</p> +<p>The organ was playing; and the low, deep, tremulous rumble that +an organ gives sometimes, when it seems to creep under and vibrate +all things with a strange, vital thrill, overswept their trivial +chat and made Leslie almost shiver. "Oh, I wish they wouldn't do +that," she said, turning to go in.</p> +<p>"What?" said Jeannie Hadden, unaware.</p> +<p>"Touch the nerve. The great nerve—of creation."</p> +<p>"What queer things Les' Goldthwaite says sometimes," whispered +Elinor; and they passed the inner door.</p> +<p>The Goldthwaites sat two pews behind the Haddens. Leslie could +not help thinking how elegant Mrs. Linceford was, as she swept in, +in her rich black silk, and real lace shawl, and delicate, costly +bonnet; and the perfectly gloved hand that upheld a bit of +extravagance in Valenciennes lace and cambric made devotion +seem—what? The more graceful and touching in one who had all +this world's luxuries, or—almost a mockery?</p> +<p>The pheasant-plumed hats went decorously down in prayer-time, +but the tail-feathers ran up perker than ever, from the posture; +Leslie saw this, because she had lifted her own head and unclosed +her eyes in a self-indignant honesty, when she found on what her +secret thoughts were running. Were other people so much better than +she? And <i>could</i> they do both things? How much was right in +all this that was outwardly so beguiling, and where did the +"serving Mammon" begin?</p> +<p>Was everything so much intenser and more absorbing with her than +with the Haddens? Why could she not take things as they came, as +these girls did, or seemed to do?—be glad of her pretty +things, her pretty looks even, her coming pleasures, with no +misgivings or self-searchings, and then turn round and say her +prayers properly?</p> +<p>Wasn't beauty put into the world for the sake of beauty? And +wasn't it right to love it, and make much of it, and multiply it? +What were arts and human ingenuities for, and the things given to +work with? All this grave weighing of a great moral question was in +the mind of the young girl of fifteen again this Sunday morning. +Such doubts and balancings begin far earlier, often, than we are +apt to think.</p> +<p>The minister shook hands cordially and respectfully with Mrs. +Linceford after church. He had no hesitation at her stylishness and +fineries. Everybody took everybody else for granted; and it was all +right, Leslie Goldthwaite supposed, except in her own foolish, +unregulated thoughts. Everybody else had done their Sunday duty, +and it was enough; only she had been all wrong and astray, and in +confusion. There was a time for everything, only her times and +thoughts would mix themselves up and interfere. Perhaps she was +very weak-minded, and the only way for her would be to give it all +up, and wear drab, or whatever else might be most unbecoming, and +be fiercely severe, mortifying the flesh. She got over +that—her young nature reacting—as they all walked up +the street together, while the sun shone down smilingly upon the +world in Sunday best, and the flowers were gay in the door-yards, +and Miss Milliken's shop was reverential with the green shutters +before the windows that had been gorgeous yesterday with bright +ribbons and fresh fashions; and there was something thankful in her +feeling of the pleasantness that was about her, and a certainty +that she should only grow morose if she took to resisting it all. +She would be as good as she could, and let the pleasantness and the +prettiness come "by the way." Yes, that was just what Cousin +Delight had said. "All these things shall be added,"—was not +that the Gospel word? So her troubling thought was laid for the +hour; but it should come up again. It was in the "seeking first" +that the question lay. By and by she would go back of the other to +this, and see clearer,—in the light, perhaps, of something +that had been already given her, and which, as she lived on toward +a fuller readiness for it, should be "brought to her +remembrance."</p> +<p>Monday brought the perfection of a traveler's morning. There had +been a shower during the night, and the highways lay cool, moist, +and dark brown between the green of the fields and the +clean-washed, red-brick pavements of the town. There would be no +dust even on the railroad, and the air was an impalpable draught of +delight. To the three young girls, standing there under the station +portico,—for they chose the smell of the morning rather than +the odors of apples and cakes and indescribables which go to make +up the distinctive atmosphere of a railway +waiting-room,—there was but one thing to be done to-day in +the world; one thing for which the sun rose, and wheeled himself +toward that point in the heavens which would make eight o'clock +down below. Of all the ships that might sail this day out of +harbors, or the trains that might steam out of cities across +States, they recked nothing but of this that was to take them +toward the hills. There were unfortunates, doubtless, bound +elsewhere, by peremptory necessity; there were people who were +going nowhere but about their daily work and errands; all these +were simply to be pitied, or wondered at, as to how they could feel +<i>not</i> to be going upon a mountain journey. It is queer to +think, on a last Thursday in November, or on a Fourth of July, of +States where there may not be a Thanksgiving, or of far-off lands +that have no Independence day. It was just as strange, somehow, to +imagine how this day, that was to them the culminating point of so +much happy anticipation, the beginning of so much certain joy, +could be otherwise, and yet be anything to the supernumerary people +who filled up around them the life that centred in just this to +them. Yet in truth it was, to most folks, simply a fair Monday +morning, and an excellent "drying day."</p> +<p>They bounded off along the iron track,—the great steam +pulse throbbed no faster than in time to their bright young +eagerness. It had been a momentous matter to decide upon their +seats, of which there had been opportunity for choice when they +entered the car; at last they had been happily settled, face to +face, by the good-natured removal of a couple of young farmers, who +saw that the four ladies wished to be seated together. Their +hand-bags were hung up, their rolls of shawls disposed beneath +their feet, and Mrs. Linceford had taken out her novel. The Haddens +had each a book also in her bag, to be perfectly according to rule +in their equipment; but they were not old travelers enough to care +to begin upon them yet. As to Leslie Goldthwaite, <i>her</i> book +lay ready open before her, for long, contented reading, in two +chapters, both visible at once—the broad, open country, with +its shifting pictures and suggestions of life and pleasantness; and +the carriage interior, with its dissimilar human freight, and its +yet more varied hints of history and character and purpose.</p> +<p>She made a story in her own mind, half unconsciously, of every +one about her. Of the pretty girl alone, with no elaborate +traveling arrangements, going only, it was evident, from one +way-station to another, perhaps to spend a summer day with a +friend. Of the stout old country grandmamma, with a basket full of +doughnuts and early apples, that made a spiciness and orchard +fragrance all about her, and that she surely never meant to eat +herself, seeing, first, that she had not a tooth in her head, and +also that she made repeated anxious requests of the conductor, +catching him by the coat-skirts as he passed, to "let her know in +season when they began to get into Bartley;" who asked, +confidentially, of her next neighbor, a well-dressed elderly +gentleman, if "he didn't think it was about as cheap comin' by the +cars as it would ha' ben to hire a passage any other way?" and +innocently endured the smile that her query called forth on half a +dozen faces about her. The gentleman, <i>without</i> a smile, +courteously lowered his newspaper to reply that "he always thought +it better to avail one's self of established conveniences rather +than to waste time in independent contrivances;" and the old lady +sat back,—as far back as she dared, considering her momentary +apprehension of Bartley,—quite happily complacent in the +confirmation of her own wisdom.</p> +<p>There was a trig, not to say prim, spinster, without a vestige +of comeliness in her face, save the comeliness of a clear, clean, +energetic expression,—such as a new broom or a bright +tea-kettle might have, suggesting capacity for house thrift and +hearth comfort,—who wore a gray straw bonnet, clean and neat +as if it had not lasted for six years at least, which its fashion +evidenced, and which, having a bright green tuft of artificial +grass stuck arbitrarily upon its brim by way of modern adornment, +put Leslie mischievously in mind of a roof so old that blades had +sprouted in the eaves. She was glad afterwards that she had not +spoken her mischief.</p> +<p>What made life beautiful to all these people? These farmers, who +put on at daybreak their coarse homespun, for long hours of rough +labor? These homely, home-bred women, who knew nothing of graceful +fashions; who had always too much to do to think of elegance in +doing? Perhaps that was just it; they had always something to do, +something outside of themselves,—in their honest, earnest +lives there was little to tempt them to a frivolous +self-engrossment. Leslie touched close upon the very help and +solution she wanted, as she thought these thoughts.</p> +<p>Opposite to her there sat a poor man, to whom there had happened +a great misfortune. One eye was lost, and the cheek was drawn and +marked by some great scar of wound or burn. One half his face was a +fearful blot. How did people bear such things as these,—to go +through the world knowing that it could never be pleasant to any +human being to look upon them? that an instinct of pity and +courtesy would even turn every casual glance away? There was a +strange, sorrowful pleading in the one expressive side of the man's +countenance, and a singularly untoward incident presently called it +forth, and made it almost ludicrously pitiful. A bustling fellow +entered at a way-station, his arms full of a great frame that he +carried. As he blundered along the passage, looking for a seat, a +jolt of the car, in starting, pitched him suddenly into the vacant +place beside this man; and the open expanse of the large +looking-glass—for it was that which the frame held—was +fairly smitten, like an insult of fate, into the very face of the +unfortunate.</p> +<p>"Beg pardon," the new comer said, in an off-hand way, as he +settled himself, holding the glass full before the other while he +righted it; and then, for the first time, giving a quick glance +toward him. The astonishment, the intuitive repulsion, the +consciousness of what he had done, betokened by the instant look of +the one man, and the helpless, mute "How could you?" that seemed +spoken in the strange, uprolled, one-sided expression of the +other,—these involuntarily-met regards made a brief +concurrence at once sad and irresistibly funny, as so many things +in this strange life are.</p> +<p>The man of the mirror inclined his burden quietly the other way; +and now it reflected the bright faces opposite, under the pheasant +plumes. Was it any delight to Leslie to see her own face so? What +was the use of being—what right had she to wish to +be—pretty and pleasant to look at, when there were such utter +lifelong loss and disfigurement in the world for others? Why should +it not as well happen to her? And how did the world seem to such a +person, and where was the <i>worth while</i> of it? This was the +question which lingered last in her mind, and to which all else +reverted. <i>To be able to bear</i>—perhaps this was it; and +this was greater, indeed, than any outer grace.</p> +<p>Such as these were the wayside meanings that came to Leslie +Goldthwaite that morning in the first few hours of her journey. +Meanwhile, Jeannie and Elinor Hadden had begun to be tired; and +Mrs. Linceford, not much entertained with her novel, held it half +closed over her finger, drew her brown veil closely, and sat with +her eyes shut, compensating herself with a doze for her early +rising. Had the same things come to these? Not precisely; something +else, perhaps. In all things, one is still taken and another left. +I can only follow, minutely, one.</p> +<a name="2HCH4"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<center><big>EYESTONES.</big></center> +<p>The road left the flat farming country now, and turned +northward, up the beautiful river valley. There was plenty to enjoy +outside; and it was growing more and more lovely with almost every +mile. They left the great towns gradually behind; each succeeding +one seemed more simply rural. Young girls were gathered on the +platforms at the little stations where they stopped sometimes; it +was the grand excitement of the place,—the coming of the +train,—and to these village lasses was what the piazzas or +the springs are to gay dwellers at Saratoga.</p> +<p>By dinner-time they steamed up to the stately back staircase of +the "Pemigewasset." In the little parlor where they smoothed their +hair and rested a moment before going to the dining-hall, they met +again the lady of the grass-grown bonnet. She took this off, making +herself comfortable, in her primitive fashion, for dinner; and then +Leslie noticed how little it was from any poverty of nature that +the fair and abundant hair, at least, had not been made use of to +take down the severe primness of her outward style. It did take it +down in spite of all, the moment the gray straw was removed. The +great round coil behind was all real and <i>solid</i>, though it +was wound about with no thought save of security, and fastened with +a buffalo-horn comb. Hair was a matter of course; the thing was, to +keep it out of the way; that was what the fashion of this head +expressed, and nothing more. Where it was tucked over the small +ears,—and native refinement or the other thing shows very +plainly in the ears,—it lay full, and shaped into a soft +curve. She was only plain, not ugly, after all; and they are very +different things,—there being a beauty of plainness in men +and women, as there is in a rich fabric, sometimes.</p> +<p>While Leslie was noticing these things, Elinor Hadden stood by a +window with her back to the others. She did not complain at first; +one doesn't like to allow, at once, that the toothache, or a +mischance like this that had happened to her, is an established +fact,—one is in for it the moment one does that. But she had +got a cinder in her eye; and though she had winked, and stared, and +rolled her eyelid under, and tried all the approved and instinctive +means, it seemed persistent; and she was forced at last, just as +her party was going in to dinner, to acknowledge that this +traveler's misery had befallen her, and to make up her mind to the +pain and wretchedness and ugliness of it for hours, if not even for +days. Her face was quite disfigured already; the afflicted eye was +bloodshot, and the whole cheek was red with tears and rubbing; she +could only follow blindly along, her handkerchief up, and, half +groping into the seat offered her, begin comfortlessly to help +herself to some soup with her left hand. There was leaning across +to inquire and pity; there were half a dozen things suggested, to +which she could only reply, forlornly and impatiently, "I've tried +it." None of them could eat much, or with any satisfaction; this +atom in the wrong place set everything wrong all at once with four +people who, till now, had been so cheery.</p> +<p>The spinster lady was seated at some little distance down, on +the opposite side. She began to send quick, interested glances over +at them; to make little half-starts toward them, as if she would +speak; and at last, leaving her own dinner unfinished, she suddenly +pushed back her chair, got up, and came round. She touched Elinor +Hadden on the shoulder, without the least ado of ceremony. "Come +out here with me," she said. "I can set you right in half a +minute;" and, confident of being followed, moved off briskly out of +the long hall.</p> +<p>Elinor gave a one-sided, questioning glance at her sisters +before she complied, reminding Leslie comically of the poor, +one-eyed man in the cars; and presently, with a little hesitation, +Mrs. Linceford and Jeannie compromised the matter by rising +themselves and accompanying Elinor from the room. Leslie, of +course, went also.</p> +<p>The lady had her gray bonnet on when they got back to the little +parlor; there is no time to lose in mere waiting for anything at a +railway dining-place; and she had her bag—a veritable, +old-fashioned, home-made carpet thing—open on a chair before +her, and in her hand a long, knit purse with steel beads and rings. +Out of this she took a twisted bit of paper, and from the paper a +minute something which she popped between her lips as she replaced +the other things. Then she just beckoned, hastily, to Elinor.</p> +<p>"It's only an eyestone; did you ever have one in? Well, you +needn't be afraid of it; I've had 'em in hundreds of times. You +wouldn't know 't was there, and it'll just ease all the worry; and +by and by it'll drop out of itself, cinder and all. They're +terribly teasing things, cinders; and somebody's always sure to get +one. I always keep three eyestones in my purse. You needn't mind my +not having it back; I've got a little glass bottle full at home, +and it's wonderful the sight of comfort they've been to folks."</p> +<p>Elinor shrunk; Mrs. Linceford showed a little high-bred demur +about accepting the offered aid of their unknown traveling +companion; but the good woman comprehended nothing of this, and +went on insisting.</p> +<p>"You'd better let me put it in right off; it's only just to drop +it under the eyelid, and it'll work round till it finds the speck. +But you can take it and put it in yourself, when you've made up +your mind, if you'd rather." With which she darted her head quickly +from side to side, looking about the room, and, spying a scrap of +paper on a table, had the eyestone twisted in it in an instant, and +pressed it into Elinor's hand. "You'll be glad enough of it, yet," +said she, and then took up her bag, and moved quickly off among the +other passengers descending to the train.</p> +<p>"What a funny woman, to be always carrying eyestones about, and +putting them in people's eyes!" said Jeannie.</p> +<p>"It was quite kind of her, I'm sure," said Mrs. Linceford, with +a mingling in her tone of acknowledgment and of polite tolerance +for a great liberty. When elegant people break their necks or their +limbs, common ones may approach and assist; as, when a house takes +fire, persons get in who never did before; and perhaps a suffering +eye may come into the catalogue of misfortunes sufficient to +equalize differences for the time being. But it <i>is</i> queer for +a woman to make free to go without her own dinner to offer help to +a stranger in pain. Not many people, in any sense of the word, go +about provided with eyestones against the chance cinders that may +worry others. Something in this touched Leslie Goldthwaite with a +curious sense of a beauty in living that was not external.</p> +<p>If it had not been for Elinor's mishap and inability to enjoy, +it would have been pure delight from the very beginning, this +afternoon's ride. They had their seats upon the "mountain side," +where the view of the thronging hills was like an ever-moving +panorama; as, winding their way farther and farther up into the +heart of the wild and beautiful region, the horizon seemed +continually to fill with always vaster shapes, that lifted +themselves, or emerged, over and from behind each other, like +mustering clans of giants, bestirred and curious, because of the +invasion among their fastnesses of this sprite of steam.</p> +<p>"Where you can come down, I can go up," it seemed to fizz, in +its strong, exulting whisper, to the river; passing it always, yet +never getting by; tracking, step by step, the great stream backward +toward its small beginnings.</p> +<p>"See, there are real blue peaks!" cried Leslie joyously, +pointing away to the north and east where the outlines lay faint +and lovely in the far distance.</p> +<p>"Oh, I wish I could see! I'm losing it all!" said Elinor, +plaintively and blindfold.</p> +<p>"Why don't you try the eyestone?" said Jeannie.</p> +<p>But Elinor shrunk, even yet, from deliberately putting that +great thing in her eye, agonized already by the presence of a +mote.</p> +<p>There came a touch on her shoulder, as before. The good woman of +the gray bonnet had come forward from her seat farther down the +car.</p> +<p>"I'm going to stop presently," she said, "at East Haverhill; and +I <i>should</i> feel more satisfied in my mind if you'd just let me +see you easy before I go. Besides, if you don't do something quick, +the cinder will get so bedded in, and make such an inflammation, +that a dozen eyestones wouldn't draw it out."</p> +<p>At this terror, poor Elinor yielded, in a negative sort of way. +She ceased to make resistance when her unknown friend, taking the +little twist of paper from the hand still fast closed over it with +the half-conscious grasp of pain, dexterously unrolled it, and +produced the wonderful chalky morsel.</p> +<p>"Now, 'let's see, says the blind man;'" and she drew down hand +and handkerchief with determined yet gentle touch. "Wet it in your +own mouth,"—and the eyestone was between Elinor's lips before +she could refuse or be aware. Then one thumb and finger was held to +take it again, while the other made a sudden pinch at the lower +eyelid, and, drawing it at the outer corner before it could so much +as quiver away again, the little white stone was slid safely +under.</p> +<p>"Now 'wink as much as you please,' as the man said that took an +awful-looking daguerreotype of me once. Good-by. Here's where I get +out. And there they all are to meet me." And then, the cars +stopping, she made her way, with her carpet-bag and parasol and a +great newspaper bundle, gathered up hurriedly from goodness knows +where, along the passage, and out upon the platform.</p> +<p>"Why, it's the strangest thing! I don't feel it in the least! Do +you suppose it ever <i>will</i> come out again, Augusta?" cried +Elinor, in a tone greatly altered from any in which she had spoken +for two hours.</p> +<p>"Of course it will," cried "Gray-bonnet" from beneath the +window. "Don't be under the least mite of concern about anything +but looking out for it when it does, to keep it against next +time."</p> +<p>Leslie saw the plain, kindly woman surrounded in a minute by +half a dozen eager young welcomers and claimants, and a whole +history came out in the unreserved exclamations of the few instants +for which the train delayed.</p> +<p>"Oh, it's <i>such</i> a blessing you've come! I don't know as +Emma Jane would have been married at all if you hadn't!"</p> +<p>"We warn't sure you'd get the letter."</p> +<p>"Or as Aunt Nisby would spare you."</p> +<p>"'Life wanted to come over on his crutches. He's just got his +new ones, and he gets about first-rate. But we wouldn't let him +beat himself out for to-morrow."</p> +<p>"How is 'Life?"</p> +<p>"Hearty as would anyway be consistent—with one-leggedness. +He'd never 'a' got back, we all know, if you hadn't gone after +him." It was a young man's voice that spoke these last sentences, +and it grew tender at the end.</p> +<p>"You're to trim the cake," began one of the young girls again, +crowding up. "She says nobody else can. Nobody else <i>ever</i> +can. And"—with a little more mystery—"there's the veil +to fix. She says you're used to wedd'n's and know about veils; and +you was down to Lawrence at Lorany's. And she wants things in +<i>real style</i>. She's dreadful <i>pudjicky</i>, Emma Jane is; +she won't have anything without it's exactly right."</p> +<p>The plain face was full of beaming sympathy and readiness. The +stiff-looking spinster woman, with the "grass in the eaves of her +bonnet,"—grass grown, also, over many an old hope in her own +life, may be,—was here in the midst of young joy and busy +interest, making them all her own; had come on purpose, looked for +and hailed as the one without whom nothing could ever be +done,—more tenderly yet, as one but for whom some brave life +and brother love would have gone down. In the midst of it all she +had had ear and answer, to the very last, for the stranger she had +comforted on her way. What difference did it make whether she wore +an old bonnet with green grass in it, or a round hat with a gay +feather? whether she were fifteen or forty-five, but for the good +she had had time to do? whether Lorany's wedding down at Lawrence +had been really a stylish festival or no? There was a beauty here +which verily shone out through all; and such a life should have no +time to be tempted.</p> +<p>The engine panted, and the train sped on. She never met her +fellow-traveler again, but these things Leslie Goldthwaite had +learned from her,—these things she laid by silently in her +heart. And the woman in the gray bonnet never knew the half that +she had done.</p> +<p>After taking one through wildernesses of beauty, after whirling +one past nooks where one could gladly linger whole summers, it is +strange at what commonplace and graceless termini these railroads +contrive to land one. Lovely Wells River, where the road makes its +sharp angle, and runs back again until it strikes out eastward +through the valley of the Ammonoosuc; where the waters leap to each +other, and the hills bend round in majestic greeting; where our +young party cried out, in an ignorance at once blessed and +pathetic, "Oh, if Littleton should only be like this, or if we +could stop here!"—yet where one cannot stop, because here +there is no regular stage connection, and nothing else to be found, +very probably, that travelers might want, save the outdoor +glory,—Wells River and Woodsville were left behind, lying in +the evening stillness of June,—in the grand and beautiful +disregard of things greater than the world is rushing by to +seek,—and for an hour more they threaded through fair valley +sweeps and reaches, past solitary hillside clearings and detached +farms and the most primitive of mountain hamlets, where the limit +and sparseness of neighborhood drew forth from a gentleman sitting +behind them—come, doubtless, from some suburban home, where +numberless household wants kept horse and wagon perpetually on the +way for city or village—the suggestive query, "I wonder what +they do here when they're out of saleratus?"</p> +<p>They brought them up, as against a dead wall of dreariness and +disappointment, at the Littleton station. It had been managed as it +always is: the train had turned most ingeniously into a corner +whence there was scarcely an outlook upon anything of all the +magnificence that must yet be lying close about them; and here was +only a tolerably well-populated country town, filled up to just the +point that excludes the picturesque and does not attain to the +highly civilized. And into the heart of this they were to be borne, +and to be shut up there this summer night, with the full moon +flooding mountain and river, and the woods whispering up their +peace to heaven.</p> +<p>It was bad enough, but worse came. The hotel coach was waiting, +and they hastened to secure their seats, giving their checks to the +driver, who disappeared with a handful of these and others, leaving +his horses with the reins tied to the dash-board, and a boy ten +years old upon the box.</p> +<p>There were heads out anxiously at either side, between concern +for safety of body and of property. Mrs. Linceford looked uneasily +toward the confused group upon the platform, from among whom +luggage began to be drawn out in a fashion regardless of covers and +corners. The large russet trunk with the black "H,"—the two +linen-cased ones with "Hadden" in full;—the two square +bonnet-boxes,—these, one by one, were dragged and whirled +toward the vehicle and jerked upon the rack; but the "ark," as they +called Mrs. Linceford's huge light French box, and the one precious +receptacle that held all Leslie's pretty outfit, where were +these?</p> +<p>"Those are not all, driver! There is a high black French trunk, +and a russet leather one."</p> +<p>"Got all you give me checks for,—seb'm pieces;" and he +pointed to two strange articles of luggage waiting their turn to be +lifted up,—a long, old-fashioned gray hair trunk, with +letters in brass nails upon the lid, and as antiquated a +carpet-bag, strapped and padlocked across the mouth, suggestive in +size and fashion of the United States mail.</p> +<p>"Never saw them before in my life! There's some dreadful +mistake! What <i>can</i> have become of ours?"</p> +<p>"Can't say, ma'am, I'm sure. Don't often happen. But them was +your checks."</p> +<p>Mrs. Linceford leaned back for an instant in a breathless +despair. "I must get out and see."</p> +<p>"If you please, ma'am. But 't ain't no use. The things is all +cleared off." Then, stooping to examine the trunk, and turning over +the bag, "Queer, too. These things is chalked all right for +Littleton. Must ha' been a mistake with the checks, and somebody +changed their minds on the way,—Plymouth, most +likely,—and stopped with the wrong baggage. Wouldn't worry, +ma'am; it's as bad for one as for t' other, anyhow, and they'll be +along to-morrow, no kind o' doubt. Strays allers turns up on this +here road. No danger about that. I'll see to havin' these 'ere +stowed away in the baggage-room." And shouldering the bag, he +seized the trunk by the handle and hauled it along over the rough +embankment and up the steps, flaying one side as he went.</p> +<p>"But, dear me! what am I to do?" said Mrs. Linceford piteously. +"Everything in it that I want to-night,—my dressing-box and +my wrappers and my air-cushion; they'll be sure not to have any +bolsters on the beds, and only one feather in each corner of the +pillows!"</p> +<p>But this was only the first surprise of annoyance. She +recollected herself on the instant, and leaned back again, saying +nothing more. She had no idea of amusing her unknown stage +companions at any length with her fine-lady miseries. Only, just +before they reached the hotel, she added low to Jeannie, out of the +unbroken train of her own private lamentation, "And my +rose-glycerine! After all this dust and heat! I feel parched to a +mummy, and I shall be an object to behold!"</p> +<p>Leslie sat upon her right hand. She leaned closer, and said +quickly, glad of the little power to comfort, "I have some +rose-glycerine here in my bag."</p> +<p>Mrs. Linceford looked round at her; her face was really bright. +As if she had not lost her one trunk also! "You are a phoenix of a +traveling companion, you young thing!" the lady thought, and felt +suddenly ashamed of her own unwonted discomfiture.</p> +<p>Half an hour afterward Leslie Goldthwaite flitted across the +passage between the two rooms they had secured for their party, +with a bottle in her hand and a pair of pillows over her arm. "Ours +is a double-bedded room, too, Mrs. Linceford, and neither Elinor +nor I care for more than one pillow. And here is the +rose-glycerine."</p> +<p>These essential comforts, and the instinct of good-breeding, +brought the grace and the smile back fully to Mrs. Linceford's +face. More than that, she felt a gratefulness, and the contagion +and emulation of cheerful patience under a common misfortune. She +bent over and kissed Leslie as she took the bottle from her hand. +"You're a dear little sunbeam," she said. "We'll send an imperative +message down the line, and have all our own traps again +to-morrow."</p> +<p>The collar that Elinor Hadden had lent Leslie was not very +becoming, the sleeves had enormous wristbands, and were made for +double sleeve-buttons, while her own were single; moreover, the +brown silk net, which she had supposed thoroughly trustworthy, had +given way all at once into a great hole under the waterfall, and +the soft hair would fret itself through and threaten to stray +untidily.</p> +<p>She had two such pretty nets in reserve in her missing trunk, +and she did hate so to be in any way coming to pieces! Yet there +was somehow a feeling that repaid it all, and even quieted the real +anxiety as to the final "turning up" of their fugitive +property,—not a mere self-complacence, hardly a +self-complacence at all, but a half-surprised gladness, that had +something thankful in it. If she might not be all leaves, perhaps, +after all! If she really could, even in some slight thing, care +most for the life and spirit underneath, to keep this sweet and +pleasant, and the fruit of it a daily good, and not a bitterness; +if she could begin by holding herself undisturbed, though obliged +to wear a collar that stood up behind and turned over in front with +those lappet corners she had always thought so ugly,—yes, +even though the waterfall should leak out and ripple over +stubbornly,—though these things must go on for twenty-four +hours at least, and these twenty-four hours be spent unwillingly in +a dull country tavern, where the windows looked out from one side +into a village street, and from the other into stable and clothes +yards! There would be something for her to do: to keep bright and +help to keep the others bright. There was a hope in it; the life +was more than raiment; it was better worth while than to have only +got on the nice round collar and dainty cuffs that fitted and +suited her, or even the little bead net that came over in a Marie +Stuart point so prettily between the small crimped puffs of her +hair.</p> +<p>A little matter, nothing to be self-applauding about,—only +a straw; but—if it showed the possible way of the wind, the +motive power that might be courted to set through her life, taking +her out of the trade-currents of vanity? Might she have it in her, +after all? Might she even be able to come, if need be, to the +strength of mind for wearing an old gray straw bonnet, and bearing +to be forty years old, and helping to adorn the young and beautiful +for looks that never—just so—should be bent again on +her?</p> +<p>Leslie Goldthwaite had read of martyr and hero sufferance all +her life, as she had looked upon her poor one-eyed fellow-traveler +to-day; the pang of sympathy had always been: "These things have +been borne, are being borne, in the world; how much of the least of +them could I endure,—I, looking for even the little things of +life to be made smooth?" It depended, she began faintly and afar +off to see, upon where the true life lay; how far behind the mere +outer covering vitality withdrew itself.</p> +<a name="2HCH5"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<center><big>MARMADUKE WHARNE.</big></center> +<p>Up—up—up,—from glory to glory!</p> +<p>This was what it seemed to Leslie Goldthwaite, riding, that +golden June morning, over the road that threaded along, always +climbing, the chain of hills that <i>could</i> be climbed, into the +nearer and nearer presence of those mountain majesties, penetrating +farther and father into the grand solitudes sentineled forever by +their inaccessible pride.</p> +<p>Mrs. Linceford had grown impatient; she had declared it +impossible, when the splendid sunshine of that next day challenged +them forth out of their dull sojourn, to remain there twenty-four +hours longer, waiting for anything. Trunks or none, she would go +on, and wait at Jefferson, at least, where there was something to +console one. All possible precaution was taken; all possible +promises were made; the luggage should be sent on next +day,—perhaps that very night; wagons were going and returning +often now; there would be no further trouble, they might rest +assured. The hotel-keeper had a "capital team,"—his very +best,—at their instant service, if they chose to go on this +morning; it could be at the door in twenty minutes. So it was +chartered, and ordered round,—an open mountain wagon, with +four horses; their remaining luggage was secured upon it, and they +themselves took their seats gayly.</p> +<p>"Who cares for trunks or boxes now?" Leslie cried out in +joyousness, catching the first, preparatory glimpse of grandeur, +when their road, that wound for a time through the low, wet +valley-lands, began to ascend a rugged hillside, whence opened +vistas that hinted something of the glory that was to come. All the +morning long, there wheeled about them, and smiled out in the +sunshine, or changed to grave, grand reticence under the +cloud-shadows, those shapes of might and beauty that filled up +earth and heaven.</p> +<p>Leslie grew silent, with the hours of over-full delight. +Thoughts thronged in upon her. All that had been deepest and +strongest in the little of life that she had lived wakened and +lifted again in such transcendent presence. Only the high places of +spirit can answer to these high places of God in his creation.</p> +<p>Now and then, Jeannie and Elinor fell into their chatter, about +their summer plans, and pleasures, and dress; about New York, and +the new house Mrs. Linceford had taken in West Twenty-ninth Street, +where they were to visit her next winter, and participate for the +first time, under her matronizing, in city gayeties. Leslie +wondered how they could; she only answered when appealed to; she +felt as if people were jogging her elbow, and whispering +distractions, in the midst of some noble eloquence.</p> +<p>The woods had a word for her; a question, and their own sweet +answer of help. The fair June leafage was out in its young glory of +vivid green; it reminded her of her talk with Cousin Delight.</p> +<p>"We <i>do</i> love leaves for their own sake; trees, and vines, +and the very green grass, even." So she said to herself, asking +still for the perfect parable that should solve and teach all.</p> +<p>It came, with the breath of wild grape vines, hidden somewhere +in the wayside thickets. "Under the leaf lies our tiny green +blossom," it said; "and its perfume is out on the air. Folded in +the grass-blade is a feathery bloom, of seed or grain; and by and +by the fields will be all waving with it. Be sure that the blossom +is under the leaf."</p> +<p>Elinor Hadden's sweet child-face, always gentle and +good-humored, though visited little yet with the deep touch of +earnest thought,—smiling upon life as life smiled upon +her,—looked lovelier to Leslie as this whisper made itself +heard in her heart; and it was with a sweeter patience and a more +believing kindliness that she answered, and tried to enter into, +her next merry words.</p> +<p>There was something different about Jeannie. She was older; +there was a kind of hard determination sometimes with her, in +turning from suggestions of graver things; the +child-unconsciousness was no longer there; something restless, now +and then defiant, had taken its place; she had caught a sound of +the deeper voices, but her soul would not yet turn to listen. She +felt the blossom of life yearning under the leaf; but she bent the +green beauty heedfully above it, and made believe it was not +there.</p> +<p>Looking into herself and about her with asking eyes, Leslie had +learned something already by which she apprehended these things of +others. Heretofore, her two friends had seemed to her +alike,—able, both of them, to take life innocently and +carelessly as it came; she began now to feel a difference.</p> +<p>Her eyes were bent away off toward the Franconia hills, when +Mrs. Linceford leaned round to look in them, and spoke, in the tone +her voice had begun to take toward her. She felt one of her strong +likings—her immense fancies, as she called them, which were +really warm sympathies of the best of her with the best she found +in the world—for Leslie Goldthwaite.</p> +<p>"It seems to me you are a <i>stray</i> sunbeam this morning," +she said, in her winning way. "What kind of thoughts are going out +so far? What is it all about?"</p> +<p>A verse of the Psalms was ringing itself in Leslie's mind; had +been there, under all the other vague musings and chance +suggestions for many minutes of her silence. But she would not have +spoken it—she <i>could</i> not—for all the world. She +gave the lady one of the chance suggestions instead. "I have been +looking down into that lovely hollow; it seems like a children's +party, with all the grave, grown folks looking on."</p> +<p>"Childhood and grown-up-hood; not a bad simile."</p> +<p>It was not, indeed. It was a wild basin, within a group of the +lesser hills close by; full of little feathery birches, that +twinkled and played in the light breeze and gorgeous sunshine +slanting in upon them between the slopes that lay in shadow +above,—slopes clothed with ranks of dark pines and cedars and +hemlocks, looking down seriously, yet with a sort of protecting +tenderness, upon the shimmer and frolic they seemed to have climbed +up out of. Those which stood in the half way shadow were gravest. +Hoar old stems upon the very tops were touched with the self-same +glory that lavished itself below. This also was no less a true +similitude.</p> +<p>"Know ye not this parable?" the Master said. "How then shall ye +know all parables?" Verily, they lie about us by the wayside, and +the whole earth is vocal with the wisdom of the Lord.</p> +<p>I cannot go with our party step by step; I have a summer to +spend with them. They came to Jefferson at noon, and sat themselves +down in the solemn high court and council of the mountain kings. +First, they must have rooms. In the very face of majesty they must +settle their traps.</p> +<p>"You are lucky in coming in for one vacancy, made to-day," the +proprietor said, throwing open a door that showed them a commodious +second-floor corner-room, looking each way with broad windows upon +the circle of glory, from Adams to Lafayette. A wide balcony ran +along the southern side against the window which gave that aspect. +There were two beds here, and two at least of the party must be +content to occupy. Mrs. Linceford, of course; and it was settled +that Jeannie should share it with her.</p> +<p>Upstairs, again, was choice of two rooms,—one flight, or +two. But the first looked out westward, where was comparatively +little of what they had come for. Higher up, they could have the +same outlook that the others had; a slanting ceiling opened with +dormer window full upon the grandeur of Washington, and a second +faced southward to where beautiful blue, dreamy Lafayette lay soft +against the tender heaven.</p> +<p>"Oh, let us have this!" said Leslie eagerly. "We don't mind +stairs." And so it was settled.</p> +<p>"Only two days here?" they began to say, when they gathered in +Mrs. Linceford's room at nearly tea-time, after a rest and +freshening of their toilets.</p> +<p>"We might stay longer," Mrs. Linceford answered. "But the rooms +are taken for us at Outledge, and one can't settle and unpack, when +it's only a lingering from day to day. All there is here one sees +from the windows. A great deal, to be sure; but it's all there at +the first glance. We'll see how we feel on Friday."</p> +<p>"The Thoresbys are here, Augusta. I saw Ginevra on the balcony +just now. They seem to have a large party with them. And I'm sure I +heard them talk of a hop to-night. If your trunks would only +come!"</p> +<p>"They could not in time. They can only come in the train that +reaches Littleton at six."</p> +<p>"But you'll go in, won't you? 'T isn't likely they dress much +here,—though Ginevra Thoresby always dresses. Elinor and I +could just put on our blue grenadines, and you've got plenty of +things in your other boxes. One of your shawls is all you want, and +we can lend Leslie something."</p> +<p>"I've only my thick traveling boots," said Leslie; "and I +shouldn't feel fit without a thorough dressing. It won't matter the +first night, will it?"</p> +<p>"Leslie Goldthwaite, you're getting slow! Augusta!"</p> +<p>"As true as I live, there is old Marmaduke Wharne!"</p> +<p>"Let Augusta alone for not noticing a question till she chooses +to answer it," said Jeannie Hadden, laughing. "And who, pray, is +Marmaduke Wharne? With a name like that, if you didn't say 'old,' I +should make up my mind to a real hero, right out of a book."</p> +<p>"He's an original. And—yes—he is a +hero,—<i>out</i> of a book, too, in his way. I met him at +Catskill last summer. He stayed there the whole season, till they +shut the house up and drove him down the mountain. Other people +came and went, took a look, and ran away; but he was a fixture. He +says he always does so,—goes off somewhere and 'finds an +Ararat,' and there drifts up and sticks fast. In the winter he's in +New York; but that's a needle in a haystack. I never heard of him +till I found him at Catskill. He's an English-man, and they say had +more to his name once. It was Wharne<i>cliffe</i>, or +Wharne<i>leigh</i>, or something, and there's a baronetcy in the +family. I don't doubt, myself, that it's his, and that a part of +his oddity has been to drop it. He was a poor preacher, years ago; +and then, of a sudden, he went out to England, and came back with +plenty of money, and since then he's been an apostle and missionary +among the poor. That's his winter work; the summers, as I said, he +spends in the hills. Most people are half afraid of him; for he's +one you'll get the blunt truth from, if you never got it before. +But come, there's the gong,—ugh! how they batter it! and we +must get through tea and out upon the balcony, to see the sunset +and the 'purple light.' There's no time now, girls, for blue +grenadines; and it's always vulgar to come out in a hurry with +dress in a strange place." And Mrs. Linceford gave a last touch to +her hair, straightened the things on her dressing-table, shut down +the lid of a box, and led the way from the room.</p> +<p>Out upon the balcony they watched the long, golden going down of +the sun, and the creeping shadows, and the purple half-light, and +the after-smile upon the crests. And then the heaven gathered +itself in its night stillness, and the mountains were grand in the +soft gloom, until the full moon came up over Washington.</p> +<p>There had been a few words of recognition with the Thoresby +party, and then our little group had betaken itself to the eastern +end of the piazza. After a while, one by one, the others strayed +away, and they were left almost alone. There was a gathering and a +sound of voices about the drawing-room, and presently came the +tones of the piano, struck merrily. They jarred, somehow, too; for +the ringing, thrilling notes of a horn, blown below, had just gone +down the diminishing echoes from cliff to cliff, and died into a +listening silence, away over, one could not tell where, beyond the +mysterious ramparts.</p> +<p>"It's getting cold," said Jeannie impatiently. "I think we've +stayed here long enough. Augusta, <i>don't</i> you mean to get a +proper shawl, and put some sort of lace thing on your head, and +come in with us for a look, at least, at the hop? Come, Nell; come, +Leslie; you might as well be at home as in a place like this, if +you're only going to mope."</p> +<p>"It seems to me," said Leslie, more to herself than to Jeannie, +looking over upon the curves and ridges and ravines of Mount +Washington, showing vast and solemn under the climbing moon, "as if +we had got into a cathedral!"</p> +<p>"And the 'great nerve' was being touched! Well,—that don't +make <i>me</i> shiver. Besides, I didn't come here to shiver. I've +come to have a right good time; and to look at the +mountains—as much as is reasonable."</p> +<p>It was a pretty good definition of what Jeannie Hadden thought +she had come into the world for. There was subtle indication in it, +also, that the shadow of some doubt had not failed to touch her +either, and that this with her was less a careless instinct than a +resolved conclusion.</p> +<p>Elinor, in her happy good-humor, was ready for either thing: to +stay in the night splendor longer, or to go in. It ended in their +going in. Outside, the moon wheeled on in her long southerly +circuit, the stars trembled in their infinite depths, and the +mountains abided in awful might. Within was a piano tinkle of gay +music, and demi-toilette, and demi-festival,—the poor, +abridged reproduction of city revelry in the inadequate parlor of +an unpretending mountain-house, on a three-ply carpet.</p> +<p>Marmaduke Wharne came and looked in at the doorway. Mrs. +Linceford rose from her seat upon the sofa close by, and gave him +courteous greeting. "The season has begun early, and you seem +likely to have a pleasant summer here," she said, with the +half-considered meaning of a common fashion of speech.</p> +<p>"No, madam!" answered Marmaduke Wharne, out of his real thought, +with a blunt emphasis.</p> +<p>"You think not?" said Mrs. Linceford suavely, in a quiet +amusement. "It looks rather like it to-night."</p> +<p>"<i>This?</i>—It's no use for people to bring their bodies +to the mountains, if they can't bring souls in them!" And Marmaduke +Wharne turned on his heel, and, without further courtesy, strode +away.</p> +<p>"What an old Grimgriffinhoof!" cried Jeannie under her breath; +and Elinor laughed her little musical laugh of fun.</p> +<p>Mrs. Linceford drew up her shawl, and sat down again, the +remnant of a well-bred smile upon her face. Leslie Goldthwaite +rather wished old Marmaduke Wharne would come back again and say +more. But this first glimpse of him was all they got to-night.</p> +<a name="2HCH6"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<center><big>HUMMOCKS.</big></center> +<center><big>"Blown crystal clear by Freedom's northern +wind."</big></center> +<p>Leslie said the last line of Whittier's glorious mountain +sonnet, low, to herself, standing on the balcony again that next +morning, in the cold, clear breeze; the magnificent lines of the +great earth-masses rearing themselves before her sharply against a +cloudless morning sky, defining and revealing themselves anew.</p> +<p>"Freedom's northern wind will take all the wave out of your +hair, and give you a red nose!" said Jeannie, coming round from her +room, and upon Leslie unaware.</p> +<p>Well, Jeannie <i>was</i> a pretty thing to look at, in her +delicate blue cambric morning dress, gracefully braided with white, +with the fresh rose of recent sleep in her young cheeks, and the +gladness of young life in her dark eyes. One might look away from +the mountains to look at her; for, after all, the human beauty is +the highest. Only, it must express high things, or at last one +turns aside.</p> +<p>"And there comes Marmaduke; he's worse than the north wind. I +can't stay to be 'blown clear' by him." And Jeannie, in high, merry +good-humor, flitted off. It is easy to be merry and good-humored +when one's new dress fits exquisitely, and one's hair hasn't been +fractious in the doing up.</p> +<p>Leslie had never, apparently to herself, cared less, somehow, +for self and little vanities; it seemed as if it were going to be +quite easy for her, now and henceforth, to care most for the nobler +things of life. The great mountain enthusiasm had seized her for +the first time and swept away before it all meaner thought; and, +besides, her trunk had been left behind, and she had nothing to put +herself into but her plain brown traveling dress.</p> +<p>She let the wind play with the puffs of her hair, and send some +little light locks astray about her forehead. She wrapped her shawl +around her, and went and sat where she had sat the night before, at +the eastern end of the balcony, her face toward the morning hills, +as it had been toward the evening radiance and purple shade. +Marmaduke Wharne was moving up and down, stopping a little short of +her when he turned, keeping his own solitude as she kept hers. +Faces and figures glanced out at the hall-door for an instant each, +and the keen salute of the north wind sent them invariably in +again. Nobody wanted to go with a red nose or tossed hair to the +breakfast-table; and breakfast was almost ready. But presently Mrs. +Linceford came, and, seeing Mr. Wharne, who always interested and +amused her, she ventured forth, bidding him good-morning.</p> +<p>"Good-morning, madam. It <i>is</i> a good morning."</p> +<p>"A little sharp, isn't it?" she said, shrugging her shoulders +together, irresolute about further lingering. "Ah, Leslie? Let me +introduce you to the Reverend Mr. Wharne. My young friend and +traveling companion, Miss Leslie Goldthwaite, Mr. Wharne. Have you +two driven everybody else off, or is it the nipping air?"</p> +<p>"I think it is either that they have not said their prayers this +morning, or that they don't know their daily bread when they see +it. They think it is only saleratus cakes and maple molasses."</p> +<p>"As cross this morning as last night?" the lady questioned +playfully.</p> +<p>"Not cross at all, Mrs. Linceford. Only jarred upon continually +by these people we have here just now. It was different two years +ago. But Jefferson is getting to be too well known. The mountain +places are being spoiled, one after another."</p> +<p>"People will come. You can't help that."</p> +<p>"Yes, they will come, and frivel about the gates, without ever +once entering in. 'Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? And +who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a +pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity.'"</p> +<p>Leslie Goldthwaite's face quickened and glowed; they were the +psalm lines that had haunted her thought yesterday, among the +opening visions of the hill-country. Marmaduke Wharne bent his keen +eyes upon her, from under their gray brows, noting her narrowly. +She wist not that she was noted, or that her face shone.</p> +<p>"One soul here, at least!" was what the stern old man said to +himself in that moment.</p> +<p>He was cynical and intolerant here among the mountains, where he +felt the holy places desecrated, and the gift of God unheeded. In +the haunts of city misery and vice,—misery and vice shut in +upon itself, with no broad outlook to the heavens,—he was +tender, with the love of Christ himself.</p> +<p>"'My house shall be called the house of prayer, but these have +made it a den of thieves.' It is true not alone of the temples +built with hands."</p> +<p>"Is that fair? How do you <i>know</i>, Mr. Wharne?" The sudden, +impetuous questions come from Leslie Goldthwaite.</p> +<p>"I see—what I see."</p> +<p>"The whole?" said Leslie, more restrainedly. She remembered her +respect for age and office. Yet she felt sorely tempted, shy, proud +girl as she was, to take up cudgels for her friends, at least. Mr. +Wharne liked her the better for that.</p> +<p>"They turn away from this, with five words,—the toll of +custom,—or half a look, when the wind is north; and they go +in to what you saw last night."</p> +<p>"After all, isn't it just <i>enjoyment</i>, either way? Mayn't +one be as selfish as the other? People were kind, and bright, and +pleasant with each other last night. Is that a bad thing?"</p> +<p>"No, little girl, it is not." And Marmaduke Wharne came nearer +to Leslie, and looked at her with a gentle look that was +wonderfully beautiful upon his stern gray face. "Only, I would have +a kindness that should go deep,—coming from a depth. There +are two things for live men and women to do: to receive, from God; +and to give out, to their fellows. One cannot be done without the +other. No fruit, without the drinking of the sunshine. No true +tasting of the sunshine that is not gathering itself toward the +ripening of fruit."</p> +<p>Here it was again; more teaching to the self-same +point,—as we always do get it, with a seeming strangeness, +whether it be for mind only, or for soul. You never heard of a new +name, or fact in history, that did not come out again presently in +some fresh or further mention or allusion. It is the tender +training of Him before whom our life is of so great value.</p> +<p>At this moment, the gong sounded again; saleratus cakes and +maple molasses were ready, and they all went in.</p> +<p>Leslie saw Imogen Thoresby change seats with her mother, because +the draught from the door was less in her place; and take the pale +top cake from the plate, leaving a brown one for the mother. +Everybody likes brown cakes best; and it was very unbecoming to sit +opposite a great, unshaded window, to say nothing of the draught. +Surely a little blossom peeped out here from under the leaf. Leslie +thought Imogen Thoresby might be forgiven for having done her curls +so elaborately, and put on such an elegant wrapper; even for having +ventured only a half-look out at the balcony door, when she found +the wind was north. The parable was already teaching her both +ways.</p> +<p>I do not mean to preach upon every page. I have begun by trying +to tell you how a great influencing thought was given into Leslie +Goldthwaite's life, and began to unravel for her perplexing +questions that had troubled her,—questions that come, I +think, to many a young girl just entering upon the world, as they +came to her; how, in the simple history of her summer among the +mountains, a great deal solved itself and grew clear. I would like +to succeed in making you divine this, as you follow out the simple +history itself.</p> +<p>"Just in time!" cried Jeannie Hadden, running up into Leslie's +room at mid-afternoon that day. "There's a stage over from +Littleton, and your trunk is being brought up this minute."</p> +<p>"And the hair-trunk and the mail-bag came on, too, after all, +and the queerest people with them!" added Elinor, entering behind +her.</p> +<p>They both stood back and were silent, as a man came heavily +along the passage with the trunk upon his shoulder. He set it down +and unfastened the straps, and in a minute more was gone, and +Leslie had the lid open. All there, just as it had been in her own +room at home three days ago. Her face brightened, seeing her little +treasures again. She had borne it well; she had been able to enjoy +without them; but she was very glad that they were come.</p> +<p>"It's nice that dinner is at lunch-time here, and that nobody +dresses until now. Make haste, and get on something pretty. Augusta +won't let us get out organdies, but we're determined on the blue +grenadines. It's awfully hot,—hot enough for anything. Do +your hair over the high rats, just for once."</p> +<p>"I always get into such a fuss with them, and I can't bear to +waste the time. How will this do?" Leslie unpinned from its cambric +cover a gray iron barége, with a narrow puffing round the +hem of the full skirt and the little pointed bertha cape. With it +lay bright cherry ribbons for the neck and hair.</p> +<p>"Lovely! Make haste and come down to our room." And having to +dress herself, Jeannie ran off again, and Elinor shut the door.</p> +<p>It was nice to have on everything fresh; to have got her feet +into rosetted slippers instead of heavy balmoral boots; to feel the +lightness and grace of her own movement as she went downstairs and +along the halls in floating folds of delicate barége, after +wearing the close, uncomfortable traveling-dress, with the sense of +dust and fatigue that clung about it; to have a little flutter of +bright ribbon in her hair, that she knew was, as Elinor said, "the +prettiest part of her." It was pleasant to see Mrs. Linceford +looked pleased, as she opened her door to her, and to have her say, +"You always do get on exactly the right thing!" There was a fresh +feeling of pleasure even in looking over at Washington, sun-lighted +and shadowed in his miles of heights and depths, as she sat by the +cool east window, feeling quite her dainty self again. Dress is but +the outside thing, as beauty is but "skin deep;" but there is a +deal of inevitable skin-sensation, pleasurable or uncomfortable, +and Leslie had a good right to be thoroughly comfortable now.</p> +<p>The blinds to the balcony window were closed; that led to a +funny little episode presently,—an odd commentary on the +soul-and-body question, as it had come up to them in graver +fashion.</p> +<p>Outside, to two chairs just under the window, came a couple +newly arrived,—the identical proprietors of the exchanged +luggage. It was an elderly countryman, and his home-bred, +matter-of-fact wife. They, too, had had their privations and +anxieties, and the outset of their evidently unusual travels had +been marred in its pleasure. In plain truth, the good woman was +manifestly soured by her experience.</p> +<p>Right square before the blinds she turned her back, unconscious +of the audience within, lifted her elbows, like clothes-poles, to +raise her draperies, and settled herself with a dissatisfied +flounce, that expressed beforehand what she was about to put in +words. "For <i>my</i> part," she announced deliberately, "I think +the White Mountains is a clear—<i>hummux!</i>"</p> +<p>"Good large hummocks, anyway," returned her companion.</p> +<p>"You know what I mean. 'T ain't worth comin' for. Losin' +baggage, an' everything. We'd enough sight better ha' stayed at +Plymouth. An' if it hadn't 'a' ben for your dunderheadedness, +givin' up the checks an' never stoppin' to see what was comin' of +'em, trunks or hencoops, we might. There's somethin' to see, there. +That little bridge leadin' over to the swings and seats across the +river was real pretty and pleasant. And the cars comin' in an' +startin' off, right at the back door, made it lively. I alwers +<i>did</i> like to see passin.'"</p> +<p>The attitudes inside the blinds were something, at this moment. +Mrs. Linceford, in a spasm of suppressed laughter herself, held her +handkerchief to her lips with one hand, and motioned peremptory +silence to the girls with the other. Jeannie was noiselessly +clapping her hands, and dancing from one toe to the other with +delight. Leslie and Elinor squeezed each other's fingers lightly, +and leaned forward together, their faces brimming over with fun; +and the former whispered with emphatic pantomime to Mrs. Linceford, +"<i>If</i> Mr. Wharne were only here!"</p> +<p>"You've ben worried," said the man. "And you've ben comin' up to +'em gradooal. You don't take 'em in. If one of these 'ere hills was +set out in our fields to home, you'd think it was something more +than a hummock, I guess."</p> +<p>"Well, why ain't they, then? It's the best way to put things +where you can see 'em to an advantage. They're all in the way of +each other here, and don't show for nothing to speak of. Worried! I +guess I hev ben! I shan't git over it till I've got home an' ben +settled down a week. It's a mercy I've ever laid eyes agin on that +bran'-new black alpacky!"</p> +<p>"Well, p'r'aps the folks felt wuss that lost them +stylish-lookin' trunks. I'll bet they had something more in 'em +than black alpackys."</p> +<p>"That don't comfort me none. I've had <i>my</i> +tribulation."</p> +<p>"Well, come, don't be grouty, Hannah. We've got through the wust +of it, and if you ain't satisfied, why, we'll go back to Plymouth +again. I can stand it awhile, I guess, if 't <i>is</i> four dollars +a day."</p> +<p>He had evidently sat still a good while for him, honest man; and +he got up with this, and began to pace up and down, looking at the +"hummocks," which signified greater meanings to him than to his +wife.</p> +<p>Mrs. Linceford came over and put the window down. It was +absolutely necessary to laugh now, however much of further +entertainment might be cut off.</p> +<p>Hannah jumped up, electrified, as the sash went down behind +her.</p> +<p>"John! John! There's folks in there!"</p> +<p>"S'pose likely," said John, with quiet relish of amends. "What's +good for me 'ill do for them!"</p> +<a name="2HCH7"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<center><big>DAKIE THAYNE.</big></center> +<p>"Grimgriffinhoof won't speak to you to-night," said Jeannie +Hadden, after tea, upon the balcony.</p> +<p>She was mistaken. There was something different, still, in +Leslie Goldthwaite's look, as she came out under the sunset light, +from the looks that prevailed in the Thoresby group when they, too, +made their appearance. The one moved self-forgetfully,—her +consciousness and thought sent forth, not fluttering in her robes +and ribbons; with the others there was a little air and bustle, as +of people coming into an opera-box in presence of a full house. +They said "lovely!" and "splendid!" of course,—their little +word of applause for the scenic grandeur of mountain and heaven, +and then the half of them turned their backs upon it, and commenced +talking together about whether waterfalls were really to be given +up or not, and of how people were going to look in high-crowned +bonnets.</p> +<p>Mrs. Linceford told the "hummux" story to Marmaduke Wharne. The +old man laughed till the Thoresby party turned to see.</p> +<p>"But I like one thing," he said. "The woman was honest. Her +'black alpacky' was most to her, and she owned up to it."</p> +<p>The regular thing being done, outside, the company drifted back, +as the shadows fell, to the parlor again. Mrs. Linceford's party +moved also, and drifted with the rest. Marmaduke Wharne, quite +graciously, walked after. The Lancers was just forming.</p> +<p>"The bear is playing tame and amiable," whispered Jeannie. "But +he'll eat you up, for all that. I wouldn't trust him. He's going to +watch, to see how wicked you'll be."</p> +<p>"I shall let him see," replied Leslie quietly.</p> +<p>"Miss Goldthwaite, you're for the dance to-night? For the +'bright and kind and pleasant,' eh?" the "bear" said, coming to her +side within the room.</p> +<p>"If anybody asks me," answered Leslie, with brave simplicity. "I +like dancing—<i>very</i> much."</p> +<p>"I'll find you a partner, then," said Mr. Wharne.</p> +<p>She looked up, surprised; but he was quite in earnest. He walked +across the room, and brought back with him a lad of thirteen or +so,—well grown for his age, and bright and manly-looking; but +only a boy, and a little shy and stiff at first, as boys have to be +for a while. Leslie had seen him before, in the afternoon, rolling +the balls through a solitary game of croquet; and afterward taking +his tea by himself at the lower end of the table. He had seemed to +belong to nobody, and as yet hardly to have got the "run" of the +place.</p> +<p>"This is Master Thayne, Miss Leslie Goldthwaite, and I think he +would like to dance, if you please."</p> +<p>Master Thayne made a proper bow, and glanced up at the young +girl with a smile lurking behind the diffidence in his face. Leslie +smiled outright, and held out her hand.</p> +<p>It was not a brilliant début, perhaps. The Haddens had +been appropriated by a couple of youths in frock coats and orthodox +kids, with a suspicion of mustaches; and one of the Thoresbys had a +young captain of cavalry, with gold bars on his shoulders. Elinor +Hadden raised her pretty eyebrows, and put as much of a +mock-miserable look into her happy little face as it could hold, +when she found her friend, so paired, at her right hand.</p> +<p>"It's very good of you to stand up with me," said the boy +simply. "It's awful slow, not knowing anybody."</p> +<p>"Are you here alone?" asked Leslie.</p> +<p>"Yes; there was nobody to come with me. Oliver—my +brother—will come by and by, and perhaps my uncle and the +rest of them, to meet me where I'm to be, down among the mountains. +We're all broken up this summer, and I'm to take care of +myself."</p> +<p>"Then you don't stay here?"</p> +<p>"No; I only came this way to see what it was like. I've got a +jolly place engaged for me, at Outledge."</p> +<p>"Outledge? Why, we are going there!"</p> +<p>"Are you? That's—jolly!" repeated the boy, pausing a +second for a fresher or politer word, but unable to supply a +synonym.</p> +<p>"I'm glad you think so," answered Leslie, with her genuine smile +again.</p> +<p>The two had already made up their minds to be friends. In fact, +Master Thayne would hardly have acquiesced in being led up for +introduction to any other young girl in the room. There had been +something in Leslie Goldthwaite's face that had looked kind and +sisterly to him. He had no fear of a snub with her; and these +things Mr. Wharne had read, in his behalf, as well.</p> +<p>"He's a queer old fellow, that Mr. Wharne, isn't he?" pursued +Master Thayne, after forward and back, as he turned his partner to +place. "But he's the only one that's had anything to say to me, and +I like him. I've been down to the old mill with him to-day. Those +people"—motioning slightly toward the other set, where the +Thoresbys were dancing—"were down there, too. You'd ought to +have seen them look! Don't they hate him, though?"</p> +<p>"Hate him? Why should they do that?"</p> +<p>"Oh, I don't know. People feel each other out, I suppose. And a +word of his is as much as a whole preach of anybody's else. He says +a word now and then, and it hits."</p> +<p>"Yes," responded Leslie, laughing.</p> +<p>"What <i>did</i> you do it for?" whispered Elinor, in hands +across.</p> +<p>"I like him; he's got something to say," returned Leslie.</p> +<p>"Augusta's looking at you, like a hen after a stray chicken. +She's all but clucking now."</p> +<p>"Mr. Wharne will tell her."</p> +<p>But Mr. Wharne was not in the room. He came back just as Leslie +was making her way again, after the dance, to Mrs. Linceford.</p> +<p>"Will you do a galop with me presently?—if you don't get a +better partner, I mean," said Master Thayne.</p> +<p>"That wouldn't be much of a promise," answered Leslie, smiling. +"I will, at any rate; that is, if—after I've spoken to Mrs. +Linceford."</p> +<p>Mr. Wharne came up and said something to young Thayne, just +then; and the latter turned eagerly to Leslie. "The telescope's +fixed, out on the balcony; and you can see Jupiter and three of his +moons! We must make haste, before <i>our</i> moon's up."</p> +<p>"Will you go and look, Mrs. Linceford?" asked Mr. Wharne of the +lady, as Leslie reached her side.</p> +<p>They went with him, and Master Thayne followed. Jeannie and +Elinor and the Miss Thoresbys were doing the inevitable promenade +after the dance,—under difficulties.</p> +<p>"Who is your young friend?" inquired Mrs. Linceford, with a +shade of doubt in her whisper, as they came out on the balcony.</p> +<p>"Master"—Leslie began to introduce, but stopped. The name, +which she had not been quite certain of, escaped her.</p> +<p>"My name is Dakie Thayne," said the boy, with a bow to the +matron.</p> +<p>"Now, Mrs. Linceford, if you'll just sit here," said Mr. Wharne, +placing a chair. "I suppose I ought to have come to you first; but +it's all right," he added, in a low tone, over her shoulder. "He's +a nice boy."</p> +<p>And Mrs. Linceford put her eye to the telescope. "Dakie Thayne! +It's a queer name; and yet it seems as if I had heard it before," +she said, looking away through the mystic tube into space, and +seeing Jupiter with his moons, in a fair round picture framed +expressly to her eye; yet sending a thought, at the same time, up +and down the lists of a mental directory, trying to place Dakie +Thayne among people she had heard of.</p> +<p>"I'll be responsible for the name," answered Marmaduke +Wharne.</p> +<p>"'Dakie' is a nickname, of course; but they always call me so, +and I like it best," the boy was explaining to Leslie, while they +waited in the doorway.</p> +<p>Then her turn came. Leslie had never looked through a telescope +upon the stars before. She forgot the galop, and the piano tinkled +out its gayest notes unheard. "It seems like coming all the way +back," she said, when she moved away for Dakie Thayne.</p> +<p>Then they wheeled the telescope upon its pivot eastward, and met +our own moon coming up, as if in a grand jealousy, to assert +herself within her small domain, and put out faint, far satellites +of lordlier planets. They looked upon her mystic, glistening +hill-tops, and down her awful craters; and from these they seemed +to drop a little, as a bird might, and alight on the +earth-mountains looming close at hand, with their huge, rough +crests and sides, and sheer escarpments white with nakedness; and +so—got home again. Leslie, with her maps and gazetteer, had +done no traveling like this.</p> +<p>She would not have cared, if she had known, that Imogen Thoresby +was looking for her within, to present, at his own request, the +cavalry captain. She did not know in the least, absorbed in her +pure enjoyment, that Marmaduke Wharne was deliberately trying her, +and confirming his estimate of her, in these very things.</p> +<p>She danced her galop with Dakie Thayne, after she went back. The +cavalry captain was introduced, and asked for it. "That was +something," as Hans Andersen would say; but "What a goose not to +have managed better!" was what Imogen Thoresby thought concerning +it, as the gold bars turned themselves away.</p> +<p>Leslie Goldthwaite had taken what came to her, and she had had +an innocent, merry time; she had been glad to be dressed nicely, +and to look her best: but somehow she had not thought of that much, +after all; the old uncomfortableness had not troubled her +to-night.</p> +<p>"<i>Just to be in better business</i>. That's the whole of it," +she thought to herself, with her head upon the pillow. She put it +in words, mentally, in the same off-hand fashion in which she would +have spoken it to Cousin Delight. "One must look out for that, and +keep at it. <i>That's</i> the eye-stone-woman's way; and it's what +has kept me from worrying and despising myself to-night. It only +happened so, this time; it was Mr. Wharne, not I. But I suppose one +can always find something, by trying. And the trying"—The +rest wandered off into a happy musing; and the musing merged into a +dream.</p> +<p>Object and motive,—the "seeking first;" she had touched +upon that, at last, with a little comprehension of its working.</p> +<p>She liked Dakie Thayne. The next day they saw a good deal of +him; he joined himself gradually, but not obtrusively, to their +party; they included him in their morning game of croquet. This was +at her instance; he was standing aside, not expecting to be counted +in, though he had broken off his game of solitaire, and driven the +balls up to the starting-stake, as they came out upon the ground. +The Thoresby set had ignored him, always, being too many already +among themselves,—and he was only a boy.</p> +<p>This morning there were only Imogen, and Etty, the youngest; a +walking-party had gone off up the Cherry Mountain road, and Ginevra +was upstairs, packing; for the Thoresbys had also suddenly decided +to leave for Outledge on the morrow. Mrs. Thoresby declared, in +confidence, to Mrs. Linceford, that "old Wharne would make any +house intolerable; and that Jefferson, at any rate, was no place +for more than a week's stay." She "wouldn't have it mentioned in +the house, however, that she was going, till the time +came,—it made such an ado; and everybody's plans were at +loose ends among the mountains, ready to fix themselves to anything +at a day's notice; they might have tomorrow's stage loaded to +crushing, if they did not take care."</p> +<p>"But I thought Mrs. Devreaux and the Klines were with you," +remarked Mrs. Linceford.</p> +<p>"Of our party? Oh, no indeed; we only fell in with them +here."</p> +<p>"Fell in" with them; became inseparable for a week; and now were +stealing a march,—<i>dodging</i> them,—lest there might +be an overcrowding of the stage, and an impossibility of getting +outside seats! Mrs. Thoresby was a woman of an imposing elegance +and dignity, with her large curls of resplendent gray hair high up +on her temples, her severely-handsome dark eyebrows, and her own +perfect, white teeth; yet she could do a shabby thing, you +see,—a thing made shabby by its motive. The Devreaux and +Klines were only "floating people," boarding about,—not +permanently valuable as acquaintances; well enough to know when one +met them,—that was all. Mrs. Thoresby had daughters; she was +obliged to calculate as to what was worth while. Mrs. Linceford had +an elegant establishment in New York; she had young sisters to +bring out; there was suitability here; and the girls would +naturally find themselves happy together.</p> +<p>Dakie Thayne developed brilliantly at croquet. He and Leslie, +with Etty Thoresby, against Imogen and the Haddens, swept +triumphantly around the course, and came in to the stake, before +there had been even a "rover" upon the other side. Except, indeed, +as they were <i>sent</i> roving, away off over the bank and down +the road, from the sloping, uneven ground,—the most +extraordinary field, in truth, on which croquet was ever attempted. +But then you cannot expect a level, velvet lawn on the side of a +mountain.</p> +<p>"Children always get the best of it at croquet,—when they +know anything at all," said Imogen Thoresby discontentedly, +throwing down her mallet. "You 'poked' awfully, Etty."</p> +<p>Etty began an indignant denial; unable to endure the double +accusation of being a child,—she, a girl in her fourteenth +year,—and of "poking." But Imogen walked away quite +unconcernedly, and Jeannie Hadden followed her. These two, as +nearest in age, were growing intimate. Ginevra was almost too +old,—she was twenty.</p> +<p>They played a four-ball game then; Leslie and Etty against +Elinor and Dakie Thayne. But Elinor declared—laughing, all +the same, in her imperturbably good-natured way—that not only +Etty's pokes were against her, but that Dakie would <i>not</i> +croquet Leslie's ball downhill. Nothing ever really put Elinor +Hadden out, the girls said of her, except when her hair wouldn't go +up; and then it was funny to see her. It was a sunbeam in a snarl, +or a snow flurry out of a blue sky. This in parenthesis, however; +it was quite true, as she alleged, that Dakie Thayne had taken up +already that chivalrous attitude toward Leslie Goldthwaite which +would not let him act otherwise than as her loyal knight, even +though opposed to her at croquet.</p> +<p>"You'll have enough of that boy," said Mrs. Linceford, when +Leslie came in, and found her at her window that overlooked the +wickets. "There's nothing like a masculine creature of that age for +adoring and monopolizing a girl two or three years older. He'll +make you mend his gloves, and he'll beg your hair-ribbons for +hat-strings; and when you're not dancing or playing croquet with +him, he'll be after you with some boy-hobby or other, wanting you +to sympathize and help. 'I know their tricks and their manners.'" +But she looked amused and kind while she threatened, and Leslie +only smiled back and said nothing.</p> +<p>Presently fresh fun gathered in Mrs. Linceford's eyes. "You're +making queer friends, child, do you know, at the beginning of your +travels? We shall have Cocky-locky, and Turkey-lurky, and +Goosie-poosie, and all the rest of them, before we get much +farther. Don't breathe a word, girls," she went on, turning toward +them all, and brimming over with merriment and mischief;—"but +there's the best joke brewing. It's just like a farce. Is the door +shut, Elinor? And are the Thoresbys gone upstairs? They're going +with us, you know? And there's nothing to be said about it? And +it's partly to get away from Marmaduke Wharne? Well, <i>he</i>'s +going, too. And it's greatly because they're spoiling the place for +him here. He thinks he'll try Outledge; and there's nothing to be +said about that, either! And I'm the unhappy depositary of all +their complaints and secrets. And if nobody's stopped, they'll all +be off in the stage with us to-morrow morning! I couldn't help +telling you, for it was too good to keep."</p> +<p>The secrets were secrets through the day; and Mrs. Linceford had +her quiet fun, and opportunity for her demure teasing.</p> +<p>"How long since Outledge was discovered and settled?—by +the moderns, I mean," said Mr. Wharne. "What chance will one really +have of quiet there?"</p> +<p>"Well, really, to be honest, Mr. Wharne, I'm afraid Outledge +will be just at the rampant stage this summer. It's the second year +of anything like general accommodation, and everybody has just +heard of it, and it's the knowing and stylish thing to go there. +For a week or two it may be quiet; but then there'll be a jam. +There'll be hops, and tableaux, and theatricals, of course; +interspersed with 'picnicking at the tomb of Jehoshaphat,' or +whatever mountain solemnity stands for that. It'll be human nature +right over again, be assured, Mr. Wharne."</p> +<p>Yet, somehow, Mr. Wharne would not be frightened from his +determination,—until the evening; when plans came out, and +good-bys and wonders and lamentations began.</p> +<p>"Yes, we have decided quite suddenly; the girls want to see +Outledge, and there's a pleasant party of friends, you +know,—one can't always have that. We shall probably fill a +stage: so they will take us through, instead of dropping us at the +Crawford House." In this manner Mrs. Thoresby explained to her dear +friend, Mrs. Devreaux.</p> +<p>"We shall be quite sorry to lose you all. But it would only have +been a day or so longer, at any rate. Our rooms are engaged for the +fifteenth, at Saratoga; we've very little time left for the +mountains, and it wouldn't be worth while to go off the regular +track. We shall probably go down to the Profile on Saturday."</p> +<p>And then—<i>da capo</i>—"Jefferson was no place +really to <i>stay</i> at; you got the whole in the first minute," +etc., etc.</p> +<p>"Good-night, Mrs. Linceford. I'm going up to unpack my valise +and make myself comfortable again. All things come round, or go by, +I find, if one only keeps one's self quiet. But I shall look in +upon you at Outledge yet." These were the stairway words of +Marmaduke Wharne to-night.</p> +<p>"'One gets the whole in the first minute'! How can they keep +saying that? Look, Elinor, and see if you can tell me where we +are?" was Leslie's cry, as, early next morning, she drew up her +window-shade, to look forth—on what?</p> +<p>Last night had lain there, underneath them, the great basin +between Starr King, behind, and the roots of that lesser range, far +down, above which the blue Lafayette uprears itself: an enormous +valley, filled with evergreen forest, over whose tall pines and +cedars one looked, as if they were but juniper and blueberry +bushes; far up above whose heads the real average of the vast +mountain-country heaped itself in swelling masses,—miles and +miles of beetling height and solid breadth. This morning it was +gone; only the great peaks showed themselves, as a far-off, +cliff-bound shore, or here and there a green island in a vast, +vaporous lake. The night-chill had come down among the heights, +condensing the warm exhalations of the valley-bosom that had been +shone into all day yesterday by the long summer sun; till, when he +lifted himself once more out of the east, sending his leaping light +from crest to crest, white fallen clouds were tumbling and +wreathing themselves about the knees and against the mighty bosoms +of the giants, and at their feet the forest was a sea.</p> +<p>"We must dress, and we must look!" exclaimed Leslie, as the +early summons came for them. "Oh dear! oh dear! if we were only +like the birds! or if all this would wait till we get down!"</p> +<p>"Please drop the shade just a minute, Les. This glass is in such +a horrid light! I don't seem to have but half a face, and I can't +tell which is the up-side of that! And—oh dear! I've no +<i>time</i> to get into a fuss!" Elinor had not disdained the +beauty and wonder without; but it was, after all, necessary to be +dressed, and in a given time; and a bad light for a looking-glass +is such a disastrous thing!</p> +<p>"I've brushed out half my crimps," she said, again; "and my +ruffle is basted in wrong side out, and altogether I'm got up +<i>à la furieuse</i>!" But she laughed before she had done +scolding, catching sight of her own exaggerated little frown in the +distorting glass, that was unable, with all its malice, to spoil +the bright young face when it came to smiles and dimples.</p> +<p>And then Jeannie came knocking at the door. They had spare +minutes, after all, and the mists were yet tossing in the valley +when they went down. They were growing filmy, and floating away in +shining fragments up over the shoulders of the hills, and the lake +was lower and less, and the emerging green was like the "Thousand +Islands."</p> +<p>They waited a little there, in the wide, open door together, and +looked out upon it; and then the Haddens went round into their +sister's room, and Leslie was left alone in the rare, sweet, early +air. The secret joy came whispering at her heart again: that there +was all this in the world, and that one need not be utterly dull +and mean, and dead to it; that something in her answered to the +greatness overshadowing her; that it was possible, sometimes, and +that people did reach out into a larger life than that of self and +every-day. How else did the great mountains draw them to themselves +so? But then she would not always be among the mountains.</p> +<p>And so she stood, drinking in at her eyes all the shifting and +melting splendors of the marvelous scene, with her thought busy, +once more, in its own questioning. She remembered what she had said +to Cousin Delight: "It is all outside. Going, and doing, and +seeing, and hearing, and having. In myself, am I good for any more, +after all? Or only—a green fig-tree in the sunshine?"</p> +<p>Why, with that word, did it all flash together for her, as a +connected thing? Her talk that morning, many weeks ago, that had +seemed to ramble so from one irrelevant matter to +another,—from the parable to her fancy-traveling, the scenes +and pleasures she had made for herself, wondering if the real would +ever come; to the linen-drawer, representing her little feminine +absorptions and interests; and back to the fig-tree again, ending +with that word,—"the real living is the urging toward the +fruit"? Her day's journey, and the hints of life—narrowed, +suffering, working—that had come to her, each with its +problem? Marmaduke Wharne's indignant protest against people who +"did not know their daily bread," and his insistence upon the +<i>two</i> things for human creatures to do: the <i>receiving</i> +and the giving; the taking from God, in the sunshine, to grow; the +ripening into generous uses for others,—was it all one, and +did it define the whole, and was it identical, in the broadest and +highest, with that sublime double command whereon "hang the law and +the prophets"?</p> +<p>Something like this passed into her mind and soul, brightening +there, like the morning. It seemed, in that glimpse, so clear and +gracious,—the truth that had been puzzling her.</p> +<p>Easy, beautiful summer work: only to be shone upon; to lift up +one's branching life, and be—reverently—glad; to grow +sweet and helpful and good-giving, in one's turn,—could she +not begin to do that? Perhaps—by ever so little; the fruit +might be but a berry, yet it might be fair and full, after its +kind; and at least some little bird might be the better for it. All +around her, too, the life of the world that had so troubled +her,—who could tell, in the tangle of green, where the good +and the gift might ripen and fall? Every little fern-frond has its +seed.</p> +<p>Jeannie came behind her again, and called her back to the +contradictory phase of self that, with us all, is almost ready, +like Peter, to deny the true. "What are you deep in now, Les?"</p> +<p>"Nothing. Only—we go <i>down</i> from here, don't we, +Jeannie?"</p> +<p>"Yes. And a very good thing for you, too. You've been in the +clouds long enough. I shall be glad to get you to the common level +again."</p> +<p>"You've no need to be anxious. I can come down as fast as +anybody. <i>That</i> isn't the hard thing to do. Let's go in, and +get salt-fish and cream for our breakfast."</p> +<p>The Haddens were new to mountain travel; the Thoresbys, +literally, were "old stagers;" they were up in the stable-yard +before Mrs. Linceford's party came out from the breakfast-room. +Dakie Thayne was there, too; but that was quite natural for a +boy.</p> +<p>They got their outside seats by it, scrambling up before the +horses were put to, and sitting there while the hostlers smiled at +each other over their work. There was room for two more, and Dakie +Thayne took a place; but the young ladies looked askance, for +Ginevra had been detained by her mother, and Imogen had hoped to +keep a seat for Jeannie, without drawing the whole party after her, +and running aground upon politeness. So they drove round to the +door.</p> +<p>"First come, first served," cried Imogen, beckoning Jeannie, who +happened to be there, looking for her friend. "I've saved a place +for you,"—and Jeannie Hadden, nothing loath, as a man placed +the mounting board, sprang up and took it.</p> +<p>Then the others came out. Mrs. Thoresby and Mrs. Linceford got +inside the vehicle at once, securing comfortable back corner-seats. +Ginevra, with Leslie and Elinor, and one or two others too late for +their own interest, but quite comprehending the thing to be +preferred, lingered while the last trunks went on, hoping for room +to be made somehow.</p> +<p>"It's so gay on the top, going down into the villages. There's +no fun inside," said Imogen complacently, settling herself upon her +perch.</p> +<p>"Won't there be another stage?"</p> +<p>"Only half way. This one goes through."</p> +<p>"I'll go half way on the other, then," said Ginevra.</p> +<p>"This is the best team, and goes on ahead," was the reply.</p> +<p>"You'll be left behind," cried Mrs. Thoresby. "Don't think of +it, Ginevra!"</p> +<p>"Can't that boy sit back, on the roof?" asked the young +lady.</p> +<p>"That boy" quite ignored the allusion; but presently, as Ginevra +moved toward the coach-window to speak with her mother, he leaned +down to Leslie Goldthwaite. "I'll make room for <i>you</i>," he +said.</p> +<p>But Leslie had decided. She could not, with effrontery of +selfishness, take the last possible place,—a place already +asked for by another. She thanked Dakie Thayne, and, with just one +little secret sigh, got into the interior, placing herself by the +farther door.</p> +<p>At that moment she missed something. "I've left my brown veil in +your room, Mrs. Linceford,"—and she was about to alight again +to go for it.</p> +<p>"I'll fetch it," cried Dakie Thayne from overhead, and, as he +spoke, came down on her side by the wheel, and, springing around to +the house entrance, disappeared up the stairs.</p> +<p>"Ginevra!" Then there came a laugh and a shout and some +crinoline against the forward open corner of the coach, and Ginevra +Thoresby was by the driver's side. A little ashamed, in spite of +herself, though it was done under cover of a joke; but "All's fair +among the mountains," somebody said, and "Possession's nine +points," said another, and the laugh was with her, seemingly.</p> +<p>Dakie Thayne flushed up, hot, without a word, when he came out, +an instant after.</p> +<p>"I'm <i>so</i> sorry!" said Leslie, with real regret, accented +with honest indignation.</p> +<p>"It's your place," called out a rough man, who made the third +upon the coach-box. "Why don't you stick up for it?"</p> +<p>The color went down slowly in the boy's face, and a pride came +up in his eye. He put his hand to his cap, with a little irony of +deference, and lifted it off with the grace of a grown man. "I know +it's my place. But the young lady may keep it—now. <i>I'd</i> +rather be a gentleman!" said Dakie Thayne.</p> +<p>"You've got the best of it!" This came from Marmaduke Wharne, as +the door closed upon the boy, and the stage rolled down the road +toward Cherry Mountain.</p> +<p>There is a "best" to be got out of everything; but it is neither +the best of place or possession, nor the chuckle of the last +word.</p> +<a name="2HCH8"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<center><big>DOWN AT OUTLEDGE.</big></center> +<p>Among the mountains, somewhere between the Androscoggin and the +Saco,—I don't feel bound to tell you precisely where, and I +have only a story-teller's word to give you for it at +all,—lies the little neighborhood of Outledge. An odd corner +of a great township such as they measure off in these wilds; where +they take in, with some eligible "locations" of intervale land, +miles also of pathless forest where the bear and the moose are +wandering still, a pond, perhaps, filling up a basin of acres and +acres in extent, and a good-sized mountain or two, thrown in to +keep off the north wind; a corner cut off, as its name indicates, +by the outrunning of a precipitous ridge of granite, round which a +handful of population had crept and built itself a group of +dwellings,—this was the spot discovered and seized to +themselves some four or five years since by certain migratory +pioneers of fashion.</p> +<p>An old two-story farmhouse, with four plain rooms of generous +dimensions on each floor, in which the first delighted summer party +had divided itself, glad and grateful to occupy them double and +even treble bedded, had become the "hotel," with a name up across +the gable of the new wing,—"Giant's Cairn House,"—and +the eight original rooms made into fourteen. The wing was clapped +on by its middle; rushing out at the front toward the road to meet +the summer tide of travel as it should surge by, and hold up to it, +arrestively, its titular sign-board; the other half as expressively +making its bee-line toward the river and the mountain view at +back,—just as each fresh arrival, seeking out the preferable +rooms, inevitably did. Behind, upon the other side, an L provided +new kitchens; and over these, within a year, had been carried up a +second story, with a hall for dancing, tableaux, theatricals, and +traveling jugglers.</p> +<p>Up to this hostelry whirled daily, from the southward, the great +six-horse stage; and from the northward came thrice a week wagons +or coaches "through the hills," besides such "extras" as might +drive down at any hour of day or night.</p> +<p>Round the smooth curve of broad, level road that skirted the +ledges from the upper village pranced four splendid bays; and after +them rollicked and swayed, with a perfect delirium of wheels and +springs, the great black and yellow bodied vehicle, like a huge +bumble-bee buzzing back with its spoil of a June day to the hive. +The June sunset was golden and rosy upon the hills and cliffs, and +Giant's Cairn stood burnished against the eastern blue. Gay +companies, scattered about piazzas and greenswards, stopped in +their talk, or their promenades, or their croquet, to watch the +arrivals.</p> +<p>"It's stopping at the Green Cottage."</p> +<p>"It's the Haddens. Their rooms have been waiting since the +twenty-third, and all the rest are full." And two or three young +girls dropped mallets and ran over.</p> +<p>"Maud Walcott!" "Mattie Shannon!"</p> +<p>"Jeannie!" "Nell!"</p> +<p>"How came <i>you</i> here?"</p> +<p>"We've been here these ten days,—looking for you the last +three."</p> +<p>"Why, I can't take it in! I'm so surprised!"</p> +<p>"Isn't it jolly, though?"</p> +<p>"Miss Goldthwaite—Miss Walcott; Miss Shannon—Miss +Goldthwaite;—my sister, Mrs. Linceford."</p> +<p>"<i>Me voici</i>!" And a third came up suddenly, laying a hand +upon each of the Haddens from behind.</p> +<p>"You, Sin Saxon! How many more?"</p> +<p>"We're coming, Father Abraham! All of us, nearly, three hundred +thousand more—or less; half the Routh girls, with Madam to +the fore!"</p> +<p>"And we've got all the farther end of the wing +downstairs,—the garden bedrooms; you've no idea how +scrumptious it is! You must come over after tea, and see."</p> +<p>"Not all, Mattie; you forget the solitary spinster."</p> +<p>"No, I don't; who ever does? But can't you ignore her for +once?"</p> +<p>"Or let a fellow speak in the spirit of prophecy?" said Sin +Saxon. "We're sure to get the better of Graywacke, and why not +anticipate?"</p> +<p>"Graywacke?" said Jeannie Hadden. "Is that a name? It sounds +like the side of a mountain."</p> +<p>"And acts like one," rejoined Sin Saxon. "Won't budge. But it +isn't her name, exactly, only Saxon for Craydocke; suggestive of +obstinacy and the Old Silurian,—an ancient maiden who infests +our half the wing. We've got all the rooms but hers, and we're +bound to get her out. She's been there three years, in the same +spot,—went in with the lath and plaster,—and it's +<i>time</i> she started. Besides, haven't I got manifest destiny on +my side? Ain't I a Saxon?" Sin Saxon tossed up a merry, bewitching, +saucy glance out of her blue, starlike eyes, that shone under a +fair, low brow touched and crowned lightly with the soft haze of +gold-brown locks frizzed into a delicate mistiness after the ruling +fashion of the hour.</p> +<p>"What a pretty thing she is!" said Mrs. Linceford, when, seeing +her busy with her boxes, and the master of the house approaching to +show the new arrivals to their rooms, Sin Saxon and her companions +flitted away as they had come, with a few more sentences of bright +girl-nonsense flung back at parting. "And a witty little minx as +well. Where did you know her, Jeannie? And what sort of a satanic +name is that you call her by?"</p> +<p>"Just suits such a mischief, doesn't it? Short for +Asenath,—it was always her school-name. She's just finished +her last year at Madam Routh's; she came there soon after we did. +It's a party of the graduates, and some younger ones left with +Madam for the long holidays, that she's traveling with. I wonder if +she isn't sick of her life, though, by this time! Fancy those +girls, Nell, with a whole half-wing of the hotel to themselves, and +Sin Saxon in the midst!"</p> +<p>"Poor 'Graywacke' in the midst, you mean," said Nell.</p> +<p>"Like a respectable old grimalkin at the mercy of a crowd of +boys and a tin kettle," added Jeannie, laughing.</p> +<p>"I've no doubt she's a very nice person, too. I only hope, if I +come across her, I mayn't call her Graywacke to her face," said +Mrs. Linceford.</p> +<p>"Just what you'll be morally sure to do, Augusta!"</p> +<p>With this, they had come up the staircase and along a narrow +passage leading down between a dozen or so of small bedrooms on +either side,—for the Green Cottage also had run out its +addition of two stories since summer guests had become many and +importunate,—and stood now where three open doors, one at the +right and two at the left, invited their entrance upon what was to +be their own especial territory for the next two months. From one +side they looked up the river along the face of the great ledges, +and caught the grandeur of far-off Washington, Adams, and Madison, +filling up the northward end of the long valley. The aspect of the +other was toward the frowning glooms of Giant's Cairn close by, and +broadened then down over the pleasant subsidence of the southern +country to where the hills grew less, and fair, small, modest peaks +lifted themselves just into blue height and nothing more, smiling +back with a contented deference toward the mightier majesties, as +those who might say: "We do our gentle best; it is not yours; yet +we, too, are mountains, though but little ones." From underneath +spread the foreground of green, brilliant intervale, with the river +flashing down between margins of sand and pebbles in the midst.</p> +<p>Here they put Leslie Goldthwaite; and here, somehow, her first +sensation, as she threw back her blinds to let in all the twilight +for her dressing, was a feeling of half relief from the strained +awe and wonder of the last few days. Life would not seem so petty +here as in the face of all that other solemn stateliness. There was +a reaction of respite and repose. And why not? The great emotions +are not meant to come to us daily in their unqualified strength. +God knows how to dilute his elixirs for the soul. His fine, +impalpable air, spread round the earth, is not more cunningly mixed +from pungent gases for our hourly breath, than life itself is +thinned and toned that we may receive and bear it.</p> +<p>Leslie wondered if it were wrong that the high mountain fervor +let itself go from her so soon and easily; that the sweet +pleasantness of this new resting-place should come to her as a +rest; that the laughter and frolic of the schoolgirls made her glad +with such sudden sympathy and foresight of enjoyment; that she +should have "come down" all the way from Jefferson in Jeannie's +sense, and that she almost felt it a comfortable thing herself not +to be kept always "up in the clouds."</p> +<p>Sin Saxon, as they called her, was so bright and odd and +fascinating; was there any harm—because no special, obvious +good—in that? There was a little twinge of doubt, remembering +poor Miss Craydocke; but that had seemed pure fun, not malice, +after all, and it was, hearing Sin Saxon tell it, very funny. She +could imagine the life they led the quiet lady; yet, if it were +quite intolerable, why did she remain? Perhaps, after all, she saw +through the fun of it. And I think, myself, perhaps she did.</p> +<p>The Marie Stuart net went on to-night; and then such a pretty +muslin, white, with narrow, mode-brown stripes, and small, bright +leaves dropped over them, as if its wearer had stood out under a +maple-tree in October and all the tiniest and most radiant bits had +fallen and fastened themselves about her. And, last of all, with +her little hooded cape of scarlet cashmere over her arm, she went +down to eat cream biscuit and wood strawberries for tea. Her summer +life began with a charming freshness and dainty delight.</p> +<p>There were pleasant voices of happy people about them in hall +and open parlor, as they sat at their late repast. Everything +seemed indicative of abundant coming enjoyment; and the girls +chatted gayly of all they had already discovered or conjectured, +and began to talk of the ways of the place and the sojourners in +it, quite like old <i>habituées</i>.</p> +<p>It was even more delightful yet, strolling out when tea was +over, and meeting the Routh party again half way between the +cottage and the hotel, and sauntering on with them, insensibly, +till they found themselves on the wide wing-piazza, upon which +opened the garden bedrooms, and being persuaded after all to sit +down, since they had got there, though Mrs. Linceford had demurred +at a too hasty rushing over, as new comers, to begin visits.</p> +<p>"Oh, nobody knows when they <i>are</i> called upon here, or who +comes first," said Mattie Shannon. "We generally receive half way +across the green, and it's a chance which turns back, or whether we +get near either house again or not. Houses don't signify, except +when it rains."</p> +<p>"But it just signifies that you should see how magnificently we +have settled ourselves for nights, and dressing, and when it +<i>does</i> rain," said Sin Saxon, throwing back a door behind her, +that stood a little ajar. It opened directly into a small +apartment, half parlor and half dressing-room, from which doors +showed others, on either side, furnished as sleeping-rooms.</p> +<p>"It was Maud Walcott's, between the Arnalls' and mine; but, what +with our trunks, and our beds, and our crinolines, and our +towel-stands, we wanted a Bowditch's Navigator to steer clear of +the reefs, and something was always getting knocked over; so, one +night, we were seized simultaneously with an idea. We'd make a +boudoir of this for the general good, and forthwith we fell upon +the bed, and amongst us got it down. It was the greatest fun! We +carried the pieces and the mattresses all off ourselves up to the +attic, after ten o'clock, and we gave the chambermaid a dollar next +morning, and nobody's been the wiser since. And then we walked to +the upper village and bought that extraordinary chintz, and frilled +and cushioned our trunks into ottomans, and curtained the +dress-hooks; and Lucinda got us a rocking-chair, and Maud came in +with me to sleep, and we kept our extra pillows, and we should be +comfortable as queens if it wasn't for Graywacke."</p> +<p>"Now, Sin Saxon, you know Graywacke is just the life of the +house. What would such a parcel of us do, if we hadn't something to +run upon?"</p> +<p>"Only I'm afraid I shall get tired of it at last. She bears it +so. It isn't exactly saintliness, nor Graywackeiness, but it seems +sometimes as if she took a quiet kind of fun out of it +herself,—as if she were somehow laughing at us, after all, in +her sleeve; and if she is, she's got the biggest end. <i>She</i>'s +bright enough."</p> +<p>"Don't we tree-toad her within an inch of her life, though, when +we come home in the wagons at night? I shouldn't think she could +stand that long. I guess she wants all her beauty-sleep. And Kate +Arnall can tu-whit, tu-whoo! equal to Tennyson himself, or any +great white <i>American</i> owl."</p> +<p>"Yes, but what do you think? As true as I live, I heard her +answer back the other night with such a sly little 'Katy-did! she +did! she did!' I thought at first it actually came from the great +elm-trees. Oh, she's been a girl once, you may depend; and hasn't +more than half got over it either. But wait till we have our +'howl'!"</p> +<p>What a "howl" was, superlative to "tree-toading," "owl-hooting," +and other divertisements, did not appear at this time; for a young +man did, approaching from the front of the hotel, and came up to +the group on the piazza with the question, "At what time do we set +off for Feather-Cap to-morrow?"</p> +<p>"Oh, early, Mr. Scherman; by nine o'clock."</p> +<p>"Earlier than you'll be ready," said Frank Scherman's sister, +one of the "Routh" girls also.</p> +<p>"I shan't have any crimps to take down, that's one thing," Frank +answered. And Sin Saxon, glancing at his handsome waving hair, +whispered saucily to Jeannie Hadden, "I don't more than half +believe that, either;"—then, aloud, "You must join the party +too, girls, by the way. It's one of the nicest excursions here. +We've got two wagons, and they'll be full; but there's Holden's +'little red' will take six, and I don't believe anybody has spoken +for it. Mr. Scherman! wouldn't it make you happy to go and +see?"</p> +<p>"Most intensely!" and Frank Scherman bowed a low graceful bow, +settling back into his first attitude, however, as one who could +quite willingly resign himself to his present comparative +unhappiness awhile longer.</p> +<p>"Where is Feather-Cap?" asked Leslie Goldthwaite.</p> +<p>"It's the mountain you see there, peeping round the shoulder of +Giant's Cairn; a comfortable little rudiment of a mountain, just +enough for a primer-lesson in climbing. Don't you see how the crest +drops over on one side, and that scrap of pine—which is +really a huge gaunt thing a hundred years old—slants out from +it with just a tuft of green at the very tip, like an old feather +stuck in jauntily?"</p> +<p>"And the pine woods round the foot of the Cairn are lovely," +said Maud.</p> +<p>"Oh!" cried Leslie, drawing a long breath, as if their spicy +smell were already about her, "there is nothing I delight in so as +pines!"</p> +<p>"You'll have your fill to-morrow, then; for it's ten miles +through nothing else, and the road is like a carpet with the soft +brown needles."</p> +<p>"I hope Augusta won't be too tired to feel like going," said +Elinor.</p> +<p>"We had better ask her soon, then; she is looking this way now. +We ought to go, Sin; we've got all our settling to do for the +night."</p> +<p>"We'll walk over with you," said Sin Saxon. "Then we shall have +done up all the preliminaries nicely. We called on you—before +you were off the stage-coach; you've returned it; and now we'll pay +up and leave you owing us one. Come, Mr. Scherman; you'll be so far +on your way to Holden's, and perhaps inertia will carry you +through."</p> +<p>But a little girl presently appeared, running from the hotel +portico at the front, as they came round to view from thence. Madam +Routh was sitting in the open hall with some newly arrived friends, +and sent one of her lambs, as Sin called them, to say to the older +girls that she preferred they should not go away again +to-night.</p> +<p>"'Ruin seize thee, Routh—less king!'" quoted Sin Saxon, +with an absurd air of declamation. "'Twas ever thus from +childhood's hour;' and now, just as we thought childhood's hour was +comfortably over,—that the clock had struck one, and down we +might run, hickory, dickory, dock,—behold the lengthened +sweetness long drawn out of school rule in vacation, even before +the very face and eyes of Freedom on her mountain heights! Well, we +must go, I suppose. Mr. Scherman, you'll have to represent us to +Mrs. Linceford, and persuade her to join us to Feather-Cap. And be +sure you get the 'little red'!"</p> +<p>"It'll be all the worse for Graywacke, if we're kept in and sent +off early," she continued, <i>sotto voce</i>, to her companions, as +they turned away. "My! what <i>has</i> that boy got?"</p> +<a name="2HCH9"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<center><big>SIXTEEN AND SIXTY.</big></center> +<p>After all this, I wonder if you wouldn't just like to look in at +Miss Craydocke's room with me, who can give you a pass anywhere +within the geography of my story?</p> +<p>She came in here "with the lath and plaster," as Sin Saxon had +said. She had gathered little comforts and embellishments about her +from summer to summer, until the room had a home-cheeriness, and +even a look of luxury, contrasted with the bare dormitories around +it. Over the straw matting, that soon grows shabby in a hotel, she +had laid a large, nicely-bound square of soft, green carpet, in a +little mossy pattern, that covered the middle of the floor, and was +held tidily in place by a foot of the bedstead and two forward ones +each of the table and washstand. On this little green stood her +Shaker rocking-chair and a round white-pine light-stand with her +work-basket and a few books. Against the wall hung some white-pine +shelves with more books,—quite a little circulating library +they were for invalids and read-out people, who came to the +mountains, like foolish virgins, with scant supply of the oil of +literature for the feeding of their brain-lamps. Besides these, +there were engravings and photographs in <i>passe-partout</i> +frames, that journeyed with her safely in the bottoms of her +trunks. Also, the wall itself had been papered, at her own cost and +providing, with a pretty pale-green hanging; and there were striped +muslin curtains to the window, over which were caught the sprays of +some light, wandering vine that sprung from a low-suspended +terra-cotta vase between.</p> +<p>She had everything pretty about her, this old Miss Craydocke. +How many people do, that have not a bit of outward prettiness +themselves! Not one cubit to the stature, not one hair white or +black, can they add or change; and around them grow the lilies in +the glory of Solomon, and a frosted leaf or a mossy twig, that they +can pick up from under their feet and bring home from the commonest +walk, comes in with them, bearing a brightness and a grace that +seems sometimes almost like a satire! But in the midst grows +silently the century-plant of the soul, absorbing to itself hourly +that which feeds the beauty of the lily and the radiance of the +leaf,—waiting only for the hundred years of its shrouding to +be over!</p> +<p>Miss Craydocke never came in from the woods and rocks without +her trophies. Rare, lovely mosses and bits of most delicate ferns, +maidenhair and lady-bracken, tiny trails of wintergreen and +arbutus, filled a great shallow Indian china dish upon her bureau +top, and grew, in their fairy fashion, in the clear, soft water she +kept them freshened with.</p> +<p>Shining scraps of mountain minerals—garnets and +bright-tinted quartz and beryls, heaped artistically, rather than +scientifically, on a base of jasper and malachite and dark basalt +and glistening spar and curious fossils; these not gathered by any +means in a single summer or in ordinary ramblings, but treasured +long, and standing, some of them, for friendly +memories—balanced on the one side a like grouping of shells +and corals and sea-mosses on the other, upon a broad bracket-mantel +put up over a little corner fireplace; for Miss Craydocke's room, +joining the main house, took the benefit of one of its old +chimneys.</p> +<p>Above or about the pictures lay mossy, gnarled, and twisted +branches, gray and green, framing them in a forest arabesque; and +great pine cones, pendent from their boughs, crowned and canopied +the mirror.</p> +<p>"What <i>do</i> you keep your kindling wood up there for?" Sin +Saxon had asked, with a grave, puzzled face, coming in, for pure +mischief, on one of her frequent and ingenious errands.</p> +<p>"Why, where should I put a pile of wood or a basket? There's no +room for things to lie round here; you have to hang everything up!" +was Miss Craydocke's answer, quick as a flash, her eyes twinkling +comically with appreciation of the fun.</p> +<p>And Sin Saxon had gone away and told the girls that the old lady +knew how to feather her nest better than any of them, and was sharp +enough at a peck, too, upon occasion.</p> +<p>She found her again, one morning, sitting in the midst of a pile +of homespun, which she was cutting up with great shears into boys' +blouses.</p> +<p>"There! that's the noise that has disturbed me so!" cried the +girl. "I thought it was a hay-cutter or a planing-machine, or that +you had got the asthma awfully. I couldn't write my letter for +listening to it, and came round to ask what <i>was</i> the +matter!—Miss Craydocke, I don't see why you keep the door +bolted on your side. It isn't any more fair for you than for me; +and I'm sure I do all the visiting. Besides, it's dangerous. What +if anything should happen in the night? I couldn't get in to help +you. Or there might be a fire in our room,—I'm sure I expect +nothing else. We boiled eggs in the Etna the other night, and got +too much alcohol in the saucer; and then, in the midst of the blaze +and excitement, what should Madam Routh do but come knocking at the +door! Of course we had to put it in the closet, and there were all +our muslin dresses,—that weren't hanging on the hooks in +Maud's room! I assure you I felt like the man sitting on the +safety-valve, standing with my back against the door, and my +clothes spread out for fear she would see the flash under the +crack. For we'd nothing else but moonlight in the room.—But +now tell me, please, what are all these things? Meal-bags?"</p> +<p>"Do you really want to know?"</p> +<p>"Of course I do. Now that I've got over my fright about your +strangling with the asthma—those shears did wheeze +so!—my curiosity is all alive again."</p> +<p>"I've a cousin down in North Carolina teaching the little +freedmen."</p> +<p>"And she's to have all these sacks to tie the naughty ones up +in? What a bright idea! And then to whip them with rods as the +Giant did his crockery, I suppose? Or perhaps—they can't be +petticoats! Won't she be warm, though?"</p> +<p>"May be, if you were to take one and sew up the seams, you would +be able to satisfy yourself."</p> +<p>"I? Why, I never <i>could</i> put anything together! I tried +once, with a pair of hospital drawers, and they were like Sam +Hyde's dog, that got cut in two, and clapped together again in a +hurry, two legs up and two legs down. Miss Craydocke, why don't +<i>you</i> go down among the freedmen? You haven't half a sphere up +here. Nothing but Hobbs's Location, and the little Hoskinses."</p> +<p>"I can't organize and execute. Letitia can. It's her gift. I +can't do great things. I can only just carry round my little cup of +cold water."</p> +<p>"But it gets so dreadfully joggled in such a place as this! +Don't we girls disturb you, Miss Craydocke? I should think you'd be +quieter in the other wing, or upstairs."</p> +<p>"Young folks are apt to think that old folks ought to go a story +higher. But we're content, and they must put up with us, until the +proprietor orders a move."</p> +<p>"Well, good-by. But if ever you do smell smoke in the night, +you'll draw your bolt the first thing, won't you?"</p> +<p>This evening,—upon which we have offered you your pass, +reader,—Miss Craydocke is sitting with her mosquito bar up, +and her candle alight, finishing some pretty thing that daylight +has not been long enough for. A flag basket at her feet holds +strips and rolls of delicate birch-bark, carefully split into filmy +thinness, and heaps of star-mosses, cup-mosses, and those thick and +crisp with clustering brown spires, as well as sheets of lichen +silvery and pale green; and on the lap-board across her knees lies +her work,—a graceful cross in perspective, put on card-board +in birch shaded from faint buff to bistre, dashed with the detached +lines that seem to have quilted the tree-teguments together. Around +the foot of the cross rises a mound of lovely moss-work in relief, +with feathery filaments creeping up and wreathing about the shaft +and thwart-beam. Miss Craydocke is just dotting in some bits of +slender coral-headed stems among little brown mushrooms and +chalices, as there comes a sudden, imperative knocking at the door +of communication, or defense, between her and Sin Saxon.</p> +<p>"You must just open this time, if you please! I've got my arms +full, and I couldn't come round."</p> +<p>Miss Craydocke slipped her lap-board—work and +all—under her bureau, upon the floor, for safety; and then +with her quaint, queer expression, in which curiosity, pluckiness, +and a foretaste of amusement mingled so as to drive out annoyance, +pushed back her bolt, and presented herself to the demand of her +visitor, much as an undaunted man might fling open his door at the +call of a mob.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon stood there, in the light of the good lady's candle, +making a pretty picture against the dim background of the unlighted +room beyond. Her fair hair was tossed, and her cheeks flushed; her +blue eyes bright with sauciness and fun. In her hands, or across +her arms, rather, she held some huge, uncouth thing, that was not +to the last degree dainty-smelling, either; something conglomerated +rudely upon a great crooked log or branch, which, glanced at +closer, proved to be a fragment of gray old pine. Sticks and roots +and bark, straw and grass and locks of dirty sheep's-wool, made up +its bulk and its untidiness; and this thing Sin held out with glee, +declaring she had brought a real treasure to add to Miss +Craydocke's collection.</p> +<p>"Such a chance!" she said, coming in. "One mightn't have another +in a dozen years. I have just given Jimmy Wigley a quarter for it, +and he'd just all but broken his neck to get it. It's a real crow's +nest. Corvinus something-else-us, I suppose. Where will you have +it? I'm going to nail it up for you myself. Won't it make a nice +contrast to the humming-bird's? Over the bed, shall I? But then, if +it <i>should</i> drop down on your nose, you know! I think the +corner over the fireplace will be best. Yes, we'll have it right up +perpendicular, in the angle. The branch twists a little, you see, +and the nest will run out with its odds and ends like an old +banner. Might I push up the washstand to get on to?"</p> +<p>"Suppose you lay it <i>in</i> the fireplace? It will just rest +nicely across those evergreen boughs, and—be in the current +of ventilation outward."</p> +<p>"Well, that's an idea, to be sure.—Miss +Craydocke!"—Sin Saxon says this in a sudden interjectional +way, as if it were with some quite fresh idea,—"I'm certain +you play chess!"</p> +<p>"You're mistaken. I don't."</p> +<p>"You would, then, by intuition. Your counter-moves +are—so—triumphant. Why, it's really an ornament!" With +a little stress and strain that made her words interjectional, she +had got it into place, thrusting one end up the throat of the +chimney, and lodging the crotch that held the nest upon the stems +of fresh pine that lay across the andirons; and the "odds and +ends," in safe position, and suggesting neither harm nor +unsuitableness, looked unique and curious, and not so ugly.</p> +<p>"It's really an ornament!" repeated Sin, shaking the dust off +her dress.</p> +<p>"As you expected, of course," replied Miss Craydocke.</p> +<p>"Well, I wasn't—not to say—confident. I was afraid +it mightn't be much but scientific. But now—if you don't +forget and light a fire under it some day, Miss Craydocke!"</p> +<p>"I shan't forget; and I'm very much obliged, really. Perhaps by +and by I shall put it in a rough box and send it to a nephew of +mine, with some other things, for his collection."</p> +<p>"Goodness, Miss Craydocke! They won't express it. They'll think +it's an infernal machine, or a murder. But it's disposed of for the +present, anyway. The truth was, you know, twenty-five cents is a +kind of cup of cold water to Jimmy Wigley, and then there was the +fun of bringing it in, and I didn't know anybody but you to offer +it to; I'm so glad you like it; the girls thought you wouldn't. +Perhaps I can get you another, or something else as curious, some +day,—a moose's horns, or a bear-skin; there's no knowing. But +now, apropos of the nest, I've a crow to <i>pick</i> with you. You +gave me horrible dreams all night, the last time I came to see you. +I don't know whether it was your little freedmen's meal-bags, or +Miss Letitia's organizing and executive genius, or the cup of cold +water you spoke of, or—it's just occurred to me—the +fuss I had over my waterfall that day, trying to make it into a +melon; but I had the most extraordinary time endeavoring to pay you +a visit. Down South it was, and there you were, organizing and +executing, after all, on the most tremendous scale, some kind of +freedmen's institution. You were explaining to me and showing me +all sorts of things, in such enormous bulk and extent and number! +First I was to see your stables, where the cows were kept. A +trillion of cows!—that was what you told me. And on the way +we went down among such wood-piles!—whole forests cut up into +kindlings and built into solid walls that reached up till the sky +looked like a thread of blue sewing-silk between. And presently we +came to a kind of opening and turned off to see the laundry (Mrs. +Lisphin had just brought home my things at bedtime); and +<i>there</i> was a place to do the world's washing in, or bleach +out all the Ethiopians! Tubs like the hold of the Great Eastern, +and spouts coming into them like the Staubbach! Clothes-lines like +a parade-ground of telegraphs, fields like prairies, snow-patched, +as far as you could see, with things laid out to whiten! And +suddenly we came to what was like a pond of milk, with crowds of +negro women stirring it with long poles; and all at once something +came roaring behind and you called to me to jump aside,—that +the hot water was let on to make the starch; and down it rushed, a +cataract like Niagara, in clouds of steam! And then—well, it +changed to something else, I suppose; but it was after that fashion +all night long, and the last I remember, I was trying to climb up +the Cairn with a cup of cold water set on atilt at the crown of my +head, which I was to get to the sky parlor without spilling a +drop!"</p> +<p>"Nobody's brain but yours would have put it together like that," +said Miss Craydocke, laughing till she had to feel for her +pocket-handkerchief to wipe away the tears.</p> +<p>"Don't cry, Miss Craydocke," said Sin Saxon, changing suddenly +to the most touching tone and expression of regretful concern. "I +didn't mean to distress you. I don't think anything is really the +matter with my brain!"</p> +<p>"But I'll tell you what it is," she went on presently, in her +old manner, "I <i>am</i> in a dreadful way with that waterfall, and +I wish you'd lend me one of your caps, or advise me what to do. +It's an awful thing when the fashion alters, just as you've got +used to the last one. You can't go back, and you don't dare to go +forward. I wish hair was like noses, born in a shape, without +giving you any responsibility. But we do have to finish ourselves, +and that's just what makes us restless."</p> +<p>"You haven't come to the worst yet," said Miss Craydocke +significantly.</p> +<p>"What do you mean? What is the worst? Will it come all at once, +or will it be broken to me?"</p> +<p>"It will be broken, and <i>that</i>'s the worst. One of these +years you'll find a little thin spot coming, may be, and spreading, +over your forehead or on the top of your head; and it'll be the +fashion to comb the hair just so as to show it off and make it +worse; and for a while that'll be your thorn in the flesh. And then +you'll begin to wonder why the color isn't so bright as it used to +be, but looks dingy, all you can do to it; and again, after a +while, some day, in a strong light, you'll see there are white +threads in it, and the rest is fading; and so by degrees, and the +degrees all separate pains, you'll have to come to it and give up +the crown of your youth, and take to scraps of lace and muslin, or +a front, as I did a dozen years ago."</p> +<p>Sin Saxon had no sauciness to give back for that; it made her +feel all at once that this old Miss Craydocke had really been a +girl too, with golden hair like her own, perhaps,—and not so +very far in the past, either, but that a like space in her own +future could picture itself to her mind; and something, quite +different in her mood from ordinary, made her say, with even an +unconscious touch of reverence in her voice: "I wonder if I shall +bear it, when it comes, as well as you!"</p> +<p>"There's a recompense," said Miss Craydocke. "You'll have got it +all then. You'll know there's never a fifty or a sixty years that +doesn't hold the tens and the twenties."</p> +<p>"I've found out something," said Sin Saxon, as she came back to +the girls again. "A picked-up dinner argues a fresh one some time. +You can't have cold roast mutton unless it has once been hot!" And +never a word more would she say to explain herself.</p> +<a name="2HCH10"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<center><big>"I DON'T SEE WHY."</big></center> +<p>The "little red" was at the door of the Green Cottage. Frank +Scherman had got the refusal of it the night before, and early in +the morning Madam Routh's compliments had come to Mrs. Linceford, +with the request, in all the form that mountain usage demanded, +that she and the young ladies would make part of the expedition for +the day.</p> +<p>Captain Jotham Green, host and proprietor, himself stood at the +horses' heads. The Green Cottage, you perceive, had double right to +its appellation. It was both baptismal and hereditary, surname and +given name,—given with a coat of fresh, pale, pea-green paint +that had been laid on it within the year, and had communicated a +certain tender, newly-sprouted, May-morning expression to the old +centre and its outshoots.</p> +<p>Mrs. Green, within, was generously busy with biscuits, cold +chicken, doughnuts fried since sunrise, and coffee richly +compounded with cream and sugar, which a great tin can stood +waiting to receive and convey, and which was at length to serve as +cooking utensil in reheating upon the fire of coals the picnickers +would make up under the very tassel of Feather-Cap.</p> +<p>The great wagons were drawn up also before the piazza of the +hotel; and between the two houses flitted the excursionists, full +of the bright enthusiasm of the setting off, which is the best part +of a jaunt, invariably.</p> +<p>Leslie Goldthwaite, in the hamadryad costume, just +aware—which it was impossible for her to help—of its +exceeding prettiness, and of glances that recognized it, pleased +with a mixture of pleasures, was on the surface of things once +more, taking the delight of the moment with a young girl's innocent +abandonment. It was nice to be received so among all these new +companions; to be evidently, though tacitly, <i>voted</i> nice, in +the way girls have of doing it; to be launched at once into the +beginning of apparently exhaustless delights,—all this was +superadded to the first and underlying joy of merely being alive +and breathing, this superb summer morning, among these forests and +hills.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon, whatever new feeling of half sympathy and respect had +been touched in her toward Miss Craydocke the night before, in her +morning mood was all alive again to mischief. The small, spare +figure of the lady appeared at the side-door, coming out briskly +toward them along the passage, just as the second wagon filled up +and was ready to move.</p> +<p>I did not describe Miss Craydocke herself when I gave you the +glimpse into her room. There was not much to describe; and I forgot +it in dwelling upon her surroundings and occupations. In fact, she +extended herself into these, and made you take them involuntarily +and largely into the account in your apprehension of her. Some +people seem to have given them at the outset a mere germ of +personality like this, which must needs widen itself out in like +fashion to be felt at all. Her mosses and minerals, her pressed +leaves and flowers, her odds and ends of art and science and +prettiness which she gathered about her, her industries and +benevolences,—these were herself. Out of these she was only a +little elderly thread-paper of a woman, of no apparent account +among crowds of other people, and with scarcely enough of bodily +bulk or presence to take any positive foothold anywhere.</p> +<p>What she might have seemed, in the days when her hair was +golden, and her little figure plump, and the very unclassical +features rounded and rosy with the bloom and grace of youth, was +perhaps another thing; but now, with her undeniable "front," and +cheeks straightened into lines that gave you the idea of her having +slept all night upon both of them, and got them into longitudinal +wrinkles that all day was never able to wear out; above all, with +her curious little nose (that was the exact expression of it), +sharply and suddenly thrusting itself among things in general from +the middle plane of her face with slight preparatory hint of its +intention,—you would scarcely charge her, upon suspicion, +with any embezzlement or making away of charms intrusted to her +keeping in the time gone by.</p> +<p>This morning, moreover, she had somehow given herself a scratch +upon the tip of this odd, investigating member; and it blushed for +its inquisitiveness under a scrap of thin pink adhesive +plaster.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon caught sight of her as she came. "Little Miss +Netticoat!" she cried, just under her breath, "<i>with</i> a fresh +petticoat, <i>and</i> a red nose!" Then, changing her tone with her +quotation,—</p> +<pre> + "'Wee, modest, crimson-tippèd flower, + Thou'st met me in a luckless hour!' +</pre> +<p>Thou always dost! What <i>hast</i> thou gone and got thyself up +so for, just as I was almost persuaded to be good? +Now—<i>can</i> I help that?" And she dropped her folded hands +in her lap, exhaled a little sigh of vanquished goodness, and +looked round appealingly to her companions.</p> +<p>"It's only," said Miss Craydocke, reaching them a trifle out of +breath, "this little parcel,—something I promised to Prissy +Hoskins,—and <i>would</i> you just go round by the Cliff and +leave it for me?"</p> +<p>"Oh, I'm afraid of the Cliff!" cried Florrie Arnall. "Creggin's +horses backed there the other day. It's horribly dangerous."</p> +<p>"It's three quarters of a mile round," suggested the driver.</p> +<p>"The 'little red' might take it. They'll go faster than we, or +can, if they try," said Mattie Shannon.</p> +<p>"The 'little red' 's just ready," said Sin Saxon. "You needn't +laugh. That wasn't a pun. But oh, Miss Craydocke!"—and her +tone suggested the mischievous apropos—"what <i>can</i> you +have been doing to your nose?"</p> +<p>"Oh, yes!"—Miss Craydocke had a way of saying "Oh, +yes!"—"It was my knife slipped as I was cutting a bit of +cord, in a silly fashion, up toward my face. It's a mercy my nose +served, to save my eyes."</p> +<p>"I suppose that's partly what noses are for," said Sin Saxon +gravely. "Especially when you follow them, and 'go it blind.'"</p> +<p>"It was a piece of good luck, too, after all," said Miss +Craydocke, in her simple way, never knowing, or choosing to know, +that she was snubbed or quizzed. "Looking for a bit of plaster, I +found my little parcel of tragacanth that I wanted so the other +day. It's queer how things turn up."</p> +<p>"Excessively queer," said Sin solemnly, still looking at the +injured feature. "But, as you say, it's all for the best, after +all. 'There <i>is</i> a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew +them how we will.' Hiram, we might as well drive on. I'll take the +parcel, Miss Craydocke. We'll get it there somehow, going or +coming."</p> +<p>The wagon rolled off, veils and feathers taking the wind +bravely, and making a gay moving picture against the dark pines and +gray ledges as it glanced along. Sin Saxon tossed Miss Craydocke's +parcel into the "little red" as they passed it by, taking the road +in advance, giving a saucy word of command to Jim Holden, which +transferred the charge of its delivery to him, and calling out a +hurried explanation to the ladies over her shoulder that "it would +take them round the Cliff,—the most wonderful point in all +Outledge; up and down the whole length of New Hampshire they could +see from there, if their eyes were good enough!" And so they were +away.</p> +<p>Miss Craydocke turned back into the house, not a whit +discomfited, and with not so much as a contrasting sigh in her +bosom or a rankle in her heart. On the contrary, a droll twinkle +played among the crow's-feet at the corners of her eyes. They could +not hurt her, these merry girls, meaning nothing but the moment's +fun, nor cheat her of her quiet share of the fun either.</p> +<p>Up above, out of a window over the piazza roof, looked two +others,—young girls, one of them at least,—also, upon +the scene of the setting-off.</p> +<p>I cannot help it that a good many different people will get into +my short story. They get into a short time, in such a summer +holiday, and so why not? At any rate, I must tell you about these +Josselyns.</p> +<p>These two had never in all their lives been away pleasuring +before. They had nobody but each other to come with now. Susan had +been away a good deal in the last two years, but it had not been +pleasuring. Martha was some five or six years the younger. She had +a pretty face, yet marked, as it is so sad to see the faces of the +young, with lines and loss—lines that tell of cares too early +felt, and loss of the first fresh, redundant bloom that such lines +bring.</p> +<p>They sat a great deal at this window of theirs. It was a sort of +instinct and habit with them, and it made them happier than almost +anything else,—sitting at a window together. It was home to +them because at home they lived so: life and duty were so framed in +for them,—in one dear old window-recess. Sometimes they +thought that it would he heaven to them by and by: that such a +seat, and such a quiet, happy outlook, they should find kept for +them together, in the Father's mansion, up above.</p> +<p>At home, it was up three flights of stairs, in a tall, narrow +city house, of which the lower floors overflowed with young, +boisterous half brothers and sisters,—the tide not seldom +rising and inundating their own retreat,—whose delicate +mother, not more than eight years older than her eldest +step-daughter, was tied hand and foot to her nursery, with a baby +on her lap, and the two or three next above with hands always to be +washed, disputes and amusements always to be settled, small morals +to be enforced, and clean calico tiers to be incessantly put +on.</p> +<p>And Susan and Martha sat upstairs and made the tiers.</p> +<p>Mr. Josselyn was a book-keeper, with a salary of eighteen +hundred dollars, and these seven children. And Susan and Martha +were girls of fair culture, and womanly tastes, and social +longings. How does this seem to you, young ladies, and what do you +think of their upstairs life together, you who calculate, if you +calculate at all, whether five hundred dollars may carry you +respectably through your half-dozen city assemblies, where you +shine in silk and gossamer, of which there will not be "a dress in +the room that cost less than seventy-five dollars," and come home, +after the dance, "a perfect rag"?</p> +<p>Two years ago, when you were perhaps performing in tableaux for +the "benefit of the Sanitary," these two girls had felt the great +enthusiasm of the time lay hold of them in a larger way. Susan had +a friend—a dear old intimate of school-days, now a staid +woman of eight-and-twenty—who was to go out in yet maturer +companionship into the hospitals. And Susan's heart burned to go. +But there were all the little tiers, and the ABC's, and the faces +and fingers.</p> +<p>"I can do it for a while," said Martha, "without you." Those two +words held the sacrifice. "Mamma is so nicely this summer, and by +and by Aunt Lucy may come, perhaps. I can do <i>quite</i> +well."</p> +<p>So Martha sat, for months and months, in the upstairs window +alone. There were martial marchings in the streets beneath; great +guns thundered out rejoicings; flags filled the air with crimson +and blue, like an aurora; she only sat and made little frocks and +tiers for the brothers and sisters. God knew how every patient +needle thrust was really also a woman's blow for her country.</p> +<p>And now, pale and thin with close, lonely work, the time had +come to her at last when it was right to take a respite; when +everybody said it must be; when Uncle David, just home from Japan, +had put his hand in his pocket and pulled out three new +fifty-dollar bills, and said to them in his rough way, "There, +girls! Take that, and go your lengths." The war was over, and among +all the rest here were these two women-soldiers honorably +discharged, and resting after the fight. But nobody at Outledge +knew anything of the story.</p> +<p>There is almost always at every summer sojourn some party of +persons who are to the rest what the mid-current is to the stream; +who gather to themselves and bear along in their course—in +their plans and pleasures and daily doings—the force of all +the life of the place. If any expedition of consequence is afoot, +<i>they</i> are the expedition; others may join in, or hold aloof, +or be passed by; in which last cases, it is only in a feeble, +rippling fashion that they go their ways and seek some separate +pleasure in by-nooks and eddies, while the gay hum of the main +channel goes whirling on. At Outledge this party was the large and +merry schoolgirl company with Madam Routh.</p> +<p>"I don't see why," said Martha Josselyn, still looking out, as +the "little red" left the door of the Green Cottage,—"I don't +see why those new girls who came last night should have got into +everything in a minute, and we've been here a week and don't seem +to catch to anything at all. Some people are like burrs, I think, +or drops of quicksilver, that always bunch or run together. We +don't <i>stick</i>, Susie. What's the reason?"</p> +<p>"Some of these young ladies have been at Madam Routh's; they +were over here last evening. Sin Saxon knows them very well."</p> +<p>"You knew Effie Saxon at school, too."</p> +<p>"Eight years ago. And this is the little one. That's +nothing."</p> +<p>"You petted her, and she came to the house. You've told her +stories hundreds of times. And she sees we're all by +ourselves."</p> +<p>"She don't see. She doesn't think. That's just the whole of +it."</p> +<p>"People ought to see, then. You would, Sue, and you know +it."</p> +<p>"I've been used to seeing—and thinking."</p> +<p>"Used! Yes, indeed! And she's been <i>used</i> to the other. +Well, it's queer how the parts are given out. Shall we go to the +pines?"</p> +<a name="2HCH11"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> +<center><big>GEODES.</big></center> +<p>A great cliff-side rearing itself up, rough with inaccessible +crags, bristling with old, ragged pines, and dark with glooms of +close cedars and hemlocks, above a jutting table of rock that +reaches out and makes a huge semicircular base for the mountain, +and is in itself a precipice-pedestal eighty feet sheer up from the +river-bank; close in against the hill front, on this platform of +stone, that holds its foot or two of soil, a little, poor +unshingled house, with a tumbledown picket-fence about it, +attempting the indispensable dooryard of all better +country-dwellings here where the great natural dooryard or +esplanade makes it such an utter nonsense,—this is the place +at which the "little red" drew up, ten minutes later, to leave +Prissy Hoskins's parcel.</p> +<p>Dakie Thayne jumped down off the front seat, and held up his +arms to help Leslie out over the wheel, upon her declaring that she +must go and do the errand herself, to get a nearer look at Hoskins +life.</p> +<p>Dakie Thayne had been asked, at Leslie's suggestion, to fill the +vacant sixth seat beside the driver, the Thoresbys one and all +declining. Mrs. Thoresby was politic: she would not fall into the +wake of this schoolgirl party at once. By and by she should be +making up her own excursions, and asking whom she would.</p> +<p>"There's nothing like a boy of that age for use upon a picnic, +Mrs. Linceford," Leslie had pleaded, with playful parody, in his +behalf, when the lady had hinted something of her former sentiment +concerning the encroachments and monopolies of "boys of that age." +And so he came.</p> +<p>The Haddens got Jim Holden to lift them down on the opposite +side, for a run to the verge of the projecting half-circle of rock +that, like a gigantic bay-window or balcony in the mighty +architecture of the hills, looked up and down the whole perspective +of the valley. Jim Holden would readily have driven them round its +very edge upon the flat, mossy sward, but for Mrs. Linceford's +nerves, and the vague idea of almost an accident having occurred +there lately which pervaded the little party. "Creggin's horses had +backed," as Florrie Arnall said; and already the new comers had +picked up, they scarcely knew how, the incipient tradition, +hereafter to grow into an established horror of the "Cliff."</p> +<p>"It was nothing," Jim Holden said; "only the nigh hoss was a +res'less crittur, an' contrived to git his leg over the pole; no +danger with <i>his</i> cattle." But Mrs. Linceford cried out in +utter remonstrance, and only begged Leslie to be quick, that they +might get away from the place altogether.</p> +<p>All this bustle of arrival and discussion and alighting had +failed, curiously, to turn the head of an odd, unkempt-looking +child,—a girl of nine or ten, with an old calico sun-bonnet +flung back upon her shoulders, tangled, sunburnt hair tossing above +it; gown, innocent of crinoline, clinging to lank, growing limbs, +and bare feet, whose heels were energetically planted at a quite +safe distance from each other, to insure a fair base for the centre +of gravity,—who, at the moment of their coming, was +wrathfully "shoo-ing" off from a bit of rude toy-garden, fenced +with ends of twigs stuck up-right, a tall Shanghai hen and her one +chicken, who had evidently made nothing, morally or physically, of +the feeble inclosure.</p> +<p>"I wish you were dead and in your gravies!" cried the child, +achieving, between her righteous indignation and her relenting +toward her uncouth pets at the last breath, a sufficiently queer +play upon her own word. And with this, the enemy being routed, she +turned face to face with Dakie Thayne and Leslie Goldthwaite, +coming in at the dilapidated gate.</p> +<p>"They've scratched up all my four-o'clocks!" she said. And then +her rustic shyness overcame suddenly all else, and she dragged her +great toe back and forth in the soft mould, and put her forefinger +in her mouth, and looked askance at them from the corners of her +eyes.</p> +<p>"Prissy? Prissy Hoskins?" Leslie addressed her in sweet, +inquiring tones. But the child stood still with finger in mouth, +and toe working in the ground, not a bit harder nor faster, nor +changing in the least, for more or less, the shy look in her +face.</p> +<p>"That's your name, isn't it? I've got something for you. Won't +you come and get it?'" Leslie paused, waiting; fearing lest a +further advance on her own part might put Prissy altogether to +flight. Nothing answered in the girl's eyes to her words; there was +no lighting up of desire or curiosity, however restrained; she +stood like one indifferent or uncomprehending.</p> +<p>"She's awful deef!" cried a new voice from the doorway. "She +ain't that scared. She's sarcy enough, sometimes."</p> +<p>A woman, middle-aged or more, stood on the rough, slanting +door-stone. She had bare feet, in coarse calf-skin slippers, +stringy petticoats differing only from the child's in length, +sleeves rolled up to the shoulders, no neck garniture,—not a +bit of anything white about her. Over all looked forth a face sharp +and hard, that might have once been good-looking, in a raw, country +fashion, and that had undoubtedly always been, what it now was, +emphatically Yankee-smart. An inch-wide stripe of black hair was +combed each way over her forehead, and rolled up on her temples in +what, years and years ago, used to be called most appropriately +"flat curls,"—these fastened with long horn side-combs. +Beyond was a strip of desert,—no hair at all for an inch and +a half more toward the crown; the rest dragged back and tied behind +with the relentless tightness that gradually and regularly, by the +persistence of years, had accomplished this peculiar belt of +clearing. It completed her expression; it was as a very halo of +Yankee saintship crowning the woman who in despite of poverty and +every discouragement had always hated, to the very roots of her +hair, anything like what she called a "sozzle;" who had always been +screwed up and sharp set to hard work. She couldn't help the +tumbledown fence; she had no "men-folks" round; and she couldn't +have paid for a hundred pickets and a day's carpentering, to have +saved her life. She couldn't help Prissy's hair even; for it would +kink and curl, and the minute the wind took it "there it was +again;" and it was not time yet, thank goodness! to harrow it back +and begin in her behalf the remarkable engineering which had laid +out for herself that broad highway across all the thrifty and +energetic bumps up to Veneration (who knows how much it had had to +do with mixing them in one common tingle of mutual and unceasing +activity?) and down again from ear to ear. Inside the poor little +house you would find all spick and span, the old floor white and +sanded, the few tins and the pewter spoons shining upon the shelf, +the brick hearth and jambs aglow with fresh "redding," table and +chairs set back in rectangular tidiness. Only one thing made a +litter, or tried to; a yellow canary that hung in the window and +sang "like a house afire," as Aunt Hoskins said, however that is, +and flung his seeds about like the old "Wash at Edmonton," "on both +sides of the way." Prissy was turned out of doors in all pleasant +weather, so otherwise the keeping-room stayed trim, and her curly +hair grew sunburnt.</p> +<p>"She's ben deef ever sence she hed the scarlet-fever. Walk in," +said the woman, by no means satisfied to let strangers get only the +outside impression of her premises, and turning round to lead the +way without waiting for a reply. "Come in, Prissy!" she bawled, +illustrating her summons with what might be called a beckoning in +broad capitals, done with the whole arm from finger-tips to +shoulder, twice or thrice.</p> +<p>Leslie followed over the threshold, and Prissy ran by like a +squirrel, and perched herself on a stool just under the +bird-cage.</p> +<p>"I wouldn't keep it if 't warn't for her," said Aunt Hoskins +apologetically. She was Prissy's aunt, holding no other close +domestic relation to living thing, and so had come to be "Aunt +Hoskins" in the whole region round about, so far as she was known +at all. "It's the only bird she can hear sing of a morning. It's as +good as all outdoors to her, and I hain't the heart to make her do +without it. <i>I</i>'ve done without most things, but it don't +appear to me as if I <i>could</i> do without them. Take a seat, +do."</p> +<p>"I thank you, but my friends are waiting. I've brought something +for Prissy, from Miss Craydocke at the hotel." And Leslie held out +the package which Dakie Thayne, waiting at the door, had put into +her hand as she came in.</p> +<p>"Lawful suz, Prissy! if 't ain't another book!" cried the good +woman, as Prissy, quick to divine the meaning of the parcel, the +like of which she had been made accustomed to before, sprang to her +aunt's side within hearing of her exclamation. "If she ain't jest +the feelingest and thoughtfullest—Well! open it yourself, +child; there's no good of a bundle if you don't."</p> +<p>Poor Prissy was thus far happy that she had not been left in the +providence of her little life to utter ignorance of this greatest +possible delight—a common one to more outwardly favored +children—of a real parcel all one's own. The book, without +the brown paper and string, would have been as nothing, +comparatively.</p> +<p>Leslie could not but linger to see it untied. There came out a +book,—a wonderful big book,—Grimm's Tales; and some +little papers fell to the floor. These were flower +seeds,—bags labeled "Petunia," "Candytuft," "Double Balsam," +"Portulaca."</p> +<p>"Why, Prissy!" shouted Miss Hoskins in her ear as she picked +them up, and read the names; "them's elegant things! They'll beat +your four-o'clocks all to nothin'. It's lucky the old Shank-high +did make a clearin' of 'em. Tell Miss Craydocke," she continued, +turning again to Leslie, "that I'm comin' down myself, to—no, +I <i>can't</i> thank her! She's made a <i>life</i> for that 'ere +child, out o' nothin', a'most!"</p> +<p>Leslie stood hushed and penetrated in the presence of this good +deed, and the joy and gratitude born of it.</p> +<p>"This ain't all, you see; nor't ain't nothin' new. She's ben at +it these two year; learnin' the child to read, an' tellin' her +things, an' settin' her to hunt 'em out, and to do for herself. She +was crazy about flowers, allers, an' stories; but, lor, I couldn't +stop to tell 'em to her, an' I never knew but one or two; an' now +she can read 'em off to me, like a minister. She's told her a lot +o' stuff about the rocks,—<i>I</i> can't make head nor tail +on't; but it'd please you to see her fetchin' 'em in by the +apern-full, an' goin' on about 'em, that is, if there was reely any +place to put 'em afterwards. That's the wust on't. I tell you, it +<i>is</i> jest <i>makin</i>' a life out o' pieces that come to +hand. Here's the girl, an' there's the woods an' rocks; there's all +there was to do with, or likely to be; but she found the gumption +an' the willingness, an' she's done it!"</p> +<p>Prissy came close over to Leslie with her book in her hand. +"Wait a minute," she said, with the effort in her tone peculiar to +the deaf. "I've got something to send back."</p> +<p>"<i>If</i> it's convenient, you mean," put in Aunt Hoskins +sharply. "She's as blunt as a broomstick, that child is."</p> +<p>But Prissy had sprung away in her squirrel-like fashion, and now +came back, bringing with her something really to make one's eyes +water, if one happened, at least, to be ever so little of a +geologist,—a mass of quartz rock as large as she could grasp +with her two hands, shot through at three different angles with +three long, superb, columnar crystals of clear, pale-green beryl. +If Professor Dana had known this exact locality, and a more +definite name for the "Cliff," wouldn't he have had it down in his +Supplement with half a dozen exclamation points after the +"beryl"!</p> +<p>"I found it a-purpose!" said Prissy, with the utmost simplicity, +putting the heavy specimen out of her own hands into Leslie's. +"She's been a-wantin' it this great while, and we've looked for it +everywheres!"</p> +<p>"A-purpose" it did seem as if the magnificent fragment had been +laid in the way of the child's zealous and grateful search. "There +were only the rocks," as Aunt Hoskins said; in no other way could +she so joyously have acknowledged the kindness that had brightened +now three summers of her life.</p> +<p>"It'll bother you, I'm afeard," said the woman.</p> +<p>"No, indeed! I shall <i>like</i> to take it for you," continued +Leslie, with a warm earnestness, stooping down to the little girl, +and speaking in her clear, glad tone close to her cheek. "I only +wish <i>I</i> could find something to take her myself." And with +that, close to the little red-brown cheek as she was, she put the +period of a quick kiss to her words.</p> +<p>"Come again, and we'll hunt for some together," said the child, +with instant response of cordiality.</p> +<p>"I will come—if I possibly can," was Leslie's last word, +and then she and Dakie Thayne hurried back to the wagon.</p> +<p>The Haddens had just got in again upon their side. They were +full of exclamations about the wonderful view up and down the long +valley-reaches.</p> +<p>"You needn't tell <i>me</i>!" cried Elinor, in high enthusiasm. +"I don't care a bit for the geography of it. That great aisle goes +straight from Lake Umbagog to the Sound!"</p> +<p>"It is a glorious picture," said Mrs. Linceford. "But I've had a +little one, that you've lost. You've no idea, Leslie, what a lovely +tableau you have been making,—you and Dakie, with that old +woman and the blowzy child!"</p> +<p>Leslie blushed.</p> +<p>"You'll never look prettier, if you try ever so hard."</p> +<p>"Don't, Mrs. Linceford!"</p> +<p>"Why not?" said Jeannie. "It's only a pity, I think, that you +couldn't have known it at the time. They say we don't know when +we're happiest; and we <i>can't</i> know when we're prettiest; so +where's the satisfaction?"</p> +<p>"That's part of your mistake, Jeannie, perhaps," returned her +sister. "If you had been there you'd have spoiled the picture."</p> +<p>"Look at that!" exclaimed Leslie, showing her beryl. "That's for +Miss Craydocke." And then, when the first utterances of amazement +and admiration were over, she told them the story of the child and +her misfortune, and of what Miss Craydocke had done. "<i>That</i>'s +beautiful, I think," said she. "And it's the sort of beauty, may +be, that one might feel as one went along. I wish I could +find—a diamond—for that woman!"</p> +<p>"Thir garnits on Feather-Cap," put in Jim the driver.</p> +<p>"Oh, <i>will</i> you show us where?"</p> +<p>"Well, 't ain't nowhers in partickler," replied Jim. "It's jest +as you light on 'em. And you wouldn't know the best ones when you +did. I've seen 'em,—dead, dull-lookin' round stones that'll +crack open, chock—full o' red garnits as an egg is o' +meat."</p> +<p>"Geodes!" cried Dakie Thayne.</p> +<p>Jim Holden turned round and looked at him as if he thought he +had got hold of some new-fashioned expletive,—possibly a +pretty hard one.</p> +<p>They came down, now, on the other side of the Cliff, and struck +the ford. This diverted and absorbed their thoughts, for none of +the ladies had ever forded a river before.</p> +<p>"Are you sure it's safe?" asked Mrs. Linceford.</p> +<p>"Safe as meetin'," returned Jim. "I'd drive across with my eyes +shot."</p> +<p>"Oh, don't!" cried Elinor.</p> +<p>"I ain't agoin' ter; but I could,—an' the hosses, too, for +that matter."</p> +<p>It was exciting, nevertheless, when the water in mid-channel +came up nearly to the body of the wagon, and the swift ripples +deluded the eye into almost conviction that horses, vehicle, and +all were not gaining an inch in forward progress, but drifting +surely down. They came up out of the depths, however, with a tug, +and a swash, and a drip all over, and a scrambling of hoofs on the +pebbles, at the very point aimed at in such apparently sidelong +fashion,—the wheel-track that led them up the bank and into +the ten-mile pine woods through which they were to skirt the base +of the Cairn and reach Feather-Cap on his accessible side. It was +one long fragrance and stillness and shadow.</p> +<p>They overtook the Routh party at the beginning of the +mountain-path. The pine woods stretched on over the gradual slope, +as far as they would climb before dinner. Otherwise the midday +heats would have been too much for them. This was the easy part of +the way, and there was breath for chat and merriment.</p> +<p>Just within the upper edge of the woods, in a comparatively +smooth opening, they halted. Here they spread their picnic, while +up above, on the bare, open rock, the young men kindled their fire +and heated the coffee; and here they ate and drank, and rested +through the noontide.</p> +<p>Light clouds flitted between the mountains and the heavens, +later in the day, and flung bewildering, dreamy shadows on the +far-off steeps, and dropped a gracious veil over the bald forehead +and sun-bleak shoulders of Feather-Cap. It was "weather just made +for them," as fortunate excursionists are wont to say.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon was all life, and spring, and fun. She climbed at +least three Feather-Caps, dancing from stone to stone with tireless +feet, and bounding back and forth with every gay word that it +occurred to her to say to anybody. Pictures? She made them +incessantly. She was a living dissolving view. You no sooner got +one bright look or graceful attitude than it was straightway +shifted into another. She kept Frank Scherman at her side for the +first half-hour, and then, perhaps, his admiration or his muscles +tired, for he fell back a little to help Madam Routh up a sudden +ridge, and afterwards, somehow, merged himself in the quieter group +of strangers.</p> +<p>By and by one of the Arnalls whispered to Mattie +Shannon,—"He's sidled off with her, at last. Did you ever +know such a fellow for a new face? But it's partly the petticoat. +He's such an artist's eye for color. He was raving about her all +the while she stood hanging those shawls among the pines to keep +the wind from Mrs. Linceford. She isn't downright pretty either. +But she's got up exquisitely!"</p> +<p>Leslie Goldthwaite, in her lovely mountain dress, her bright +bloom from enjoyment and exercise, with the stray light through the +pines burnishing the bronze of her hair, had innocently made a +second picture, it would seem. One such effects deeper impression, +sometimes, than the confusing splendor of incessant changes.</p> +<p>"Are you looking for something? Can I help you?" Frank Scherman +had said, coming up to her, as she and her friend Dakie, a little +apart from the others, were poising among some loose pebbles.</p> +<p>"Nothing that I have lost," Leslie answered, smiling. "Something +I have a very presumptuous wish to find. A splendid garnet geode, +if you please!"</p> +<p>"That's not at all impossible," returned the young man. "We'll +have it before we go down,—see if we don't!"</p> +<p>Frank Scherman knew a good deal about Feather-Cap, and something +of geologizing. So he and Leslie—Dakie Thayne, in his +unswerving devotion, still accompanying—"sidled off" +together, took a long turn round under the crest, talking very +pleasantly—and restfully, after Sin Saxon's continuous +brilliancy—all the way. How they searched among loose drift +under the cliff, how Mr. Scherman improvised a hammer from a slice +of rock; and how, after many imperfect specimens, they did at last +"find a-purpose" an irregular oval of dull, dusky stone, which +burst with a stroke into two chalices of incrusted crimson +crystals,—I ought to be too near the end of a long chapter to +tell. But this search and this finding, and the motive of it, were +the soul and the crown of Leslie's pleasure for the day. She did +not even stop to think how long she had had Frank Scherman's +attention all to herself, or the triumph that it was in the eyes of +the older girls, among whom he was excessively admired, and not +very disguisedly competed for. She did not know how fast she was +growing to be a sort of admiration herself among them, in their +girls' fashion, or what she might do, if she chose, in the way of +small, early belleship here at Outledge with such +beginning,—how she was "getting on," in short, as girls +express it. And so, as Jeannie Hadden asked, "Where was the +satisfaction?"</p> +<p>"You never knew anything like it," said Jeannie to her friend +Ginevra, talking it all over with her that evening in a bit of a +visit to Mrs. Thoresby's room. "I never saw anybody take so among +strangers. Madam Routh was delighted with her; and so, I should +think, was Mr. Scherman. They say he hates trouble; but he took her +all round the top of the mountain, hammering stones for her to find +a geode."</p> +<p>"That's the newest dodge," said Mrs. Thoresby, with a little +sarcastic laugh. "Girls of that sort are always looking for +geodes." After this, Mrs. Thoresby had always a little well-bred +venom for Leslie Goldthwaite.</p> +<p>At the same time Leslie herself, coming out on the piazza for a +moment after tea, met Miss Craydocke approaching over the lawn. She +had only her errand to introduce her, but she would not lose the +opportunity. She went straight up to the little woman, in a frank, +sweet way. But a bit of embarrassment underneath, the real respect +that made her timid,—perhaps a little nervous fatigue after +the excitement and exertion of the day,—did what nerves and +embarrassment, and reverence itself will do sometimes,—played +a trick with her perfectly clear thought on its way to her +tongue.</p> +<p>"Miss Graywacke, I believe?" she said, and instantly knew the +dreadful thing that she had done.</p> +<p>"Exactly," said the lady, with an amused little smile.</p> +<p>"Oh, I <i>do</i> beg your pardon," began Leslie, blushing all +over.</p> +<p>"No need,—no need. Do you think I don't know what name I +go by, behind my back? They suppose because I'm old and plain and +single, and wear a front, and don't understand rats and the German, +that I'm deaf and blind and stupid. But I believe I get as much as +they do out of their jokes, after all." The dear old soul took +Leslie by both her hands as she spoke, and looked a whole world of +gentle benignity at her out of two soft gray eyes, and then she +laughed again. This woman had no <i>self</i> to be hurt.</p> +<p>"We stopped at the Cliff this morning," Leslie took heart to +say; "and they were so glad of your parcel,—the little girl +and her aunt. And Prissy gave me something to bring back to you; a +splendid specimen of beryl that she has found."</p> +<p>"Then my mind's at rest!" said Miss Craydocke, cheerier than +ever. "I was sure she'd break her neck, or pull the mountain down +on her head some day looking for it."</p> +<p>"Would you like—I've found—I should like you to have +that, too,—a garnet geode from Feather—Cap?" Leslie +thought she had done it very clumsily, and in a hurry, after +all.</p> +<p>"Will you come over to my little room, dear,—number +fifteen, in the west wing,—to-morrow sometime, with your +stones? I want to see more of you."</p> +<p>There was a deliberate, gentle emphasis upon her words. If the +grandest person of whom she had ever known had said to Leslie +Goldthwaite, "I want to see more of you," she would not have heard +it with a warmer thrill than she felt that moment at her heart.</p> +<a name="2HCH12"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> +<center><big>IN THE PINES.</big></center> +<p>It was a glorious July morning, and there was nothing particular +on foot. In the afternoon, there would be drives and walks, +perhaps; for some hours, now, there would be intensifying heat. The +sun had burned away every cloud that had hung rosy about his +rising, and the great gray flanks of Washington glared in a pale +scorch close up under the sky, whose blue fainted in the flooding +presence of the full white light of such unblunted day. Here and +there, adown his sides, something flashed out in a clear, intense +dazzle, like an enormous crystal cropping from the granite, and +blazing with reflected splendor. These were the leaps of water from +out dark rifts into the sun.</p> +<p>"Everybody will be in the pines to-day," said Martha Josselyn. +"I think it is better when they all go off and leave us."</p> +<p>"We can go up under our rock," said Sue, putting stockings and +mending cotton into a large, light basket. "Have you got the +chess-board? What <i>should</i> we do without our mending-day?"</p> +<p>These two girls had bought new stockings for all the little feet +at home, that the weekly darning might be less for the mother while +they were away; and had come with their own patiently cared for old +hose, "which they should have nothing else to do but to +embroider."</p> +<p>They had made a sort of holiday, in their fashion, of +mending-day at home, till it had come to seem like a positive treat +and rest; and the habit was so strong upon them that they hailed it +even here. They always got out their little chess-board, when they +sat down to the big basket together. They could darn, and consider, +and move, and darn again; and so could keep it up all day long, as +else even they would have found it nearly intolerable to do. So, +though they seemed slower at it, they really in the end saved time. +Thursday night saw the tedious work all done, and the basket piled +with neatly folded pairs, like a heap of fine white rolls. This was +a great thing, and "enough for one day," as Mrs. Josselyn said. It +was disastrous if they once began to lie over. If they could be +disposed of between sun and sun, the girls were welcome to any play +they could get out of it.</p> +<p>"There they go, those two together. Always to the pines, and +always with a work-basket," said Leslie Goldthwaite, sitting on the +piazza step at the Green Cottage, by Mrs. Linceford's feet, the +latter lady occupying a Shaker rocking-chair behind. "What nice +girls they seem to be,—and nobody appears to know them much, +beyond a 'good-morning'!"</p> +<p>"Henny-penny, Goosie-poosie, Turkey-lurky, Ducky-daddles, +<i>and</i> Chicken Little!" said Mrs. Linceford, counting up from +thumb to little finger. "Dakie Thayne and Miss Craydocke, Marmaduke +Wharne and these two,—they just make it out," she continued, +counting back again. "Whatever you do, Les, don't make up to Fox +Lox at last, for all our sakes!"</p> +<p>Out came Dakie Thayne, at this point, upon them, with his hands +full. "Miss Leslie, <i>could</i> you head these needles for me with +black wax? I want them for my butterflies, and I've made +<i>such</i> a daub and scald of it! I've blistered three fingers, +and put lop-sided heads to two miserable pins, and left no end of +wax splutters on my table. I haven't but two sticks more, and the +deacon don't keep any; I must try to get a dozen pins out of it, at +least." He had his sealing-wax and a lighted "homespun candle," as +Leslie called the dips of Mrs. Green's manufacture, in one hand, +and a pincushion stuck full of needles waiting for tops, in the +other.</p> +<p>"I told you so," said Mrs. Linceford to Leslie. "That's it, +then?" she asked of Dakie Thayne.</p> +<p>"What, ma'am?"</p> +<p>"Butterflies. I knew you'd some hobby or other,—I said so. +I'm glad it's no worse," she answered, in her pleasant, smiling +way. Dakie Thayne had a great liking for Mrs. Linceford, but he +adored Leslie Goldthwaite.</p> +<p>"I'd like to show them to you, if you'd care," he said. "I've +got some splendid ones. One great Turnus, that I brought with me in +the chrysalis, that hatched out while I was at Jefferson. I rolled +it up in a paper for the journey, and fastened it in the crown of +my hat. I've had it ever since last fall. The asterias worms are +spinning now,—the early ones. They're out on the carrot-tops +in shoals. I'm feeding up a dozen of 'em in a box. They're very +handsome,—bright green with black and yellow spots,—and +it's the queerest thing to see them stiffen out and change."</p> +<p>"<i>Can</i> you? Do they do it all at once?" asked Etty +Thoresby, slipping into the rocking-chair, as Mrs. Linceford, by +whom she had come and placed herself within the last minute, rose +and went in to follow her laundress, just then going up the stairs +with her basket.</p> +<p>"Pretty much; it seems so. The first thing you know they stick +themselves up by their tails, and spin a noose to hang back their +heads in, and there they are, like a papoose in a basket. Then +their skin turns a queer, dead, ashy color, and grows somehow +straight and tight, and they only squirm a little in a feeble way +now and then, and grow stiffer and stiffer till they can't squirm +at all, and then they're mummies, and that's the end of it till the +butterflies are born. It's a strange thing to see a live creature +go into its own shroud, and hang itself up to turn into a corpse. +Sometimes a live one, crawling round to find a place for itself, +will touch a mummy accidentally; and then, when they're not quite +gone, I've seen 'em give an odd little quiver, under the shell, as +if they were almost at peace, and didn't want to be intruded on, or +called back to earthly things, and the new comer takes the hint, +and respects privacy, and moves himself off to find quarters +somewhere else. Miss Leslie, how splendidly you're doing those! +What's the difference, I wonder, between girls' fingers and boys'? +I couldn't make those atoms of balls so round and perfect, 'if I +died and suffered,' as Miss Hoskins says."</p> +<p>"It's only centrifugal force," said Leslie, spinning round +between her finger and thumb a needle to whose head she had just +touched a globule of the bright black wax. "The world and a +pin-head—both made on the same principle."</p> +<p>The Haddens and Imogen Thoresby strolled along together, and +added themselves to the group.</p> +<p>"Let's go over to the hotel, Leslie. We've seen nothing of the +girls since just after breakfast. They must be up in the hall, +arranging about the tableaux."</p> +<p>"I'll come by and by, if you want me; don't wait. I'm going to +finish these—properly;" and she dipped and twirled another +needle with dainty precision, in the pause between her words.</p> +<p>"Have you got a lot of brothers at home, Miss Leslie?" asked +Dakie Thayne.</p> +<p>"Two," replied Leslie; "not at home, though, now; one at Exeter, +and the other at Cambridge. Why?"</p> +<p>"I was thinking it would be bad—what do you call +it—political economy or something, if you hadn't any, that's +all."</p> +<p>"Mamma wants you," said Ginevra Thoresby, looking out at the +door to call her sisters. "She's in the Haughtleys' room. They're +talking about the wagon for Minster Rock to-night. What <i>do</i> +you take up your time with that boy for?" she added, not inaudibly, +as she and Imogen turned away together.</p> +<p>"Oh dear!" cried blunt Etty, lingering, "I wonder if she meant +me. I want to hear about the caterpillars. Mamma thinks the +Haughtleys are such nice people, because they came in their own +carriage, and they've got such big trunks, and a saddle-horse, and +elegant dressing-cases, and ivory-backed brushes! I wish she didn't +care so much about such things."</p> +<p>Mrs. Thoresby would have been shocked to hear her little +daughter's arrangement and version of her ideas. She had simply +been kind to these strangers on their arrival, in their own +comfortable carriage, a few days since; had stepped +forward,—as somehow it seemed to devolve upon her, with her +dignified air and handsome gray curls, when she chose, to +do,—representing by a kind of tacit consent the household in +general, as somebody in every such sojourn usually will; had +interested herself about their rooms, which were near her own, and +had reported of them, privately, among other things noted in these +first glimpses, that "they had everything about them in the most +<i>per</i>fect style; ivory-backed brushes, and lovely inlaid +dressing-cases, Ginevra; the best all <i>through</i>, and no sham!" +Yes, indeed, if that could but be said truly, and need not stop at +brushes and boxes!</p> +<p>Imogen came back presently, and called to Etty from the stairs, +and she was obliged to go. Jeannie Hadden waited till they were +fairly off the landing, and then walked away herself, saying +nothing, but wearing a slightly displeased air.</p> +<p>Mrs. Thoresby and her elder daughter had taken a sort of dislike +to Dakie Thayne. They seemed to think he wanted putting down. +Nobody knew anything about him; he was well enough in his place, +perhaps; but why should he join himself to their party? The Routh +girls had Frank Scherman, and two or three other older attendants; +among them he was simply not thought of, often, at all. If it had +not been for Leslie and Mrs. Linceford, he would have found himself +in Outledge, what boys of his age are apt to find themselves in the +world at large,—a sort of odd or stray, not provided for +anywhere in the general scheme of society. For this very reason, +discerning it quickly, Leslie had been loyal to him; and he, with +all his boy-vehemence of admiration and devotion, was loyal to her. +She had the feeling, motherly and sisterly in its mingled instinct, +by which all true and fine feminine natures are moved, in behalf of +the man-nature in its dawn, that so needs sympathy and gentle +consideration and provision, and that certain respect which calls +forth and fosters self-respect; to be allowed and acknowledged to +be somebody, lest for the want of this it should fail, unhappily, +ever to be anybody. She was not aware of it; she only followed her +kindly instinct. So she was doing, unconsciously, one of the best +early bits of her woman-work in the world.</p> +<p>Once in a while it occurred to Leslie Goldthwaite to wonder why +it was that she was able to forget—that she found she had +forgotten, in a measure—those little self-absorptions that +she had been afraid of, and that had puzzled her in her thoughtful +moments. She was glad to be "taken up" with something that could +please Dakie Thayne; or to go over to the Cliff and see Prissy +Hoskins, and tell her a story; or help Dakie to fence in safely her +beds of flower-seedlings (she had not let her first visit be her +last, in these weeks since her introduction there), or to sit an +hour with dear old Miss Craydocke and help her in a bit of charity +work, and hear her sweet, simple, genial talk. She had taken up her +little opportunities as they came. Was it by instinct only, or +through a tender Spirit-leading, that she winnowed them and chose +the best, and had so been kept a little out of the drift and hurry +that might else have frothed away the hours? "Give us our daily +bread," "Lead us not into temptation,"—they have to do with +each other, if we "know the daily bread when we see it." But that +also is of the grace of God.</p> +<p>There was the beginning of fruit under the leaf with Leslie +Goldthwaite; and the fine life-current was setting itself that way +with its best impulse and its rarest particles.</p> +<p>The pincushion was well filled with the delicate, bristling, +tiny-headed needles, when Miss Craydocke appeared, walking across, +under her great brown sun-umbrella, from the hotel.</p> +<p>"If you've nothing else to do, my dears, suppose we go over to +the pines together? Where's Miss Jeannie? Wouldn't she like it? All +the breeze there is haunts them always."</p> +<p>"I'm always ready for the pines," said Leslie. "Here, Dakie, I +hope you'll catch a butterfly for every pin. Oh, now I think of it, +have you found your <i>elephant</i>?"</p> +<p>"Yes, half way up the garret-stairs. I can't feed him +comfortably, Miss Leslie. He wants to eat incessantly, and the +elm-leaves wilt so quickly, if I bring them in, that the first +thing I know, he's out of proper provender and off on a raid. He +needs to be on the tree; but then I should lose him."</p> +<p>Leslie thought a minute. "You might tie up a branch with +mosquito-netting," she said.</p> +<p>"Isn't that bright? I'll go right and do it,—only I +haven't any netting," said he.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Linceford has. I'll go and beg a piece for you. And then, +if you'll just sit here a minute, I'll come, Miss Craydocke."</p> +<p>When she came back, she brought Jeannie with her. To use a +vulgar proverb, Jeannie's nose was rather out of joint since the +Haughtleys had arrived. Ginevra Thoresby was quite engrossed with +them, and this often involved Imogen. There was only room for six +in Captain Green's wagon, and nothing had been said to Jeannie +about the drive to Minster Rock.</p> +<p>Leslie had hanging upon her finger, also, the finest and whitest +and most graceful of all possible little splint baskets, only just +big enough to carry a bit of such work as was in it now,—a +strip of sheer, delicate grass-linen, which needle and thread, with +her deft guidance, were turning into a cobweb border, by a weaving +of lace-lines, strong, yet light, where the woof of the original +material had been drawn out. It was "done for odd-minute work, and +was better than anything she could buy." Prettier it certainly was, +when, with a finishing of the merest edge of lace, it came to +encircle her round, fair arms and shoulders, or to peep out with +its dainty revelation among the gathering treasures of the +linen-drawer I told you of. She had accomplished yards of it +already for her holiday work.</p> +<p>She had brought the netting, as she promised, for Dakie Thayne, +who received it with thanks, and straightway hastened off to get +his "elephant" and a piece of string, and to find a convenient +elm-branch which he could convert into a cage-pasture.</p> +<p>"I'll come round to the pines, afterward," he said.</p> +<p>And just then,—Sin Saxon's bright face and pretty figure +showing themselves on the hotel piazza, with a seeking look and +gesture,—Jeannie and Elinor were drawn off also to ask about +the tableaux, and see if they were wanted, with the like promise +that "they would come presently." So Miss Craydocke and Leslie +walked slowly round, under the sun-umbrella, to the head of the +ledge, by themselves.</p> +<p>Up this rocky promontory it was very pretty little climbing, +over the irregular turf-covered crags that made the ascent; and +once up, it was charming. A natural grove of stately old +pine-trees, with their glory of tasseled foliage and their breath +of perfume, crowned and sheltered it; and here had been placed at +cosy angles, under the deepest shade, long, broad, elastic benches +of boards, sprung from rock to rock, and made secure to stakes, or +held in place by convenient irregularities of the rock itself. +Pine-trunks and granite offered rough support to backs that could +so fit themselves; and visitors found out their favorite seats, and +spent hours there, with books or work, or looking forth in a +luxurious listlessness from out the cool upon the warm, bright +valley-picture, and the shining water wandering down from far +heights and unknown solitudes to see the world.</p> +<p>"It's better so," said Miss Craydocke, when the others left +them. "I had a word I wanted to say to you. What do you suppose +those two came up here to the mountains for?" And Miss Craydocke +nodded up, indicatively, toward the two girl-figures just visible +by their draperies in a nook of rock beyond and above the +benches.</p> +<p>"To get the good of them, as we did, I suppose," Leslie +answered, wondering a little what Miss Craydocke might exactly +mean.</p> +<p>"I suppose so, too," was the reply. "And I suppose—the +Lord's love came with them! I suppose He cares whether they get the +full of the good. And yet I think He leaves it, like everything +else, a little to us."</p> +<p>Leslie's heart beat quicker, hearing these words. It beat +quicker always when such thoughts were touched. She was shy of +seeking them; she almost tried, in an involuntary way, to escape +them at first, when they were openly broached; yet she longed +always, at the same time, for a deeper understanding of them. "I +should like to know the Miss Josselyns better," she said presently, +when Miss Craydocke made no haste to speak again. "I have been +thinking so this morning. I have thought so very often. But they +seem so quiet, always. One doesn't like to intrude."</p> +<p>"They ought to be more with young people," Miss Craydocke went +on. "And they ought to do less ripping and sewing and darning, if +it could be managed. They brought three trunks with them. And what +do you think the third is full of?"</p> +<p>Leslie had no idea, of course.</p> +<p>"Old winter dresses. To be made over. For the children at home. +So that their mother may be coaxed to take her turn and go away +upon a visit when they get back, seeing that the fall sewing will +be half done! That's a pretty coming to the mountains for two +tired-out young things, I think!"</p> +<p>"Oh dear!" cried Leslie pitifully; and then a secret compunction +seized her, thinking of her own little elegant, odd-minute work, +which was all she had to interfere with mountain pleasure.</p> +<p>"And isn't it some of our business, if we could get at it?" +asked Miss Craydocke, concluding.</p> +<p>"Dear Miss Craydocke!" said Leslie, with a warm brightness in +her face, as she looked up, "the world is full of business; but so +few people find out any but their own! Nobody but you dreamt of +this, or of Prissy Hoskins, till you showed us,—or of all the +little Wigleys. How do you come to know, when other people go on in +their own way, and see nothing,—like the priests and +Levites?" This last she added by a sudden occurrence and +application, that half answered, beforehand, her own question.</p> +<p>"When we think of people's needs as the <i>Master's!</i>" said +Miss Craydocke, evading herself, and never minding her syntax. +"When we think what every separate soul is to Him, that He came +into the world to care for as God cares for the sparrows! It's my +faith that He's never gone away from his work, dear; that his love +lies alongside every life, and in all its experience; and that his +life is in his love; and that if we want to find +Him—<i>there</i> we may! Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the +least of these, ye have done it unto me.'" She grew +eloquent—the plain, simple-speaking woman—when +something that was great and living to her would find +utterance.</p> +<p>"How do you mean that?" said Leslie, with a sort of abruptness, +as of one who must have definiteness, but who hurried with her +asking, lest after a minute she might not dare. "That He really +knows, and thinks, of every special thing and person,—and +cares? Or only <i>would?</i>"</p> +<p>"I take it as He said it," said Miss Craydocke. "'All power is +given me in heaven and in earth.' 'And lo! I am with you alway, +even unto the end of the world!' He put the two together himself, +dear!"</p> +<p>A great, warm, instant glow seemed to rush over Leslie inwardly. +In the light and quickening of it, other words shone out and +declared themselves. "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch +cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more +can ye, except ye abide in me." And this was the abiding! The +sympathy, the interest, that found itself side by side with his! +The faith that felt his uniting presence with all!</p> +<p>To this child of sixteen came a moment's glimpse of what might +be, truly, that life which is "hid with Christ in God," and which +has its blessed work with the Lord in the world,—came, with +the word of a plain, old, unconsidered woman, whom heedless girls +made daily sport of,—came, bringing with it "old and new," +like a householder of the kingdom of heaven; showing how the life +and the fruit are inextricably one,—how the growth and the +withering are inevitably determined!</p> +<p>They reached the benches now; they saw the Josselyns busy up +beyond, with their chess-board between them, and their mending +basket at their feet; they would not go now and interrupt their +game.</p> +<p>The seat which the sisters had chosen, because it was just a +quiet little corner for two, was a nook scooped out, as it were, in +a jut of granite; hollowed in behind and perpendicularly to a +height above their heads, and embracing a mossy little flat below, +so that it seemed like a great solid armchair into which two could +get together, and a third could not possibly intrude.</p> +<p>Miss Craydocke and Leslie settled themselves, and both were +silent. Presently Leslie spoke again, giving out a fragmentary link +of the train of thought that had been going on in her. "If it +weren't for just one thing!" she said, and there she stopped.</p> +<p>"What?" asked Miss Craydocke, as not a bit at a loss to made out +the unseen connection.</p> +<p>"The old puzzle. We <i>have</i> to think and work a good deal of +the time for ourselves. And then we lose sight"—</p> +<p>"Of Him? Why?"</p> +<p>Leslie said no more, but waited. Miss Craydocke's tone was +clear, untroubled. The young girl looked, therefore, for this clear +confidence to be spoken out.</p> +<p>"Why, since He is close to <i>our</i> life also, and cares +tenderly for that?—since, if we let him possess himself of +it, it is one of his own channels, by which He still gives himself +unto the world? He didn't do it all in one single history of three +years, my child, or thirty-three, out there in Judaea. He keeps +on,—so I believe,—through every possible way and +circumstance of human living now, if only the life is grafted on +his. The Vine and the branches, and God tending all. And the fruit +is the kingdom of heaven."</p> +<p>It is never too late, and never impossible, for a human face to +look beautiful. In the soft light and shadow of the stirring pines, +with the moving from within of that which at once illumined and +veiled, with an exultation and an awe, there came a glory over the +homely and faded features which they could neither bar nor dim. And +the thought took possession of the word and tone, and made them +simply grand and heavenly musical.</p> +<p>After that they sat still again,—it matters not how many +minutes. The crisp green spines rustled dreamily over their heads; +the wild birds called to each other, far back in the closer lying +woods; the water glanced on, millions of new drops every instant +making the self-same circles and gushes and falls, and the wealth +of summer sunshine holding and vivifying all. Leslie had word and +scene stamped together on her spirit and memory in those moments. +There was a Presence in the hush and beauty. Two souls were here +met together in the name of the living Christ. And for that there +is the promise.</p> +<p>Martha Josselyn and her sister sat and played and mended on.</p> +<p>By and by Dakie Thayne came; said a bright word or two; glanced +round, in restless boy-fashion, as if taking in the elements of the +situation, and considering what was to be made out of it; perceived +the pair at chess; and presently, with his mountain stick, went +springing away from point to point, up and around the piles and +masses of rock and mound that made up the broadening ascent of the +ledge.</p> +<p>"Check to your queen," said Sue.</p> +<p>Martha put her elbow upon her knee, and held her needle +suspended by its thread. Sue darned away, and got a great hole laid +lengthwise with smooth lines, before her threatening move had been +provided for. Then a red knight came with gallant leap, right down +in the midst of the white forces, menacing in his turn right and +left; and Martha drew a long sigh, and sat back, and poised her +needle-lance again, and went to work; and it was Sue's turn to lean +over the board with knit brows and holden breath.</p> +<p>Something peered over the rock above them at this moment. A +boy's head, from which the cap had been removed.</p> +<p>"If only they'll play now, and not chatter!" thought Dakie +Thayne, lying prone along the cliff above, and putting up his +elbows to rest his head between his hands. "This'll be jolly, if it +don't turn to eavesdropping. Poor old Noll! I haven't had a game +since I played with him!"</p> +<p>Sue would not withdraw her attack. She planted a bishop so that, +if the knight should move, it would open a course straight down +toward a weak point beside the red king.</p> +<p>"She means to 'fight it out on that line, if it takes all +summer,'" Dakie went on within himself, having grasped, during the +long pause before Sue's move, the whole position. "They're no fools +at it, to have got it into a shape like that! I'd just like Noll to +see it!"</p> +<p>Martha looked, and drew a thread or two into her stocking, and +looked again. Then she stabbed her cotton-ball with her needle, and +put up both hands—one with the white stocking-foot still +drawn over it—beside her temples. At last she castled.</p> +<p>Sue was as calm as the morning. She always grew calm and strong +as the game drew near the end. She had even let her thoughts go off +to other things while Martha pondered and she wove in the +cross-threads of her darn.</p> +<p>"I wonder, Martha," she said now, suddenly, before attending to +the new aspect of the board, "if I couldn't do without that muslin +skirt I made to wear under my <i>piña</i>, and turn it into +a couple of white waists to carry home to mother? If she goes away, +you know"—</p> +<p>"Aigh!"</p> +<p>It was a short, sharp, unspellable sound that came from above. +Sue started, and a red piece rolled from the board. Then there was +a rustling and a crashing and a leaping, and by a much shorter and +more hazardous way than he had climbed, Dakie Thayne came down and +stood before them. "I had to let you know! I couldn't listen. I was +in hopes you wouldn't talk. Don't move, please! I'll find the man. +I do beg your pardon,—I had no business,—but I so like +chess,—when it's any sort of a game!"</p> +<p>While he spoke, he was looking about the base of the rock, and +by good fortune spied and pounced upon the bit of bright-colored +ivory, which had rolled and rested itself against a hummock of +sod.</p> +<p>"May I see it out?" he begged, approaching, and putting the +piece upon the board. "You must have played a good deal," looking +at Sue.</p> +<p>"We play often at home, my sister and I; and I had some good +practice in"—There she stopped.</p> +<p>"In the hospital," said Martha, with the sharp little way she +took up sometimes. "Why shouldn't you tell of it?"</p> +<p>"Has Miss Josselyn been in the hospitals?" asked Dakie Thayne, +with a certain quick change in his tone.</p> +<p>"For the best of two years," Martha answered.</p> +<p>At this moment, seeing how Dakie was breaking the ice for them, +up came Miss Craydocke and Leslie Goldthwaite.</p> +<p>"Miss Leslie! Miss Craydocke! This lady has been away among our +soldiers, in the hospitals, half through the war! Perhaps—did +you ever"—But with that he broke off. There was a great flush +on his face, and his eyes glowed with boy-enthusiasm lit at the +thought of the war, and of brave men, and of noble, ministering +women, of whom he suddenly found himself face to face with one.</p> +<p>The game of chess got swept together. "It was as good as over," +Martha Josselyn said. And these five sat down together among the +rocks, and in half an hour, after weeks of mere "good-mornings," +they had grown to be old friends. But Dakie Thayne—he best +knew why—left his fragment of a question unfinished.</p> +<a name="2HCH13"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2> +<center><big>CROWDED OUT.</big></center> +<p>The "by and by" people came at last: Jeannie and Elinor, and Sin +Saxon, and the Arnalls, and Josie Scherman. They wanted +Leslie,—to tell and ask her half a hundred things about the +projected tableaux. If it had only been Miss Craydocke and the +Josselyns sitting together, with Dakie Thayne, how would that have +concerned them,—the later comers? It would only have been a +bit of "the pines" preoccupied: they would have found a place for +themselves, and gone on with their own chatter. But Leslie's +presence made all the difference. The little group became the +nucleus of the enlarging circle. Miss Craydocke had known very well +how this would be.</p> +<p>They asked this and that of Leslie which they had come to ask; +and she would keep turning to the Josselyns and appealing to them; +so they were drawn in. There was a curtain to be made, first of +all. Miss Craydocke would undertake that, drafting Leslie and the +Miss Josselyns to help her; they should all come to her room early +to-morrow, and they would have it ready by ten o'clock. Leslie +wondered a little that she found <i>work</i> for them to do: a part +of the play she thought would have been better; but Miss Craydocke +knew how that must come about. Besides, she had more than one +little line to lay and to pull, this serpent-wise old maiden, in +behalf of her ultimate designs concerning them.</p> +<p>I can't stay here under the pines and tell you all their talk +this summer morning,—how Sin Saxon grew social and saucy with +the quiet Miss Josselyns; how she fell upon the mending-basket and +their notability, and declared that the most foolish and pernicious +proverb in the world was that old thing about a stitch in time +saving nine; it might save certain special stitches; but how about +the <i>time</i> itself, and <i>other</i> stitches? She didn't +believe in it,—running round after a darning-needle and forty +other things, the minute a thread broke, and dropping whatever else +one had in hand, to let it ravel itself all out again; "she +believed in a good big basket, in a dark closet, and laying up +there for a rainy day, and being at peace in the pleasant weather. +Then, too, there was another thing; she didn't believe in +notability itself, at all: the more one was fool enough to know, +the more one had to do, all one's life long. Providence always took +care of the lame and the lazy; and, besides, those capable people +never had contented minds. They couldn't keep servants: their own +fingers were always itching to do things better. Her sister Effie +was a lamentable instance. She'd married a man,—well, not +<i>very</i> rich,—and she had set out to learn and direct +everything. The consequence was, she was like Eve after the +apple,—she knew good and evil; and wasn't the garden just a +wilderness after that? She never thought of it before, but she +believed that was exactly what that old poem in Genesis was written +for!"</p> +<p>How Miss Craydocke answered, with her gentle, tolerant +common-sense, and right thought, and wide-awake brightness; how the +Josselyns grew cordial and confident enough to confess that, with +five little children in the house, there wasn't a great necessity +for laying up against a rainy day, and with stockings at a dollar +and a half a pair, one was apt to get the nine stitches, or a +pretty comfortable multiple of them, every Wednesday when the wash +came in; and how these different kinds of lives, coming together +with a friendly friction, found themselves not so uncongenial, or +so incomprehensible to each other, after all,—all this, in +its detail of bright words, I cannot stop to tell you; it would +take a good many summers to go through one like this so fully; but +when the big bell rang for dinner, they all came down the ledge +together, and Sue and Martha Josselyn, for the first time in four +weeks, felt themselves fairly one with the current interest and +life of the gay house in which they had been dwellers and yet only +lookers-on.</p> +<p>Mrs. Thoresby, coming down to dinner, a few minutes late, with +her daughters, and pausing—as people always did at the Green +Cottage, without knowing why—to step from the foot of the +stairway to the open piazza-door, and glance out before turning +toward the dining-room, saw the ledge party just dividing itself +into its two little streams, that were to head, respectively, for +cottage and hotel.</p> +<p>"It is a wonder to me that Mrs. Linceford allows it!" was her +comment. "Just the odds and ends of all the company here. And those +girls, who might take whatever stand they pleased."</p> +<p>"Miss Leslie always finds out the nicest people, and the best +times, <i>I</i> think," said Etty, who had dragged through but a +dull morning behind the blinds of her mother's window, puzzling +over crochet,—which she hated, because she said it was like +everlastingly poking one's finger after a sliver,—and had +caught now and then, over the still air, the laughter and +bird-notes that came together from among the pines. One of the Miss +Haughtleys had sat with them; but that only "stiffened out the +dullness," as Etty had declared, the instant the young lady left +them.</p> +<p>"Don't be pert, Etty. You don't know what you want, or what is +for your interest. The Haddens were well enough, by themselves; but +when it comes to Tom, Dick, and Harry!"</p> +<p>"I don't believe that's elegant, mamma," said Etty demurely; +"and there isn't Tom, Dick, nor Harry; only Dakie Thayne, and that +nice, <i>nice</i> Miss Craydocke! And—I <i>hate</i> the +Haughtleys!" This with a sudden explosiveness at the last, after +the demureness.</p> +<p>"Etty!"—and Mrs. Thoresby intoned an indescribable +astonishment of displeasure in her utterance of her daughter's +name,—"remember yourself. You are neither to be impertinent +to me, nor to speak rudely of persons whom I choose for your +acquaintance. When you are older, you will come to understand how +these chance meetings may lead to the most valuable friendships, +or, on the contrary, to the most mortifying embarrassments. In the +mean time, you are to be guided." After which little sententious +homily out of the Book of the World, Mrs. Thoresby ruffled herself +with dignity, and led her brood away with her.</p> +<p>Next day, Tom, Dick, and Harry—that is to say, Miss +Craydocke, Susan and Martha Josselyn, and Leslie +Goldthwaite—were gathered in the first-named lady's room, to +make the great green curtain. And there Sin Saxon came in upon +them,—ostensibly to bring the curtain-rings, and explain how +she wanted them put on; but after that she lingered.</p> +<p>"It's like the Tower of Babel upstairs," she said, "and just +about as likely ever to get built. I can't bear to stay where I +can't hear myself talk. You're nice and cosy here, Miss Craydocke." +And with that, she settled herself down on the floor, with all her +little ruffles and flounces and billows of muslin heaping and +curling themselves about her, till her pretty head and shoulders +were like a new and charming sort of floating-island in the +midst.</p> +<p>And it came to pass that presently the talk drifted round to +vanities and vexations,—on this wise.</p> +<p>"Everybody wants to be everything," said Sin Saxon. "They don't +say so, of course. But they keep objecting, and unsettling. Nothing +hushes anybody up but proposing them for some especially +magnificent part. And you can't hush them all at once in that way. +If they'd only <i>say</i> what they want, and be done with it! But +they're so dreadfully polite! Only finding out continual reasons +why nobody will do for this and that, or have time to dress, or +something, and waiting modestly to be suggested and shut up! When I +came down they were in full tilt about 'The Lady of Shalott.' It's +to be one of the crack scenes, you know,—river of blue +cambric, and a real, regular, lovely property-boat. Frank Scherman +sent for it, and it came up on the stage yesterday,—drivers +swearing all the way. Now they'll go on for half an hour, at least; +and at the end of that time I shall walk in, upon the plain of +Shinar, with my hair all let down,—it's real, every <i>bit of +it</i>, not a tail tied on anywhere,—and tell them +I—myself—am to be the Lady of Shalott! I think I shall +relish flinging in that little bit of honesty, like a dash of cold +water into the middle of a fry. Won't it sizzle?"</p> +<p>She sat twirling the cord upon which the dozens of great brass +rings were strung, watching the shining ellipse they made as they +revolved,—like a child set down upon the carpet with a +plaything,—expecting no answer, only waiting for the next +vagrant whimsicality that should come across her brain,—not +altogether without method, either,—to give it utterance.</p> +<p>"I don't suppose I could convince you of it," she resumed; "but +I do actually have serious thoughts sometimes. I think that very +likely some of us—most of us—are going to the dogs. And +I wonder what it will be when we get there. Why don't you +contradict, or confirm, what I say, Miss Craydocke?"</p> +<p>"You haven't said out, yet, have you?"</p> +<p>Sin Saxon opened wide her great, wondering, saucy blue eyes, and +turned them full upon Miss Craydocke's face. "Well, you <i>are</i> +a oner! as somebody in Dickens says. There's no such thing as a +leading question for you. It's like the rope the dog slipped his +head out of, and left the man holding fast at the other end, in +touching confidence that he was coming on. I saw that once on +Broadway. Now I experience it. I suppose I've got to say more. +Well, then, in a general way, do you think living amounts to +anything, Miss Craydocke?"</p> +<p>"Whose living?"</p> +<p>"Sharp—as a knife that's just cut through a lemon! +<i>Ours</i>, then, if you please; us girls', for instance."</p> +<p>"You haven't done much of your living yet, my dear." The tone +was gentle, as of one who looked down from such a height of years +that she felt tenderly the climbing that had been, for those who +had it yet to do.</p> +<p>"We're as busy at it, too, as we can be. But sometimes I've +mistrusted something like what I discovered very indignantly one +day when I was four years old, and fancied I was making a +petticoat, sewing through and through a bit of flannel. The thread +hadn't any knot in it!"</p> +<p>"That was very well, too, until you knew just where to put the +stitches that should stay."</p> +<p>"Which brings us to our subject of the morning, as the sermons +say sometimes, when they're half through, or ought to be. There are +all kinds of stitches,—embroidery, and plain over-and-over, +and whippings, and darns! When are we to make our knot and begin? +and which kind are we to do?"</p> +<p>"Most lives find occasion, more or less, for each. Practiced +fingers will know how to manage all."</p> +<p>"But—it's—the—pro<i>por</i>tion!" cried Sin, +in a crescendo that ended with an emphasis that was nearly a little +scream.</p> +<p>"I think that, when one looks to what is really needed most and +first, will arrange itself," said Miss Craydocke. "Something gets +crowded out, with us all. It depends upon what, and how, and with +what willingness we let it go."</p> +<p>"<i>Now</i> we come to the superlative sort of people,—the +extra good ones, who let everything go that isn't solid duty; all +the ornament of life,—good looks,—tidiness +even,—and everything that's the least bit jolly, and that +don't keep your high-mindedness on the strain. I want to be +<i>low</i>-minded—<i>weak</i>-minded at least—now and +then. I can't bear ferociously elevated people, who won't say a +word that don't count; people that talk about their time being +interrupted (as if their time wasn't everybody else's time, too), +because somebody comes in once in a while for a friendly call; and +who go about the streets as if they were so intent upon some +tremendous good work, or big thinking, that it would be dangerous +even to bow to a common sinner, for fear of being waylaid and +hindered. I know people like that; and all I've to say is that, if +they're to make up the heavenly circles, I'd full as lief go down +lower, where they're kind of social!"</p> +<p>There can scarcely be a subject touched, in ever so light a +way,—especially a moral or a spiritual subject,—in +however small a company of persons, that shall not set in motion +varied and intense currents of thought; bear diverse and searching +application to consciousness and experience. The Josselyns sat +silent with the long breadths of green cambric over their laps, +listening with an amusement that freshened into their habitual +work-day mood like a willful little summer breeze born out of blue +morning skies, unconscious of clouds, to the oddities of Sin Saxon; +but the drift of her sayings, the meaning she actually had under +them, bore down upon their different knowledge with a significance +whose sharpness she had no dream of. "Plain +over-and-over,"—how well it illustrated what their young days +and the disposal of them had been. Miss Craydocke thought of the +darns; her story cannot be told here; but she knew what it meant to +have the darns of life fall to one's share,—to have the +filling up to do, with dexterousness and pains and sacrifice, of +holes that other people make!</p> +<p>For Leslie Goldthwaite, she got the next word of the lesson she +was learning,—"<i>It depends on what one is willing to let +get crowded out</i>."</p> +<p>Sin Saxon went on again.</p> +<p>"I've had a special disgust given me to superiority. I wouldn't +be superior for all the world. We had a superior specimen come +among us at Highslope last year. She's there yet, it's commonly +believed; but nobody takes the trouble to be positive of it. Reason +why, she took up immediately such a position of mental and moral +altitude above our heads, and became so sublimely unconscious of +all beneath, that all beneath wasn't going to strain its neck to +look after her, much less provide itself with telescopes. We're +pretty nice people, we think, but we're not particularly curious in +astronomy. We heard great things of her, beforehand; and we were +all ready to make much of her. We asked her to our parties. She +came, with a look upon her as if some unpleasant duty had forced +her temporarily into purgatory. She shied round like a cat in a +strange garret, as if all she wanted was to get out. She wouldn't +dance; she wouldn't talk; she went home early,—to her +studies, I suppose, and her plans for next day's unmitigated +usefulness. She took it for granted we had nothing in us <i>but</i> +dance, and so, as Artemus Ward says, 'If the American Eagle could +solace itself in that way, we let it went!' She might have done +some good to us,—we needed to be done to, I don't +doubt,—but it's all over now. That light is under a bushel, +and that city's hid, so far as Highslope is concerned. And we've +pretty much made up our minds, among us, to be bad and jolly. Only +sometimes I get thinking,—that's all."</p> +<p>She got up, giving the string of rings a final whirl, and +tossing them into Leslie Goldthwaite's lap. "Good-by," she said, +shaking down her flounces. "It's time for me to go and assert +myself at Shinar. '<i>L'empire, c'est moi!</i>' Napoleon was great +when he said that. A great deal greater than if he'd pretended to +be meek, and want nothing but the public good!"</p> +<p>"What gets crowded out?" Day by day that is the great test of +our life.</p> +<p>Just now, everything seemed likely to get crowded out with the +young folks at Outledge but dresses, characters, and rehearsals. +The swivel the earth turned on at this moment was the coming +Tuesday evening and its performance. And the central axis of that, +to nearly every individual interest, was what such particular +individual was to "be."</p> +<p>They had asked Leslie to take the part of Zorayda in the "Three +Moorish Princesses of the Alhambra." Jeannie and Elinor were to be +Zayda and Zorahayda. As for Leslie, she liked well enough, as we +know, to look pretty; it was, or had been, till other thoughts of +late had begun to "crowd it out," something like a besetting +weakness; she had only lately—to tell the whole truth as it +seldom is told—begun to be ashamed, before her higher self, +to turn, the first thing in the morning, with a certain +half-mechanical anxiety toward her glass, to see how she was +looking. Without studying into separate causes of complexion and so +forth, as older women given to these things come to do, she knew +that somehow there was often a difference; and beside the standing +question in her mind as to whether there were a chance of her +growing up to anything like positive beauty or not, there was apt +often to be a reason why she would like <i>to-day</i>, if possible, +to be in particular good looks. When she got an invitation, or an +excursion was planned, the first thing that came into her head was +naturally what she should wear; and a good deal of the pleasure +would depend on that. A party without an especially pretty dress +didn't amount to much; she couldn't help that; it did count with +everybody, and it made a difference. She would like, undoubtedly, a +"pretty part" in these tableaux; but there was more in Leslie +Goldthwaite, even without touching upon the deep things, than all +this. <i>Only</i> a pretty part did not quite satisfy: she had +capacity for something more. In spite of the lovely Moorish costume +to be contrived out of blue silk and white muslin, and to contrast +so picturesquely with Jeannie's crimson, and the soft, snowy +drapery of Elinor, she would have been half willing to be the +"discreet Kadiga" instead; for the old woman had really to look +<i>something</i> as well as <i>somehow</i>, and there was a spirit +and a fun in that.</p> +<p>The pros and cons and possibilities were working themselves +gradually clear to her thoughts, as she sat and listened, with +external attention in the beginning, to Sin Saxon's chatter. Ideas +about the adaptation of her dress-material, and the character she +could bring out of, or get into, her part, mingled themselves +together; and Irving's delicious old legend that she had read +hundreds of times, entranced, as a child, repeated itself in +snatches to her recollection. Jeannie must be stately; that would +quite suit her. Elinor—must just be Elinor. Then the airs and +graces remained for herself. She thought she could illustrate with +some spirit the latent coquetry of the imprisoned beauty; she +believed, notwithstanding the fashion in which the story measured +out their speech in rations,—always an appropriate bit, and +just so much of it to each,—that the gay Zorayda must have +had the principal hand in their affairs; must have put the others +up to mischief, and coaxed most winningly the discreet Kadiga. She +could make something out of it: it shouldn't be mere flat +prettiness. She began to congratulate herself upon the character. +And then her ingenious fancy flew off to something else that had +occurred to her, and that she had only secretly proposed to Sin +Saxon; an illustration of a certain ancient nursery ballad, to vary +by contrast the pathetic representations of "Auld Robin Gray" and +"The Lady of Shalott." It was a bright plan, and she was nearly +sure she could carry it out; but it was not a "pretty part," and +Sin Saxon had thought it fair she should have one; therefore +Zorayda. All this was reason why Leslie's brain was busy, like her +fingers, as she sat and sewed on the green curtain, and let Sin +Saxon talk. Till Miss Craydocke said that "something always gets +crowded out," and so those words came to her in the midst of +all.</p> +<p>The Josselyns went away to their own room when the last rings +had been sewn on; and the curtain was ready, as had been promised, +at ten o'clock. Leslie stayed, waiting for Dakie Thayne to come and +fetch it. While she sat there, silent, by the window, Miss +Craydocke brought out a new armful of something from a drawer, and +came and placed her Shaker rocking-chair beside her. Leslie looked +around, and saw her lap full of two little bright plaid +dresses.</p> +<p>"It's only the buttonholes," said Miss Craydocke. "I'm going to +make them now, before they find me out."</p> +<p>Leslie looked very uncomprehending.</p> +<p>"You didn't suppose I let those girls come in here and spend +their morning on that nonsense for nothing, did you? This is some +of <i>their</i> work, the work that's crowding all the frolic out +of their lives. I've found out where they keep it, and I've stolen +some. I'm Scotch, you know, and I believe in brownies. They're good +to believe in. Old fables are generally <i>all but</i> true. You've +only to 'put in one to make it so,' as children say in 'odd and +even.'" And Miss Craydocke overcasted her first buttonhole +energetically.</p> +<p>Leslie Goldthwaite saw through the whole now, in a minute. "You +did it on purpose, for an excuse!" she said; and there was a ring +of applauding delight in her voice which a note of admiration +poorly marks.</p> +<p>"Well, you must begin somehow," said Miss Craydocke. "And after +you've once begun, you can keep on." Which, as a generality, was +not so glittering, perhaps, as might be; but Leslie could imagine, +with a warm heart-throb, what, in this case, Miss Craydocke's +"keeping on" would be.</p> +<p>"I found them out by degrees," said Miss Craydocke. "They've +been overhead here, this month nearly, and if you <i>don't</i> +listen nor look more than is lady-like, you can't help scraps +enough to piece something out of by that time. They sit by their +window, and I sit by mine. I cough, and sneeze, and sing, as much +as I find comfortable, and they can't help knowing where their +neighbors are; and after that, it's their lookout, of course. I +lent them some books one Sunday, and so we got on a sort of +visiting terms, and lately I've gone in, sometimes, and sat down +awhile when I've had an errand, and they've been here; the amount +of it is, they're two young things that'll grow old before they +know they've ever been young, if somebody don't take hold. They've +only got just so much time to stay; and if we don't contrive a +holiday for them before it's over, why,—there's the +'Inasmuch,'—that's all."</p> +<p>Dakie Thayne came to the door to fetch Leslie and the +curtain.</p> +<p>"It's all ready, Dakie,—here; but I can't go just +now,—not unless they want me <i>very</i> much, and then +you'll come, please, won't you, and let me know again?" said +Leslie, bundling up the mass of cambric, and piling it upon Dakie's +arms.</p> +<p>Dakie looked disappointed, but promised, and departed. They were +finding him useful upstairs, and Leslie had begged him to help.</p> +<p>"Now give me that other dress," she said, turning to Miss +Craydocke. "And you,—couldn't you go and steal something +else?" She spoke impetuously, and her eyes shone with eagerness, +and more.</p> +<p>"I've had to lay a plan," resumed Miss Craydocke, as Leslie took +the measure of a buttonhole and began. "Change of work is as good +as a rest. So I've had them down here on the curtain among the +girls. Next, I'm going to have a bee. I've got some things to +finish up for Prissy Hoskins, and they're likely to be wanted in +something of a hurry. She's got another aunt in Portsmouth, and if +she can only be provided with proper things to wear, she can go +down there, Aunt Hoskins says, and stay all winter, get some +schooling, and see a city doctor. The man here tells them that +something might be done for her hearing by a person skilled in such +things, and Miss Hoskins says 'there's a little money of the +child's own, from the vandoo when her father died,' that would pay +for traveling and advice, and 'ef the right sort ain't to be had in +Portsmouth, when she once gets started, she shall go whuzzever't +is, if she has to have a vandoo herself!' It's a whole human life +of comfort and usefulness, Leslie Goldthwaite, may be, that +depends!—Well, I'll have a bee, and get Prissy fixed out. Her +Portsmouth aunt is coming up, and will take her back. She'll give +her a welcome, but she's poor herself, and can't afford much more. +And then the Josselyns are to have a bee. Not everybody; but you +and me, and we'll see by that time who else. It's to begin as if we +meant to have them all round, for the frolic and the sociability; +and besides that, we'll steal all we can. For your part, you must +get intimate. Nobody can do anything, except as a friend. And the +last week they're here is the very week I'm going everywhere in! +I'm going to charter the little red, and have parties of my own. +We'll have a picnic at the Cliff, and Prissy will wait on us with +raspberries and cream. We'll walk up Feather-Cap, and ride up +Giant's Cairn, and we'll have a sunset at Minster Rock. And it's +going to be pleasant weather every day!"</p> +<p>They stitched away, then, dropping their talk. Miss Craydocke +was out of breath; and Leslie measured her even loops with eyes +that glittered more and more.</p> +<p>The half-dozen buttonholes apiece were completed; and then Miss +Craydocke trotted off with the two little frocks upon her arm. She +came back, bringing some two or three pairs of cotton-flannel +drawers.</p> +<p>"I took them up, just as they lay, cut out and ready, on the +bed. I wouldn't have a word. I told them I'd nothing to do, and so +I haven't. My hurry is coming on all of a sudden when I have my +bee. Now I've done it once, I can do it again. They'll find out +it's my way, and when you've once set up a way, people always turn +out for it."</p> +<p>Miss Craydocke was in high glee.</p> +<p>Leslie stitched up three little legs before Dakie came again, +and said they must have her upstairs.</p> +<p>One thing occurred to her, as they ran along the winding +passages, up and down, and up again, to the new hall in the far-off +L.</p> +<p>The Moorish dress would take so long to arrange. Wouldn't Imogen +Thoresby like the part? She was only in the "Three Fishers." Imogen +and Jeannie met her as she came in.</p> +<p>"It is just you I wanted to find," cried Leslie, sealing her +warm impulse with immediate act. "Will you be Zorayda, +Imogen,—with Jeannie and Elinor, you know? I've got so much +to do without. Sin Saxon understands; it's a bit of a secret as +yet. I shall be <i>so</i> obliged!"</p> +<p>Imogen's blue eyes sparkled and widened. It was just what she +had been secretly longing for. But why in the world should Leslie +Goldthwaite want to give it up?</p> +<p>It had got crowded out, that was all.</p> +<p>Another thing kept coming into Leslie's head that day,—the +yards of delicate grass-linen that she had hemstitched, and knotted +into bands that summer,—just for idle work, when plain +bindings and simple ruffling would have done as well,—and all +for her accumulating treasure of reserved robings, while here were +these two girls darning stockings, and sewing over heavy woollen +stuffs, that actual, inevitable work might be dispatched in these +bright, warm hours that had been meant for holiday. It troubled her +to think of it, seeing that the time was gone, and nothing now but +these threads and holes remained of it to her share.</p> +<p>Martha Josselyn had asked her yesterday about the +stitch,—some little baby-daintiness she had thought of for +the mother who couldn't afford embroideries and thread-laces for +her youngest and least of so many. Leslie would go and show her, +and, as Miss Craydocke said, get intimate. It was true there were +certain little things one could not do, except as a friend.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Martha Josselyn must be the Sister of Charity in that +lovely tableau of Consolation.</p> +<p>It does not take long for two young girls to grow intimate over +tableau plans and fancy stitches. Two days after this, Leslie +Goldthwaite was as cosily established in the Josselyns' room as if +she had been there every day all summer. Some people <i>are</i> +like drops of quicksilver, as Martha Josselyn had declared, only +one can't tell how that is till one gets out of the bottle.</p> +<p>"Thank you," she said to Leslie, as she mastered the little +intricacy of the work upon the experimental scrap of cambric she +had drawn. "I understand it now, I think, and I shall find time, +somehow, after I get home, for what I want to do." With that, she +laid it in a corner of her basket, and took up cotton-flannel +again.</p> +<p>Leslie put something, twisted lightly in soft paper, beside it. +"I want you to keep that, please, for a pattern, and to remember +me," she said. "I've made yards more than I really want. It's +nothing," she added, hastily interrupting the surprised and +remonstrating thanks of the other. "And now we must see about that +scapulary thing, or whatever it is, for your nun's dress."</p> +<p>And there was no more about it, only an unusual feeling in +Martha Josselyn's heart, that came up warm long after, and by and +by a little difference among Leslie Goldthwaite's pretty +garnishings, where something had got crowded out.</p> +<p>This is the way, from small to great, things sort +themselves.</p> +<p>"No man can serve two masters," is as full and true and strong +upon the side of encouragement as of rebuke.</p> +<a name="2HCH14"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> +<center><big>A HOWL.</big></center> +<p>The tableaux had to be put off. Frank Scherman was obliged to go +down to Boston, unexpectedly, to attend to business, and nothing +could be done without him. The young girls felt all the reaction +that comes with the sudden interruption of eager plans. A +stagnation seemed to succeed to their excitement and energy. They +were thrown back into a vacuum.</p> +<p>"There is nothing on earth to do, or to think about," said +Florrie Arnall dolefully.</p> +<p>"Just as much as there was last week," replied Josie Scherman, +common-sense-ically. Frank was only her brother, and that made a +difference. "There's Giant's Cairn as big as ever, and Feather-Cap, +and Minster Rock, and the Spires. And there's plenty to do. +Tableaux aren't everything. There's your 'howl,' Sin Saxon. That +hasn't come off yet."</p> +<p>"'It isn't the fall that hurts,—it's the fetch-up,' as the +Irishman observed," said Sin Saxon, with a yawn. "It wasn't that I +doted particularly on the tableaux, but 'the waters wild went o'er +my child, and I was left lamenting.' It was what I happened to be +after at the moment. When I get ready for a go, I do hate to take +off my bonnet and sit down at home."</p> +<p>"But the 'howl,' Sin! What's to become of that?"</p> +<p>"Ain't I howling all I can?"</p> +<p>And this was all Sin Saxon would say about it. The girls meant +to keep her in mind, and to have their frolic,—the half of +them in the most imaginative ignorance as to what it might prove to +be; but somehow their leader herself seemed to have lost her +enthusiasm or her intention.</p> +<p>Leslie Goldthwaite felt neither disappointment nor impatience. +She had got a permanent interest. It is good always to have +something to fall back upon. The tableaux would come by and by; +meanwhile, there was plenty of time for their "bees," and for the +Cliff.</p> +<p>They had long mornings in the pines, and cool, quiet afternoons +in Miss Craydocke's pretty room. It was wonderful the cleverness +the Josselyns had come to with little frocks. One a skirt, and the +other a body,—they made nothing of finishing the whole at a +sitting. "It's only seeing the end from the beginning," Martha +said, when Leslie uttered her astonishment. "We know the way, right +through; and no way seems long when you've traveled it often." To +be sure, Prissy Hoskins's delaines and calicoes didn't need to be +contrived after Demorest's fashion-plates.</p> +<p>Then they had their holiday, taking the things over to the +Cliff, and trying them all on Prissy, very much as if they had been +a party of children, and she a paper doll. Her rosy little face and +willful curls came out of each prettier than the last, precisely as +a paper dolly's does, and when at the end of all they got her into +a bright violet print and a white bib-apron, it was well they were +the last, for they couldn't have had the heart to take her out of +them. Leslie had made for her a small hoop from the upper half of +one of her own, and laced a little cover upon it, of striped +seersucker, of which there was a petticoat also to wear above. +These, clear, clean, and stiffened, came from Miss Craydocke's +stores. She never traveled without her charity-trunk, wherein, put +at once in perfect readiness for different use the moment they +passed beyond her own, she kept all spare material that waited for +such call. Breadths of old dresses, ripped and sponged and pressed, +or starched, ironed, and folded; flannel petticoats shrunken short; +stockings "cut down" in the old, thrifty, grandmother fashion; +underclothing strongly patched (as she said, "the Lord's mark put +upon it, since it had pleased Him to give her the means to do +without patches"); odds and ends of bonnet-ribbons, dipped in +spirits and rolled tightly upon blocks, from which they unrolled +nearly as good as new,—all these things, and more, +religiously made the most of for whomsoever they might first +benefit, went about with her in this, the biggest of her boxes, +which, give out from it as she might, she never seemed, she said, +to get quite to the bottom of.</p> +<p>Under the rounded skirts, below the short, plain trousers, +Prissy's ankles and feet were made shapely with white stockings and +new, stout boots. (Aunt Hoskins believed in "white stockin's, or go +athout. Bilin' an' bleachin' an' comin' out new; none o' yer +aggravations 'v everlastin' dirt-color.") And one thing more, the +prettiest of all. A great net of golden-brown silk that Leslie had +begged Mrs. Linceford, who liked netting, to make, gathered into +strong, large meshes the unruly wealth of hair brushed back in +rippling lines from Prissy's temples, and showing so its brighter, +natural color from underneath, where the outside had grown +sun-faded.</p> +<p>"I'm just like Cinderella,—with four godmothers!" cried +the child; and she danced up and down, as Leslie let her go from +under her hands.</p> +<p>"You're just like—a little heathen!" screamed Aunt +Hoskins. "Where's yer thanks?" Her own thanks spoke themselves, +partly in an hysterical sort of chuckle and sniffle, that stopped +each other short, and the rebuke with them. "But there! she don't +know no better! 'T ain't fer every day, you needn't think. It's for +company to-day, an' fer Sundays, an' to go to Portsmouth."</p> +<p>"Don't spoil it for her, Miss Hoskins. Children hate to think it +isn't for every day," said Leslie Goldthwaite.</p> +<p>But the child-antidote to that was also ready.</p> +<p>"I don't care," cried Prissy. "To-day's a great, long day, and +Sunday's for ever and ever, and Portsmouth'll be always."</p> +<p>"<i>Can't</i> yer stop ter kerchy, and say—Lud-o'-light +'n' massy, I donno what to <i>tell</i> ye ter say!" And Miss +Hoskins sniffled and gurgled again, and gave it up.</p> +<p>"She has thanked us, I think," said Miss Craydocke, in her +simple way, "when she called us Godmothers!" The word came home to +her good heart. God had given her, the lonely woman, the larger +motherhood. "Brothers, and sisters, and mothers!" She thought how +Christ traced out the relationships, and claimed them even to +himself!</p> +<p>"Now, for once, <i>you</i>'re to be done up. That's general +order number two," Miss Craydocke said to the Josselyn girls, as +they all first met together again after the Cliff party. "We've +worked together till we're friends. And so there's not a word to be +said. We owe you time that we've taken, and more that we mean to +take before you go. I'll tell you what for, when it's +necessary."</p> +<p>It was a nicer matter to get the Josselyns to be helped than to +help. It was not easy for them to bring forth their breadths and +their linings, and their braids that were to be pieced, and their +trimmings that were to be turned, and to lay bare to other eyes all +their little economies of contrivance; but Miss Craydocke managed +it by simple straightforwardness,—by not behaving as if there +were anything to be glossed over or ignored. Instead of hushing up +about economies, she brought them forward, and gave them a most +cheery and comfortable, not to say dignified air. It was all +ordinary matter of course,—the way everybody did, or ought to +do. This was the freshest end of this breadth, and should go down; +this other had a darn that might be cut across, and a straight +piecing made, for which the slope of the skirt would +allow,—<i>she</i> should do it so; that hem might be taken +off altogether and a new one turned; this was a very nice trimming, +and plenty of it, and the wrong side was brighter than the right; +she knew a way of joining worsted braid that never +showed,—you might have a dozen pieces in the binding of a +skirt and not be noticed. This little blue frock had no trimming; +they would finish that at home. No, the prettiest thing in the +world for it would be pipings of black silk, and Miss Craydocke had +some bits just right for covering cord, thick as a board, big +enough for nothing else; and out they came, as did many another +thing, without remark, from her bags and baskets. She had hooks and +eyes, and button-fasteners, when these gave out; she used from her +own cotton-spools and skeins of silk; she had tailors' twist for +buttonholes, and large black cord for the pipings; and these were +but working implements, like scissors and thimble,—taken for +granted, without count. There was nothing on the surface for the +most shrinking delicacy to rub against; but there was a kindness +that went down into the hearts of the two young girls +continually.</p> +<p>For an hour or two at least each day they sat together so, for +the being together. The work was "taken up." Dakie Thayne read +stories to them sometimes: Miss Craydocke had something always to +produce and to summon them to sit and hear; some sketch of strange +adventure, or a ghost marvel, or a bright, spicy magazine essay; +or, knowing where to find sympathizers and helpers, Dakie would +rush in upon them uncalled, with some discovery, or want, or +beautiful thing to show of his own. They were quite a little +coterie by themselves. It shaped itself to this more and more.</p> +<p>Leslie did not neglect her own party. She drove and walked with +Mrs. Linceford, and was ready for anything the Haddens really +wanted of her; but Mrs. Linceford napped and lounged a good deal, +and could spare her then; and Jeannie and Elinor seemed somehow to +feel the want of her less than they had done,—Elinor +unconsciously drawn away by new attraction, Jeannie rather of a +purpose.</p> +<p>I am afraid I cannot call it anything else but a little loss of +caste which seemed coming to Leslie Goldthwaite just now, through +these new intimacies of hers. "Something always gets crowded out." +This, too,—her popularity among the first,—might have +to be, perhaps, one of the somethings.</p> +<p>Now and then she felt it so,—perceived the shade of +difference toward her in the tone and manner of these young girls. +I cannot say that it did not hurt her a little. She had self-love, +of course; yet, for all, she was loyal to the more generous +love,—to the truer self-respect. If she could not have both, +she would keep the best. There came to be a little pride in her own +demeanor,—a waiting to be sought again.</p> +<p>"I can't think what has come over Les'," said Jeannie Hadden, +one night, on the piazza, to a knot of girls. She spoke in a tone +at once apologetic and annoyed. "She was always up to anything at +home. I thought she meant to lead us all off here. She might have +done almost what she pleased."</p> +<p>"Everybody likes Leslie," said Elinor.</p> +<p>"Why, yes, we all do," put in Mattie Shannon. "Only she will +take up queer people, you see. And—well, they're nice enough, +I suppose; only there's never room enough for everybody."</p> +<p>"I thought we were all to be nowhere when she first came. There +was something about her,—I don't know what,—not +wonderful, but taking. 'Put her where you pleased, she was the +central point of the picture,' Frank said." This came from Josie +Scherman.</p> +<p>"And she's just dropped all, to run after goodness knows what +and whom! I can't see through her!" rejoined Jeannie, with a sort +of finality in her accent that seemed to imply, "<i>I</i> wash my +hands of her, and won't be supposed accountable."</p> +<p>"Knew ye not," broke in a gentle voice, "that she must be about +her Master's business?" It was scarcely addressed to them. Miss +Craydocke just breathed audibly the thought she could not help.</p> +<p>There came a downfall of silence upon the group.</p> +<p>When they took breath again,—"Oh, if she's +<i>religious</i>!" Mattie Shannon just said, as of a thing yet +farther off and more finally done with. And then their talk waited +under a restraint again.</p> +<p>"I supposed we were all religious,—Sundays, at least," +broke forth Sin Saxon suddenly, who, strangely, had not spoken +before. "I don't know, though. Last Saturday night we danced the +German till half past twelve, and we talked charades instead of +going to church, till I felt—as if I'd sat all the morning +with my feet over a register, reading a novel, when I'd ought to +have been doing a German exercise or something. If she's religious +every day, she's seven times better than we are, that's all. +<i>I</i> think—she's got a knot to her thread!"</p> +<p>Nobody dared send Leslie Goldthwaite quite to Coventry after +this.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon found herself in the position of many another +leader,—obliged to make some demonstration to satisfy the +aroused expectations of her followers. Her heart was no longer +thoroughly in it; but she had promised them a "howl," and a howl +they were determined upon, either with or against her.</p> +<p>Opportunity arose just now also. Madam Routh went off on a party +to the Notch, with some New York friends, taking with her one or +two of the younger pupils, for whom she felt most constant +responsibility. The elder girls were domesticated and acquainted +now at Outledge; there were several matronly ladies with whom the +whole party was sufficiently associated in daily intercourse for +all the air of chaperonage that might be needed; and one assistant +pupil, whom, to be sure, the young ladies themselves counted as a +most convenient nonentity, was left in nominal charge.</p> +<p>Now or never, the girls declared with one voice it must be. All +they knew about it—the most of them—was that it was +some sort of an out-of-hours frolic, such as boarding-school +ne'er-do-weels delight in; and it was to plague Miss Craydocke, +against whom, by this time, they had none of them really any manner +of spite; neither had they any longer the idea of forcing her to +evacuate; but they had got wound up on that key at the beginning, +and nobody thought of changing it. Nobody but Sin Saxon. She had +begun, perhaps, to have a little feeling that she would change it, +if she could.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, with such show of heartiness as she found +possible, she assented to their demand, and the time was fixed. Her +merry, mischievous temperament asserted itself as she went on, +until she really grew into the mood for it once more, from the pure +fun of the thing.</p> +<p>It took two days to get ready. After the German on Thursday +night, the howl was announced to come off in Number Thirteen, West +Wing. This, of course, was the boudoir; but nobody but the +initiated knew that. It was supposed to be Maud Walcott's room. The +assistant pupil made faint remonstrances against she knew not what, +and was politely told so; moreover, she was pressingly invited to +render herself with the other guests at the little piazza door, +precisely at eleven. The matronly ladies, always amused, sometimes +a little annoyed and scandalized, at Sin Saxon's escapades, asked +her, one and another, at different times, what it was all to be, +and if she really thought she had better, and among themselves +expressed tolerably grave doubts about proprieties, and wished +Madam Routh would return. The vague mystery and excitement of the +howl kept all the house gently agog for this Tuesday and Wednesday +intervening. Sin Saxon gave out odd hints here and there in +confidence.</p> +<p>It was to be a "spread;" and the "grub" (Sin was a +boarding-school girl, you know, and had brothers in college) was +all to be stolen. There was an uncommon clearance of cakes and +doughnuts, and pie and cheese, from each meal, at this time. +Cup-custards, even, disappeared,—cups and all. A cold supper, +laid at nine on Wednesday evening, for some expected travelers, +turned out a more meagre provision on the arrival of the guests +than the good host of the Giant's Cairn had ever been known to +make. At bedtime Sin Saxon presented herself in Miss Craydocke's +room.</p> +<p>"There's something heavy on my conscience," she said, with a +disquiet air. "I'm really worried; and it's too late to help it +now."</p> +<p>Miss Craydocke looked at her with a kind anxiety.</p> +<p>"It's never too late to <i>try</i> to help a mistake. And +<i>you</i>, Miss Saxon,—you can always do what you +choose."</p> +<p>She was afraid for her,—the good lady,—that her +heedlessness might compromise herself and others in some untoward +scrape. She didn't like these rumors of the howl,—the last +thing she thought of being her own rest and comfort, which were to +be purposely invaded.</p> +<p>"I've let the chance go by," said Sin Saxon desperately. "It's +of no use now." And she rocked herself back and forth in the Shaker +chair of which she had taken possession.</p> +<p>"My dear," said Miss Craydocke, "if you would only explain to +me,—perhaps"—</p> +<p>"You <i>might</i>!" cried Sin, jumping up, and making a rush at +the good woman, seizing her by both hands. "They'd never suspect +you. It's that cold roast chicken in the pantry. I <i>can't</i> get +over it, that I didn't take that!"</p> +<p>Sin was incorrigible. Miss Craydocke shook her head, taking care +to turn it aside at the same moment; for she felt her lips twitch +and her eyes twinkle, in spite of herself.</p> +<p>"I won't take this till the time comes," said Sin, laying her +hand on the back of the Shaker chair. "But it's confiscated for +to-morrow night, and I shall come for it. And, Miss Craydocke, if +you <i>do</i> manage about the chicken,—I hate to trouble you +to go downstairs, but I dare say you want matches, or a drink of +water, or something, and another time I'll wait upon you with +pleasure,—here's the door, made for the emergency, and I on +the other side of it dissolved in tears of gratitude!"</p> +<p>And so, for the time, Sin Saxon disappeared.</p> +<p>The next afternoon, Jimmy Wigley brought a big basket of +raspberries to the little piazza door. A pitcher of cream vanished +from the tea-table just before the gong was struck. Nobody supposed +the cat had got it. The people of the house understood pretty well +what was going on, and who was at the bottom of it all; but Madam +Routh's party was large, and the life of the place; they would wink +hard and long before complaining at anything that might be done in +the west wing.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon opened her door upon Miss Craydocke when she was +dressed for the German, and about to go downstairs. "I'll trust +you," she said, "about the rocking-chair. You'll want it, perhaps, +till bedtime, and then you'll just put it in here. I shouldn't like +to disturb you by coming for it late. And please step in a minute +now, won't you?"</p> +<p>She took her through the boudoir. There lay the "spread" upon a +long table, contrived by the contribution of one ordinary little +one from each sleeping-chamber, and covered by a pair of clean +sheets, which swept the floor along the sides. About it were ranged +chairs. Two pyramids of candles, built up ingeniously by the +grouping of bedroom tins upon hidden supports, vine-sprays and +mosses serving gracefully for concealment and decoration, stood, +one on each side, half way between the ends and centre. Cake-plates +were garnished with wreathed oak-leaves, and in the midst a great +white Indian basket held the red, piled-up berries, fresh and +fragrant.</p> +<p>"That's the little bit of righteousness to save the city. That's +paid for," said Sin Saxon. "Jimmy Wigley's gone home with more +scrip than he ever got at once before; and if your +chicken-heartedness hadn't taken the wrong direction, Miss +Craydocke, I should be perfectly at ease in my mind."</p> +<p>"It's very pretty," said Miss Craydocke; "but do you think Madam +Routh would quite approve? And why couldn't you have had it openly +in the dining-room? And what do you call it a 'howl' for?" Miss +Craydocke's questions came softly and hesitatingly, as her doubts +came. The little festival was charming—but for the way and +place.</p> +<p>"Oh, Miss Craydocke! Well, you're not wicked, and you can't be +supposed to know; but you must take my word for it, that, if it was +tamed down, the game wouldn't be worth the candle. And the howl? +You just wait and see!"</p> +<p>The invited guests were told to come to the little piazza door. +The girls asked all their partners in the German, and the matronly +ladies were asked, as a good many respectable people are civilly +invited where their declining is counted upon. Leslie Goldthwaite, +and the Haddens, and Mrs. Linceford, and the Thoresbys were all +asked, and might come if they chose. Their stay would be another +matter. And so the evening and the German went on.</p> +<p>Till eleven, when they broke up; and the entertainers in a body +rushed merrily and noisily along the passages to Number Thirteen, +West Wing, rousing from their first naps many quietly disposed, +delicate people, who kept early hours, and a few babies whose +nurses and mammas would bear them anything but gratefully in mind +through the midnight hours to come.</p> +<p>They gained two minutes, perhaps, upon their guests, who had, +some of them, to look up wraps, and to come round by the front hall +and piazzas. In these two minutes, by Sin Saxon's order, they +seated themselves comfortably at table. They had plenty of room; +but they spread their robes gracefully,—they had all dressed +in their very prettiest to-night,—and they quite filled up +the space. Bright colors, and soft, rich textures floating and +mingling together, were like a rainbow encircling the feast. The +candles had been touched with kerosene, and matches lay ready. The +lighting-up had been done in an instant. And then Sin Saxon went to +the door, and drew back the chintz curtains from across the upper +half, which was of glass. A group of the guests, young men, were +already there, beneath the elms outside. But how should she see +them, looking from the bright light into the tree-shadows? She went +quietly back, and took her place at the head, leaving the door fast +bolted.</p> +<p>There came a knock. Sin Saxon took no heed, but smilingly +addressed herself to offering dainties right and left. Some of the +girls stared, and one or two half rose to go and give +admittance.</p> +<p>"Keep your seats," said Sin, in her most lady-like way and tone, +with the unchanged smile upon her face. "<i>That</i>'s the +<i>howl</i>!"</p> +<p>They began to perceive the joke outside. They began to knock +vociferously. They took up their cue with a readiness, and made +plenty of noise, not doubting, as yet, that they should be admitted +at last. Some of the ladies came round, gave a glance, saw how +things were going, and retreated,—except a few, parties from +other houses who had escorts among the gentlemen, and who waited a +little to see how the frolic would end, or at least to reclaim +their attendants.</p> +<p>Well, it was very unpardonable,—outrageous, the +scandalized neighbors were beginning already to say in their rooms. +Even Sin Saxon had a little excitement in her eye beyond the fun, +as she still maintained the most graceful order within, and the +exchange of courtesies went on around the board, and the tumult +increased without. They tree-toaded, they cat-called, they shouted, +they cheered, they howled, they even hissed. Sin Saxon sat +motionless an instant when it came to that, and gave a glance +toward the lights. A word from her would put them out, and end the +whole. She held her <i>coup</i> in reserve, however, knowing her +resource, and sat, as it were, with her finger on the spring, +determined to carry through coolly what she had begun.</p> +<p>Dakie Thayne had gone away with the Linceford party when they +crossed to the Green Cottage. Afterward, he came out again and +stood in the open road. Some ladies, boarders at Blashford's, up +above, came slowly away from the uproar, homeward. One or two young +men detached themselves from the group on the piazza, and followed +to see them safe, as it belonged to them to do. The rest sat +themselves down, at this moment, upon the steps and platform, and +struck up, with one accord, "We won't go home till morning." In the +midst of this, a part broke off and took up, discordantly, the +refrain, "Polly, put the kettle on, we'll all have tea;" others +complicated the confusion further with, "Cruel, cruel Polly +Hopkins, treat me so,—oh, treat me so!" till they fell, at +last, into an indistinguishable jumble and clamor, from which +extricated themselves now and again and prevailed, the choruses of +"Upidee," and "Bum-bum-bye," with an occasional drum-beat of +emphasis given upon the door.</p> +<p>"Don't go back there, James," Dakie Thayne heard a voice from +the retiring party say as they passed him; "it's disgraceful!"</p> +<p>"The house won't hold Sin Saxon after this," said another. "They +were out in the upper hall, half a dozen of them, just now, ringing +their bells and calling for Mr. Biscombe."</p> +<p>"The poor man don't know who to side with. He don't want to lose +the whole west wing. After all, there must be young people in the +house, and if it weren't one thing it would be another. It's only a +few fidgets that complain. They'll hush up and go off presently, +and the whole thing will be a joke over the breakfast-table +to-morrow morning, after everybody's had a little sleep."</p> +<p>The singing died partially away just then, and some growling, +less noisy, but more in earnest, began.</p> +<p>"They don't <i>mean</i> to let us in! I say, this is getting +rather rough!"</p> +<p>"It's only to smash a pane of glass above the bolt and let +ourselves in. Why shouldn't we? We're invited." The latent +mob-element was very near developing itself in these young +gentlemen, high-bred, but irate.</p> +<p>At this moment, a wagon came whirling down the road around the +ledges. Dakie Thayne caught sight of the two white leaders, +recognized them, and flew across to the hotel. "Stop!" cried he. At +the same instant a figure moved hastily away from behind Miss +Craydocke's blinds. It was a mercy that the wagon had driven around +to the front hall door.</p> +<p>A mercy in one way; but the misfortune was that the supper-party +within knew nothing of it. A musical, lady-like laugh, quite in +contrast to the demonstrative utterances outside, had just broken +forth, in response to one of Sin Saxon's brightest speeches, when +through the adjoining apartment came suddenly upon them the +unlooked-for apparition of "the spinster." Miss Craydocke went +straight across to the beleaguered door, drew the bolt, and threw +it back. "Gently, young gentlemen! Draw up the piazza chairs, if +you please, and sit down," said she. "Mr. Lowe, Mr. Brookhouse, +here are plates; will you be kind enough to serve your +friends?"</p> +<p>In three minutes she had filled and passed outward half a dozen +saucers of fruit, and sent a basket of cake among them. Then she +drew a seat for herself, and began to eat raspberries. It was all +done so quickly—they were so either taken by +surprise—that nobody, inside or out, gain-said or delayed her +by a word.</p> +<p>It was hardly done when a knock sounded at the door upon the +passage. "Young ladies!" a voice called,—Madam Routh's.</p> +<p>She and her friends had driven down from the Notch by sunset and +moonlight. Nobody had said anything to her of the disturbance when +she came in: her arrival had rather stopped the complaints that had +begun; for people are not malignant, after all, as a general thing, +and there is a curious propensity in human nature which cools off +indignation even at the greatest crimes, just as the culprit is +likely to suffer. We are apt to check the foot just as we might +have planted it upon the noxious creature, and to let off great +state criminals on parole. Madam Routh had seen the bright light +and the gathering about the west wing. She had caught some sounds +of the commotion. She made her way at once to look after her +charge.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon was not a pupil now, and there was no condign +punishment actually to fear; but her heart stood still a second, +for all that, and she realized that she had been on the verge of an +"awful scrape." It was bad enough now, as Madam Routh stood there +gravely silent. She could not approve. She was amazed to see Miss +Craydocke present, countenancing and matronizing. But Miss +Craydocke <i>was</i> present, and it altered the whole face of +affairs. Her eye took in, too, the modification of the +room,—quite an elegant little private parlor as it had been +made. The young men were gathered decorously about the doorway and +upon the platform, one or two only politely assisting within. They +had taken this cue as readily as the other; indeed, they were by no +means aware that this was not the issue intended from the +beginning, long as the joke had been allowed to go on, and their +good-humor and courtesy had been instantly restored. Miss +Craydocke, by one master-stroke of generous presence of mind, had +achieved an instantaneous change in the position, and given an +absolutely new complexion to the performance.</p> +<p>"It is late, young ladies," was all Madam Routh's remark at +length.</p> +<p>"They gave up their German early on purpose; it was a little +surprise they planned," Miss Craydocke said, as she moved to meet +her.</p> +<p>And then Madam Routh, with wise, considerate dignity, took +<i>her</i> cue. She even came forward to the table and accepted a +little fruit; stayed five minutes perhaps, and then, without a +spoken word, her movement to go broke up, with unmistakable intent, +the party. Fifteen minutes after, all was quiet in the west +wing.</p> +<p>But Sin Saxon, when the doors closed at either hand, and the +girls alone were left around the fragments of their feast, rushed +impetuously across toward Miss Craydocke, and went down beside her +on her knees.</p> +<p>"Oh, you dear, magnificent old Christian!" she cried out, and +laid her head down on her lap, with little sobs, half laughter and +half tears.</p> +<p>"There, there!"—and Miss Craydocke softly patted her +golden hair, and spoke as she would soothe a fretted and excited +child.</p> +<p>Next morning, at breakfast, Sin Saxon was as beautifully +ruffled, ratted, and crimped, as gay, as bewitching, and defiant as +ever, seated next Madam Routh, assiduously devoted to her in the +little attentions of the meal, in high spirits and favor; even +saucily alluding, across the table, to "<i>our</i> howl, Miss +Craydocke!"</p> +<p>Public opinion was carried by storm; the benison of sleep had +laid wrath. Nobody knew that, an hour before, she had been in Madam +Routh's room, making a clean breast of the whole transaction, and +disclosing the truth of Miss Craydocke's magnanimous and tactful +interposition, confessing that without this she had been at her +wits' ends how to put a stop to it, and promising, like a sorry +child, to behave better, and never do so any more.</p> +<p>Two hours later she came meekly to Miss Craydocke's room, where +the "bee" was gathered,—for mere companionship to-day, with +chess and fancy-work,—her flourishes all laid aside, her very +hair brushed close to her pretty head, and a plain gingham dress +on.</p> +<p>"Miss Craydocke!" she said, with an air she could not divest of +a little comicality, but with an earnestness behind it shining +through her eyes, "I'm good; I'm converted. I want some tow-cloth +to sew on immediately." And she sat down, folding her hands, +waiting.</p> +<p>Miss Craydocke laughed. "I don't know. I'm afraid I haven't +anything to be done just now, unless I cut out some very coarse, +heavy homespun."</p> +<p>"I'd be glad if you would. Beggars mustn't be choosers; but if +they might, I should say it was the very thing. Sackcloth, you +know; and then, perhaps, the ashes might be excused. I'm in solemn +earnest, though. I'm reformed. You've done it; and you," she added, +turning round short on Leslie Goldthwaite,—"you've been at it +a long time, <i>unbeknownst</i> to yourself; and you, +ma'am,—you finished it last night. It's been like the casting +out of the devils in Scripture. They always give a howl, you know, +and go out of 'em!"</p> +<a name="2HCH15"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> +<center><big>"FRIENDS OF MAMMON."</big></center> +<p>Sin Saxon came heart and soul into Miss Craydocke's generous and +delicate plans. The work was done, to be sure. The third trunk, +that had been "full of old winter dresses to be made over," was +locked upon the nice little completed frocks and sacks that +forestalled the care and hurry of "fall work" for the overburdened +mother, and were to gladden her unexpecting eyes, as such store +only can gladden the anxious family manager who feels the +changeful, shortening days come treading, with their speedy +demands, upon the very skirts of long, golden sunshiny August +hours.</p> +<p>Susan and Martha Josselyn felt, on their part, as only busy +workers feel who fasten the last thread, or dash a period to the +last page, and turn around to breathe the breath of the free, and +choose for once and for a while what they shall do. The first hour +of this freedom rested them more than the whole six weeks that they +had been getting half-rest, with the burden still upon their +thought and always waiting for their hands. It was like the first +half-day to children, when school has closed and books are brought +home for the long vacation. All the possible delight of coming +weeks is distilled to one delicious drop, and tasted then.</p> +<p>"It's 'none of my funeral,' I know," Sin Saxon said to Miss +Craydocke. "I'm only an eleventh-hour helper; but I'll come in for +the holiday business, if you'll let me; and perhaps, after all, +that's more in my line."</p> +<p>Everything seemed to be in her line that she once took hold of. +She had little private consultations with Miss Craydocke. "It's to +be your party to Feather-Cap, but it shall be my party to Minster +Rock," she said. "Leave that to me, please. Now the howl's off my +hands, I feel equal to anything.'"</p> +<p>Just in time for the party to Minster Rock, a great basket and +box from home arrived for Sin Saxon. In the first were delicious +early peaches, rose-color and gold, wrapped one by one in soft +paper and laid among fine sawdust; early pears, also, with the +summer incense in their spiciness; greenhouse grapes, white and +amber and purple. The other held delicate cakes and confections +unknown to Outledge, as carefully put up, and quite fresh and +unharmed. "Everything comes in right for me," she exclaimed, +running back and forth to Miss Craydocke with new and more charming +discoveries as she excavated. Not a word did she say of the letter +that had gone down from her four days before, asking her mother for +these things, and to send her some money; "for a party," she told +her, "that she would rather give here than to have her usual summer +<i>fête</i> after her return."</p> +<p>"You quite eclipse and extinguish my poor little doings," said +Miss Craydocke, admiring and rejoicing all the while as genuinely +as Sin herself.</p> +<p>"Dear Miss Craydocke!" cried the girl; "if I thought it would +seem like that, I would send and tip them all into the river. But +you,—you <i>can't</i> be eclipsed! Your orbit runs too high +above ours."</p> +<p>Sin Saxon's brightness and independence, that lapsed so easily +into sauciness, and made it so hard for her to observe the mere +conventionalisms of respect, in no way hindered the real reverence +that grew in her toward the superiority she recognized, and that +now softened her tone to a tenderness of humility before her +friend.</p> +<p>There was a grace upon her in these days that all saw. Over her +real wit and native vivacity, it was like a porcelain shade about a +flame. One could look at it, and be glad of it, without winking. +The brightness was all there, but there was a difference in the +giving forth. What had been a bit self-centred and +self-conscious—bright as if only for being bright and for +dazzling—was outgoing and self-forgetful, and so softened. +Leslie Goldthwaite read by it a new answer to some of her old +questions. "What harm is there in it?" she had asked herself on +their first meeting, when Sin Saxon's overflow of merry mischief, +that yet did "no special or obvious good," made her so taking, so +the centre of whatever group into which she came. Afterward, when, +running to its height, this spirit showed in behavior that raised +misgivings among the scrupulous and orderly that would not let them +any longer be wholly amused; and came near betraying her, or +actually did betray her, into indecorums beyond excuse or +countenance, Leslie had felt the harm, and begun to shrink away. +"Nothing <i>but</i> leaves" came back to her; her summer thought +recurred and drew to itself a new illustration. This it was to have +no aim but to rustle and flaunt; to grow leaves continually; to +make one's <i>self</i> central and conspicuous, and to fill great +space. But now among these very leaves gleamed something golden and +glorious; something was ripening suddenly out that had lain unseen +in its greenness; the time of figs seemed coming. Sin Saxon was +intent upon new purpose; something to be <i>done</i> would not let +her "stand upon the order" or the fashion of her doing. She forgot +her little airs, that had been apt to detract from her very wit, +and leave it only smartness; bright things came to her, and she +uttered and acted them; but they seemed involuntary and only on the +way; she could not help herself, and nobody would have had it +helped; she was still Sin Saxon; but she had simply told the truth +in her wayward way that morning. Miss Craydocke had done it, with +her kindly patience that was no stupidity, her simple dignity that +never lowered itself and that therefore could not be lowered, and +her quiet continuance in generous well-doing,—and Sin Saxon +was different. She was won to a perception of the really best in +life,—that which this plain old spinster, with her "scrap of +lace and a front," had found worth living for after the golden days +were over. The impulse of temperament, and the generosity which +made everything instant and entire with her, acted in this also, +and carried her full over to an enthusiasm of affectionate +coöperation.</p> +<p>There were a few people at Outledge—of the sort who, +having once made up their minds that no good is ever to come out of +Nazareth, see all things in the light of that conviction—who +would not allow the praise of any voluntary amendment to this +tempering and new direction of Sin's vivacity. "It was time she was +put down," they said, "and they were glad that it was done. That +last outbreak had finished her. She might as well run after people +now whom she had never noticed before; it was plain there was +nothing else left for her; her place was gone, and her reign was +over." Of all others, Mrs. Thoresby insisted upon this most +strongly.</p> +<p>The whole school-party had considerably subsided. Madam Routh +held a tighter rein; but that Sin Saxon had a place and a power +still, she found ways to show in a new spirit. Into a quiet corner +of the dancing-hall, skimming her way, with the dance yet in her +feet, between groups of staid observers, she came straight, one +evening, from a bright, spirited figure of the German, and +stretched her hand to Martha Josselyn. "It's in your eyes," she +whispered,—"come!"</p> +<p>Night after night Martha Josselyn had sat there with the +waltz-music in her ears, and her little feet, that had had one +merry winter's training before the war, and many a home practice +since with the younger ones, quivering to the time beneath her +robes, and seen other girls chosen out and led away,—young +matrons, and little short-petticoated children even, taken to +"excursionize" between the figures,—while nobody thought of +her. "I might be ninety, or a cripple," she said to her sister, +"from their taking for granted it is nothing to me. How is it that +everything goes by, and I only twenty?" There had been danger that +Martha Josselyn's sweet, generous temper should get a dash of sour, +only because of there lying alongside it a clear common-sense and a +pure instinct of justice. Susan's heart longed with a motherly +tenderness for her young sister when she said such +words,—longed to put all pleasant things somehow within her +reach. She had given it up for herself, years since. And now, all +at once, Sin Saxon came and "took her out."</p> +<p>It was a more generous act than it shows for, written. There is +a little tacit consent about such things which few young people of +a "set" have thought, desire, or courage to disregard. Sin Saxon +never did anything more gracefully. It was one of the moments that +came now, when she wist not that she shone. She was dropping, +little by little, in the reality of a better desire, that +"satisfaction" Jeannie Hadden had spoken of, of "knowing when one +is at one's prettiest," or doing one's cleverest. The "leaf and the +fruit" never fitted better in their significance than to Sin Saxon. +Something intenser and more truly living was taking the place of +the mere flutter and flash and grace of effect.</p> +<p>It was the figure in which the dancers form in facing columns, +two and two, the girls and the young men; when the "four hands +round" keeps them moving in bright circles all along the floor, and +under arches of raised and joined hands the girls came down, two +and two, to the end, forming their long line face to face against +the opposing line of their partners. The German may be, in many +respects, an undesirable dance; it may be, as I have sometimes +thought, at least a selfish dance, affording pleasure chiefly to +the initiated few, and excluding gradually, almost from society +itself, those who do not participate in it. I speak of it here +neither to uphold nor to condemn,—simply because they +<i>did</i> dance it at Outledge as they do everywhere, and I cannot +tell my story without it; but I think at this moment, when Sin +Saxon led the figure with Martha Josselyn, there was something +lovely, not alone in its graceful grouping, but in the very spirit +and possibility of the thing that so appeared. There is scope and +chance even here, young girls, for the beauty of kindness and +generous thought. Even here, one may give a joy, may soothe a +neglect, may make some heart conscious for a moment of the great +warmth of a human welcome; and, though it be but to a pastime, I +think it comes into the benison of the Master's words when, even +for this, some spirit gets a feeling like them,—"I was a +stranger, and ye took me in."</p> +<p>Some one, standing behind where Leslie Goldthwaite came to her +place at the end of the line by the hall-door, had followed and +interpreted the whole; had read the rare, shy pleasure in Martha +Josselyn's face and movement, the bright, expressive warmth in Sin +Saxon's and the half-surprise of observation upon others; and he +thought as I do.</p> +<p>"'Friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.' That girl has even +sanctified the German!"</p> +<p>There was only one voice like that, only one person who would so +speak himself out. Leslie Goldthwaite turned quickly, and found +herself face to face with Marmaduke Wharne. "I am so glad you have +come!" said she.</p> +<p>He regarded her shrewdly. "Then you can do without me," he said. +"I didn't know by this time how it might be."</p> +<p>The last two had taken their places below Leslie while these +words were exchanged, and now the whole line moved forward to meet +their partners, and the waltz began. Frank Scherman had got back +to-day, and was dancing with Sin Saxon. Leslie and Dakie Thayne +were together, as they had been that first evening at Jefferson, +and as they often were. The four stopped, after their merry whirl, +in this same corner by the door where Mr. Wharne was standing. +Dakie Thayne shook hands with his friend in his glad boy's way. +Across their greetings came Sin Saxon's words, spoken to her +companion,—"You're to take her, Frank." Frank Scherman was an +old childhood's friend, not a mere mountain acquaintance. "I'll +bring up plenty of others first, but you're to wait and take +<i>her</i>. And, wherever she got her training, you'll find she's +the featest-footed among us." It was among the +children—training them—that she had caught the trick of +it, but Sin Saxon did not know.</p> +<p>"I'm ready to agree with you, with but just the reservation that +<i>you</i> could not make," Frank Scherman answered.</p> +<p>"Nonsense," said Sin Saxon. "But stop! here's something better +and quicker. They're getting the bouquets. Give her yours. It's +your turn. Go!"</p> +<p>Sin Saxon's blue eyes sparkled like two stars; the golden mist +of her hair was tossed into lighter clouds by exercise; on her +cheeks a bright rose-glow burned; and the lips parted with their +sweetest, because most unconscious, curve over the tiny gleaming +teeth. Her word and her glance sent Frank Scherman straight to do +her bidding; and a bunch of wild azaleas and scarlet lilies was +laid in Martha Josselyn's hand, and she was taken out again into +the dance by the best partner there. We may trust her to Sin Saxon +and Frank Scherman, and her own "feat-footedness;" everything will +not go by her any more, and she but twenty.</p> +<p>Marmaduke Wharne watched it all with that keen glance of his +that was like a level line of fire from under the rough, gray +brows.</p> +<p>"I am glad you saw that," said Leslie Goldthwaite, watching +also, and watching him.</p> +<p>"By the light of your own little text,—'kind, and bright, +and pleasant'? You think it will do me good?"</p> +<p>"I think it <i>was</i> good; and I am glad you should really +know Sin Saxon—at the first." And at the best; Marmaduke +Wharne quite understood her. She gave him, unconsciously, the key +to a whole character. It might as easily have been something quite +different that he should have first seen in this young girl.</p> +<p>Next morning they all met on the piazza. Leslie Goldthwaite +presented Sin Saxon to Mr. Wharne.</p> +<p>"So, my dear," he said, without preface, "you are the belle of +the place?"</p> +<p>He looked to see how she would take it. There was not the first +twinkle of a simper about eye or lip. Surprised, but quite gravely, +she looked up, and met his odd bluntness with as quaint an honesty +of her own. "I was pretty sure of it a while ago," she said. "And +perhaps I was, in a demoralized sort of a way. But I've come down, +Mr. Wharne,—like the coon. I'll tell you presently," she went +on,—and she spoke now with warmth,—"who is the real +belle,—the beautiful one of this place! There she comes!"</p> +<p>Miss Craydocke, in her nice, plain cambric morning-gown, and her +smooth front, was approaching down the side passage across the +wing. Just as she had come one morning, weeks ago; and it was the +identical "fresh petticoat" of that morning she wore now. The +sudden coincidence and recollection struck Sin Saxon as she spoke. +To her surprise, Miss Craydocke and Marmaduke Wharne moved quickly +toward each other, and grasped hands like old friends.</p> +<p>"Then you know all about it!" Sin Saxon said, a few minutes +after, when she got her chance. "But you <i>don't</i> know, sir," +she added, with a desperate candor, "the way I took to find it out! +I've been tormenting her, Mr. Wharne, all summer. And I'm heartily +ashamed of it."</p> +<p>Marmaduke Wharne smiled. There was something about this girl +that suited his own vein. "I doubt she <i>was</i> tormented," he +said quietly.</p> +<p>At that Sin Saxon smiled, too, and looked up out of her hearty +shame which she had truly felt upon her at her own reminder. "No, +Mr. Wharne, she never was; but that wasn't my fault. After all, +perhaps,—isn't that what the optimists think?—it was +best so. I should never have found her thoroughly out in any other +way. It's like"—and there she stopped short of her +comparison.</p> +<p>"Like what?" asked Mr. Wharne, waiting.</p> +<p>"I can't tell you now, sir," she answered with a gleam of her +old fearless brightness. "It's one end of a grand idea, I believe, +that I just touched on. I must think it out, if I can, and see if +it all holds together."</p> +<p>"And then I'm to have it?"</p> +<p>"It will take a monstrous deal of thinking, Mr. Wharne."</p> +<a name="2HCH16"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2> +<center><big>QUICKSILVER AND GOLD.</big></center> +<p>"If I could only remember the chemicals!" said Sin Saxon. She +was down among the outcrops and fragments at the foot of Minster +Rock. Close in around the stones grew the short, mossy sward. In a +safe hollow between two of them, against a back formed by another +that rose higher with a smooth perpendicular, she had chosen her +fireplace, and there she had been making the coffee. Quite intent +upon the comfort of her friends she was to-day; something really to +do she had: "in better business," as Leslie Goldthwaite phrased it +to herself once, she found herself, than only to make herself +brilliant and enchanting after the manner of the day at +Feather-Cap. And let me assure you, if you have not tried it, that +to make the coffee and arrange the feast at a picnic like this is +something quite different from being merely an ornamental. There is +the fire to coax with chips and twigs, and a good deal of smoke to +swallow, and one's dress to disregard. And all the rest are off in +scattered groups, not caring in the least to watch the pot boil, +but supposing, none the less, that it will. To be sure, Frank +Scherman and Dakie Thayne brought her firewood, and the water from +the spring, and waited loyally while she seemed to need them; +indeed, Frank Scherman, much as he unquestionably was charmed with +her gay moods, stayed longest by her in her quiet ones; but she +herself sent them off, at last, to climb with Leslie and the +Josselyns again into the Minster, and see thence the wonderful +picture that the late sloping light made on the far hills and +fields that showed to their sight between framing tree-branches and +tall trunk-shafts as they looked from out the dimness of the +rock.</p> +<p>She sat there alone, working out a thought; and at last she +spoke as I have said: "If I could only remember the chemicals!"</p> +<p>"My dear! What do you mean? The chemicals? For the coffee?" It +was Miss Craydocke who questioned, coming up with Mr. Wharne.</p> +<p>"Not the coffee,—no," said Sin Saxon, laughing rather +absently, as too intent to be purely amused. "But +the—assaying. There,—I've remembered <i>that</i> word, +at least!"</p> +<p>Miss Craydocke was more than ever bewildered. "What is it, my +dear? An experiment?"</p> +<p>"No; an analogy. Something that's been in my head these three +days. I can't make everything quite clear, Mr. Wharne, but I know +it's there. I went, I must tell you, a little while ago, to see +some Colorado specimens—ores and things—that some +friends of ours had, who are interested in the mines; and they +talked about the processes, and somebody explained. There were gold +and silver and iron, and copper and lead and sulphur, that had all +been boiled up together some time, and cooled into rock. And the +thing was to sort them out. First, they crushed the whole mass into +powder, and then did something to it—applied heat, I +believe—to drive away the sulphur. That fumed off, and left +the rest as promiscuous as before. Then they—oxidized the +lead, however they managed it, and got that out. You see I'm not +quite sure of the order of things, or of the chemical part. But +they got it out, and something took it. Then they put in +quicksilver, and that took hold of the gold. Then there were silver +and copper and iron. So they had to put back the lead again, and +that grappled the silver. And what they did with the copper and +iron is just what I can't possibly recollect, but they divided them +somehow, and there was the great rock riddle all read out. Now, +haven't we been just like that this summer? And I wonder if the +world isn't like it, somehow? And ourselves, too, all muddled up, +and not knowing what we <i>are</i> made of, till the right +chemicals touch us? There's so much in it, Mr. Wharne, I can't put +it in clear order. But it <i>is</i> there,—isn't it?"</p> +<p>"Yes, it is there," answered Mr. Wharne, with the briefest +gravity. For Miss Craydocke, there were little shining drops +standing in her eyes, and she tried not to wink lest they should +fall out, pretending they had been really tears. And what was there +to cry about, you know?</p> +<p>"Here we have been," Sin Saxon resumed, "all crushed up +together, and the characters coming out little by little, with +different things. Sulphur's always the first,—heats up and +flies off,—it don't take long to find that; and common oxygen +gets at common lead, and so on; but, dear Miss Craydocke, do you +know what comforts me? That you <i>must</i> have the quicksilver to +discover the gold!"</p> +<p>Miss Craydocke winked. She had to do it then, and the two little +round drops fell. They went down, unseen, into the short +pasture-grass, and I wonder what little wild-flowers grew of their +watering some day afterward.</p> +<p>It was getting a little too quiet between them now for people on +a picnic, perhaps; and so in a minute Sin Saxon said again: "It's +good to know there is a way to sort everything out. Perhaps the +tares and wheat mean the same thing. Mr. Wharne, why is it that +things seem more sure and true as soon as we find out we can make +an allegory to them?"</p> +<p>"Because we do <i>not</i> make the allegory. It is there, as you +have said. 'I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things +which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.' +These things are that speech of God that was in the beginning. The +Word made flesh,—it is He that interpreteth."</p> +<p>That was too great to give small answer to. Nobody spoke again +till Sin Saxon had to jump up to attend to her coffee, that was +boiling over, and then they took up their little cares of the +feast, and their chat over it.</p> +<p>Cakes and coffee, fruits and cream,—I do not care to +linger over these. I would rather take you to the cool, shadowy, +solemn Minster cavern, the deep, wondrous recess in the face of +solid rock, whose foundation and whose roof are a mountain; or +above, upon the beetling crag that makes but its porch-lintel, and +looks forth itself across great air-spaces toward its kindred +cliffs, lesser and more mighty, all around, making one listen in +one's heart for the awful voices wherewith they call to each other +forevermore.</p> +<p>The party had scattered again, after the repast, and Leslie and +the Josselyns had gone back into the Minster entrance, where they +never tired of standing, and out of whose gloom they looked now +upon all the flood of splendor, rosy, purple, and gold, which the +royal sun flung back—his last and richest largess—upon +the heights that looked longest after him. Mr. Wharne and Miss +Craydocke climbed the cliff. Sin Saxon, on her way up, stopped +short among the broken crags below. There was something very +earnest in her gaze, as she lifted her eyes, wide and beautiful +with the wonder in them, to the face of granite upreared before +her, and then turned slowly to look across and up the valley, where +other and yet grander mountain ramparts thrust their great +forbiddance on the reaching vision. She sat down, where she was, +upon a rock.</p> +<p>"You are very tired?" Frank Scherman said, inquiringly.</p> +<p>"See how they measure themselves against each other," Sin Saxon +said, for answer. "Look at them, Leslie and the rest, inside the +Minster that arches up so many times their height above their +heads,—yet what a little bit, a mere mousehole, it is out of +the cliff itself; and then look at the whole cliff against the +Ledges, that, seen from anywhere else, seem to run so low along the +river; and compare the Ledges with Feather-Cap, and Feather-Cap +with Giant's Cairn, and Giant's Cairn with Washington, thirty miles +away!"</p> +<p>"It is grand surveying," said Frank Scherman.</p> +<p>"I think we see things from the little best," rejoined Sin +Saxon. "Washington is the big end of the telescope."</p> +<p>"Now you have made me look at it," said Frank Scherman, "I don't +think I have been in any other spot that has given me such a real +idea of the mountains as this. One must have steps to climb by, +even in imagination. How impertinent we are, rushing at the +tremendousness of Washington in the way we do; scaling it in little +pleasure-wagons, and never taking in the thought of it at all!"</p> +<p>Something suddenly brought a flush to Sin Saxon's face, and +almost a quiver to her lips. She was sitting with her hands clasped +across her knees, and her head a little bent with a downward look, +after that long, wondering mountain gaze, that had filled itself +and then withdrawn for thought. She lifted her face suddenly to her +companion. The impetuous look was in her eyes. "There's other +measuring too, Frank. What a fool I've been!"</p> +<p>Frank Scherman was silent. It was a little awkward for him, +scarcely comprehending what she meant. He could by no means agree +with Sin Saxon when she called herself a fool; yet he hardly knew +what he was to contradict.</p> +<p>"We're well placed at this minute. Leslie Goldthwaite and Dakie +Thayne and the Josselyns half way up above there, in the Minster. +Mr. Wharne and Miss Craydocke at the top. And I down here, where I +belong. Impertinence! To think of the things I've said in my +silliness to that woman, whose greatness I can no more measure! Why +didn't somebody stop me? I don't answer for you, Frank, and I won't +keep you; but I think I'll just stay where I am, and not spoil the +significance!"</p> +<p>"I'm content to rank beside you; we can climb together," said +Frank Scherman. "Even Miss Craydocke has not got to the highest, +you see," he went on, a little hurriedly.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon broke in as hurriedly as he, with a deeper flush still +upon her face. "There's everything beyond. That's part of it. But +she helps one to feel what the higher—the Highest—must +be. She's like the rock she stands on. She's one of the steps."</p> +<p>"Come, Asenath, let's go up." And he held out his hand to her +till she took it and rose. They had known each other from +childhood, as I said; but Frank Scherman hardly ever called her by +her name. "Miss Saxon" was formal, and her school sobriquet he +could not use. It seemed to mean a great deal when he did say +"Asenath."</p> +<p>And Sin Saxon took his hand and let him lead her up, +notwithstanding the "significance."</p> +<p>They are young, and I am not writing a love-story; but I think +they will "climb together;" and that the words that wait to be said +are mere words,—they have known and understood each other so +long.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p>"I feel like a camel at a fountain, drinking in what is to last +through the dry places," said Martha Josselyn, as they came up. +"Miss Saxon, you don't know what you have given us to-day. I shall +take home the hills in my heart."</p> +<p>"We might have gone without seeing this," said Susan.</p> +<p>"No, you mightn't," said Sin Saxon. "It's my good luck to see +you see it, that's all. It couldn't be in the order of things, you +know, that you should be so near it, and want it, and not have it, +somehow."</p> +<p>"So much <i>is</i> in the order of things, though!" said Martha. +"And there are so many things we want, without knowing them even to +<i>be</i>!"</p> +<p>"That's the beauty of it, I think," said Leslie Goldthwaite, +turning back from where she stood, bright in the sunset glory, on +the open rock. Her voice was like that of some young prophet of +joy, she was so full of the gladness and loveliness of the time. +"That's the beauty of it, I think. There is such a worldful, and +you never know what you may be coming to next!"</p> +<p>"Well, this is our last—of the mountains. We go on +Tuesday."</p> +<p>"It isn't your last of us, though, or of what we want of you," +rejoined Sin Saxon. "We must have the tableaux for Monday. We can't +do without you in Robin Gray or Consolation. And about +Tuesday,—it's only your own making up of minds. You haven't +written, have you? They don't expect you? When a week's broken in +upon, like a dollar, the rest is of no account. And there'll be +sure to be something doing, so many are going the week after."</p> +<p>"We shall have letters to-night," said Susan. "But I think we +must go on Tuesday."</p> +<p>Everybody had letters that night. The mail was in early, and +Captain Green came up from the post-office as the Minster party was +alighting from the wagons. He gave Dakie Thayne the bag. It was +Dakie's delight to distribute, calling out the fortunate names as +the expectant group pressed around him, like people waiting the +issue of a lottery venture.</p> +<p>"Mrs. Linceford, Miss Goldthwaite, Mrs. Linceford, Mrs. +<i>Lince</i>ford! Master—hm!—Thayne," and he pocketed a +big one like a dispatch. "Captain Jotham Green. Where is he? Here, +Captain Green; you and I have got the biggest, if Mrs. Linceford +does get the most. I believe she tells her friends to write in +hits, and put one letter into three or four envelopes. When I was a +<i>very</i> little boy, I used to get a dollar changed into a +hundred coppers, and feel ever so much richer."</p> +<p>"That boy's forwardness is getting insufferable!" exclaimed Mrs. +Thoresby, sitting apart, with two or three others who had not +joined the group about Dakie Thayne. "And why Captain Green should +give <i>him</i> the bag always, I can't understand. It is growing +to be a positive nuisance."</p> +<p>Nobody out of the Thoresby clique thought it so. They had a +merry time together,—"you and I and the post," as Dakie said. +But then, between you and me and that confidential personage, Mrs. +Thoresby and her daughters hadn't very many letters.</p> +<p>"That is all," said Dakie, shaking the bag. "They're only for +the very good, to-night." He was not saucy: he was only +brimming-over glad. He knew "Noll's" square handwriting, and his +big envelopes.</p> +<p>There was great news to-night at the Cottage. They were to have +a hero, perhaps two or three, among them. General Ingleside and +friends were coming, early in the week, the Captain told them with +expansive face. There are a great many generals and a great many +heroes now. This man had been a hero beside Sheridan, and under +Sherman. Colonel Ingleside he was at Stone River and +Chattanooga,—leading a brave Western regiment in desperate, +magnificent charges, whose daring helped to turn that terrible +point of the war and made his fame.</p> +<p>But Leslie, though her heart stirred at the thought of a real, +great commander fresh from the field, had her own news that half +neutralized the excitement of the other: Cousin Delight was coming, +to share her room with her for the last fortnight.</p> +<p>The Josselyns got their letters. Aunt Lucy was staying on. Aunt +Lucy's husband had gone away to preach for three Sundays for a +parish where he had a prospect of a call. Mrs. Josselyn could not +leave home immediately, therefore, although the girls should +return; and their room was the airiest for Aunt Lucy. There was no +reason why they should not prolong their holiday if they chose, and +they might hardly ever get away to the mountains again. More than +all, Uncle David was off once more for China and Japan, and had +given his sister two more fifties,—"for what did a sailor +want of greenbacks after he got afloat?" It was "a clover summer" +for the Josselyns. Uncle David and his fifties wouldn't be back +among them for two years or more. They must make the most of +it.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon sat up late, writing this letter to her +mother:—</p> +<p>DARLING MAMMA,—I've just begun to find out really what to +do here. Cream doesn't always rise to the top. You remember the +Josselyns, our quiet neighbors in town, that lived in the little +house in the old-fashioned block opposite,—Sue Josselyn, +Effie's schoolmate? And how they used to tell me stories and keep +me to nursery-tea? Well, they're the cream; they and Miss +Craydocke. Sue has been in the hospitals,—two years, +mamma!—while I've been learning nocturnes, and going to +Germans. And Martha has been at home, sewing her face sharp; and +they're here now to get rounded out. Well now, mamma, I want +so—a real dish of mountains and cream, if you ever heard of +such a thing! I want to take a wagon, and invite a party as I did +my little one to Minster Rock, and go through the hills,—be +gone as many days as you will send me money for. And I want you to +take the money from that particular little corner of your purse +where my carpet and wall-paper and curtains, that were to +new-furnish my room on my leaving school, are metaphorically rolled +up. There's plenty there, you know; for you promised me my choice +of everything, and I had fixed on that lovely pearl-gray paper at +——'s, with the ivy and holly pattern, and the ivy and +scarlet-geranium carpet that was such a match. I'll have something +cheaper, or nothing at all, and thank you unutterably, if you'll +only let me have my way in this. It will do me so much good, mamma! +More than you've the least idea of. People can do without French +paper and Brussels carpets, but everybody has a right to mountain +and sea and cloud glory,—only they don't half of them get it, +and perhaps that's the other half's lookout!</p> +<p>I know you'll understand me, mamma, particularly when I talk +sense; for you always understood my nonsense when nobody else did. +And I'm going to do your faith and discrimination credit yet.</p> +<p>Your bad child,—with just a small, hidden savor of grace +in her, <i>being</i> your child,—</p> +<center>ASENATH SAXON.</center> +<a name="2HCH17"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> +<center><big>"WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?"</big></center> +<p>Saturday was a day of hammering, basting, draping, dressing, +rehearsing, running from room to room. Upstairs, in Mrs. Green's +garret, Leslie Goldthwaite and Dakie Thayne, with a third party +never before introduced upon the stage, had a private practicing; +and at tea-time, when the great hall was cleared, they got up there +with Sin Saxon and Frank Scherman, locked the doors, and in +costume, with regular accompaniment of bell and curtain, the +performance was repeated.</p> +<p>Dakie Thayne was stage-manager and curtain-puller; Sin Saxon and +Frank Scherman represented the audience, with clapping and +stamping, and laughter that suspended both; making as nearly the +noise of two hundred as two could: this being an essential part of +the rehearsal in respect to the untried nerves of the +<i>débutant</i>, which might easily be a little +uncertain.</p> +<p>"He stands fire like a Yankee veteran."</p> +<p>"It's inimitable," said Sin Saxon, wiping the moist merriment +from her eyes. "And your cap, Leslie! And that bonnet! And this +unutterable old oddity of a gown! Who did contrive it all? and +where did they come from? You'll carry off the glory of the +evening. It ought to be the last."</p> +<p>"No, indeed," said Leslie. "Barbara Frietchie must be last, of +course. But I'm so glad you think it will do. I hope they'll be +amused."</p> +<p>"Amused! If you could only see your own face!"</p> +<p>"I see Sir Charles's, and that makes mine."</p> +<p>The new performer, you perceive, was an actor with a title.</p> +<p>That night's coach, driving up while the dress-rehearsal of the +other tableaux was going on at the hall, brought Cousin Delight to +the Green Cottage, and Leslie met her at the door.</p> +<p>Sunday morning was a pause and rest and hush of beauty and joy. +They sat—Delight and Leslie—by their open window, where +the smell of the lately harvested hay came over from the wide, +sunshiny entrance of the great barn, and away beyond stretched the +pine woods, and the hills swelled near in dusky evergreen, and +indigo shadows, and lessened far down toward Winnipiseogee, to +where, faint and tender and blue, the outline of little Ossipee +peeped in between great shoulders so modestly,—seen only +through the clearest air on days like this. Leslie's little table, +with fresh white cover, held a vase of ferns and white convolvulus, +and beside this Cousin Delight's two books that came out always +from the top of her trunk,—her Bible and her little "Daily +Food." To-day the verses from Old and New Testaments were these: +"The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth +in his way." "Walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, +redeeming the time."</p> +<p>They had a talk about the first,—"The steps," the little +details; not merely the general trend and final issue; if, indeed, +these could be directed without the other.</p> +<p>"You always make me see things, Cousin Delight," Leslie +said.</p> +<p>"It is very plain," Delight answered; "if people only would read +the Bible as they read even a careless letter from a friend, +counting each word of value, and searching for more meaning and +fresh inference to draw out the most. One word often answers great +doubts and askings that have troubled the world."</p> +<p>Afterward, they walked round by a still wood-path under the +Ledge to the North Village, where there was a service. It was a +plain little church, with unpainted pews; but the windows looked +forth upon a green mountain side, and whispers of oaks and pines +and river-music crept in, and the breath of sweet water-lilies, +heaped in a great bowl upon the communion table of common stained +cherrywood, floated up and filled the place. The minister, a quiet, +gray-haired man, stayed his foot an instant at that simple altar, +before he went up the few steps to the desk. He had a sermon in his +pocket from the text, "The hairs of your heads are all numbered." +He changed it at the moment in his mind, and, when presently he +rose to preach, gave forth in a tone touched, through the very +presence of that reminding beauty, with the very spontaneousness of +the Master's own saying, "Consider the lilies." And then he told +them of God's momently thought and care.</p> +<p>There were scattered strangers, from various houses, among the +simple rural congregation. Walking home through the pines again, +Delight and Leslie and Dakie Thayne found themselves preceded and +followed along the narrow way. Sin Saxon and Frank Scherman came up +and joined them when the wider openings permitted.</p> +<p>Two persons just in front were commenting upon the sermon.</p> +<p>"Very fair for a country parson," said a tall, elegant-looking +man, whose broad, intellectual brow was touched by dark hair +slightly frosted, and whose lip had the curve that betokens +self-reliance and strong decision,—"very fair. All the better +for not flying too high. Narrow, of course. He seems to think the +Almighty has nothing grander to do than to finger every little cog +of the tremendous machinery of the universe,—that he measures +out the ocean of his purposes as we drop a liquid from a phial. To +me it seems belittling the Infinite."</p> +<p>"I don't know whether it is littleness or greatness, Robert, +that must escape minutiae," said his companion, apparently his +wife. "If we could reach to the particles, perhaps we might move +the mountains."</p> +<p>"We never agree upon this, Margie. We won't begin again. To my +mind, the grand plan of things was settled ages ago,—the +impulses generated that must needs work on. Foreknowledge and +intention, doubtless; in that sense the hairs <i>were</i> numbered. +But that there is a special direction and interference to-day for +you and me—well, we won't argue, as I said; but I never can +conceive it so; and I think a wider look at the world brings a +question to all such primitive faith."</p> +<p>The speakers turned down a side way with this, leaving the ledge +path and their subject to our friends. Only to their thoughts at +first; but presently Cousin Delight said, in a quiet tone, to +Leslie, "That doesn't account for the steps, does it?"</p> +<p>"I am glad it <i>can't</i>," said Leslie.</p> +<p>Dakie Thayne turned a look toward Leslie, as if he would gladly +know of what she spoke,—a look in which a kind of gentle +reverence was strangely mingled with the open friendliness. I +cannot easily indicate to you the sort of feeling with which the +boy had come to regard this young girl, just above him in years and +thought and in the attitude which true womanhood, young or old, +takes toward man. He had no sisters; he had been intimately +associated with no girl-companions; he had lived with his brother +and an uncle and a young aunt, Rose. Leslie Goldthwaite's kindness +had drawn him into the sphere of a new and powerful +influence,—something different in thought and purpose from +the apparent unthought of the present little world about her; and +this lifted her up in his regard and enshrined her with a sort of +pure sanctity. He was sometimes really timid before her, in the +midst of his frank chivalry.</p> +<p>"I wish you'd tell me," he said suddenly, falling back with her +as the path narrowed again. "What are the 'steps'?"</p> +<p>"It was a verse we found this morning,—Cousin Delight and +I," Leslie answered; and as she spoke the color came up full in her +cheeks, and her voice was a little shy and tremulous. "'The steps +of a good man are ordered by the Lord.' That one word seemed to +make one certain. 'Steps,'—not path, nor the end of it; but +all the way." Somehow she was quite out of breath as she +finished.</p> +<p>Meantime Sin Saxon and Frank had got with Miss Goldthwaite, and +were talking too.</p> +<p>"Set spinning," they heard Sin Saxon say, "and then let go. That +was his idea. Well! Only it seems to me there's been especial pains +taken to show us it can't be done. Or else, why don't they find out +perpetual motion? Everything stops after a while, unless—I +can't talk theologically, but I mean all right—you hit it +again."</p> +<p>"You've a way of your own of putting things, Asenath," said +Frank Scherman,—with a glance that beamed kindly and +admiringly upon her and "her way,"—"but you've put that clear +to me as nobody else ever did. A proof set in the very laws +themselves, momentum that must lessen and lose itself with the +square of the distance. The machinery cavil won't do."</p> +<p>"Wheels; but a living spirit within the wheels," said Cousin +Delight.</p> +<p>"Every instant a fresh impulse; to think of it so makes it real, +Miss Goldthwaite,—and grand and awful." The young man spoke +with a strength in the clear voice that could be so light and +gay.</p> +<p>"And tender, too. 'Thou layest Thine hand upon me,'" said +Delight Goldthwaite.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon was quiet; her own thought coming back upon her with a +reflective force, and a thrill at her heart at Frank Scherman's +words. Had these two only planned tableaux and danced Germans +together before?</p> +<p>Dakie Thayne walked on by Leslie Goldthwaite's side, in his +happy content touched with something higher and brighter through +that instant's approach and confidence. If I were to write down his +thought as he walked, it would be with phrase and distinction +peculiar to himself and to the boy-mind,—"It's the real thing +with her; it don't make a fellow squirm like a pin put out at a +caterpillar. She's <i>good</i>; but she isn't <i>pious!</i>"</p> +<p>This was the Sunday that lay between the busy Saturday and +Monday. "It is always so wherever Cousin Delight is," Leslie +Goldthwaite said to herself, comparing it with other Sundays that +had gone. Yet she too, for weeks before, by the truth that had come +into her own life and gone out from it, had been helping to make +these moments possible. She had been shone upon, and had put forth; +henceforth she should scarcely know when the fruit was ripening or +sowing itself anew, or the good and gladness of it were at human +lips.</p> +<p>She was in Mrs. Linceford's room on Monday morning, putting high +velvet-covered corks to the heels of her slippers, when Sin Saxon +came over hurriedly, and tapped at the door.</p> +<p>"<i>Could</i> you be <i>two</i> old women?" she asked, the +instant Leslie opened. "Ginevra Thoresby has given out. She says +it's her cold,—that she doesn't feel equal to it; but the +amount of it is she got her chill with the Shannons going away so +suddenly, and the Amy Robsart and Queen Elizabeth picture being +dropped. There was nothing else to put her in, and so she won't be +Barbara."</p> +<p>"Won't be Barbara Frietchie!" cried Leslie, with an astonishment +as if it had been angelhood refused.</p> +<p>"No. Barbara Frietchie is only an old woman in a cap and +kerchief, and she just puts her head out of a window: the +<i>flag</i> is the whole of it, Ginevra Thoresby says."</p> +<p>"<i>May</i> I do it? Do you think I can be different enough in +the two? Will there be time?" Leslie questioned eagerly.</p> +<p>"We'll change the programme, and put 'Taking the Oath' between. +The caps can be different, and you can powder your hair for one, +and—<i>would</i> it do to ask Miss Craydocke for a front for +the other?" Sin Saxon had grown delicate in her feeling for the +dear old friend whose hair had once been golden.</p> +<p>"I'll tell her about it, and ask her to help me contrive. She'll +be sure to think of anything that can be thought of."</p> +<p>"Only there's the dance afterward, and you had so much more +costume for the other," Sin Saxon said demurringly.</p> +<p>"Never mind. I shall <i>be</i> Barbara; and Barbara wouldn't +dance, I suppose."</p> +<p>"Mother Hubbard would, marvelously."</p> +<p>"Never mind," Leslie answered again, laying down the little +slipper, finished.</p> +<p>"She don't care <i>what</i> she is, so that she helps along," +Sin Saxon said of her, rejoining the others in the hall. "I'm +ashamed of myself and all the rest of you, beside her. Now make +yourselves as fine as you please."</p> +<p>We must pass over the hours as only stories and dreams do, and +put ourselves, at ten of the clock that night, behind the green +curtain and the footlights, in the blaze of the three rows of +bright lamps, that, one above another, poured their illumination +from the left upon the stage, behind the wide picture-frame.</p> +<p>Susan Josselyn and Frank Scherman were just "posed" for +"Consolation." They had given Susan this part, after all, because +they wanted Martha for "Taking the Oath," afterward. Leslie +Goldthwaite was giving a hasty touch to the tent drapery and the +gray blanket; Leonard Brookhouse and Dakie Thayne manned the +halyards for raising the curtain; there was the usual scuttling +about the stage for hasty clearance; and Sin Saxon's hand was on +the bell, when Grahame Lowe sprang hastily in through the +dressing-room upon the scene.</p> +<p>"Hold on a minute," he said to Brookhouse. "Miss Saxon, General +Ingleside and party are over at Green's,—been there since +nine o'clock. Oughtn't we to send compliments or something, before +we finish up?"</p> +<p>Then there was a pressing forward and an excitement. The wounded +soldier sprang from his couch; the nun came nearer, with a quick +light in her eye; Leslie Goldthwaite, in her mob cap, quilted +petticoat, big-flowered calico train, and high-heeled shoes; two or +three supernumeraries, in Rebel gray, with bayonets, coming on in +"Barbara Frietchie;" and Sir Charles, bouncing out from somewhere +behind, to the great hazard of the frame of lights,—huddled +together upon the stage and consulted. Dakie Thayne had dropped his +cord and almost made a rush off at the first announcement; but he +stood now, with a repressed eagerness that trembled through every +fibre, and waited.</p> +<p>"Would he come?" "Isn't it too late?" "Would it be any +compliment?" "Won't it be rude not to?" "All the patriotic pieces +are just coming!" "Will the audience like to wait?" "Make a speech +and tell 'em. You, Brookhouse." "Oh, he <i>must</i> come! Barbara +Frietchie and the flag! Just think!" "Isn't it grand?" "Oh, I'm so +frightened!" These were the hurried sentences that made the buzz +behind the scenes; while in front "all the world wondered." +Meanwhile, lamps trembled, the curtain vibrated, the very framework +swayed.</p> +<p>"What is it? Fire?" queried a nervous voice from near the +footlights.</p> +<p>"This won't do," said Frank Scherman. "Speak to them, +Brookhouse. Dakie Thayne, run over to Green's, and say, the ladies' +compliments to General Ingleside and friends,—and beg the +honor of their presence at the concluding tableaux."</p> +<p>Dakie was off with a glowing face. Something like an odd, +knowing smile twinkling out from the glow also, as he looked up at +Scherman and took his orders. All this while he had said +nothing.</p> +<p>Leonard Brookhouse made his little speech, received with +applause and a cheer. Then they quieted down behind the scenes, and +a rustle and buzz began in front,—kept up for five minutes or +so, in gentle fashion, till two gentlemen, in plain clothes, walked +quietly in at the open door; at sight of whom, with instinctive +certainty, the whole assembly rose. Leslie Goldthwaite, peeping +through the folds of the curtain, saw a tall, grand-looking man, in +what may be called the youth of middle age, every inch a soldier, +bowing as he was ushered forward to a seat vacated for him, and +followed by one younger, who modestly ignored the notice intended +for his chief. Dakie Thayne was making his way, with eyes alight +and excited, down a side passage to his post.</p> +<p>Then the two actors hurried once more into position; the stage +was cleared by a whispered peremptory order; the bell rung once, +the tent trembling with some one whisking further out of sight +behind it,—twice, and the curtain rose upon +"Consolation."</p> +<p>Lovely as the picture is, it was lovelier in the living tableau. +There was something deep and intense in the pale calm of Susan +Josselyn's face, which they had not counted on even when they +discovered that hers was the very face for the "Sister." Something +made you thrill at the thought of what those eyes would show, if +the downcast, quiet lids were raised. The earnest gaze of the dying +soldier met more, perhaps, in its uplifting; for Frank Scherman had +a look, in this instant of enacting, that he had never got before +in all his practicings. The picture was too real for +applause,—almost, it suddenly seemed, for representation.</p> +<p>"Don't I know that face, Noll?" General Ingleside asked, in a +low tone, of his companion.</p> +<p>Instead of answering at once, the younger man bent further +forward toward the stage, and his own very plain, broad, honest +face, full over against the downcast one of the Sister of Mercy, +took upon itself that force of magnetic expression which makes a +look felt even across a crowd of other glances, as if there were +but one straight line of vision, and that between such two. The +curtain was going slowly down; the veiling lids trembled, and the +paleness replaced itself with a slow-mounting flush of color over +the features, still held motionless. They let the cords run more +quickly then. She was getting tired, they said; the curtain had +been up too long. Be that as it might, nothing could persuade Susan +Josselyn to sit again, and "Consolation" could not be repeated.</p> +<p>So then came "Mother Hubbard and her Dog"—the slow old +lady and the knowing beast that was always getting one step ahead +of her. The possibility had occurred to Leslie Goldthwaite as she +and Dakie Thayne amused themselves one day with Captain Green's +sagacious Sir Charles Grandison, a handsome black spaniel, whose +trained accomplishment was to hold himself patiently in any posture +in which he might be placed, until the word of release was given. +You might stand him on his hind legs, with paws folded on his +breast; you might extend him on his back, with helpless legs in +air; you might put him in any attitude possible to be maintained, +and maintain it he would, faithfully, until the signal was made. +From this prompting came the illustration of Mother Hubbard. Also, +Leslie Goldthwaite had seized the hidden suggestion of application, +and hinted it in certain touches of costume and order of +performance. Nobody would think, perhaps, at first, that the +striped scarlet and white petticoat under the tucked-up train, or +the common print apron of dark blue, figured with innumerable +little white stars, meant anything beyond the ordinary adjuncts of +a traditional old woman's dress; but when, in the second scene, the +bonnet went on,—an ancient marvel of exasperated front and +crown, pitched over the forehead like an enormous helmet, and +decorated, upon the side next the audience, with black and white +eagle plumes springing straight up from the fastening of an +American shield; above all, when the dog himself appeared, "dressed +in his clothes" (a cane, an all-round white collar and a natty +little tie, a pair of three-dollar tasseled kid gloves dangling +from his left paw, and a small monitor hat with a big +spread—eagle stuck above the brim,—the remaining +details of costume being of no consequence),—when he stood +"reading the news" from a huge bulletin,—"LATEST BY CABLE +FROM EUROPE,"—nobody could mistake the personification of Old +and Young America.</p> +<p>It had cost much pains and many dainty morsels to drill Sir +Charles, with all the aid of his excellent fundamental education; +and the great fear had been that he might fail them at the last. +But the scenes were rapid, in consideration of canine infirmity. If +the cupboard was empty, Mother Hubbard's basket behind was not; he +got his morsels duly; and the audience was "requested to refrain +from applause until the end." Refrain from laughter they could not, +as the idea dawned upon them and developed; but Sir Charles was +used to that in the execution of his ordinary tricks; he could +hardly have done without it better than any other old actor. A dog +knows when he is having his day, to say nothing of doing his duty; +and these things are as sustaining to him as to anybody. This state +of his mind, manifest in his air, helped also to complete the Young +America expression. Mother Hubbard's mingled consternation and +pride at each successive achievement of her astonishing puppy were +inimitable. Each separate illustration made its point. Patriotism, +especially, came in when the undertaker, bearing the pall with +red-lettered border,—Rebellion,—finds the dog, with +upturned, knowing eye, and parted jaws, suggestive as much of a +good grip as of laughter, half risen upon fore-paws, as far from +"dead" as ever, mounting guard over the old bone +"Constitution."</p> +<p>The curtain fell at last amid peals of applause and calls for +the actors.</p> +<p>Dakie Thayne had accompanied with the reading of the ballad, +slightly transposed and adapted. As Leslie led Sir Charles before +the curtain, in response to the continued demand, he added the +concluding stanza,—</p> +<pre> + "The dame made a courtesy, + The dog made a bow; + The dame said, 'Your servant,' + The dog said, 'Bow-wow.'" +</pre> +<p>Which, with a suppressed "Speak, sir!" from Frank Scherman, was +brought properly to pass. Done with cleverness and quickness from +beginning to end, and taking the audience utterly by surprise, +Leslie's little combination of wit and sagacity had been throughout +a signal success. The actors crowded round her. "We'd no idea of +it!" "Capital!" "A great hit!" they exclaimed. "Mother Hubbard is +the star of the evening," said Leonard Brookhouse. "No, indeed," +returned Leslie, patting Sir Charles's head,—"this is the +dog-star." "Rather a Sirius reflection upon the rest of us," +rejoined Brookhouse, shrugging his shoulders, as he walked off to +take his place in the "Oath," and Leslie disappeared to make ready +for "Barbara Frietchie."</p> +<p>Several persons, before and behind the curtain, were making up +their minds, just now, to a fresh opinion. There was nothing so +very slow or tame, after all, about Leslie Goldthwaite. Several +others had known that long ago.</p> +<p>"Taking the Oath" was piquant and spirited. The touch of restive +scorn that could come out on Martha Josselyn's face just suited her +part; and Leonard Brookhouse was very cool and courteous, and +handsome and gentlemanly-triumphant as the Union officer.</p> +<p>"Barbara Frietchie" was grand. Grahame Lowe played Stonewall +Jackson. They had improvised a pretty bit of scenery at the back, +with a few sticks, some paint, brown carpet-paper, and a couple of +mosquito bars; a Dutch gable with a lattice window, vines trained +up over it, and bushes below. It was a moving tableau, enacted to +the reading of Whittier's glorious ballad. "Only an old woman in a +cap and kerchief, putting her head out at a garret +window,"—that was all; but the fire was in the young eyes +under the painted wrinkles and the snowy hair; the arm stretched +itself out quick and bravely at the very instant of the pistol-shot +that startled timid ears; one skillful movement detached and seized +the staff in its apparent fall, and the liberty-colors flashed full +in Rebel faces, as the broken lower fragment went clattering to the +stage. All depended on the one instant action and expression. These +were perfect. The very spirit of Barbara stirred her +representative. The curtain began to descend slowly, and the +applause broke forth before the reading ended. But a hand, held up, +hushed it till the concluding lines were given in thrilling tones, +as the tableau was covered from sight.</p> +<pre> + "Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er, + And the Rebel rides on his raids no more. + + "Honor to her! and let a tear + Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier. + + "Over Barbara Frietchie's grave, + Flag of Freedom and Union, wave! + + "Peace and order and beauty draw + Round thy symbol of light and law; + + "And ever the stars above look down + On thy stars below in Frederick town!" +</pre> +<p>Then one great cheer broke forth, and was prolonged to +three.</p> +<p>"Not be Barbara Frietchie!" Leslie would not have missed that +thrill for the finest beauty-part of all. For the +applause—that was for the flag, of course, as Ginevra +Thoresby said.</p> +<p>The benches were slid out at a window upon a lower roof, the +curtain was looped up, and the footlights carried away; the "music" +came up, and took possession of the stage; and the audience hall +resolved itself into a ball-room. Under the chandelier, in the +middle, a tableau not set forth in the programme was rehearsed and +added a few minutes after.</p> +<p>Mrs. Thoresby, of course, had been introduced to the General; +Mrs. Thoresby, with her bright, full, gray curls and her handsome +figure, stood holding him in conversation between introductions, +graciously waiving her privilege as new comers claimed their modest +word. Mrs. Thoresby took possession; had praised the tableaux, as +"quite creditable, really, considering the resources we had," and +was following a slight lead into a long talk, of information and +advice on her part, about Dixville Notch. The General thought he +should go there, after a day or two at Outledge.</p> +<p>Just here came up Dakie Thayne. The actors, in costume, were +gradually mingling among the audience, and Barbara Frietchie, in +white hair, from which there was not time to remove the powder, +plain cap and kerchief, and brown woolen gown, with her silken flag +yet in her hand, came with him. This boy, who "was always +everywhere," made no hesitation, but walked straight up to the +central group, taking Leslie by the hand. Close to the General, he +waited courteously for a long sentence of Mrs. Thoresby's to be +ended, and then said, simply, "Uncle James, this is my friend Miss +Leslie Goldthwaite. My brother, Dr. Ingleside—why, where is +Noll?"</p> +<p>Dr. Oliver Ingleside had stepped out of the circle in the last +half of the long sentence. The Sister of Mercy—no longer in +costume, however—had come down the little flight of steps +that led from the stage to the floor. At their foot the young army +surgeon was shaking hands with Susan Josselyn. These two had had +the chess-practice together—and other practice—down +there among the Southern hospitals.</p> +<p>Mrs. Thoresby's face was very like some fabric subjected to +chemical experiment, from which one color and aspect has been +suddenly and utterly discharged to make room for something +different and new. Between the first and last there waits a blank. +With this blank full upon her, she stood there for one brief, +unprecedented instant in her life, a figure without presence or +effect. I have seen a daguerreotype in which were cap, hair, and +collar, quite correct,—what should have been a face rubbed +out. Mrs. Thoresby rubbed herself out, and so performed her +involuntary tableau.</p> +<p>"Of course I might have guessed. I wonder it never occurred to +me," Mrs. Linceford was replying presently, to her vacuous inquiry. +"The name seemed familiar, too; only he called himself 'Dakie.' I +remember perfectly now. Old Jacob Thayne, the Chicago millionaire. +He married pretty little Mrs. Ingleside, the Illinois +Representative's widow, that first winter I was in Washington. Why, +Dakie must be a dollar prince!"</p> +<p>He was just Dakie Thayne, though, for all that. He and Leslie +and Cousin Delight, the Josselyns and the Inglesides, dear Miss +Craydocke hurrying up to congratulate, Marmaduke Wharne looking on +without a shade of cynicism in the gladness of his face, and Sin +Saxon and Frank Scherman flitting up in the pauses of dance and +promenade,—well, after all, these were the central group that +night. The pivot of the little solar system was changed; but the +chief planets made but slight account of that; they just felt that +it had grown very warm and bright.</p> +<p>"Oh, Chicken Little!" Mrs. Linceford cried to Leslie +Goldthwaite, giving her a small shake with her good-night kiss at +her door. "How did you know the sky was going to fall? And how have +you led us all this chase to cheat Fox Lox at last?"</p> +<p>But that wasn't the way Chicken Little looked at it. She didn't +care much for the bit of dramatic <i>dénouement</i> that had +come about by accident,—like a story, Elinor said,—or +the touch of poetic justice that tickled Mrs. Linceford's +world-instructed sense of fun. Dakie Thayne wasn't a sum that +needed proving. It was very nice that this famous general should be +his uncle,—but not at all strange: they were just the sort of +people he <i>must</i> belong to. And it was nicest of all that Dr. +Ingleside and Susan Josselyn should have known each +other,—"in the glory of their lives," she phrased it to +herself, with a little flash of girl enthusiasm and a vague +suggestion of romance.</p> +<p>"Why didn't you tell us?" Mrs. Linceford said to Dakie Thayne +next morning. "Everybody would have"—She stopped. She could +not tell this boy to his frank face that everybody would have +thought more and made more of him because his uncle had got brave +stars on his shoulders, and his father had died leaving two +millions or so of dollars.</p> +<p>"I know they would have," said Dakie Thayne. "That was just it. +What is the use of telling things? I'll wait till I've done +something that tells itself."</p> +<a name="2HCH18"><!-- H2 anchor --></a> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> +<center><big>LEAF-GLORY.</big></center> +<p>There was a pretty general break-up at Outledge during the week +following. The tableaux were the <i>finale</i> of the season's +gayety,—of this particular little episode, at least, which +grew out of the association together of these personages of our +story. There might come a later set, and later doings; but this +last week of August sent the mere summer-birds fluttering. Madam +Routh must be back in New York, to prepare for the reopening of her +school; Mrs. Linceford had letters from her husband, proposing to +meet her by the first, in N——, and so the Haddens would +be off; the Thoresbys had stayed as long as they cared to in any +one place where there seemed no special inducement; General +Ingleside was going through the mountains to Dixville Notch. Rose +Ingleside,—bright and charming as her name; just a fit flower +to put beside our Ladies' Delight, finding out at once, as all +girls and women did, her sweetness, and leaning more and more to +the rare and delicate sphere of her quiet attraction,—Oliver +and Dakie Thayne,—these were his family party; but there came +to be question about Leslie and Delight. Would not they make six? +And since Mrs. Linceford and her sisters must go, it seemed so +exactly the thing for them to fall into; otherwise Miss +Goldthwaite's journey hither would hardly seem to have been worth +while. Early September was so lovely among the hills; opportunities +for a party to Dixville Notch would not come every day; in short, +Dakie had set his heart upon it, Rose begged, the General was as +pressing as true politeness would allow, and it was settled.</p> +<p>"Only," Sin Saxon said suddenly, on being told, "I should like +if you would tell me, General Ingleside, the precise military +expression synonymous with 'taking the wind out of one's sails.' +Because that's just what you've done for me."</p> +<p>"My dear Miss Saxon! In what way?"</p> +<p>"Invited my party,—some of them,—and taken my road. +That's all. I spoke first, though I didn't speak out loud. See +here!" And she produced a letter from her mother, received that +morning. "Observe the date, if you please,—August 24. 'Your +letter reached me yesterday.' And it had traveled round, as usual, +two days in papa's pocket, beside. I always allow for that. 'I +quite approve your plan; provided, as you say, the party be +properly matronized. I'—H'm—h'm! that refers to little +explanations of my own. Well, all is, I was going to do this very +thing,—with enlargements. And now Miss Craydocke and I may +collapse."</p> +<p>"Why, when with you and your enlargements we might make the most +admirable combination? At least, the Dixville road is open to +all."</p> +<p>"Very kind of you to say so,—the first part, I +mean,—if you could possibly have helped it. But there are +insurmountable obstacles on that Dixville road—to us. There's +a lion in the way. Don't you see we should be like the little +ragged boys running after the soldier-company? We couldn't think of +putting ourselves in that 'bony light,' especially before the eyes +of Mrs.—Grundy." This last, as Mrs. Thoresby swept +impressively along the piazza in full dinner costume.</p> +<p>"Unless you go first, and we run after you," suggested the +General.</p> +<p>"All the same. You talked Dixville to her the very first +evening, you know. No, nobody can have an original Dixville idea +any more. And I've been asking them,—the Josselyns, and Mr. +Wharne and all, and was just coming to the Goldthwaites; and now +I've got them on my hands, and I don't know where in the world to +take them. That comes of keeping an inspiration to ripen. Well, +it's a lesson of wisdom! Only, as Effie says about her +housekeeping, the two dearest things in living are butter and +experience!"</p> +<p>Amidst laughter and banter and repartee, they came to it, of +course; the most delightful combination and joint arrangement. Two +wagons, the General's and Dr. Ingleside's two saddle-horses, Frank +Scherman's little mountain mare, that climbed like a cat, and was +sure-footed as a chamois,—these, with a side-saddle for the +use of a lady sometimes upon the last, made up the general +equipment of the expedition. All Mrs. Grundy knew was that they +were wonderfully merry and excited together, until this plan came +out as the upshot.</p> +<p>The Josselyns had not quite consented at once, though their +faces were bright with a most thankful appreciation of the kindness +that offered them such a pleasure; nay, that entreated their +companionship as a thing so genuinely coveted to make its own +pleasure complete. Somehow, when the whole plan developed, there +was a little sudden shrinking on Sue's part, perhaps on similar +grounds to Sin Saxon's perception of insurmountable obstacles; but +she was shyer than Sin of putting forth her objections, and the +general zeal and delight, and Martha's longing look, unconscious of +cause why not, carried the day.</p> +<p>There had never been a blither setting off from the Giant's +Cairn. All the remaining guests were gathered to see them go. There +was not a mote in the blue air between Outledge and the crest of +Washington. All the subtile strength of the hills—ores and +sweet waters and resinous perfumes and breath of healing leaf and +root distilled to absolute purity in the clear ether that sweeps +only from such bare, thunder-scoured summits—made up the +exhilarant draught in which they drank the mountain joy and +received afar off its baptism of delight.</p> +<p>It was beautiful to see the Josselyns so girlish and gay; it was +lovely to look at old Miss Craydocke, with her little tremors of +pleasure, and the sudden glistenings in her eyes; Sin Saxon's +pretty face was clear and noble, with its pure impulse of +kindliness, and her fun was like a sparkle upon deep waters. Dakie +Thayne rushed about in a sort of general satisfaction which would +not let him be quiet anywhere. Outsiders looked with a kind of new, +half-jealous respect on these privileged few who had so suddenly +become the "General's party." Sin Saxon whispered to Leslie +Goldthwaite: "It's neither his nor mine, honeysuckle; it's +yours,—Henny-penny and all the rest of it, as Mrs. Linceford +said." Leslie was glad with the crowning gladness of her bright +summer.</p> +<p>"That girl has played her cards well," Mrs. Thoresby said of +her, a little below her voice, as she saw the General himself +making her especially comfortable with Cousin Delight in a back +seat.</p> +<p>"Particularly, my dear madam," said Marmaduke Wharne, coming +close and speaking with clear emphasis, "as she could not possibly +have known that she had a trump in her hand!"</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<p>To tell of all that week's journeying, and of Dixville Notch; +the adventure, the brightness, the beauty, and the glory; the +sympathy of abounding enjoyment, the waking of new life that it was +to some of them; the interchange of thought, the cementing of +friendships,—would be to begin another story, possibly a yet +longer one. Leslie's summer, according to the calendar, is already +ended. Much in this world must pause unfinished, or come to abrupt +conclusion. People "die suddenly at last," after the most tedious +illnesses. "Married and lived happy ever after," is the inclusive +summary that winds up many an old tale whose time of action only +runs through hours. If in this summer-time with Leslie Goldthwaite +your thoughts have broadened somewhat with hers, some questions for +you have been partly answered; if it has appeared to you how a life +enriches itself by drawing toward and going forth into the life of +others through seeing how this began with her, it is no unfinished +tale that I leave with you.</p> +<p>A little picture I will give you, farther on, a hint of +something farther yet, and say good-by.</p> +<p>Some of them came back to Outledge, and stayed far into the +still, rich September. Delight and Leslie sat before the Green +Cottage one morning, in the heart of a golden haze and a gorgeous +bloom.</p> +<p>All around the feet of the great hills lay the garlands of +early-ripened autumn. You see nothing like it in the +lowlands,—nothing like the fire of the maples, the +carbuncle-splendor of the oaks, the flash of scarlet sumachs and +creepers, the illumination of every kind of little leaf in its own +way, upon which the frost touch comes down from those tremendous +heights that stand rimy in each morning's sun, trying on white caps +that by and by they shall pull down heavily over their brows, till +they cloak all their shoulders also in the like sculptured folds, +to stand and wait, blind, awful chrysalides, through the long +winter of their death and silence.</p> +<p>Delight and Leslie had got letters from the Josselyns and Dakie +Thayne. There was news in them such as thrills always the +half-comprehending sympathies of girlhood. Leslie's vague +suggestion of romance had become fulfillment. Dakie Thayne was wild +with rejoicing that dear old Noll was to marry Sue. "She had always +made him think of Noll, and his ways and likings, ever since that +day of the game of chess that by his means came to grief. It was +awful slang, but he could not help it: it was just the very +jolliest go!"</p> +<p>Susan Josselyn's quiet letter said,—"That kindness which +kept us on and made it beautiful for us, strangers, at Outledge, +has brought to me, by God's providence, this great happiness of my +life."</p> +<p>After a long pause of trying to take it in, Leslie looked up. +"What a summer this has been! So full; so much has happened! I feel +as if I had been living such a great deal!"</p> +<p>"You have been living in others' lives. You have had a great +deal to do with what has happened."</p> +<p>"Oh, Cousin Delight! I have only been <i>among</i> it! I could +not <i>do</i>—except such a very little."</p> +<p>"There is a working from us beyond our own. But if our working +runs with that?—You have done more than you will ever know, +little one." Delight Goldthwaite spoke very tenderly. Her own life, +somehow, had been closely touched, through that which had grown and +gathered about Leslie. "It depends on that abiding. 'In me, and I +in you; so shall ye bear much fruit.'"</p> +<p>She stopped. She would not say more. Leslie thought her talking +rather wide of the first suggestion; but this child would never +know, as Delight had said, what a centre, in her simple, loving +way, she had been for the working of a purpose beyond her +thought.</p> +<p>Sin Saxon came across the lawn, crowned with gold and scarlet, +trailing creepers twined about her shoulders, and flames of beauty +in her full hands. "Miss Craydocke says she praised God with every +leaf she took. I'm afraid I forgot to, for the little ones. But I +was so greedy and so busy, getting them all for her. Come, Miss +Craydocke; we've got no end of pressing to do, to save half of +them!"</p> +<p>"She can't do enough for her. Oh, Cousin Delight, the leaves +<i>are</i> glorified, after all! Asenath never was so charming; and +she is more beautiful than ever!"</p> +<p>Delight's glance took in also another face than Asenath's, grown +into something in these months that no training or taking thought +could have done for it. "Yes," she said, in the same still way in +which she had spoken before, "that comes too,—as God wills. +All things shall be added."</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<p>My hint is of a Western home, just outside the leaping growth +and ceaseless stir of a great Western city; a large, low, cosy +mansion, with a certain Old World mellowness and rest in its +aspect,—looking forth, even, as it does on one side, upon the +illimitable sunset-ward sweep of the magnificent promise of the +New; on the other, it catches a glimpse, beyond and beside the +town, of the calm blue of a fresh-water ocean.</p> +<p>The place is "Ingleside;" the General will call it by no other +than the family name,—the sweet Scottish synonym for +Home-corner. And here, while I have been writing and you reading +these pages, he has had them all with him; Oliver and Susan, on +their bridal journey, which waited for summer-time to come again, +though they have been six months married; Rose, of course, and +Dakie Thayne, home in vacation from a great school where he is +studying hard, hoping for West Point by and by; Leslie Goldthwaite, +who is Dakie's inspiration still; and our Flower, our Pansy, our +Delight,—golden-eyed Lady of innumerable sweet names.</p> +<p>The sweetest and truest of all, says the brave soldier and +high-souled gentleman, is that which he has persuaded her to wear +for life,—Delight Ingleside.</p> + +<hr> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. +by Mrs. A. D. T. 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