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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14744-0.txt b/14744-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39ea03a --- /dev/null +++ b/14744-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6058 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14744 *** + +DIFFERENT GIRLS + +Harper's Novelettes + +Edited by + +WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS and HENRY MILLS ALDEN + +Harper & Brothers Publishers +New York and London + +1895, 1896, 1897, 1904, 1905, 1906 + + + + + + + +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE +"THE LITTLE JOYS OF MARGARET" + +ELIZABETH JORDAN +"KITTIE'S SISTER JOSEPHINE" + +ALICE BROWN +"THE WIZARD'S TOUCH" + +CHARLES B. DE CAMP +"THE BITTER CUP" + +MARY APPLEWHITE BACON +"HIS SISTER" + +ELEANOR A. HALLOWELL +"THE PERFECT YEAR" + +WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS +"EDITHA" + +OCTAVE THANET +"THE STOUT MISS HOPKINS'S BICYCLE" + +MARY M. MEARS +"THE MARRYING OF ESTHER" + +JULIAN RALPH +"CORDELIA'S NIGHT OF ROMANCE" + +E. A. ALEXANDER +"THE PRIZE-FUND BENEFICIARY" + + + + + +Introduction + + +It is many years now since the American Girl began to engage the +consciousness of the American novelist. Before the expansive period +following the Civil War, in the later eighteen-sixties and the earlier +eighteen-seventies, she had of course been his heroine, unless he went +abroad for one in court circles, or back for one in the feudal ages. +Until the time noted, she had been a heroine and then an American girl. +After that she was an American girl, and then a heroine; and she was +often studied against foreign backgrounds, in contrast with other +international figures, and her value ascertained in comparison with +their valuelessness, though sometimes she was portrayed in those poses +of flirtation of which she was born mistress. Even in these her +superiority to all other kinds of girls was insinuated if not asserted. + +The young ladies in the present collection are all American girls but +one, if we are to suppose Mr. Le Gallienne's winning type to be of the +same English origin as himself. We can be surer of him than of her, +however; but there is no question of the native Americanness of Mrs. +Alexander's girl, who is done so strikingly to the life, with courage to +grapple a character and a temperament as uncommon as it is true, which +we have rarely found among our fictionists. Having said this, we must +hedge in favor of Miss Jordan's most autochthonic Miss Kittie, so young +a girl as to be still almost a little girl, and with a head full of the +ideals of little-girlhood concerning young-girlhood. The pendant to her +pretty picture is the study of elderly girlhood by Octave Thanet, or +that by Miss Alice Brown, the one with its ideality, and the other with +its humor. The pathos of "The Perfect Year" is as true as either in its +truth to the girlhood which "never knew an earthly close," and yet had +its fill of rapture. Julian Ralph's strong and free sketch contributes a +fresh East Side flower, hollyhock-like in its gaudiness, to the garden +of American girls, Irish-American in this case, but destined to be +companioned hereafter by blossoms of our Italian-American, +Yiddish-American, and Russian-American civilization, as soon as our +nascent novelists shall have the eye to see and the art to show them. +Meantime, here are some of our Different Girls as far as they or their +photographers have got, and their acquaintance is worth having. + + W.D.H. + + + + + +The Little Joys of Margaret + +BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + +Margaret had seen her five sisters one by one leave the family nest, to +set up little nests of their own. Her brother, the eldest child of a +family of seven, had left the old home almost beyond memory, and settled +in London. Now and again he made a flying visit to the small provincial +town of his birth, and sometimes he sent two little daughters to +represent him--for he was already a widowed man, and relied occasionally +on the old roof-tree to replace the lost mother. Margaret had seen what +sympathetic spectators called her "fate" slowly approaching for some +time--particularly when, five years ago, she had broken off her +engagement with a worthless boy. She had loved him deeply, and, had she +loved him less, a refined girl in the provinces does not find it easy to +replace a discarded suitor--for the choice of young men is not +excessive. Her sisters had been more fortunate, and so, as I have said, +one by one they left their father's door in bridal veils. But Margaret +stayed on, and at length, as had been foreseen, became the sole nurse of +a beautiful old invalid mother, a kind of lay sister in the nunnery of +home. + +She came of a beautiful family. In all the big family of seven there was +not one without some kind of good looks. Two of her sisters were +acknowledged beauties, and there were those who considered Margaret the +most beautiful of all. It was all the harder, such sympathizers said, +that her youth should thus fade over an invalid's couch, the bloom of +her complexion be rubbed out by arduous vigils, and the lines +prematurely etched in her skin by the strain of a self-denial proper, no +doubt, to homely girls and professional nurses, but peculiarly wanton +and wasteful in the case of a girl so beautiful as Margaret. + +There are, alas! a considerable number of women predestined by their +lack of personal attractiveness for the humbler tasks of life. +Instinctively we associate them with household work, nursing, and the +general drudgery of existence. One never dreams of their having a life +of their own. They have no accomplishments, nor any of the feminine +charms. Women to whom an offer of marriage would seem as terrifying as a +comet, they belong to the neutrals of the human hive, and are, +practically speaking, only a little higher than the paid domestic. +Indeed, perhaps their one distinction is that they receive no wages. + +Now for so attractive a girl as Margaret to be merged in so dreary, +undistinguished a class was manifestly preposterous. It was a stupid +misapplication of human material. A plainer face and a more homespun +fibre would have served the purpose equally well. + +Margaret was by no means so much a saint of self-sacrifice as not to +have realized her situation with natural human pangs. Youth only comes +once--especially to a woman; and + + No hand can gather up the withered fallen + petals of the Rose of youth. + +Petal by petal, Margaret had watched the rose of her youth fading and +falling. More than all her sisters, she was endowed with a zest for +existence. Her superb physical constitution cried out for the joy of +life. She was made to be a great lover, a great mother; and to her, +more than most, the sunshine falling in muffled beams through the +lattices of her mother's sick-room came with a maddening summons +to--live. She was so supremely fitted to play a triumphant part in the +world outside there, so gay of heart, so victoriously vital. + +At first, therefore, the renunciation, accepted on the surface with so +kind a face, was a source of secret bitterness and hidden tears. But +time, with its mercy of compensation, had worked for her one of its many +mysterious transmutations, and shown her of what fine gold her +apparently leaden days were made. She was now thirty-three; though, for +all her nursing vigils, she did not look more than twenty-nine, and was +now more than resigned to the loss of the peculiar opportunities of +youth--if, indeed, they could be said to be lost already. "An old maid," +she would say, "who has cheerfully made up her mind to be an old maid, +is one of the happiest, and, indeed, most enviable, people in all the +world." + +Resent the law as we may, it is none the less true that renunciation +brings with it a mysterious initiation, a finer insight. Its discipline +would seem to refine and temper our organs of spiritual perception, and +thus make up for the commoner experience lost by a rarer experience +gained. By dedicating herself to her sick mother, Margaret undoubtedly +lost much of the average experience of her sex and age, but almost +imperceptibly it had been borne in upon her that she made some important +gains of a finer kind. She had been brought very close to the mystery of +human life, closer than those who have nothing to do beyond being +thoughtlessly happy can ever come. The nurse and the priest are +initiates of the same knowledge. Each alike is a sentinel on the +mysterious frontier between this world and the next. The nearer we +approach that frontier, the more we understand not only of that world on +the other side, but of the world on this. It is only when death throws +its shadow over the page of life that we realize the full significance +of what we are reading. Thus, by her mother's bedside, Margaret was +learning to read the page of life under the illuminating shadow of +death. + +But, apart from any such mystical compensation, Margaret's great reward +was that she knew her beautiful old mother better than any one else in +the world knew her. As a rule, and particularly in a large family, +parents remain half mythical to their children, awe-inspiring presences +in the home, colossal figures of antiquity, about whose knees the +younger generation crawls and gropes, but whose heads are hidden in the +mists of prehistoric legend. They are like personages in the Bible. They +impress our imagination, but we cannot think of them as being quite +real. Their histories smack of legend. And this, of course, is natural, +for they had been in the world, had loved and suffered, so long before +us that they seem a part of that antenatal mystery out of which we +sprang. When they speak of their old love-stories, it is as though we +were reading Homer. It sounds so long ago. We are surprised at the +vividness with which they recall happenings and personalities, past and +gone before, as they tell us, we were born. Before we were born! Yes! +They belong to that mysterious epoch of time--"before we were born"; and +unless we have a taste for history, or are drawn close to them by some +sympathetic human exigency, as Margaret had been drawn to her mother, we +are too apt, in the stress of making our own, to regard the history of +our parents as dry-as-dust. + +As the old mother sits there so quiet in her corner, her body worn to a +silver thread, and hardly anything left of her but her indomitable eyes, +it is hard, at least for a young thing of nineteen, all aflush and +aflurry with her new party gown, to realize that that old mother is +infinitely more romantic than herself. She has sat there so long, +perhaps, as to have come to seem part of the inanimate furniture of home +rather than a living being. Well! the young thing goes to her party, and +dances with some callow youth who pays her clumsy compliments, and +Margaret remains at home with the old mother in her corner. It is hard +on Margaret! Yes; and yet, as I have said, it is thus she comes to know +her old mother better than any one else knows her--society perhaps not +so poor an exchange for that of smart, immature young men of one's own +age. + +As the door closes behind the important rustle of youthful laces, and +Margaret and her mother are left alone, the mother's old eyes light up +with an almost mischievous smile. If age seems humorous to youth, youth +is even more humorous to age. + +"It is evidently a great occasion, Peg," the old voice says, with the +suspicion of a gentle mockery. "Don't you wish you were going?" + +"You naughty old mother!" answers Margaret, going over and kissing her. + +The two understand each other. + +"Well, shall we go on with our book?" says the mother, after a while. + +"Yes, dear, in a moment. I have first to get you your diet, and then we +can begin." + +"Bother the diet!" says the courageous old lady; "for two pins I'd go to +the ball myself. That old taffeta silk of mine is old enough to be in +fashion again. What do you say, Peg, if you and I go to the ball +together ..." + +"Oh, it's too much trouble dressing, mother. What do you think?" + +"Well, I suppose it is," answers the mother. "Besides, I want to hear +what happens next to those two beautiful young people in our book. So be +quick with my old diet, and come and read ..." + +There is perhaps nothing so lovely or so well worth having as the +gratitude of the old towards the young that care to give them more than +the perfunctory ministrations to which they have long since grown sadly +accustomed. There was no reward in the world that Margaret would have +exchanged for the sweet looks of her old mother, who, being no merely +selfish invalid, knew the value and the cost of the devotion her +daughter was giving her. + +"I can give you so little, my child, for all you are giving me," her +mother would sometimes say; and the tears would spring to Margaret's +eyes. + +Yes! Margaret had her reward in this alone--that she had cared to +decipher the lined old document of her mother's face. Her other sisters +had passed it by more or less impatiently. It was like some ancient +manuscript in a museum, which only a loving and patient scholar takes +the trouble to read. But the moment you begin to pick out the words, how +its crabbed text blossoms with beautiful meanings and fascinating +messages! It is as though you threw a dried rose into some magic water, +and saw it unfold and take on bloom, and fill with perfume, and bring +back the nightingale that sang to it so many years ago. So Margaret +loved her mother's old face, and learned to know the meaning of every +line on it. Privileged to see that old face in all its private moments +of feeling, under the transient revivification of deathless memories, +she was able, so to say, to reconstruct its perished beauty, and +realize the romance of which it was once the alluring candle. For her +mother had been a very great beauty, and if, like Margaret, you are able +to see it, there is no history so fascinating as the bygone love-affairs +of old people. How much more fascinating to read one's mother's +love-letters than one's own! + +Even in the history of the heart recent events have a certain crudity, +and love itself seems the more romantic for having lain in lavender for +fifty years. A certain style, a certain distinction, beyond question, go +with antiquity, and to spend your days with a refined old mother is no +less an education in style and distinction than to spend them in the air +of old cities, under the shadow of august architecture and in the sunset +of classic paintings. + +The longer Margaret lived with her old mother, the less she valued the +so-called "opportunities" she had missed. Coming out of her mother's +world of memories, there seemed something small, even common, about the +younger generation to which she belonged,--something lacking in +significance and dignity. + +For example, it had been her dream, as it is the dream of every true +woman, to be a mother herself: and yet, somehow--though she would not +admit it in so many words--when her young married sisters came with +their babies, there was something about their bustling and complacent +domesticity that seemed to make maternity bourgeois. She had not dreamed +of being a mother like that. She was convinced that her old mother had +never been a mother like that. "They seem more like wet-nurses than +mothers," she said to herself, with her wicked wit. + +Was there, she asked herself, something in realization that inevitably +lost you the dream? Was to incarnate an ideal to materialize it? Did the +finer spirit of love necessarily evaporate like some volatile essence +with marriage? Was it better to remain on idealistic spectator such as +she--than to run the risks of realization? + +She was far too beautiful, and had declined too many offers of +commonplace marriage, for such questioning to seem the philosophy of +disappointment. Indeed, the more she realized her own situation, the +more she came to regard what others considered her sacrifice to her +mother as a safeguard against the risk of a mediocre domesticity. +Indeed, she began to feel a certain pride, as of a priestess, in the +conservation of the dignity of her nature. It is better to be a vestal +virgin than--some mothers. + +And, after all, the maternal instinct of her nature found an ideal +outlet in her brother's children--the two little motherless girls who +came every year to spend their holidays with their grandmother and their +aunt Margaret. + +Margaret had seen but little of their mother, but her occasional +glimpses of her had left her with a haloed image of a delicate, +spiritual face that grew more and more Madonna-like with memory. The +nimbus of the Divine Mother, as she herself had dreamed of her, had +seemed indeed to illumine that grave young face. + +It pleased her imagination to take the place of that phantom mother, +herself--a phantom mother. And who knows but that such dream-children, +as she called those two little girls, were more satisfactory in the end +than real children? They represented, so to say, the poetry of children. +Had Margaret been a real mother, there would have been the prose of +children as well. But here, as in so much else, Margaret's seclusion +from the responsible activities of the outside world enabled her to +gather the fine flower of existence without losing the sense of it in +the cares of its cultivation. I think that she comprehended the wonder +and joy of children more than if she had been a real mother. + +Seclusion and renunciation are great sharpeners and refiners of the +sense of joy, chiefly because they encourage the habit of attentiveness. + +"Our excitements are very tiny," once said the old mother to Margaret, +"therefore we make the most of them." + +"I don't agree with you, mother," Margaret had answered. "I think it is +theirs that are tiny--trivial indeed, and ours that are great. People in +the world lose the values of life by having too much choice; too much +choice--of things not worth having. This makes them miss the real +things--just as any one living in a city cannot see the stars for the +electric lights. But we, sitting quiet in our corner, have time to watch +and listen, when the others must hurry by. We have time, for instance, +to watch that sunset yonder, whereas some of our worldly friends would +be busy dressing to go out to a bad play. We can sit here and listen to +that bird singing his vespers, as long as he will sing--and personally I +wouldn't exchange him for a prima donna. Far from being poor in +excitements, I think we have quite as many as are good for us, and those +we have are very beautiful and real." + +"You are a brave child," answered her mother. "Come and kiss me," and +she took the beautiful gold head into her hands and kissed her daughter +with her sweet old mouth, so lost among wrinkles that it was sometimes +hard to find it. + +"But am I not right, mother?" said Margaret. + +"Yes! you are right, dear, but you seem too young to know such wisdom." + +"I have to thank you for it, darling," answered Margaret, bending down +and kissing her mother's beautiful gray hair. + +"Ah! little one," replied the mother, "it is well to be wise, but it is +good to be foolish when we are young--and I fear I have robbed you of +your foolishness." + +"I shall believe you have if you talk like that," retorted Margaret, +laughingly taking her mother into her arms and gently shaking her, as +she sometimes did When the old lady was supposed to have been "naughty." + + * * * * * + +So for Margaret and her mother the days pass, and at first, as we have +said, it may seem a dull life, and even a hard one, for Margaret. But +she herself has long ceased to think so, and she dreads the inevitable +moment when the divine friendship between her and her old mother must +come to an end. She knows, of course, that it must come, and that the +day cannot be far off when the weary old limbs will refuse to make the +tiny journeys from bedroom to rocking-chair, which have long been all +that has been demanded of them; when the brave, humorous old eyes will +be so weary that they cannot keep open any more in this world. The +thought is one that is insupportably lonely, and sometimes she looks at +the invalid-chair, at the cup and saucer in which she serves her +mother's simple food, at the medicine-bottle and the measuring-glass, at +the knitted shawl which protects the frail old form against draughts, +and at all such sad furniture of an invalid's life, and pictures the day +when the homely, affectionate use of all these things will be gone +forever; for so poignant is humanity that it sanctifies with endearing +associations even objects in themselves so painful and prosaic. And it +seems to Margaret that when that day comes it would be most natural for +her to go on the same journey with her mother. + +For who shall fill for her her mother's place on earth--and what +occupation will be left for Margaret when her "beautiful old _raison +d'être_," as she sometimes calls her mother, has entered into the sleep +of the blessed? She seldom thinks of that, for the thought is too +lonely, and, meanwhile, she uses all her love and care to make this +earth so attractive and cozy that the beautiful mother-spirit who has +been so long prepared for her short journey to heaven may be tempted to +linger here yet a little while longer. These ministrations, which began +as a kind of renunciation, have now turned into an unselfish +selfishness. Margaret began by feeling herself necessary to her mother; +now her mother becomes more and more necessary to Margaret. Sometimes +when she leaves her alone for a few moments in her chair, she laughingly +bends over and says, "Promise me that you won't run away to heaven while +my back is turned." + +And the old mother smiles one of those transfigured smiles which seem +only to light up the faces of those that are already half over the +border of the spiritual world. + +Winter is, of course, Margaret's time of chief anxiety, and then her +loving efforts are redoubled to detain her beloved spirit in an +inclement world. Each winter passed in safety seems a personal victory +over death. How anxiously she watches for the first sign of the +returning spring, how eagerly she brings the news of early blade and +bud, and with the first violet she feels that the danger is over for +another year. When the spring is so afire that she is able to fill her +mother's lap with a fragrant heap of crocus and daffodil, she dares at +last to laugh and say, + +"Now confess, mother, that you won't find sweeter flowers even in +heaven." + +And when the thrush is on the apple bough outside the window, Margaret +will sometimes employ the same gentle raillery. + +"Do you think, mother," she will say, "that an angel could sing sweeter +than that thrush?" + +"You seem very sure, Margaret, that I am going to heaven," the old +mother will sometimes say, with one of her arch old smiles; "but do you +know that I stole two peppermints yesterday?" + +"You did!" says Margaret. + +"I did indeed! and they have been on my conscience ever since." + +"Really, mother! I don't know what to say," answers Margaret. "I had no +idea that you are so wicked." + +Many such little games the two play together, as the days go by; and +often at bedtime, as Margaret tucks her mother into bed, she asks her: + +"Are you comfortable, dear? Do you really think you would be much more +comfortable in heaven?" + +Or sometimes she will draw aside the window-curtains and say: + +"Look at the stars, mother.... Don't you think we get the best view of +them down here?" + +So it is that Margaret persuades her mother to delay her journey a +little while. + + + + +Kittie's Sister Josephine + +BY ELIZABETH JORDAN + + +Kittie James told me this story about her sister Josephine, and when she +saw my eye light up the way the true artist's does when he hears a good +plot, she said I might use it, if I liked, the next time I "practised +literature." + +I don't think that was a very nice way to say it, especially when one +remembers that Sister Irmingarde read three of my stories to the class +in four months; and as I only write one every week, you can see yourself +what a good average that was. But it takes noble souls to be humble in +the presence of the gifted, and enthusiastic over their success, so only +two of my classmates seemed really happy when Sister Irmingarde read my +third story aloud. It is hardly necessary to mention the names of these +beautiful natures, already so well known to my readers, but I will do +it. They were Maudie Joyce and Mabel Blossom, and they are my dearest +friends at St. Catharine's. And some day, when I am a real writer and +the name of May Iverson shines in gold letters on the tablets of fame, +I'll write a book and dedicate it to them. Then, indeed, they will be +glad they knew me in my schoolgirl days, and recognized real merit when +they saw it, and did not mind the queer things my artistic temperament +often makes me do. Oh, what a slave is one to this artistic, emotional +nature, and how unhappy, how misunderstood! I don't mean that I am +unhappy all the time, of course, but I have Moods. And when I have them +life seems so hollow, so empty, so terrible! At such times natures that +do not understand me are apt to make mistakes, the way Sister Irmingarde +did when she thought I had nervous dyspepsia and made me walk three +miles every day, when it was just Soul that was the matter with me. +Still, I must admit the exercise helped me. It is so soothing, so +restful, so calming to walk on dear nature's breast. Maudie Joyce and +Mabel Blossom always know the minute an attack of artistic temperament +begins in me. Then they go away quietly and reverently, and I write a +story and feel better. + +So this time I am going to tell about Kittie James's sister Josephine. +In the very beginning I must explain that Josephine James used to be a +pupil at St. Catharine's herself, ages and ages ago, and finally she +graduated and left, and began to go into society and look around and +decide what her life-work should be. That was long, long before our +time--as much as ten years, I should think, and poor Josephine must be +twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old now. But Kittie says she is just +as nice as she can be, and not a bit poky, and so active and interested +in life you'd think she was young. Of course I know such things can be, +for my own sister Grace, Mrs. George E. Verbeck, is perfectly lovely and +the most popular woman in the society of our city. But Grace is married, +and perhaps that makes a difference. It is said that love keeps the +spirit young. However, perhaps I'd better go on about Josephine and not +dwell on that. Experienced as we girls are, and drinking of life in deep +draughts though we do, we still admit--Maudie, Mabel, and I--that we do +not yet know much about love. But one cannot know everything at fifteen, +and, as Mabel Blossom always says, "there is yet time." We all know +just the kind of men they're going to be, though. Mine will be a brave +young officer, of course, for a general's daughter should not marry out +of the army, and he will die for his country, leaving me with a broken +heart. Maudie Joyce says hers must be a man who will rule her with a rod +of iron and break her will and win her respect, and then be gentle and +loving and tender. And Mabel Blossom says she's perfectly sure hers will +be fat and have a blond mustache and laugh a great deal. Once she said +maybe none of us would ever get _any_; but the look Maudie Joyce and I +turned upon her checked her thoughtless words. Life is bitter enough as +it is without thinking of dreadful things in the future. I sometimes +fear that underneath her girlish gayety Mabel Blossom conceals a morbid +nature. But I am forgetting Josephine James. This story will tell why, +with all her advantages of wealth and education and beauty, she remained +a maiden lady till she was twenty-eight; and she might have kept on, +too, if Kittie had not taken matters in hand and settled them for her. + +Kittie says Josephine was always romantic and spent long hours of her +young life in girlish reveries and dreams. Of course that isn't the way +Kittie said it, but if I should tell this story in her crude, unformed +fashion, you wouldn't read very far. What Kittie really said was that +Josephine used to "moon around the grounds a lot and bawl, and even try +to write poetry." I understand Josephine's nature, so I will go on and +tell this story in my own way, but you must remember that some of the +credit belongs to Kittie and Mabel Blossom; and if Sister Irmingarde +reads it in class, they can stand right up with me when the author is +called for. + +Well, when Josephine James graduated she got a lot of prizes and things, +for she was a clever girl, and had not spent all her time writing poetry +and thinking deep thoughts about life. She realized the priceless +advantages of a broad and thorough education and of association with the +most cultivated minds. That sentence comes out of our prospectus. Then +she went home and went out a good deal, and was very popular and stopped +writing poetry, and her dear parents began to feel happy and hopeful +about her, and think she would marry and have a nice family, which is +indeed woman's highest, noblest mission in life. But Josephine cherished +an ideal. + +A great many young men came to see her, and Kittie liked one of them +very much indeed--better than all the others. He was handsome, and he +laughed and joked a good deal, and always brought Kittie big boxes of +candy and called her his little sister. He said she was going to be that +in the end, anyhow, and there was no use waiting to give her the title +that his heart dictated. He said it just that way. When he took +Josephine out in his automobile he'd say, "Let's take the kid, too," and +they would, and it did not take Kittie long to understand how things +were between George Morgan--for that was indeed his name--and her +sister. Little do grown-up people realize how intelligent are the minds +of the young, and how keen and penetrating their youthful gaze! Clearly +do I recall some things that happened at home, and it would startle papa +and mamma to know I know them, but I will not reveal them here. Once I +would have done so, in the beginning of my art; but now I have learned +to finish one story before I begin another. + +Little did Mr. Morgan and Josephine wot that every time she refused him +Kittie's young heart burned beneath its sense of wrong, for she did +refuse him almost every time they went out together, and yet she kept +right on going. You would think she wouldn't, but women's natures are +indeed inscrutable. Some authors would stop here and tell what was in +Josephine's heart, but this is not that kind of a story. Kittie was only +twelve then, and they used big words and talked in a queer way they +thought she would not understand; but she did, every time, and she never +missed a single word they said. Of course she wasn't _listening_ +exactly, you see, because they knew she was there. That makes it +different and quite proper. For if Kittie was more intelligent than her +elders it was not the poor child's fault. + +Things went on like that and got worse and worse, and they had been +going on that way for five years. One day Kittie was playing tennis with +George at the Country Club, and he had been very kind to her, and all of +a sudden Kittie told him she knew all, and how sorry she was for him, +and that if he would wait till she grew up she would marry him herself. +The poor child was so young, you see, that she did not know how +unmaidenly this was. And of course at St. Catharine's when they taught +us how to enter and leave rooms and how to act in society and at the +table, they didn't think to tell us not to ask young men to marry us. I +can add with confidence that Kittie James was the only girl who ever +did. I asked the rest afterwards, and they were deeply shocked at the +idea. + +Well, anyhow, Kittie did it, and she said George was just as nice as he +could be. He told her he had "never listened to a more alluring +proposition" (she remembered just the words he used), and that she was +"a little trump"; and then he said he feared, alas! it was impossible, +as even his strong manhood could not face the prospect of the long and +dragging years that lay between. Besides, he said, his heart was already +given, and he guessed he'd better stick to Josephine, and would his +little sister help him to get her? Kittie wiped her eyes and said she +would. She had been crying. It must indeed be a bitter experience to +have one's young heart spurned! But George took her into the club-house +and gave her tea and lots of English muffins and jam, and somehow Kittie +cheered up, for she couldn't help feeling there were still some things +in life that were nice. + +Of course after that she wanted dreadfully to help George, but there +didn't seem to be much she could do. Besides, she had to go right back +to school in September, and being a studious child, I need hardly add +that her entire mind was then given to her studies. When she went home +for the Christmas holidays she took Mabel Blossom with her. Mabel was +more than a year older, but Kittie looked up to her, as it is well the +young should do to us older girls. Besides, Kittie had had her +thirteenth birthday in November, and she was letting down her skirts a +little and beginning to think of putting up her hair. She said when she +remembered that she asked George to wait till she grew up it made her +blush, so you see she was developing very fast. + +As I said before, she took Mabel Blossom home for Christmas, and Mr. and +Mrs. James were lovely to her, and she had a beautiful time. But +Josephine was the best of all. She was just fine. Mabel told me with her +own lips that if she hadn't seen Josephine James's name on the catalogue +as a graduate in '93, she never would have believed she was so old. +Josephine took the two girls to matinées and gave a little tea for them, +and George Morgan was as nice as she was. He was always bringing them +candy and violets, exactly as if they were young ladies, and he treated +them both with the greatest respect, and stopped calling them the kids +when he found they didn't like it. Mabel got as fond of him as Kittie +was, and they were both wild to help him to get Josephine to marry him; +but she wouldn't, though Kittie finally talked to her long and +seriously. I asked Kittie what Josephine said when she did that, and she +confessed that Josephine had laughed so she couldn't say anything. That +hurt the sensitive child, of course, but grown-ups are all too +frequently thoughtless of such things. Had Josephine but listened to +Kittie's words on that occasion, it would have saved Kittie a lot of +trouble. + +Now I am getting to the exciting part of the story. I am always so glad +when I get to that. I asked Sister Irmingarde why one couldn't just make +the story out of the exciting part, and she took a good deal of time to +explain why, but she did not convince me; for besides having the +artistic temperament I am strangely logical for one so young. Some day I +shall write a story that is all climax from beginning to end. That will +show her! But at present I must write according to the severe and +cramping rules which she and literature have laid down. + +One night Mrs. James gave a large party for Josephine, and of course +Mabel and Kittie, being thirteen and fourteen, had to go to bed. It is +such things as this that embitter the lives of schoolgirls. But they +were allowed to go down and see all the lights and flowers and +decorations before people began to come, and they went into the +conservatory because that was fixed up with little nooks and things. +They got away in and off in a kind of wing of it, and they talked and +pretended they were _débutantes_ at the ball, so they stayed longer than +they knew. Then they heard voices, and they looked and saw Josephine and +Mr. Morgan sitting by the fountain. Before they could move or say they +were there, they heard him say this--Kittie remembers just what it was: + +"I have spent six years following you, and you've treated me as if I +were a dog at the end of a string. This thing must end. I must have you, +or I must learn to live without you, and I must know now which it is to +be. Josephine, you must give me my final answer to-night." + +Wasn't it embarrassing for Kittie and Mabel? They did not want to +listen, but some instinct told them Josephine and George might not be +glad to see them then, so they crept behind a lot of tall palms, and +Mabel put her fingers in her ears so she wouldn't hear. Kittie didn't. +She explained to me afterwards that she thought it being her sister made +things kind of different. It was all in the family, anyhow. So Kittie +heard Josephine tell Mr. Morgan that the reason she did not marry him +was because he was an idler and without an ambition or a purpose in +life. And she said she must respect the man she married as well as love +him. Then George jumped up quickly and asked if she loved him, and she +cried and said she did, but that she would never, never marry him until +he did something to win her admiration and prove he was a man. You can +imagine how exciting it was for Kittie to see with her own innocent eyes +how grown-up people manage such things. She said she was so afraid she'd +miss something that she opened them so wide they hurt her afterwards. +But she didn't miss anything. She saw him kiss Josephine, too, and then +Josephine got up, and he argued and tried to make her change her mind, +and she wouldn't, and finally they left the conservatory. After that +Kittie and Mabel crept out and rushed up-stairs. + +The next morning Kittie turned to Mabel with a look on her face which +Mabel had never seen there before. It was grim and determined. She said +she had a plan and wanted Mabel to help her, and not ask any questions, +but get her skates and come out. Mabel did, and they went straight to +George Morgan's house, which was only a few blocks away. He was very +rich and had a beautiful house. An English butler came to the door. +Mabel said she was so frightened her teeth chattered, but he smiled when +he saw Kittie, and said yes, Mr. Morgan was home and at breakfast, and +invited them in. When George came in he had a smoking-jacket on, and +looked very pale and sad and romantic, Mabel thought, but he smiled, +too, when he saw them, and shook hands and asked them if they had +breakfasted. + +Kittie said yes, but they had come to ask him to take them skating, and +they were all ready and had brought their skates. His face fell, as real +writers say, and he hesitated a little, but at last he said he'd go, and +he excused himself, just as if they had been grown up, and went off to +get ready. + +When they were left alone a terrible doubt assailed Mabel, and she asked +Kittie if she was going to ask George again to marry her. Kittie +blushed and said she was not, of course, and that she knew better now. +For it is indeed true that the human heart is not so easily turned from +its dear object. We know that if once one truly loves it lasts forever +and ever and ever, and then one dies and is buried with things the loved +one wore. + +Kittie said she had a plan to help George, and all Mabel had to do was +to watch and keep on breathing. Mabel felt better then, and said she +guessed she could do that. George came back all ready, and they started +off. Kittie acted rather dark and mysterious, but Mabel conversed with +George in the easy and pleasant fashion young men love. She told him all +about school and how bad she was in mathematics; and he said he had been +a duffer at it too, but that he had learned to shun it while there was +yet time. And he advised her very earnestly to have nothing to do with +it. Mabel didn't, either, after she came back to St. Catharine's; and +when Sister Irmingarde reproached her, Mabel said she was leaning on the +judgment of a strong man, as woman should do. But Sister Irmingarde made +her go on with the arithmetic just the same. + +By and by they came to the river, and it was so early not many people +were skating there. When George had fastened on their skates--he did it +in the nicest way, exactly as if they were grown up--Kittie looked more +mysterious than ever, and she started off as fast as she could skate +toward a little inlet where there was no one at all. George and Mabel +followed her. George said he didn't know whether the ice was smooth in +there, but Kittie kept right on, and George did not say any more. I +guess he did not care much where he went. I suppose it disappoints a man +when he wants to marry a woman and she won't. Now that I am beginning to +study deeply this question of love, many things are clear to me. + +Kittie kept far ahead, and all of a sudden Mabel saw that a little +distance further on, and just ahead, there was a big black hole in the +ice, and Kittie was skating straight toward it. Mabel tried to scream, +but she says the sound froze on her pallid lips. Then George saw the +hole, too, and rushed toward Kittie, and quicker than I can write it +Kittie went in that hole and down. + +Mabel says George was there almost as soon, calling to Mabel to keep +back out of danger. Usually when people have to rescue others, +especially in stories, they call to some one to bring a board, and some +one does, and it is easy. But very often in real life there isn't any +board or any one to bring it, and this was indeed the desperate +situation that confronted my hero. There was nothing to do but plunge in +after Kittie, and he plunged, skates and all. Then Mabel heard him gasp +and laugh a little, and he called out: "It's all right, by Jove! The +water isn't much above my knees." And even as he spoke Mabel saw Kittie +rise in the water and sort of hurl herself at him and pull him down into +the water, head and all. When they came up they were both half +strangled, and Mabel was terribly frightened; for she thought George was +mistaken about the depth, and they would both drown before her eyes; and +then she would see that picture all her life, as they do in stories, and +her hair would turn gray. She began to run up and down on the ice and +scream; but even as she did so she heard these extraordinary words come +from between Kittie James's chattering teeth: + +"_Now you are good and wet_!" + +George did not say a word. He confessed to Mabel afterwards that he +thought poor Kittie had lost her mind through fear. But he tried the ice +till he found a place that would hold him, and he got out and pulled +Kittie out. As soon as Kittie was out she opened her mouth and uttered +more remarkable words. + +"Now," she said, "I'll skate till we get near the club-house. Then you +must pick me up and carry me, and I'll shut my eyes and let my head hang +down. And Mabel must cry--good and hard. Then you must send for +Josephine and let her see how you've saved the life of her precious +little sister." + +Mabel said she was sure that Kittie was crazy, and next she thought +George was crazy, too. For he bent and stared hard into Kittie's eyes +for a minute, and then he began to laugh, and he laughed till he cried. +He tried to speak, but he couldn't at first; and when he did the words +came out between his shouts of boyish glee. + +"Do you mean to say, you young monkey," he said, "that this is a put-up +job?" + +Kittie nodded as solemnly as a fair young girl can nod when her clothes +are dripping and her nose is blue with cold. When she did that, George +roared again; then, as if he had remembered something, he caught her +hands and began to skate very fast toward the club-house. He was a +thoughtful young man, you see, and he wanted her to get warm. Perhaps he +wanted to get warm, too. Anyhow, they started off, and as they went, +Kittie opened still further the closed flower of her girlish heart. I +heard that expression once, and I've always wanted to get it into one of +my stories. I think this is a good place. + +She told George she knew the hole in the ice, and that it wasn't deep; +and she said she had done it all to make Josephine admire him and marry +him. + +"She will, too," she said. "Her dear little sister--the only one she's +got." And Kittie went on to say what a terrible thing it would have been +if she had died in the promise of her young life, till Mabel said she +almost felt sure herself that George had saved her. But George +hesitated. He said it wasn't "a square deal," whatever that means, but +Kittie said no one need tell any lies. She had gone into the hole and +George had pulled her out. She thought they needn't explain how deep it +was, and George admitted thoughtfully that "no truly loving family +should hunger for statistics at such a moment." Finally he said: "By +Jove! I'll do it. All's fair in love and war." Then he asked Mabel if +she thought she could "lend intelligent support to the star performers," +and she said she could. So George picked Kittie up in his arms, and +Mabel cried--she was so excited it was easy, and she wanted to do it all +the time--and the sad little procession "homeward wended its weary way," +as the poet says. + +Mabel told me Kittie did her part like a real actress. She shut her eyes +and her head hung over George's arm, and her long, wet braid dripped as +it trailed behind them. George laughed to himself every few minutes till +they got near the club-house. Then he looked very sober, and Mabel +Blossom knew her cue had come, the way it does to actresses, and she let +out a wail that almost made Kittie sit up. It was 'most too much of a +one, and Mr. Morgan advised her to "tone it down a little," because, he +said, if she didn't they'd probably have Kittie buried before she could +explain. But of course Mabel had not been prepared and had not had any +practice. She muffled her sobs after that, and they sounded lots better. +People began to rush from the club-house, and get blankets and whiskey, +and telephone for doctors and for Kittie's family, and things got so +exciting that nobody paid any attention to Mabel. All she had to do was +to mop her eyes occasionally and keep a sharp lookout for Josephine; for +of course, being an ardent student of life, like Maudie and me, she did +not want to miss what came next. + +Pretty soon a horse galloped up, all foaming at the mouth, and he was +pulled back on his haunches, and Josephine and Mr. James jumped out of +the buggy and rushed in, and there was more excitement. When George saw +them coming he turned pale, Mabel said, and hurried off to change his +clothes. One woman looked after him and said, "As modest as he is +brave," and cried over it. When Josephine and Mr. James came in there +was more excitement, and Kittie opened one eye and shut it again right +off, and the doctor said she was all right except for the shock, and her +father and Josephine cried, so Mabel didn't have to any more. She was +glad, too, I can tell you. + +They put Kittie to bed in a room at the club, for the doctor said she +was such a high-strung child it would be wise to keep her perfectly +quiet for a few hours and take precautions against pneumonia. Then +Josephine went around asking for Mr. Morgan. + +By and by he came down, in dry clothes but looking dreadfully +uncomfortable. Mabel said she could imagine how he felt. Josephine was +standing by the open fire when he entered the room, and no one else was +there but Mabel. Josephine went right to him and put her arms around his +neck. + +"Dearest, dearest!" she said. "How can I ever thank you?" Her voice was +very low, but Mabel heard it. George said right off, "There is a way." +That shows how quick and clever he is, for some men might not think of +it. Then Mabel Blossom left the room, with slow, reluctant feet, and +went up-stairs to Kittie. + +That's why Mabel has just gone to Kittie's home for a few days. She and +Kittie are to be flower-maids at Josephine's wedding. I hope it is not +necessary for me to explain to my intelligent readers that her husband +will be George Morgan. Kittie says he confessed the whole thing to +Josephine, and she forgave him, and said she would marry him anyhow; but +she explained that she only did it on Kittie's account. She said she did +not know to what lengths the child might go next. + +So my young friends have gone to mingle in scenes of worldly gayety, +and I sit here in the twilight looking at the evening star and writing +about love. How true it is that the pen is mightier than the sword! +Gayety is well in its place, but the soul of the artist finds its +happiness in work and solitude. I hope Josephine will realize, though, +why I cannot describe her wedding. Of course no artist of delicate +sensibilities could describe a wedding when she hadn't been asked to it. + +Poor Josephine! It seems very, very sad to me that she is marrying thus +late in life and only on Kittie's account. Why, oh, why could she not +have wed when she was young and love was in her heart! + + + + +The Wizard's Touch + +BY ALICE BROWN + + +Jerome Wilmer sat in the garden, painting in a background, with the +carelessness of ease. He seemed to be dabbing little touches at the +canvas, as a spontaneous kind of fun not likely to result in anything +serious, save, perhaps, the necessity of scrubbing them off afterwards, +like a too adventurous child. Mary Brinsley, in her lilac print, stood a +few paces away, the sun on her hair, and watched him. + +"Paris is very becoming to you," she said at last. + +"What do you mean?" asked Wilmer, glancing up, and then beginning to +consider her so particularly that she stepped aside, her brows knitted, +with an admonishing, + +"Look out! you'll get me into the landscape." + +"You're always in the landscape. What do you mean about Paris?" + +"You look so--so travelled, so equal to any place, and Paris in +particular because it's the finest." + +Other people also had said that, in their various ways. He had the +distinction set by nature upon a muscular body and a rather small head, +well poised. His hair, now turning gray, grew delightfully about the +temples, and though it was brushed back in the style of a man who never +looks at himself twice when once will do, it had a way of seeming +entirely right. His brows were firm, his mouth determined, and the close +pointed beard brought his face to a delicate finish. Even his clothes, +of the kind that never look new, had fallen into lines of easy use. + +"You needn't guy me," he said, and went on painting. But he flashed his +sudden smile at her. "Isn't New England becoming to me, too?" + +"Yes, for the summer. It's over-powered. In the winter Aunt Celia calls +you 'Jerry Wilmer.' She's quite topping then. But the minute you appear +with European labels on your trunks and that air of speaking foreign +lingo, she gives out completely. Every time she sees your name in the +paper she forgets you went to school at the Academy and built the fires. +She calls you 'our boarder' then, for as much as a week and a half." + +"Quit it, Mary," said he, smiling at her again. + +"Well," said Mary, yet without turning, "I must go and weed a while." + +"No," put in Wilmer, innocently; "he won't be over yet. He had a big +mail. I brought it to him." + +Mary blushed, and made as if to go. She was a woman of thirty-five, well +poised, and sweet through wholesomeness. Her face had been cut on a +regular pattern, and then some natural influence had touched it up +beguilingly with contradictions. She swung back, after her one tentative +step, and sobered. + +"How do you think he is looking?" she asked. + +"Prime." + +"Not so--" + +"Not so morbid as when I was here last summer," he helped her out. "Not +by any means. Are you going to marry him, Mary?" The question had only a +civil emphasis, but a warmer tone informed it. Mary grew pink under the +morning light, and Jerome went on: "Yes, I have a perfect right to talk +about it, I don't travel three thousand miles every summer to ask you to +marry me without earning some claim to frankness. I mentioned that to +Marshby himself. We met at the station, you remember, the day I came. We +walked down together. He spoke about my sketching, and I told him I had +come on my annual pilgrimage, to ask Mary Brinsley to marry me." + +"Jerome!" + +"Yes, I did. This is my tenth pilgrimage. Mary, will you marry me?" + +"No," said Mary, softly, but as if she liked him very much. "No, +Jerome." + +Wilmer squeezed a tube on his palette and regarded the color frowningly. +"Might as well, Mary," said he. "You'd have an awfully good time in +Paris." + +She was perfectly still, watching him, and he went on: + +"Now you're thinking if Marshby gets the consulate you'll be across the +water anyway, and you could run down to Paris and see the sights. But it +wouldn't be the same thing. It's Marshby you like, but you'd have a +better time with me." + +"It's a foregone conclusion that the consulship will be offered him," +said Mary. Her eyes were now on the path leading through the garden and +over the wall to the neighboring house where Marshby lived. + +"Then you will marry and go with him. Ah, well, that's finished. I +needn't come another summer. When you are in Paris, I can show you the +boulevards and cafés." + +"It is more than probable he won't accept the consulship." + +"Why?" He held his palette arrested in mid-air and stared at her. + +"He is doubtful of himself--doubtful whether he is equal to so +responsible a place." + +"Bah! it's not an embassy." + +"No; but he fancies he has not the address, the social gifts--in fact, +he shrinks from it." Her face had taken on a soft distress; her eyes +appealed to him. She seemed to be confessing, for the other man, +something that might well be misunderstood. Jerome, ignoring the flag of +her discomfort, went on painting, to give her room for confidence. + +"Is it that old plague-spot?" he asked. "Just what aspect does it bear +to him? Why not talk freely about it?" + +"It is the old remorse. He misunderstood his brother when they two were +left alone in the world. He forced the boy out of evil associations when +he ought to have led him. You know the rest of it. The boy was +desperate. He killed himself." + +"When he was drunk. Marshby wasn't responsible." + +"No, not directly. But you know that kind of mind. It follows hidden +causes. That's why his essays are so good. Anyway, it has crippled him. +It came when he was too young, and it marked him for life. He has an +inveterate self-distrust." + +"Ah, well," said Winner, including the summer landscape in a wave of his +brush, "give up the consulship. Let him give it up. It isn't as if he +hadn't a roof. Settle down in his house there, you two, and let him +write his essays, and you--just be happy." + +She ignored her own part in the prophecy completely and finally. "It +isn't the consulship as the consulship," she responded. "It is the life +abroad I want for him. It would give him--well, it would give him what +it has given you. His work would show it." She spoke hotly, and at once +Jerome saw himself envied for his brilliant cosmopolitan life, the +bounty of his success fairly coveted for the other man. It gave him a +curious pang. He felt, somehow, impoverished, and drew his breath more +meagrely. But the actual thought in his mind grew too big to be +suppressed, and he stayed his hand to look at her. + +"That's not all," he said. + +"All what?" + +"That's not the main reason why you want him to go. You think if he +really asserted himself, really knocked down the spectre of his old +distrust and stamped on it, he would be a different man. If he had once +proved himself, as we say of younger chaps, he could go on proving." + +"No," she declared, in nervous loyalty. She was like a bird fluttering +to save her nest. "No! You are wrong. I ought not to have talked about +him at all. I shouldn't to anybody else. Only, you are so kind." + +"It's easy to be kind," said Jerome, gently, "when there's nothing else +left us." + +She stood wilfully swaying a branch of the tendrilled arbor, and, he +subtly felt, so dissatisfied with herself for her temporary disloyalty +that she felt alien to them both: Marshby because she had wronged him by +admitting another man to this intimate knowledge of him, and the other +man for being her accomplice. + +"Don't be sorry," he said, softly. "You haven't been naughty." + +But she had swung round to some comprehension of what he had a right to +feel. + +"It makes one selfish," she said, "to want--to want things to come out +right." + +"I know. Well, can't we make them come out right? He is sure of the +consulship?" + +"Practically." + +"You want to be assured of his taking it." + +She did not answer; but her face lighted, as if to a new appeal. Jerome +followed her look along the path. Marshby himself was coming. He was no +weakling. He swung along easily with the stride of a man accustomed to +using his body well. He had not, perhaps, the urban air, and yet there +was nothing about him which would not have responded at once to a more +exacting civilization. Jerome knew his face,--knew it from their college +days together and through these annual visits of his own; but now, as +Marshby approached, the artist rated him not so much by the friendly as +the professional eye. He saw a man who looked the scholar and the +gentleman, keen though not imperious of glance. His visage, mature even +for its years, had suffered more from emotion than from deeds or the +assaults of fortune. Marshby had lived the life of thought, and, +exaggerating action, had failed to fit himself to any form of it. Wilmer +glanced at his hands, too, as they swung with his walk, and then +remembered that the professional eye had already noted them and laid +their lines away for some suggestive use. As he looked, Marshby stopped +in his approach, caught by the singularity of a gnarled tree limb. It +awoke in him a cognizance of nature's processes, and his face lighted +with the pleasure of it. + +"So you won't marry me?" asked Wilmer, softly, in that pause. + +"Don't!" said Mary. + +"Why not, when you won't tell whether you're engaged to him or not? Why +not, anyway? If I were sure you'd be happier with me, I'd snatch you out +of his very maw. Yes, I would. Are you sure you like him, Mary?" + +The girl did not answer, for Marshby had started again. Jerome got the +look in her face, and smiled a little, sadly. + +"Yes," he said, "you're sure." + +Mary immediately felt unable to encounter them together. She gave +Marshby a good-morning, and, to his bewilderment, made some excuse about +her weeding and flitted past him on the path. His eyes followed her, and +when they came back to Wilmer the artist nodded brightly. + +"I've just asked her," he said. + +"Asked her?" Marshby was about to pass him, pulling out his glasses and +at the same time peering at the picture with the impatience of his +near-sighted look. + +"There, don't you do that!" cried Jerome, stopping, with his brush in +air. "Don't you come round and stare over my shoulder. It makes me +nervous ad the devil. Step back there--there by that mullein. So! I've +got to face my protagonist. Yes, I've been asking her to marry me." + +Marshby stiffened. His head went up, his jaw tightened. He looked the +jealous ire of the male. + +"What do you want me to stand here for?" he asked, irritably. + +"But she refused me," said Wilmer, cheerfully. "Stand still, that's a +good fellow. I'm using you." + +Marshby had by an effort pulled himself together. He dismissed Mary from +his mind, as he wished to drive her from the other man's speech. + +"I've been reading the morning paper on your exhibition," he said, +bringing out the journal from his pocket. "They can't say enough about +you." + +"Oh, can't they! Well, the better for me. What are they pleased to +discover?" + +"They say you see round corners and through deal boards. Listen." He +struck open the paper and read: "'A man with a hidden crime upon his +soul will do well to elude this greatest of modern magicians. The man +with a secret tells it the instant he sits down before Jerome Wilmer. +Wilmer does not paint faces, brows, hands. He paints hopes, fears, and +longings. If we could, in our turn, get to the heart of his mystery! If +we could learn whether he says to himself: "I see hate in that face, +hypocrisy, greed. I will paint them. That man is not man, but cur. He +shall fawn on my canvas." Or does he paint through a kind of inspired +carelessness, and as the line obeys the eye and hand, so does the +emotion live in the line?'" + +"Oh, gammon!" snapped Wilmer. + +"Well, do you?" said Marshby, tossing the paper to the little table +where Mary's work-box stood. + +"Do I what? Spy and then paint, or paint and find I've spied? Oh, I +guess I plug along like any other decent workman. When it comes to that, +how do you write your essays?" + +"I! Oh! That's another pair of sleeves. Your work is colossal. I'm still +on cherry-stones." + +"Well," said Wilmer, with slow incisiveness, "you've accomplished one +thing I'd sell my name for. You've got Mary Brinsley bound to you so +fast that neither lure nor lash can stir her. I've tried it--tried Paris +even, the crudest bribe there is. No good! She won't have me." + +At her name, Marshby straightened again, and there was fire in his eye. +Wilmer, sketching him in, seemed to gain distinct impulse from the pose, +and worked the faster. + +"Don't move," he ordered. "There, that's right. So, you see, you're the +successful chap. I'm the failure. She won't have me." There was such +feeling in his tone that Marshby's expression softened comprehendingly. +He understood a pain that prompted even such a man to rash avowal. + +"I don't believe we'd better speak of her," he said, in awkward +kindliness. + +"I want to," returned Wilmer. "I want to tell you how lucky you are." + +Again that shade of introspective bitterness clouded Marshby's face. +"Yes," said he, involuntarily. "But how about her? Is _she_ lucky?" + +"Yes," replied Jerome, steadily. "She's got what she wants. She won't +worship you any the less because you don't worship yourself. That's the +mad way they have--women. It's an awful challenge. You've got a fight +before you, if you don't refuse it.". + +"God!" groaned Marshby to himself, "it is a fight. I can't refuse it." + +Wilmer put his question without mercy. "Do you want to?" + +"I want her to be happy," said Marshby, with a simple humility afar from +cowardice. "I want her to be safe. I don't see how anybody could be +safe--with me." + +"Well," pursued Wilmer, recklessly, "would she be safe with me?" + +"I think so," said Marshby, keeping an unblemished dignity. "I have +thought that for a good many years." + +"But not happy?" + +"No, not happy. She would--We have been together so long." + +"Yes, she'd miss you. She'd die of homesickness. Well!" He sat +contemplating Marshby with his professional stare; but really his mind +was opened for the first time to the full reason for Mary's unchanging +love. Marshby stood there so quiet, so oblivious of himself in +comparison with unseen things, so much a man from head to foot, that he +justified the woman's loyal passion as nothing had before. "Shall you +accept the consulate?" Wilmer asked, abruptly. + +Brought face to face with fact, Marshby's pose slackened. He drooped +perceptibly. "Probably not," he said. "No, decidedly not." + +Wilmer swore under his breath, and sat, brows bent, marvelling at the +change in him. The man's infirmity of will had blighted him. He was so +truly another creature that not even a woman's unreasoning championship +could pull him into shape again. + +Mary Brinsley came swiftly down the path, trowel in one hand and her +basket of weeds in the other. Wilmer wondered if she had been glancing +up from some flowery screen and read the story of that altered posture. +She looked sharply anxious, like a mother whose child is threatened. +Jerome shrewdly knew that Marshby's telltale attitude was no unfamiliar +one. + +"What have you been saying?" she asked, in laughing challenge, yet with +a note of anxiety underneath. + +"I'm painting him in," said Wilmer; but as she came toward him he turned +the canvas dexterously. "No," said he, "no. I've got my idea from this. +To-morrow Marshby's going to sit." + +That was all he would say, and Mary put it aside as one of his +pleasantries made to fit the hour. But next day he set up a big canvas +in the barn that served him as workroom, and summoned Marshby from his +books. He came dressed exactly right, in his every-day clothes that had +comfortable wrinkles in them, and easily took his pose. For all his +concern over the inefficiency of his life, as a life, he was entirely +without self-consciousness in his personal habit. Jerome liked that, and +began to like him better as he knew him more. A strange illuminative +process went on in his mind toward the man as Mary saw him, and more and +more he nursed a fretful sympathy with her desire to see Marshby tuned +up to some pitch that should make him livable to himself. It seemed a +cruelty of nature that any man should so scorn his own company and yet +be forced to keep it through an allotted span. In that sitting Marshby +was at first serious and absent-minded. Though his body was obediently +there, the spirit seemed to be busy somewhere else. + +"Head up!" cried Jerome at last, brutally. "Heavens, man, don't skulk!" + +Marshby straightened under the blow. It hit harder, as Jerome meant it +should, than any verbal rallying. It sent the man back over his own +life to the first stumble in it. + +"I want you to look as if you heard drums and fife," Jerome explained, +with one of his quick smiles, that always wiped out former injury. + +But the flush was not yet out of Marshby's face, and he answered, +bitterly, "I might run." + +"I don't mind your looking as if you'd like to run and knew you +couldn't," said Jerome, dashing in strokes now in a happy certainty. + +"Why couldn't I?" asked Marshby, still from that abiding scorn of his +own ways. + +"Because you can't, that's all. Partly because you get the habit of +facing the music. I should like--" Wilmer had an unconsidered way of +entertaining his sitters, without much expenditure to himself; he +pursued a fantastic habit of talk to keep their blood moving, and did it +with the eye of the mind unswervingly on his work. "If I were you, I'd +do it. I'd write an essay on the muscular habit of courage. Your coward +is born weak-kneed. He shouldn't spill himself all over the place trying +to put on the spiritual make-up of a hero. He must simply strengthen +his knees. When they'll take him anywhere he requests, without buckling, +he wakes up and finds himself a field-marshal. _Voilà !_" + +"It isn't bad," said Marshby, unconsciously straightening. "Go ahead, +Jerome. Turn us all into field-marshals." + +"Not all," objected Wilmer, seeming to dash his brush at the canvas with +the large carelessness that promised his best work. "The jobs wouldn't +go round. But I don't feel the worse for it when I see the recruity +stepping out, promotion in his eye." + +After the sitting, Wilmer went yawning forward, and with a hand on +Marshby's shoulder, took him to the door. + +"Can't let you look at the thing," he said, as Marshby gave one backward +glance. "That's against the code. Till it's done, no eye touches it but +mine and the light of heaven." + +Marshby had no curiosity. He smiled, and thereafter let the picture +alone, even to the extent of interested speculation. Mary had +scrupulously absented herself from that first sitting; but after it was +over and Marshby had gone home, Wilmer found her in the garden, under an +apple-tree, shelling pease. He lay down on the ground, at a little +distance, and watched her. He noted the quick, capable turn of her +wrist and the dexterous motion of the brown hands as they snapped out +the pease, and he thought how eminently sweet and comfortable it would +be to take this bit of his youth back to France with him, or even to +give up France and grow old with her at home. + +"Mary," said he, "I sha'n't paint any picture of you this summer." + +Mary laughed, and brushed back a yellow lock with the back of her hand. +"No," said she, "I suppose not. Aunt Celia spoke of it yesterday. She +told me the reason." + +"What is Aunt Celia's most excellent theory?" + +"She said I'm not so likely as I used to be." + +"No," said Jerome, not answering her smile in the community of mirth +they always had over Aunt Celia's simple speech. He rolled over on the +grass and began to make a dandelion curl. "No, that's not it. You're a +good deal likelier than you used to be. You're all possibilities now. I +could make a Madonna out of you, quick as a wink. No, it's because I've +decided to paint Marshby instead." + +Mary's hands stilled themselves, and she looked at him anxiously. "Why +are you doing that?" she asked. + +"Don't you want the picture?" + +"What are you going to do with it?" + +"Give it to you, I guess. For a wedding-present, Mary." + +"You mustn't say those things," said Mary, gravely. She went on working, +but her face was serious. + +"It's queer, isn't it," remarked Wilmer, after a pause, "this notion +you've got that Marshby's the only one that could possibly do? I began +asking you first." + +"Please!" said Mary. Her eyes were full of tears. That was rare for her, +and Wilmer saw it meant a shaken poise. She was less certain to-day of +her own fate. It made her more responsively tender toward his. He sat up +and looked at her. + +"No," he said. "No. I won't ask you again. I never meant to. Only I have +to speak of it once in a while. We should have such a tremendously good +time together." + +"We have a tremendously good time now," said Mary, the smile coming +while she again put up the back of her hand and brushed her eyes. "When +you're good." + +"When I help all the other little boys at the table, and don't look at +the nice heart-shaped cake I want myself? It's frosted, and got little +pink things all over the top. There! don't drop the corners of your +mouth. If I were asked what kind of a world I'd like to live in, I'd say +one where the corners of Mary's mouth keep quirked up all the time. +Let's talk about Marshby's picture. It's going to be your Marshby." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Not Marshby's Marshby--yours." + +"You're not going to play some dreadful joke on him?" Her eyes were +blazing under knotted brows. + +"Mary!" Wilmer spoke gently, and though the tone recalled her, she could +not forbear at once, in her hurt pride and loyalty. + +"You're not going to put him into any masquerade?--to make him anything +but what he is?" + +"Mary, don't you think that's a little hard on an old chum?" + +"I can't help it." Her cheeks were hot, though now it was with shame. +"Yes, I am mean, jealous, envious. I see you with everything at your +feet--" + +"Not quite everything," said Jerome. "I know it makes you hate me." + +"No! no!" The real woman had awakened in her, and she turned to him in a +whole-hearted honesty. "Only, they say you do such wizard things when +you paint. I never saw any of your pictures, you know, except the ones +you did of me. And they're not _me_. They're lovely--angels with women's +clothes on. Aunt Celia says if I looked like that I'd carry all before +me. But, you see, you've always been--partial to me." + +"And you think I'm not partial to Marshby?" + +"It isn't that. It's only that they say you look inside people and drag +out what is there. And inside him--oh, you'd see his hatred of himself!" +The tears were rolling unregarded down her face. + +"This is dreadful," said Wilmer, chiefly to himself. "Dreadful." + +"There!" said Mary, drearily, emptying the pods from her apron into the +basket at her side. "I suppose I've done it now. I've spoiled the +picture." + +"No," returned Jerome, thoughtfully, "you haven't spoiled the picture. +Really I began it with a very definite conception of what I was going to +do. It will be done in that way or not at all." + +"You're very kind," said Mary, humbly. "I didn't mean to act like +this." + +"No,"--he spoke out of a maze of reflection, not looking at her. "You +have an idea he's under the microscope with me. It makes you nervous." + +She nodded, and then caught herself up. + +"There's nothing you mightn't see," she said, proudly, ignoring her +previous outburst. "You or anybody else, even with a microscope." + +"No, of course not. Only you'd say microscopes aren't fair. Well, +perhaps they're not. And portrait-painting is a very simple matter. It's +not the black art. But if I go on with this, you are to let me do it in +my own way. You're not to look at it." + +"Not even when you're not at work?" + +"Not once, morning, noon, or night, till I invite you to. You were +always a good fellow, Mary. You'll keep your word." + +"No, I won't look at it," said Mary. + +Thereafter she stayed away from the barn, not only when he was painting, +but at other times, and Wilmer missed her. He worked very fast, and made +his plans for sailing, and Aunt Celia loudly bemoaned his stinginess in +cutting short the summer. One day, after breakfast, he sought out Mary +again in the garden. She was snipping Coreopsis for the dinner table, +but she did it absently, and Jerome noted the heaviness of her eyes. + +"What's the trouble?" he asked, abruptly, and she was shaken out of her +late constraint. She looked up at him with a piteous smile. + +"Nothing much," she said. "It doesn't matter. I suppose it's fate. He +has written his letter." + +"Marshby?" + +"You knew he got his appointment?" + +"No; I saw something had him by the heels, but he's been still as a +fish." + +"It came three days ago. He has decided not to take it. And it will +break his heart." + +"It will break your heart," Wilmer opened his lips to say; but he dared +not jostle her mood of unconsidered frankness. + +"I suppose I expected it," she went on. "I did expect it. Yet he's been +so different lately, it gave me a kind of hope." + +Jerome started. "How has he been different?" he asked. + +"More confident, less doubtful of himself. It's not anything he has +said. It's in his speech, his walk. He even carries his head +differently, as if he had a right to. Well, we talked half the night +last night, and he went home to write the letter. He promised me not to +mail it till he'd seen me once more; but nothing will make any +difference." + +"You won't beseech him?" + +"No. He is a man. He must decide." + +"You won't tell him what depends on it!" + +"Nothing depends on it," said Mary, calmly. "Nothing except his own +happiness. I shall find mine in letting him accept his life according to +his own free will." + +There was something majestic in her mental attitude. Wilmer felt how +noble her maturity was to be, and told himself, with a thrill of pride, +that he had done well to love her. + +"Marshby is coming," he said. "I want to show you both the picture." + +Mary shook her head. "Not this morning," she told him, and he could see +how meagre canvas and paint must seem to her after her vision of the +body of life. But he took her hand. + +"Come," he said, gently; "you must." + +Still holding her flowers, she went with him, though her mind abode with +her lost cause. Marshby halted when he saw them coming, and Jerome had +time to look at him. The man held himself wilfully erect, but his face +betrayed him. It was haggard, smitten. He had not only met defeat; he +had accepted it. Jerome nodded to him and went on before them to the +barn. The picture stood there in a favoring light. Mary caught her +breath sharply, and then all three were silent. Jerome stood there +forgetful of them, his eyes on his completed work, and for the moment he +had in it the triumph of one who sees intention, brought to fruitage +under perfect auspices. It meant more to him, that recognition, than any +glowing moment of his youth. The scroll of his life unrolled before him, +and he saw his past, as other men acclaimed it, running into the future +ready for his hand to make. A great illumination touched the days to +come. Brilliant in promise, they were yet barren of hope. For as surely +as he had been able to set this seal on Mary's present, he saw how the +thing itself would separate them. He had painted her ideal of Marshby; +but whenever in the future she should nurse the man through the mental +sickness bound always to delay his march, she would remember this moment +with a pang, as something Jerome had dowered him with, not something he +had attained unaided. Marshby faced them from the canvas, erect, +undaunted, a soldier fronting the dawn, expectant of battle, yet with no +dread of its event. He was not in any sense alien to himself. He +dominated, not by crude force, but through the sustained inward strength +of him. It was not youth Jerome had given him. There was maturity in the +face. It had its lines--the lines that are the scars of battle; but +somehow not one suggested, even to the doubtful mind, a battle lost. +Jerome turned from the picture to the man himself, and had his own +surprise. Marshby was transfigured. He breathed humility and hope. He +stirred at Wilmer's motion. + +"Am I"--he glowed--"could I have looked like that?" Then in the +poignancy of the moment he saw how disloyal to the moment it was even to +hint at what should have been, without snapping the link now into the +welding present. He straightened himself and spoke brusquely, but to +Mary: + +"I'll go back and write that letter. Here is the one I wrote last +night." + +He took it from his pocket, tore it in two, and gave it to her. Then he +turned away and walked with the soldier's step home. Jerome could not +look at her. He began moving back the picture. + +"There!" he said, "it's finished. Better make up your mind where you'll +have it put. I shall be picking up my traps this morning." + +Then Mary gave him his other surprise. Her hands were on his shoulders. +Her eyes, full of the welling gratitude that is one kind of love, spoke +like her lips. + +"Oh!" said she, "do you think I don't know what you've done? I couldn't +take it from anybody else. I couldn't let him take it. It's like +standing beside him in battle; like lending him your horse, your sword. +It's being a comrade. It's helping him fight. And he _will_ fight. +That's the glory of it!" + + + + +The Bitter Cup + +BY CHARLES B. DE CAMP + + +Clara Leeds sat by the open window of her sitting-room with her fancy +work. Her hair was done up in an irreproachable style, and her +finger-nails were carefully manicured and pink like little shells. She +had a slender waist, and looked down at it from time to time with +satisfied eyes. At the back of her collar was a little burst of chiffon; +for chiffon so arranged was the fashion. She cast idle glances at the +prospect from the window. It was not an alluring one--a row of brick +houses with an annoying irregularity of open and closed shutters. + +There was the quiet rumble of a carriage in the street, and Clara Leeds +leaned forward, her eyes following the vehicle until to look further +would have necessitated leaning out of the window. There were two women +in the carriage, both young and soberly dressed. To certain eyes they +might have appeared out of place in a carriage, and yet, somehow, it was +obvious that it was their own. Clara Leeds resumed her work, making +quick, jerky stitches. + +"Clara Leeds," she murmured, as if irritated. She frowned and then +sighed. "If only--if only it was something else; if it only had two +syllables...." She put aside her work and went and stood before the +mirror of her dresser. She looked long at her face. It was fresh and +pretty, and her blue eyes, in spite of their unhappy look, were clear +and shining. She fingered a strand of hair, and then cast critical +sidelong glances at her profile. She smoothed her waist-line with a +movement peculiar to women. Then she tilted the glass and regarded the +reflection from head to foot. + +"Oh, what is it?" she demanded, distressed, of herself in the glass. She +took up her work again. + +"They don't seem to care how they look and ... they do wear shabby +gloves and shoes." So her thoughts ran. "But they are the Rockwoods and +they don't have to care. It must be so easy for them; they only have to +visit the Day Nursery, and the Home for Incurables, and some old, poor, +sick people. They never have to meet them and ask them to dinner. They +just say a few words and leave some money or things in a nice way, and +they can go home and do what they please." Clara Leeds's eyes rested +unseeingly on the house opposite. "It must be nice to have a rector ... +he is such an intellectual-looking man, so quiet and dignified; just the +way a minister should be, instead of like Mr. Copple, who tries to be +jolly and get up sociables and parlor meetings." There were tears in the +girl's eyes. + +A tea-bell rang, and Clara went down-stairs to eat dinner with her +father. He had just come in and was putting on a short linen coat. +Clara's mother was dead. She was the only child at home, and kept house +for her father. + +"I suppose you are all ready for the lawn-tennis match this afternoon?" +said Mr. Leeds to his daughter. "Mr. Copple said you were going to play +with him. My! that young man is up to date. Think of a preacher getting +up a lawn-tennis club! Why, when I was a young man that would have +shocked people out of their boots. But it's broad-minded, it's +broad-minded," with a wave of the hand. "I like to see a man with ideas, +and if lawn-tennis will help to keep our boys out of sin's pathway, +why, then, lawn-tennis is a strong, worthy means of doing the Lord's +work." + +"Yes," said Clara. "Did Mr. Copple say he would call for me? It isn't +necessary." + +"Oh yes, yes," said her father; "he said to tell you he would be around +here at two o'clock. I guess I'll have to go over myself and see part of +the athletics. We older folks ain't quite up to taking a hand in the +game, but we can give Copple our support by looking in on you and +cheering on the good work." + +After dinner Mr. Leeds changed the linen coat for a cutaway and started +back to his business. Clara went up-stairs and put on a short skirt and +tennis shoes. She again surveyed herself in the mirror. The skirt +certainly hung just like the model. She sighed and got out her +tennis-racquet. Then she sat down and read in a book of poems that she +was very fond of. + +At two o'clock the bell jangled, and Clara opened the door for Mr. +Copple herself. The clergyman was of slight build, and had let the hair +in front of his ears grow down a little way on his cheeks. He wore a +blue yachting-cap, and white duck trousers which were rolled up and +displayed a good deal of red and black sock. For a moment Clara imaged a +clear-cut face with grave eyes above a length of clerical waistcoat, on +which gleamed a tiny gold cross suspended from a black cord. + +"I guess we might as well go over," she said. "I'm all ready." + +The clergyman insisted on carrying Clara's racquet. "You are looking +very well," he said, somewhat timidly, but with admiring eyes. "But +perhaps you don't feel as much like playing as you look." + +"Oh yes, I do indeed," replied Clara, inwardly resenting the solicitude +in his tone. + +They set out, and the clergyman appeared to shake his mind free of a +preoccupation. + +"I hope all the boys will be around," he said, with something of +anxiety. "They need the exercise. All young, active fellows ought to +have it. I spoke to Mr. Goodloe and Mr. Sharp and urged them to let Tom +and Fred Martin off this afternoon. I think they will do it. Ralph +Carpenter, I'm afraid, can't get away from the freight-office, but I am +in hopes that Mr. Stiggins can take his place. Did you know that Mrs. +Thompson has promised to donate some lemonade?" + +"That's very nice," said Clara. "It's a lovely day for the match." She +was thinking, "What short steps he takes!" + +After some silent walking the clergyman said: "I don't believe you know, +Miss Leeds, how much I appreciate your taking part in these tennis +matches. Somehow I feel that it is asking a great deal of you, for I +know that you have--er--so many interests of your own--that is, you are +different in many ways from most of our people. I want you to know that +I am grateful for the influence--your cooperation, you know--" + +"Please, Mr. Copple, don't mention it," said Clara, hurriedly. "I +haven't so many interests as you imagine, and I am not any different +from the rest of the people. Not at all." If there was any hardness in +the girl's tone the clergyman did not appear to notice it. They had +reached their destination. + +The tennis-court was on the main street just beyond the end of the +business section. It was laid out on a vacant lot between two brick +houses. A wooden sign to one side of the court announced, "First ---- +Church Tennis Club." When Clara and Mr. Copple arrived at the court +there were a number of young people gathered in the lot. Most of them +had tennis-racquets, those of the girls being decorated with bows of +yellow, black, and lavender ribbon. Mr. Copple shook hands with +everybody, and ran over the court several times, testing the consistency +of the earth. + +"Everything is capital!" he cried. + +Clara Leeds bowed to the others, shaking hands with only one or two. +They appeared to be afraid of her. The finals in the men's singles were +between Mr. Copple and Elbert Dunklethorn, who was called "Ellie." He +wore a very high collar, and as his shoes had heels, he ran about the +court on his toes. + +Clara, watching him, recalled her father's words at dinner. "How will +this save that boy from sin's pathway?" she thought. She regarded the +clergyman; she recognized his zeal. But why, why must she be a part of +this--what was it?--this system of saving people and this kind of +people? If she could only go and be good to poor and unfortunate people +whom she wouldn't have to know. Clara glanced toward the street. "I hope +they won't come past," she said to herself. + +The set in which Clara and the clergyman were partners was the most +exciting of the afternoon. The space on either side of the court was +quite filled with spectators. Some of the older people who had come with +the lengthening shadows sat on chairs brought from the kitchens of the +adjoining houses. Among them was Mr. Leeds, his face animated. Whenever +a ball went very high up or very far down the lot, he cried, "Hooray!" +Clara was at the net facing the street, when the carriage she had +observed in the morning stopped in view, and the two soberly dressed +women leaned forward to watch the play. Clara felt her face burn, and +when they cried "game," she could not remember whether the clergyman and +she had won it or lost it. She was chiefly conscious of her father's +loud "hoorays." With the end of the play the carriage was driven on. + +Shortly before supper-time that evening Clara went to the drug-store to +buy some stamps. One of the Misses Rockwood was standing by the +show-case waiting for the clerk to wrap up a bottle. Clara noted the +scantily trimmed hat and the scuffed gloves. She nodded in response to +Miss Rockwood's bow. They had met but once. + +"That was a glorious game of tennis you were having this afternoon," +said Miss Rockwood, with a warm smile. "My sister and I should like to +have seen more of it. You all seemed to be having such a good time." + +"_You all_--" + +Clara fumbled her change. "It's--it's good exercise," she said. That +night she cried herself to sleep. + + +II + +The rector married the younger Miss Rockwood. To Clara Leeds the match +afforded painfully pleasurable feeling. It was so eminently fitting; and +yet it was hard to believe that any man could see anything in Miss +Rockwood. His courtship had been in keeping with the man, dignified and +yet bold. Clara had met them several times together. She always hurried +past. The rector bowed quietly. He seemed to say to all the world, "I +have chosen me a woman." His manner defied gossip; there was none that +Clara heard. This immunity of theirs distilled the more bitterness in +her heart because gossip was now at the heels of her and Mr. Copple, +following them as chickens do the feed-box. She knew it from such +transmissions as, "But doubtless Mr. Copple has already told you," or, +"You ought to know, if any one does." + +It had been some time apparent to Clara that the minister held her in a +different regard from the other members of his congregation. His talks +with her were more personal; his manner was bashfully eager. He sought +to present the congeniality of their minds. Mr. Copple had a nice taste +in poetry, but somehow Clara, in after-reading, skipped those poems that +he had read aloud to her. On several occasions she knew that a +declaration was imminent. She extricated herself with a feeling of +unspeakable relief. It would not be a simple matter to refuse him. Their +relations had been peculiar, and to tell him that she did not love him +would not suffice in bringing them to an end. Mr. Copple was odious to +her. She could not have explained why clearly, yet she knew. And she +would have blushed in the attempt to explain why; it would have revealed +a detestation of her lot. Clara had lately discovered the meaning of the +word "plebeian"; more, she believed she comprehended its applicableness. +The word was a burr in her thoughts. Mr. Copple was the personification +of the word. Clara had not repulsed him. You do not do that sort of +thing in a small town. She knew intuitively that the clergyman would +not be satisfied with the statement that he was not loved. She also knew +that he would extract part, at least, of the real reason from her. It is +more painful for a lover to learn that he is not liked than that he is +not loved. Clara did not wish to cause him pain. + +She was spared the necessity. The minister fell from a scaffolding on +the new church and was picked up dead. + +Clara's position was pitiful. Sudden death does not grow less shocking +because of its frequency. Clara shared the common shock, but not the +common grief. Fortunately, as hers was supposed to be a peculiar grief, +she could manifest it in a peculiar way. She chose silence. The shock +had bereft her of much thought. Death had laid a hand over the mouth of +her mind. But deep down a feeling of relief swam in her heart. She gave +it no welcome, but it would take no dismissal. + +About a week after the funeral, Clara, who walked out much alone, was +returning home near the outskirts of town. The houses were far apart, +and between them stretched deep lots fringed with flowered weeds +man-high. A level sun shot long golden needles through the blanched +maple-trees, and the street beneath them was filled with lemon-colored +light. The roll of a light vehicle approaching from behind grew distinct +enough to attract Clara's attention. "It is Mrs. Custer coming back from +the Poor Farm," she thought. It was Mrs. Everett Custer, who was +formerly the younger Miss Rockwood, and she was coming from the Poor +Farm. The phaeton came into Clara's sight beside her at the curb. As she +remarked it, Mrs. Custer said, in her thin, sympathetic voice, "Miss +Leeds, won't you drive with me back to town? I wish you would." + +An excuse rose instinctively to Clara's lips. She was walking for +exercise. But suddenly a thought came to her, and after a moment's +hesitation, she said: "You are very kind. I am a little tired." She got +into the phaeton, and the sober horse resumed his trot down the yellow +street. + +Clara's thought was: "Why shouldn't I accept? She is too well bred to +sympathize with me, and perhaps, now that I am free, I can get to know +her and show her that I am not just the same as all the rest, and +perhaps I'll get to going with her sort of people." + +She listened to the rhythm of the horse's hoof-beats, and was not a +little uneasy. Mrs. Custer remarked the beauty of the late afternoon, +the glorious symphonies of color in sky and tree, in response to which +Clara said, "Yes, indeed," and, "Isn't it?" between long breaths. She +was about to essay a question concerning the Poor Farm, when Mrs. Custer +began to speak, at first faltering, in a tone that sent the blood out of +Clara's face and drew a sudden catching pain down her breast. + +"I--really, Miss Leeds, I want to say something to you and I don't quite +know how to say it, and yet it is something I want very much for you to +know." Mrs. Custer's eyes looked the embarrassment of unencouraged +frankness. "I know it is presumptuous for me, almost a stranger, to +speak to you, but I feel so deeply on the matter--Everett--Mr. Custer +feels so deeply--My dear Miss Leeds, I want you to know what a grief his +loss was to us. Oh, believe me, I am not trying to sympathize with you. +I have no right to do that. But if you could know how Mr. Custer always +regarded Mr. Copple! It might mean something to you to know that. I +don't think there was a man for whom he expressed greater +admiration--than what, I mean, he expressed to me. He saw in him all +that he lacked himself. I am telling you a great deal. It is difficult +for my husband to go among men in that way--in the way _he_ did. And +yet he firmly believes that the Kingdom of God can only be brought to +men by the ministers of God going among them and being of them. He +envied Mr. Copple his ability to do that, to know his people as one of +them, to take part in their--their sports and all that. You don't know +how he envied him and admired him. And his admiration was my admiration. +He brought me to see it. I envied you, too--your opportunity to help +your people in an intimate, real way which seemed so much better than +mine. I don't know why it is my way, but I mean going about as I do, as +I did to-day to the Poor Farm. It seems so perfunctory. + +"Don't misunderstand me, Miss Leeds," and Mrs. Custer laid a hand on +Clara's arm. "There is no reason why you should care what Mr. Custer and +I think about your--about our--all our very great loss. But I felt that +it must be some comfort for you to know that we, my husband and I, who +might seem indifferent--not that--say unaffected by what has +happened,--feel it very, very deeply; and to know that his life, which I +can't conceive of as finished, has left a deep, deep print on ours." + +The phaeton was rolling through frequented streets. It turned a corner +as Mrs. Custer ceased speaking. + +"I--I must get out here," said Clara Leeds. "You needn't drive me. It is +only a block to walk." + +"Miss Leeds, forgive me--" Mrs. Custer's lips trembled with compassion. + +"Oh, there isn't anything--it isn't that--good night." Clara backed down +to the street and hurried off through the dusk. And as she went tears +dropped slowly to her cheeks--cold, wretched tears. + + + + +His Sister + +BY MARY APPLEWHITE BACON + + +"But you couldn't see me leave, mother, anyway, unless I was there to +go." + +It was characteristic of the girl adjusting her new travelling-hat +before the dim little looking-glass that, while her heart was beating +with excitement which was strangely like grief, she could give herself +at once to her stepmother's inquietude and turn it aside with a jest. + +Mrs. Morgan, arrested in her anxious movement towards the door, stood +for a moment taking in the reasonableness of Stella's proposition, and +then sank back to the edge of her chair. "The train gets here at two +o'clock," she argued. + +Lindsay Cowart came into the room, his head bent over the satchel he had +been mending. "You had better say good-by to Stella here at the house, +mother," he suggested; "there's no use for you to walk down to the depot +in the hot sun." And then he noticed that his stepmother had on her +bonnet with the veil to it--she had married since his father's death and +was again a widow,--and, in extreme disregard of the September heat, was +dressed in the black worsted of a diagonal weave which she wore only on +occasions which demanded some special tribute to their importance. + +She began smoothing out on her knees the black gloves which, in her +nervous haste to be going, she had been holding squeezed in a tight ball +in her left hand. "I can get there, I reckon," she answered with mild +brevity, and as if the young man's words had barely grazed her +consciousness. + +A moment later she went to the window and, with her back to Lindsay, +poured the contents of a small leather purse into one hand and began to +count them softly. + +He looked up again. "I am going to pay for Stella's ticket, mother. You +must not do it," he said. + +She replaced the money immediately, but without impatience, and as +acquiescing in his assumption of his sister's future. "You have done so +much already," he apologized; but he knew that she was hurt, and chafed +to feel that only the irrational thing on his part would have seemed to +her the kind one. + +Stella turned from the verdict of the dim looking-glass upon her +appearance to that of her brother's face. As she stood there in that +moment of pause, she might have been the type of all innocent and +budding life. The delicacy of floral bloom was in the fine texture of +her skin, the purple of dewy violets in her soft eyes; and this new +access of sadness, which was as yet hardly conscious of itself, had +thrown over the natural gayety of her young girlhood something akin to +the pathetic tenderness which veils the earth in the dawn of a summer +morning. + +He felt it to be so, but dimly; and, young himself and already strained +by the exactions of personal desires, he answered only the look of +inquiry in her face,--"Will the merchants here never learn any taste in +dry-goods?" + +Instantly he was sick with regret. Of what consequence was the too +pronounced blue of her dress in comparison with the light of happiness +in her dear face? How impossible for him to be here for even these few +hours without running counter to some cherished illusion or dear habit +of speech or manner. + +"I tell you it's time we were going," Mrs. Morgan appealed, her anxiety +returning. + +"We have thirty-five minutes yet," Lindsay said, looking at his watch; +but he gathered up the bags and umbrellas and followed as she moved +ponderously to the door. + +Stella waited until they were out in the hall, and then looked around +the room, a poignant tenderness in her eyes. There was nothing congruous +between its shabby walls and cheap worn furniture and her own beautiful +young life; but the heart establishes its own relations, and tears rose +suddenly to her eyes and fell in quick succession. Even so brief a +farewell was broken in upon by her stepmother's call, and pressing her +wet cheek for a moment against the discolored door-facing, she hurried +out to join her. + +Lindsay did not at first connect the unusual crowd in and around the +little station with his sister's departure; but the young people at once +formed a circle around her, into which one and another older person +entered and retired again with about the same expressions of +affectionate regret and good wishes. He had known them all so long! But, +except for the growing up of the younger boys and girls during his five +years of absence, they were to him still what they had been since he was +a child, affecting him still with the old depressing sense of distance +and dislike. The grammarless speech of the men, the black-rimmed nails +of Stella's schoolmaster--a good classical scholar, but heedless as he +was good-hearted,--jarred upon him, indeed, with the discomfort of a new +experience. Upon his own slender, erect figure, clothed in poor but +well-fitting garments, gentleman was written as plainly as in words, +just as idealist was written on his forehead and the other features +which thought had chiselled perhaps too finely for his years. + +The brightness had come back to Stella's face, and he could not but feel +grateful to the men who had left their shops and dingy little stores to +bid her good-by, and to the placid, kindly-faced women ranged along the +settees against the wall and conversing in low tones about how she would +be missed; but the noisy flock of young people, who with their chorus of +expostulations, assurances, and prophecies seemed to make her one of +themselves, filled him with strong displeasure. He knew how foolish it +would be for him to show it, but he could get no further in his effort +at concealment than a cold silence which was itself significant enough. +A tall youth with bold and handsome features and a pretty girl in a +showy red muslin ignored him altogether, with a pride which really quite +overmatched his own; but the rest shrank back a little as he passed +looking after the checks and tickets, either cutting short their +sentences at his approach or missing the point of what they had to say. +The train seemed to him long in coming. + +His stepmother moved to the end of the settee and made a place for him +at her side. "Lindsay," she said, under cover of the talk and laughter, +and speaking with some difficulty, "I hope you will be able to carry out +all your plans for yourself and Stella; but while you're making the +money, she will have to make the friends. Don't you ever interfere with +her doing it. From what little I have seen of the world, it's going to +take both to carry you through." + +His face flushed a little, but he recognized her faithfulness and did it +honor. "That is true, mother, and I will remember what you say. But I +have some friends," he added, in enforced self-vindication, "in Vaucluse +if not here." + +A whistle sounded up the road. She caught his hand with a swift +accession of tenderness towards his youth. "You've done the best you +could, Lindsay," she said. "I wish you well, my son, I wish you well." +There were tears in her eyes. + +George Morrow and the girl in red followed Stella into the car, not at +all disconcerted at having to get off after the train was in motion. +"Don't forget me, Stella," the girl called back. "Don't you ever forget +Ida Brand!" + +There was a waving of hands and handkerchiefs from the little station, +aglare in the early afternoon sun. A few moments later the train had +rounded a curve, shutting the meagre village from sight, and, to Lindsay +Cowart's thought, shutting it into a remote past as well. + +He arose and began rearranging their luggage. "Do you want these?" he +inquired, holding up a bouquet of dahlias, scarlet sage, and purple +petunias, and thinking of only one answer as possible. + +"I will take them," she said, as he stood waiting her formal consent to +drop them from the car window. Her voice was quite as usual, but +something in her face suggested to him that this going away from her +childhood's home might be a different thing to her from what he had +conceived it to be. He caught the touch of tender vindication in her +manner as she untied the cheap red ribbon which held the flowers +together and rearranged them into two bunches so that the jarring colors +might no longer offend, and felt that the really natural thing for her +to do was to weep, and that she only restrained her tears for his sake. +Sixteen was so young! His heart grew warm and brotherly towards her +youth and inexperience; but, after all, how infinitely better that she +should have cause for this passing sorrow. + +He left her alone, but not for long. He was eager to talk with her of +the plans about which he had been writing her the two years since he +himself had been a student at Vaucluse, of the future which they should +achieve together. It seemed to him only necessary for him to show her +his point of view to have her adopt it as her own; and he believed, +building on her buoyancy and responsiveness of disposition, that nothing +he might propose would be beyond the scope of her courage. + +"It may be a little lonely for you at first," he told her. "There are +only a handful of women students at the college, and all of them much +older than you; but it is your studies at last that are the really +important thing, and I will help you with them all I can. Mrs. Bancroft +will have no other lodgers and there will be nothing to interrupt our +work." + +"And the money, Lindsay?" she asked, a little anxiously. + +"What I have will carry us through this year. Next summer we can teach +and make almost enough for the year after. The trustees are planning to +establish a fellowship in Greek, and if they do and I can secure it--and +Professor Wayland thinks I can,--that will make us safe the next two +years until you are through." + +"And then?" + +He straightened up buoyantly. "Then your two years at Vassar and mine at +Harvard, with some teaching thrown in along the way, of course. And then +Europe--Greece--all the great things!" + +She smiled with him in his enthusiasm. "You are used to such bold +thoughts. It is too high a flight for me all at once." + +"It will not be, a year from now," he declared, confidently. + +A silence fell between them, and the noise of the train made a pleasant +accompaniment to his thoughts as he sketched in detail the work of the +coming months. But always as a background to his hopes was that +honorable social position which he meant eventually to achieve, the +passion for which was a part of his Southern inheritance. Little as he +had yet participated in any interests outside his daily tasks, he had +perceived in the old college town its deeply grained traditions of birth +and custom, perceived and respected them, and discounted the more their +absence in the sorry village he had left. Sometime when he should assail +it, the exclusiveness of his new environment might beat him back +cruelly, but thus far it existed for him only as a barrier to what was +ultimately precious and desirable. One day the gates would open at his +touch, and he and the sister of his heart should enter their rightful +heritage. + +The afternoon waned. He pointed outside the car window. "See how +different all this is from the part of the State which we have left," he +said. "The landscape is still rural, but what mellowness it has; because +it has been enriched by a larger, more generous human life. One can +imagine what this whole section must have been in those old days, before +the coming of war and desolation. And Vaucluse was the flower, the +centre of it all!" His eye kindled. "Some day external prosperity will +return, and then Vaucluse and her ideals will be needed more than ever; +it is she who must hold in check the commercial spirit, and dominate, as +she has always done, the material with the intellectual." There was a +noble emotion in his face, reflecting itself in the younger countenance +beside his own. Poor, young, unknown, their hearts thrilled with pride +in their State, with the possibility that they also should give to her +of their best when the opportunity should be theirs. + +"It is a wonderful old town," Lindsay went on again. "Even Wayland says +so,--our Greek professor, you know." His voice thrilled with the +devotion of the hero-worshipper as he spoke the name. "He is a Harvard +man, and has seen the best of everything, and even he has felt the charm +of the place; he told me so. You will feel it, too. It is just as if the +little town and the college together had preserved in amber all that was +finest in our Southern life. And now to think you and I are to share in +all its riches!" + +His early consecration to such a purpose, the toil and sacrifice by +which it had been achieved, came movingly before her; yet, mingled with +her pride in him, something within her pleaded for the things which he +rated so low. "It used to be hard for you at home, Lindsay," she said, +softly. + +"Yes, it was hard." His face flushed. "I never really lived till I left +there. I was like an animal caught in a net, like a man struggling for +air. You can't know what it is to me now to be with people who are +thinking of something else than of how to make a few dollars in a +miserable country store." + +"But they were good people in Bowersville, Lindsay," she urged, with +gentle loyalty. + +"I am sure they were, if you say so," he agreed. "But at any rate we are +done with it all now." He laid his hand over hers. "At last I am going +to take you into our own dear world." + +It was, after all, a very small world as to its actual dimensions, but +to the brother it had the largeness of opportunity, and to Stella it +seemed infinitely complex. She found security at first only in following +minutely the programme which Lindsay had laid out for her. It was his +own as well, and simple enough. Study was the supreme thing; exercise +came in as a necessity, pleasure only as the rarest incident. She took +all things cheerfully, after her nature, but after two or three months +the color began to go from her cheeks, the elasticity from her step; nor +was her class standing, though creditable, quite what her brother had +expected it to be. + +Wayland detained him one day in his class-room. "Do you think your +sister is quite happy here, Cowart?" he asked. + +The boy thrilled, as he always did at any special evidence of interest +from such a source, but he had never put this particular question to +himself and had no reply at hand. + +"I have never thought this absolute surrender to books the wisest thing +for you," Wayland went on; "but for your sister it is impossible. She +was formed for companionship, for happiness, not for the isolation of +the scholar. Why did you not put her into one of the girls' schools of +the State, where she would have had associations more suited to her +years?" he asked, bluntly. + +Lindsay could scarcely believe that he was listening to the young +professor whose scholarly attainments seemed to him the sum of what was +most desirable in life. "Our girls' colleges are very superficial," he +answered; "and even if they were not, she could get no Greek in any of +them." + +"My dear boy," Wayland said, "the amount of Greek which your sister +knows or doesn't know will always be a very unimportant matter; she has +things that are so infinitely more valuable to give to the world. And +deserves so much better things for herself," he added, drawing together +his texts for the next recitation. + +Lindsay returned to Mrs. Bancroft's quiet, old-fashioned house in a sort +of daze. "Stella," he said, "do you think you enter enough into the +social side of our college life?" + +"No," she answered. "But I think neither of us does." + +"Well, leave me out of the count. If I get through my Junior year as I +ought, I am obliged to grind; and when there is any time left, I feel +that I must have it for reading in the library. But it needn't be so +with you. Didn't an invitation come to you for the reception Friday +evening?" + +Her face grew wistful. "I don't care to go to things, Lindsay, unless +you will go with me," she said. + +Nevertheless, he had his way, and when once she made it possible, +opportunities for social pleasures poured in upon her. As Wayland had +said, she was formed for friendship, for joy; and that which was her own +came to her unsought. She was by nature too simple and sweet to be +spoiled by the attention she received; the danger perhaps was the less +because she missed in it all the comradeship of her brother, without +which in her eyes the best things lost something of their charm. It was +not merely personal ambition which kept him at his books; the passion of +the scholar was upon him and made him count all moments lost that were +spent away from them. Sometimes Stella sought him as he pored over them +alone, and putting her arm shyly about him, would beg that he would go +with her for a walk, or a ride on the river; but almost always his +answer was the same: "I am so busy, Stella dear; if you knew how much I +have to do you would not even ask me." + +There was one interruption, indeed, which the young student never +refused. Sometimes their Greek professor dropped in at Mrs. Bancroft's +to bring or to ask for a book; sometimes, with the lovely coming of the +spring, he would join them as they were leaving the college grounds, and +lead them away into some of the woodland walks, rich in wild flowers, +that environed the little town. Such hours seemed to both brother and +sister to have a flavor, a brightness, quite beyond what ordinary life +could give. Wayland, too, must have found in them his own share of +pleasure, for he made them more frequent as the months went by. + + * * * * * + +It was in the early spring of her second year at Vaucluse that the +accident occurred. The poor lad who had taken her out in the boat was +almost beside himself with grief and remorse. + +"We had enjoyed the afternoon so much," he said, trying to tell how it +had happened. "I thought I had never seen her so happy, so gay,--but you +know she was that always. It was nearly sunset, and I remember how she +spoke of the light as we saw it through the open spaces of the woods and +as it slanted across the water. Farther down the river the yellow +jasmine was beginning to open. A beech-tree that leaned out over the +water was hung with it. She wanted some, and I guided the boat under the +branches. I meant to get it for her myself, but she was reaching up +after it almost before I knew it. The bough that had the finest blossoms +on it was just beyond her reach, and while I steadied the boat, she +pulled it towards her by one of the vines hanging from it. She must have +put too much weight on it-- + +"It all happened so quickly. I called to her to be careful, but while I +was saying the words the vine snapped and she fell back with such force +that the boat tipped, and in a second we were both in the water. I knew +I could not swim, but I hoped that the water so near the bank would be +shallow; and it was, but there was a deep hole under the roots of the +tree." + +He could get no further. Poor lad! the wonder was that he had not been +drowned himself. A negro ploughing in the field near by saw the accident +and ran to his help, catching him as he was sinking for the third time. +Stella never rose after she went down; her clothing had been entangled +in the roots of the beech. + +Sorrow for the young life cut off so untimely was deep and universal, +and sought to manifest itself in tender ministrations to the brother so +cruelly bereaved. But Lindsay shrank from all offices of sympathy, and +except for seeking now and then Wayland's silent companionship, bore his +grief alone. + +The college was too poor to establish the fellowship in Greek, but the +adjunct professor in mathematics resigned, and young Cowart was elected +to his place, with the proviso that he give two months further study to +the subject in the summer school of some university. Wayland decided +which by taking him back with him to Cambridge, where he showed the boy +an admirable friendship. + +Lindsay applied himself to his special studies with the utmost +diligence. It was impossible, moreover, that his new surroundings should +not appeal to his tastes in many directions; but in spite of his +response to these larger opportunities, his friend discerned that the +wound which the young man kept so carefully hidden had not, after all +these weeks, begun even slightly to heal. + +Late on an August night, impelled as he often was to share the solitude +which Lindsay affected, he sought him at his lodgings, and not finding +him, followed what he knew was a favorite walk with the boy, and came +upon him half hidden under the shadows of an elm in the woods that +skirted Mount Auburn. "I thought you might be here," he said, taking the +place that Lindsay made for him on the seat. Many words were never +necessary between them. + +The moon was full and the sky cloudless, and for some time they sat in +silence, yielding to the tranquil loveliness of the scene and to that +inner experience of the soul brooding over each, and more inscrutable +than the fathomless vault above them. + +"I suppose we shall never get used to a midnight that is still and at +the same time lustrous, as this is to-night," Wayland said. "The sense +of its uniqueness is as fresh whenever it is spread before us as if we +had never seen it before." + +It was but a part of what he meant. He was thinking how sorrow, the wide +sense of personal loss, was in some way like the pervasiveness, the +voiceless speech, of this shadowed radiance around them. + +He drew a little nearer the relaxed and slender figure beside his own. +"It is of _her_ you are thinking, Lindsay," he said, gently, and +mentioning for the first time the young man's loss. "All that you see +seems saturated with her memory. I think it will always be so--scenes of +exceptional beauty, moments of high emotion, will always bring her +back." + +The boy's response came with difficulty: "Perhaps so. I do not know. I +think the thought of her is always with me." + +"If so, it should be for strength, for comfort," his friend pleaded. +"She herself brought only gladness wherever she came." + +There was something unusual in his voice, something that for a moment +raised a vague questioning in Lindsay's mind; but absorbed as he was in +his own sadness, it eluded his feeble inquiry. To what Wayland had said +he could make no reply. + +"Perhaps it is the apparent waste of a life so beautiful that seems to +you so intolerable--" He felt the strong man's impulse to arrest an +irrational grief, and groped for the assurance he desired. "Yet, +Lindsay, we know things are not wasted; not in the natural world, not in +the world of the spirit." But on the last words his voice lapsed +miserably, and he half rose to go. + +Lindsay caught his arm and drew him back. "Don't go yet," he said, +brokenly. "I know you think it would help me if I would talk +about--Stella; if I should tell it all out to you. I thank you for being +willing to listen. Perhaps it will help me." + +He paused, seeking for some words in which to express the sense of +poverty which scourged him. Of all who had loved his sister, he himself +was left poorest! Others had taken freely of her friendship, had +delighted themselves in her face, her words, her smile, had all these +things for memories. He had been separated from her, in part by the hard +conditions of their youth, and at the last, when they had been together, +by his own will. Oh, what had been her inner life during these last two +years, when it had gone on beside his own, while he was too busy to +attend? + +But the self-reproach was too bitter for utterance to even the kindest +of friends. "I thought I could tell you," he said at last, "but I can't. +Oh, Professor Wayland," he cried, "there is an element in my grief that +is peculiar to itself, that no one else in sorrow ever had!" + +"I think every mourner on earth would say that, Lindsay." Again the +younger man discerned the approach of a mystery, but again he left it +unchallenged. + +The professor rose to his feet. "Good night," he said; "unless you will +go back with me. Even with such moonlight as this, one must sleep." He +had dropped to that kind level of the commonplace by which we spare +ourselves and one another. + + "'Where the love light never, never dies,'" + +The boy's voice ringing out blithely through the drip and dampness of +the winter evening marked his winding route across the college grounds. +Lindsay Cowart, busy at his study table, listened without definite +effort and placed the singer as the lad newly come from the country. He +could have identified any other of the Vaucluse students by connections +as slight--Marchman by his whistling, tender, elusive sounds, flute +notes sublimated, heard only when the night was late and the campus +still; others by tricks of voice, fragments of laughter, by their +footfalls, even, on the narrow brick walk below his study window. Such +the easy proficiency of affection. + +Attention to the lad's singing suddenly was lifted above the +subconscious. The simple melody had entangled itself in some forgotten +association of the professor's boyhood, seeking to marshal which before +him, he received the full force of the single line sung in direct +ear-shot. Like the tune, the words also became a challenge; pricked +through the unregarded heaviness in which he was plying his familiar +task, and demanded that he should name its cause. + +For him the love light of his marriage had been dead so long! No, not +dead; nothing so dignified, so tragic. Burnt down, smoldered; +suffocated by the hateful dust of the commonplace. There was a touch of +contempt in the effort with which he dismissed the matter from his mind +and turned back to his work. And yet, he stopped a moment longer to +think, for him life without the light of love fell so far below its best +achievement! + +The front of his desk was covered with the papers in mathematics over +which he had spent his evenings for more than a week. Most of them had +been corrected and graded, with the somewhat full comment or elucidation +here and there which had made his progress slow. He examined a +half-dozen more, and then in sheer mental revolt against the subject, +slipped them under the rubber bands with others of their kind and +dropped the neat packages out of his sight into one of the drawers of +the desk. Wayland's book on Greece, the fruit of eighteen months' +sojourn there, had come through the mail on the same day when the +calculus papers had been handed in, and he had read it through at once, +not to be teased intolerably by its invitation. He had mastered the +text, avid through the long winter night, but he picked it up again now, +and for a little while studied the sumptuous illustrations. How long +Wayland had been away from Vaucluse, how much of enrichment had come to +him in the years since he had left! He himself might have gone also, to +larger opportunities--he had chosen to remain, held by a sentiment! The +professor closed the book with a little sigh, and taking it to a small +shelf on the opposite side of the room, stood it with a half-dozen +others worthy of such association. + +Returning, he got together before him the few Greek authors habitually +in hand's reach, whether handled or not, and from a compartment of his +desk took out several sheets of manuscript, metrical translations from +favorite passages in the tragedists or the short poems of the Anthology. +Like the rest of the Vaucluse professors--a mere handful they were,--he +was straitened by the hard exactions of class-room work, and the book +which he hoped sometime to publish grew slowly. How far he was in actual +miles from the men who were getting their thoughts into print, how much +farther in environment! Things which to them were the commonplaces of a +scholar's life were to him impossible luxuries; few even of their books +found their way to his shelves. At least the original sources of +inspiration were his, and sometimes he felt that his verses were not +without spirit, flavor. + +He took up a little volume of Theocritus, which opened easily at the +Seventh Idyl, and began to read aloud. Half-way through the poem the +door opened and his wife entered. He did not immediately adjust himself +to the interruption, and she remained standing a few moments in the +centre of the room. + +"Thank you; I believe I will be seated," she said, the sarcasm in her +words carefully excluded from her voice. + +He wondered that she should find interest in so sorry a game. "I thought +you felt enough at home in here to sit down without being asked," he +said, rising, and trying to speak lightly. + +She took the rocking-chair he brought for her and leaned back in it +without speaking. Her maroon-colored evening gown suggested that whoever +planned it had been somewhat straitened by economy, but it did well by +her rich complexion and creditable figure. Her features were creditable +too, the dark hair a little too heavy, perhaps, and the expression, +defined as it is apt to be when one is thirty-five, not wholly +satisfying. In truth, the countenance, like the gown, suffered a little +from economy, a sparseness of the things one loves best in a woman's +face. Half the sensitiveness belonging to her husband's eyes and mouth +would have made her beautiful. + +"It is a pity the Barkers have such a bad night for their party," Cowart +said. + +"The reception is at the Fieldings';" and again he felt himself rebuked. + +"I'm afraid I didn't think much about the matter after you told me the +Dillinghams were coming by for you in their carriage. Fortunately +neither family holds us college people to very strict social account." + +"They have their virtues, even if they are so vulgar as to be rich." + +"Why, I believe I had just been thinking, before you came in, that it is +only the rich who have any virtues at all." He managed to speak +genially, but the consciousness that she was waiting for him to make +conversation, as she had waited for the chair, stiffened upon him like +frost. + +He cast about for something to say, but the one interest which he would +have preferred to keep to himself was all that presented itself to his +grasp. "I have often thought," he suggested, "that if only we were in +sight of the Gulf, our landscape in early summer might not be very +unlike that of ancient Greece." She looked at him a little blankly, and +he drew one of his books nearer and began turning its leaves. + +"I thought you were correcting your mathematics papers." + +"I am, or have been; but I am reading Theocritus, too." + +"Well, I don't see anything in a day like this to make anybody think of +summer. The dampness goes to your very marrow." + +"It isn't the day; it's the poetry. That's the good of there being +poetry." + +She skipped his parenthesis. "And you keep this room as cold as a +vault." Not faultfinding, but a somewhat irritating concern for his +comfort was in the complaint. + +She went to the hearth and in her efficient way shook down the ashes +from the grate and heaped it with coal. A cabinet photograph of a girl +in her early teens, which had the appearance of having just been put +there, was supported against a slender glass vase. Mrs. Cowart took it +up and examined it critically. "I don't think this picture does +Arnoldina justice," she said. "One of the eyes seems to droop a little, +and the mouth looks sad. Arnoldina never did look sad." + +They were on common ground now, and he could speak without constraint. +"I hadn't observed that it looked sad. She seems somehow to have got a +good deal older since September." + +"She is maturing, of course." All a mother's pride and approbation, were +in the reserve of the speech. To have put more definitely her estimate +of the sweet young face would have been a clumsy thing in comparison. + +Lindsay's countenance lighted up. He arose, and standing by his wife, +looked over her shoulder as she held the photograph to the light. "Do +you know, Gertrude," he said, "there is something in her face that +reminds me of Stella?" + +"I don't know that I see it," she answered, indifferently, replacing the +photograph and returning to her chair. The purpose which had brought her +to the room rose to her face. "I stopped at the warehouse this +afternoon," she said, "and had a talk with father. Jamieson really goes +to Mobile--the first of next month. The place is open to you if you want +it." + +"But, Gertrude, how should I possibly want it?" he expostulated. + +"You would be a member of the firm. You might as well be making money as +the rest of them." + +He offered no comment. + +"It is not now like it was when you were made professor. The town has +become a commercial centre and its educational interests have declined. +The professors will always have their social position, of course, but +they cannot hope for anything more." + +"It is not merely Vaucluse, but the South, that is passing into this +phase. But economic independence has become a necessity. When once it is +achieved, our people will turn to higher things." + +"Not soon enough to benefit you and me." + +"Probably not." + +"Then why waste your talents on the college, when the best years of your +life are still before you?" + +"I am not teaching for money, Gertrude." He hated putting into the bald +phrase his consecration to his ideals for the young men of his State; he +hated putting it into words at all; but something in his voice told her +that the argument was finished. + +There was a sound of carriage wheels on the drive. He arose and began to +assist her with her wraps. "It is too bad for you to be dependent on +even such nice escorts as the Dillinghams are," he solaced, recovering +himself. "We college folk are a sorry lot." + +But when she was gone, the mood for composition which an hour before had +seemed so near had escaped him, and he put away his books and +manuscript, standing for a while, a little chilled in mind and body, +before the grate and looking at the photograph on the mantel. While he +did so the haunting likeness he had seen grew more distinct and by +degrees another face overspread that of his young daughter, the face of +the sister he had loved and lost. + +With a sudden impulse he crossed the room to an old-fashioned mahogany +secretary, opened its slanting lid, and unlocking with some difficulty a +small inner drawer, returned with it to his desk. Several packages of +letters tied with faded ribbon filled the small receptacle, but they +struck upon him with the strangeness of something utterly forgotten. The +pieces of ribbon had once held for him each its own association of time +or place; now he could only remember, looking down upon them with tender +gaze, that they had been Stella's, worn in her hair, or at her throat or +waist. Simple and inexpensive he saw they were. Arnoldina would not have +looked at them. + +Overcoming something of reluctance, he took one of the packages from its +place. It contained the letters he had found in her writing-table after +her death, most of them written after she had come to Vaucluse by her +stepmother and the friends she had left in the village. He knew there +was nothing in any of them she would have withheld from him; in reading +them he was merely taking back something from the vanished years which, +if not looked at now, would perish utterly from earth. How affecting +they were--these utterances of true and humble hearts, written to one +equally true and good! His youth and hers in the remote country village +rose before him; not now, as once, pinched and narrow, but as salutary, +even gracious. He could but feel how changed his standards had become +since then, how different his measure of the great and the small of +life. + +Suddenly, as he was thus borne back into the past, the old sorrow sprang +upon him, and he bowed before it. The old bitter cry which he had been +able to utter to no human consoler swept once more to his lips: "Oh, +Stella, Stella, you died before I really knew you; your brother, who +should have known and loved you best! And now it is too late, too +late." + +He sent out as of old his voiceless call to one afar off, in some land +where her whiteness, her budding soul, had found their rightful place; +but even as he did so, his thought of her seemed to be growing clearer. +From that far, reverenced, but unimagined sphere she was coming back to +the range of his apprehension, to comradeship in the life which they +once had shared together. + +He trembled with the hope of a fuller attainment, lifting his bowed head +and taking another package of the letters from their place. Her letters! +He had begged them of her friends in his desperate sense of ignorance, +his longing to make good something of all that he had lost in those last +two years of her life. What an innocent life it was that was spread +before him; and how young,--oh, how young! And it was a happy life. He +was astonished, after all his self-reproach, to realize how happy; to +find himself smiling with her in some girlish drollery such as used to +come so readily to her lips. He could detect, too, how the note of +gladness, how her whole life, indeed, had grown richer in the larger +existence of Vaucluse. At last he could be comforted that, however it +had ended, it was he who had made it hers. + +He had been feeding eagerly, too eagerly, and under the pressure of +emotion was constrained to rise and walk the floor, sinking at last into +his armchair and gazing with unseeing eyes upon the ruddy coals in the +grate. That lovely life, which he had thought could never in its +completeness be his, was rebuilt before his vision from the materials +which she herself had left. What he had believed to be loss, bitter, +unspeakable even to himself, had in these few hours of the night become +wealth. + +His quickened thought moved on from plane to plane. He scanned the +present conditions of his life, and saw with clarified vision how good +they were. What it was given him to do for his students, at least what +he was trying to do for them; the preciousness of their regard; the long +friendship with his colleagues; the associations with the little +community in which his lot was cast, limited in some directions as they +might be; the fair demesne of Greek literature in which his feet were so +much at home; his own literary gift, even if a slender one; his dear, +dear child. + +And Gertrude? Under the invigoration of his mood a situation which had +long seemed unamenable to change resolved itself into new and simpler +proportions. The worthier aspects of his home life, the finer traits of +his wife's character, stood before him as proofs of what might yet be. +His memory had kept no record of the fact that when in the first year of +his youthful sorrow, sick for comfort and believing her all tenderness, +he had married her, to find her impatient of his grief, nor of the many +times since when she had appeared almost wilfully blind to his ideals +and purposes. His judgment held only this, that she had never understood +him. For this he had seldom blamed her; but to-night he blamed himself. +Instead of shrinking away sensitively, keeping the vital part of his +life to himself and making what he could of it alone, he should have set +himself steadily to create a place for it in her understanding and +sympathy. Was not a perfect married love worth the minor sacrifices as +well as the supreme surrender from which he believed that neither of +them would have shrunk? + +He returned to his desk and began to rearrange the contents of the +little drawer. Among them was a small sandalwood box which had been +their mother's, and which Stella had prized with special fondness. He +had never opened it since her death, but as he lifted it now the frail +clasp gave way, the lid fell back, and the contents slipped upon the +desk. They were few: a ring, a thin gold locket containing the +miniatures of their father and mother, a small tintype of himself taken +when he first left home, and two or three notes addressed in a +handwriting which he recognized as Wayland's. He replaced them with +reverent touch, turning away even in thought from what he had never +meant to see. + +By and by he heard in the distance the roll of carriages returning from +the Fieldings' reception. He replenished the fire generously, found a +long cloak in the closet at the end of the hall, and waited the sound of +wheels before his own door. "The rain has grown heavier," he said, +drawing the cloak around his wife as she descended from the carriage. +Something in his manner seemed to envelop her. He brought her into the +study and seated her before the fire. She had expected to find the house +silent; the glow and warmth of the room were grateful after the chill +and darkness outside, her husband's presence after that vague sense of +futility which the evening's gayety had left upon her. + +"I suppose I ought to tell you about the party," she said, a little +wearily; "but if you don't mind, I will wait till breakfast. Everybody +was there, of course, and it was all very fine, as we all knew it would +be. I hope you've enjoyed your Latin poets more." + +"They are Greek, dear," he said. "I have been making translations from +some of them now and then. Some day we will take a day off and then I'll +read them to you. But neither the party nor the poets to-night. See, it +is almost two o'clock." + +"I knew it must be late. But you look as fresh as a child that has just +waked from sleep." + +"Perhaps I have just waked." + +They rose to go up-stairs. "I will go in front and make a light in our +room while you turn off the gas in the hall." + +He paused for a moment after she had gone out and turned to a page in +the Greek Anthology for a single stanza. Shelley's translation was +written in pencil beside it: + + Thou wert the morning star among the living, + Ere thy fair light had fled; + Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus giving + New splendor to the dead. + + + + +The Perfect Year + +BY ELEANOR A. HALLOWELL + + +When Dolly Leonard died, on the night of my _débutante_ party, our +little community was aghast. If I live to be a thousand, I shall never +outgrow the paralyzing shock of that disaster. I think that the girls in +our younger set never fully recovered from it. + +It was six o'clock when we got the news. Things had been jolly and +bustling all the afternoon. The house was filled with florists and +caterers, and I had gone to my room to escape the final responsibilities +of the occasion. There were seven of us girl chums dressing in my room, +and we were lolling round in various stages of lace and ruffles when the +door-bell rang. Partly out of consideration for the tired servants, and +partly out of nervous curiosity incited by the day's influx of presents +and bouquets, I slipped into my pink eider-down wrapper and ran down to +the door. The hall was startlingly sweet with roses. Indeed, the whole +house was a perfect bower of leaf and blossom, and I suppose I did look +elfish as I ran, for a gruff old workman peered up at me and smiled, and +muttered something about "pinky-posy"--and I know it did not seem +impertinent to me at the time. + +At the door, in the chill blast of the night, stood our little old gray +postman with some letters in his hand. "Oh!" I said, disappointed, "just +letters." + +The postman looked at me a trifle queerly--I thought it was my pink +wrapper,--and he said, "Don't worry about 'just letters'; Dolly Leonard +is dead!" + +"Dead?" I gasped. "Dead?" and I remember how I reeled back against the +open door and stared out with horror-stricken eyes across the common to +Dolly Leonard's house, where every window was blazing with calamity. + +"Dead?" I gasped again. "Dead? What happened?" + +The postman eyed me with quizzical fatherliness. "Ask your mother," he +answered, reluctantly, and I turned and groped my way leaden-footed up +the stairs, muttering, "Oh, mother, mother, I don't _need_ to ask you." + +When I got back to my room at last through a tortuous maze of gaping +workmen and sickening flowers, three startled girls jumped up to catch +me as I staggered across the threshold. I did not faint, I did not cry +out. I just sat huddled on the floor rocking myself to and fro, and +mumbling, as through a mouthful of sawdust: "Dolly Leonard is dead. +Dolly Leonard is dead. Dolly Leonard is dead." + +I will not attempt to describe too fully the scene that followed. There +were seven of us, you know, and we were only eighteen, and no young +person of our acquaintance had ever died before. Indeed, only one aged +death had ever disturbed our personal life history, and even that remote +catastrophe had sent us scampering to each other's beds a whole winter +long, for the individual fear of "seeing things at night." + +"Dolly Leonard is dead." I can feel myself yet in that huddled news-heap +on the floor. A girl at the mirror dropped her hand-glass with a +shivering crash. Some one on the sofa screamed. The only one of us who +was dressed began automatically to unfasten her lace collar and strip +off her silken gown, and I can hear yet the soft lush sound of a folded +sash, and the strident click of the little French stays that pressed too +close on a heaving breast. + +Then some one threw wood on the fire with a great bang, and then more +wood and more wood, and we crowded round the hearth and scorched our +faces and hands, but we could not get warm enough. + +Dolly Leonard was not even in our set. She was an older girl by several +years. But she was the belle of the village. Dolly Leonard's gowns, +Dolly Leonard's parties, Dolly Leonard's lovers, were the envy of all +womankind. And Dolly Leonard's courtship and marriage were to us the +fitting culmination of her wonderful career. She was our ideal of +everything that a girl should be. She was good, she was beautiful, she +was irresistibly fascinating. She was, in fact, everything that we +girlishly longed to be in the revel of a ballroom or the white sanctity +of a church. + +And now she, the bright, the joyous, the warm, was colder than we were, +and _would never be warm again_. Never again ... And there were garish +flowers down-stairs, and music and favors and ices--nasty shivery +ices,--and pretty soon a brawling crowd of people would come and +_dance_ because I was eighteen--and still alive. + +Into our hideous brooding broke a husky little voice that had not yet +spoken: + +"Dolly Leonard told my big sister a month ago that she wasn't a bit +frightened,--that she had had one perfect year, and a perfect year was +well worth dying for--if one had to. Of course she hoped she wouldn't +die, but if she did, it was a wonderful thing to die happy. Dolly was +queer about it; I heard my big sister telling mother. Dolly said, 'Life +couldn't always be at high tide--there was only one high tide in any +one's life, and she thought it was beautiful to go in the full flush +before the tide turned.'" + +The speaker ended with a harsh sob. + +Then suddenly into our awed silence broke my mother in full evening +dress. She was a very handsome mother. + +As she looked down on our huddled group there were tears in her eyes, +but there was no shock. I noticed distinctly that there was no shock. +"Why, girls," she exclaimed, with a certain terse brightness, "aren't +you dressed yet? It's eight o'clock and people are beginning to arrive." +She seemed so frivolous to me. I remember that I felt a little ashamed +of her. + +"We don't want any party," I answered, glumly. "The girls are going +home." + +"Nonsense!" said my mother, catching me by the hand and pulling me +almost roughly to my feet. "Go quickly and call one of the maids to come +and help you dress. Angeline, I'll do your hair. Bertha, where are your +shoes? Gertrude, that's a beautiful gown--just your color. Hurry into +it. There goes the bell. Hark! the orchestra is beginning." + +And so, with a word here, a touch there, a searching look everywhere, +mother marshalled us into line. I had never heard her voice raised +before. + +The color came back to our cheeks, the light to our eyes. We bubbled +over with spirits--nervous spirits, to be sure, but none the less +vivacious ones. + +When the last hook was fastened, the last glove buttoned, the last curl +fluffed into place, mother stood for an instant tapping her foot on the +floor. She looked like a little general. + +"Girls," she said, "there are five hundred people coming to-night from +all over the State, and fully two-thirds of them never heard of Dolly +Leonard. We must never spoil other people's pleasures by flaunting our +own personal griefs. I expect my daughter to conduct herself this +evening with perfect cheerfulness and grace. She owes it to her guests; +and"--mother's chin went high up in the air--"I refuse to receive in my +house again any one of you girls who mars my daughter's _débutante_ +party by tears or hysterics. You may go now." + +We went, silently berating the brutal harshness of grown people. We +went, airily, flutteringly, luminously, like a bunch of butterflies. At +the head of the stairs the music caught us up in a maelstrom of +excitement and whirled us down into the throng of pleasure. And when we +reached the drawing-room and found mother we felt as though we were +walking on air. We thought it was self-control. We were not old enough +to know it was mostly "youth." + +My _débutante_ party was the gayest party ever given in our town. We +seven girls were like sprites gone mad. We were like fairy torches that +kindled the whole throng. We flitted among the palms like +will-o'-the-wisps. We danced the toes out of our satin slippers. We led +our old boy-friends a wild chase of young love and laughter, and +because our hearts were like frozen lead within us we sought, as it +were, "to warm both hands at the fires of life." We trifled with older +men. We flirted, as it were, with our fathers. + +My _débutante_ party turned out a revel. I have often wondered if my +mother was frightened. I don't know what went on in the other girls' +brains, but mine were seared with the old-world recklessness--"Eat, +drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." _We_ die! + +I had a lover--a boy lover. His name was Gordon. He was twenty-one years +old, and he had courted me with boyish seriousness for three years. +Mother had always pooh-poohed his love-story and said: "Wait, wait. Why, +my daughter isn't even _out_ yet. Wait till she's out." + +And Gordon had narrowed his near-sighted eyes ominously and shut his +lips tight. "Very well," he had answered, "I will wait till she is +out--but no longer." + +He was rich, he was handsome, he was well-born, he was strong, but more +than all that he held my fancy with a certain thrilling tenacity that +frightened me while it lured me. And I had always looked forward to my +_débutante_ party on my eighteenth birthday with the tingling +realization, half joy, half fear, that on that day I should have to +settle once and forever with--_man_. + +I had often wondered how Gordon would propose. He was a proud, +high-strung boy. If he was humble, and pleaded and pleaded with the hurt +look in his eyes that I knew so well, I thought I would accept him; and +if we could get to mother in the crowd, perhaps we could announce the +engagement at supper-time. It seemed to me that it would be a very +wonderful thing to be engaged on one's eighteenth birthday. So many +girls were not engaged till nineteen or even twenty. But if he was +masterful and high-stepping, as he knew so well how to be, I had decided +to refuse him scornfully with a toss of my head and a laugh. I could +break his heart with the sort of laugh I had practised before my mirror. + +It is a terrible thing to have a long-anticipated event finally overtake +you. It is the most terrible thing of all to have to settle once and +forever with _man_. + +Gordon came for me at eleven o'clock. I was flirting airily at the time +with our village Beau Brummel, who was old enough to be my grandfather. + +Gordon slipped my little hand through his arm and carried me off to a +lonely place in the conservatory. For a second it seemed a beautiful +relief to be out of the noise and the glare--and alone with Gordon. But +instantly my realization of the potential moment rushed over me like a +flood, and I began to tremble violently. All the nervous strain of the +evening reacted suddenly on me. + +"What's the matter with you to-night?" asked Gordon, a little sternly. +"What makes you so wild?" he persisted, with a grim little attempt at a +laugh. + +At his words, my heart seemed to turn over within me and settle heavily. +It was before the days when we discussed life's tragedies with our best +men friends. Indeed, it was so long before that I sickened and grew +faint at the very thought of the sorrowful knowledge which I kept secret +from him. + +Again he repeated, "What's the matter with you?" but I could find no +answer. I just sat shivering, with my lace scarf drawn close across my +bare shoulders. + +Gordon took hold of a white ruffle on my gown and began to fidget with +it. I could see the fine thoughts go flitting through his eyes, but when +he spoke again it was quite commonplacely. + +"Will you do me a favor?" he asked. "Will you do me the favor of +marrying me?" And he laughed. Good God! he _laughed_! + +"A favor" to marry him! And he asked it as he might have asked for a +posie or a dance. So flippantly--with a laugh. "_A favor!_" And Dolly +Leonard lay dead of _her_ favor! + +I jumped to my feet--I was half mad with fear and sex and sorrow and +excitement. Something in my brain snapped. And I struck Gordon--struck +him across the face with my open hand. And he turned as white as the +dead Dolly Leonard, and went away--oh, very far away. + +Then I ran back alone to the hall and stumbled into my father's arms. + +"Are you having a good time?" asked my father, pointing playfully at my +blazing cheeks. + +I went to my answer like an arrow to its mark. "I am having the most +wonderful time in the world," I cried; "_I have settled with man_." + +My father put back his head and shouted. He thought it was a fine joke. +He laughed about it long after my party was over. He thought my head was +turned. He laughed about it long after other people had stopped +wondering why Gordon went away. + +I never told any one why Gordon went away. I might under certain +circumstances have told a girl, but it was not the sort of thing one +could have told one's mother. This is the first time I have ever told +the story of Dolly Leonard's death and my _débutante_ party. + +Dolly Leonard left a little son behind her--a joyous, rollicking little +son. His name is Paul Yardley. We girls were pleased with the +initials--P.Y. They stand to us for "Perfect Year." + +Dolly Leonard's husband has married again, and his wife has borne him +safely three daughters and a son. Each one of my six girl chums is the +mother of a family. Now and again in my experience some woman has +shirked a duty. But I have never yet met a woman who dared to shirk a +happiness. Duties repeat themselves. There is no duplicate of happiness. + +I am fifty-eight years old. I have never married. I do not say whether I +am glad or sorry. I only know that I have never had a Perfect Year. I +only know that I have never been warm since the night that Dolly Leonard +died. + + + + +Editha + +BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS + + +The air was thick with the war I feeling, like the electricity of a +storm which has not yet burst. Editha sat looking out into the hot +spring afternoon, with her lips parted, and panting with the intensity +of the question whether she could let him go. She had decided that she +could not let him stay, when she saw him at the end of the still +leafless avenue, making slowly up toward the house, with his head down, +and his figure relaxed. She ran impatiently out on the veranda, to the +edge of the steps, and imperatively demanded greater haste of him with +her will before she called aloud to him, "George!" + +He had quickened his pace in mystical response to her mystical urgence, +before he could have heard her; now he looked up and answered, "Well?" + +"Oh, how united we are!" she exulted, and then she swooped down the +steps to him. "What is it?" she cried. + +"It's war," he said, and he pulled her up to him, and kissed her. + +She kissed him back intensely, but irrelevantly, as to their passion, +and uttered from deep in her throat, "How glorious!" + +"It's war," he repeated, without consenting to her sense of it; and she +did not know just what to think at first. She never knew what to think +of him; that made his mystery, his charm. All through their courtship, +which was contemporaneous with the growth of the war feeling, she had +been puzzled by his want of seriousness about it. He seemed to despise +it even more than he abhorred it. She could have understood his +abhorring any sort of bloodshed; that would have been a survival of his +old life when he thought he would be a minister, and before he changed +and took up the law. But making light of a cause so high and noble +seemed to show a want of earnestness at the core of his being. Not but +that she felt herself able to cope with a congenital defect of that +sort, and make his love for her save him from himself. Now perhaps the +miracle was already wrought in him, In the presence of the tremendous +fact that he announced, all triviality seemed to have gone out of him; +she began to feel that. He sank down on the top step, and wiped his +forehead with his handkerchief, while she poured out upon him her +question of the origin and authenticity of his news. + +All the while, in her duplex emotioning, she was aware that now at the +very beginning she must put a guard upon herself against urging him, by +any word or act, to take the part that her whole soul willed him to +take, for the completion of her ideal of him. He was very nearly perfect +as he was, and he must be allowed to perfect himself. But he was +peculiar, and he might very well be reasoned out of his peculiarity. +Before her reasoning went her emotioning: her nature pulling upon his +nature, her womanhood upon his manhood, without her knowing the means +she was using to the end she was willing. She had always supposed that +the man who won her would have done something to win her; she did not +know what, but something. George Gearson had simply asked her for her +love, on the way home from a concert, and she gave her love to him, +without, as it were, thinking. But now, it flashed upon her, if he could +do something worthy to _have_ won her--be a hero, _her_ hero--it would +be even better than if he had done it before asking her; it would be +grander. Besides, she had believed in the war from the beginning. + +"But don't you see, dearest," she said, "that it wouldn't have come to +this, if it hadn't been in the order of Providence? And I call any war +glorious that is for the liberation of people who have been struggling +for years against the cruelest oppression. Don't you think so too?" + +"I suppose so," he returned, languidly. "But war! Is it glorious to +break the peace of the world?" + +"That ignoble peace! It was no peace at all, with that crime and shame +at our very gates." She was conscious of parroting the current phrases +of the newspapers, but it was no time to pick and choose her words. She +must sacrifice anything to the high ideal she had for him, and after a +good deal of rapid argument she ended with the climax: "But now it +doesn't matter about the how or why. Since the war has come, all that is +gone. There are no two sides, any more. There is nothing now but our +country." + +He sat with his eyes closed and his head leant back against the veranda, +and he said with a vague smile, as if musing aloud, "Our country--right +or wrong." + +"Yes, right or wrong!" she returned fervidly. "I'll go and get you some +lemonade." She rose rustling, and whisked away; when she came back with +two tall glasses of clouded liquid, on a tray, and the ice clucking in +them, he still sat as she had left him, and she said as if there had +been no interruption: "But there is no question of wrong in this case. I +call it a sacred war. A war for liberty, and humanity, if ever there was +one. And I know you will see it just as I do, yet." + +He took half the lemonade at a gulp, and he answered as he set the glass +down: "I know you always have the highest ideal. When I differ from you, +I ought to doubt myself." + +A generous sob rose in Editha's throat for the humility of a man, so +very nearly perfect, who was willing to put himself below her. + +Besides, she felt that he was never so near slipping through her fingers +as when he took that meek way. + +"You shall not say that! Only, for once I happen to be right." She +seized his hand in her two hands, and poured her soul from her eyes into +his. "Don't you think so?" she entreated him. + +He released his hand and drank the rest of his lemonade, and she added, +"Have mine, too," but he shook his head in answering, "I've no business +to think so, unless I act so, too." + +Her heart stopped a beat before it pulsed on with leaps that she felt in +her neck. She had noticed that strange thing in men; they seemed to feel +bound to do what they believed, and not think a thing was finished when +they said it, as girls did. She knew what was in his mind, but she +pretended not, and she said, "Oh, I am not sure." + +He went on as if to himself without apparently heeding her. "There's +only one way of proving one's faith in a thing like this." + +She could not say that she understood, but she did understand. + +He went on again. "If I believed--if I felt as you do about this war--Do +you wish me to feel as you do?" + +Now she was really not sure; so she said, "George, I don't know what you +mean." + +He seemed to muse away from her as before. "There is a sort of +fascination in it. I suppose that at the bottom of his heart every man +would like at times to have his courage tested; to see how he would +act." + +"How can you talk in that ghastly way!" + +"It _is_ rather morbid. Still, that's what it comes to, unless you're +swept away by ambition, or driven by conviction. I haven't the +conviction or the ambition, and the other thing is what it comes to with +me. I ought to have been a preacher, after all; then I couldn't have +asked it of myself, as I must, now I'm a lawyer. And you believe it's a +holy war, Editha?" he suddenly addressed her. "Or, I know you do! But +you wish me to believe so, too?" + +She hardly knew whether he was mocking or not, in the ironical way he +always had with her plainer mind. But the only thing was to be outspoken +with him. + +"George, I wish you to believe whatever you think is true, at any and +every cost. If I've tried to talk you into anything, I take it all +back." + +"Oh, I know that, Editha. I know how sincere you are, and how--I wish I +had your undoubting spirit! I'll think it over; I'd like to believe as +you do. But I don't, now; I don't, indeed. It isn't this war alone; +though this seems peculiarly wanton and needless; but it's every war--so +stupid; it makes me sick. Why shouldn't this thing have been settled +reasonably?" + +"Because," she said, very throatily again, "God meant it to be war." + +"You think it was God? Yes, I suppose that is what people will say." + +"Do you suppose it would have been war if God hadn't meant it?" + +"I don't know. Sometimes it seems as if God had put this world into +men's keeping to work it as they pleased." + +"Now, George, that is blasphemy." + +"Well, I won't blaspheme. I'll try to believe in your pocket +Providence," he said, and then he rose to go. + +"Why don't you stay to dinner?" Dinner at Balcom's Works was at one +o'clock. + +"I'll come back to supper, if you'll let me. Perhaps I shall bring you a +convert." + +"Well, you may come back, on that condition." + +"All right. If I don't come, you'll understand?" + +He went away without kissing her, and she felt it a suspension of their +engagement. It all interested her intensely; she was undergoing a +tremendous experience, and she was being equal to it. While she stood +looking after him, her mother came out through one of the long windows, +on to the veranda, with a catlike softness and vagueness. + +"Why didn't he stay to dinner?" + +"Because--because--war has been declared," Editha pronounced, without +turning. + +Her mother said, "Oh, my!" and then said nothing more until she had sat +down in one of the large Shaker chairs, and rocked herself for some +time. Then she closed whatever tacit passage of thought there had been +in her mind with the spoken words, "Well, I hope _he_ won't go." + +"And _I_ hope he _will_" the girl said, and confronted her mother with a +stormy exaltation that would have frightened any creature less +unimpressionable than a cat. + +Her mother rocked herself again for an interval of cogitation. What she +arrived at in speech was, "Well, I guess you've done a wicked thing, +Editha Balcom." + +The girl said, as she passed indoors through the same window her mother +had come out by, "I haven't done anything--yet." + + * * * * * + +In her room, she put together all her letters and gifts from Gearson, +down to the withered petals of the first flower he had offered, with +that timidity of his veiled in that irony of his. In the heart of the +packet she enshrined her engagement ring which she had restored to the +pretty box he had brought it her in. Then she sat down, if not calmly +yet strongly, and wrote: + + "GEORGE: I understood--when you left me. But I think we had + better emphasize your meaning that if we cannot be one in + everything we had better be one in nothing. So I am sending + these things for your keeping till you have made up your mind. + + "I shall always love you, and therefore I shall never marry any + one else. But the man I marry must love his country first of + all, and be able to say to me, + + "'I could not love thee, dear, so much, + Loved I not honor more.' + + "There is no honor above America with me. In this great hour + there is no other honor. + + "Your heart will make my words clear to you. I had never + expected to say so much, but it has come upon me that I must + say the utmost. + + "EDITHA." + +She thought she had worded her letter well, worded it in a way that +could not be bettered; all had been implied and nothing expressed. + +She had it ready to send with the packet she had tied with red, white, +and blue ribbon, when it occurred to her that she was not just to him, +that she was not giving him a fair chance. He had said he would go and +think it over, and she was not waiting. She was pushing, threatening, +compelling. That was not a woman's part. She must leave him free, free, +free. She could not accept for her country or herself a forced +sacrifice. + +In writing her letter she had satisfied the impulse from which it +sprang; she could well afford to wait till he had thought it over. She +put the packet and the letter by, and rested serene in the consciousness +of having done what was laid upon her by her love itself to do, and yet +used patience, mercy, justice. + +She had her reward. Gearson did not come to tea, but she had given him +till morning, when, late at night there came up from the village the +sound of a fife and drum with a tumult of voices, in shouting, singing, +and laughing. The noise drew nearer and nearer; it reached the Street +end of the avenue; there it silenced itself, and one voice, the voice +she knew best, rose over the silence. It fell; the air was filled with +cheers; the fife and drum struck up, with the shouting, singing, and +laughing again, but now retreating; and a single figure came hurrying up +the avenue. + +She ran down to meet her lover and clung to him. He was very gay, and he +put his arm round her with a boisterous laugh. "Well, you must call me +Captain, now; or Cap, if you prefer; that's what the boys call me. Yes, +we've had a meeting at the town hall, and everybody has volunteered; and +they selected me for captain, and I'm going to the war, the big war, the +glorious war, the holy war ordained by the pocket Providence that +blesses butchery. Come along; let's tell the whole family about it. Call +them from their downy beds, father, mother, Aunt Hitty, and all the +folks!" + +But when they mounted the veranda steps he did not wait for a larger +audience; he poured the story out upon Editha alone. + +"There was a lot of speaking, and then some of the fools set up a shout +for me. It was all going one way, and I thought it would be a good joke +to sprinkle a little cold water on them. But you can't do that with a +crowd that adores you. The first thing I knew I was sprinkling hell-fire +on them, 'Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.' That was the style. +Now that it had come to the fight, there were no two parties; there was +one country, and the thing was to fight the fight to a finish as quick +as possible. I suggested volunteering then and there, and I wrote my +name first of all on the roster. Then they elected me--that's all. I +wish I had some ice-water!" + +She left him walking up and down the veranda, while she ran for the +ice-pitcher and a goblet, and when she came back he was still walking up +and down, shouting the story he had told her to her father and mother, +who had come out more sketchily dressed than they commonly were by day. +He drank goblet after goblet of the ice-water without noticing who was +giving it, and kept on talking, and laughing through his talk wildly. +"It's astonishing," he said, "how well the worse reason looks when you +try to make it appear the better. Why, I believe I was the first convert +to the war in that crowd to-night! I never thought I should like to kill +a man; but now, I shouldn't care; and the smokeless powder lets you see +the man drop that you kill. It's all for the country! What a thing it is +to have a country that _can't_ be wrong, but if it is, is right anyway!" + +Editha had a great, vital thought, an inspiration. She set down the +ice-pitcher on the veranda floor, and ran up-stairs and got the letter +she had written him. When at last he noisily bade her father and mother, +"Well, good night. I forgot I woke you up; I sha'n't want any sleep +myself," she followed him down the avenue to the gate. There, after the +whirling words that seemed to fly away from her thoughts and refuse to +serve them, she made a last effort to solemnize the moment that seemed +so crazy, and pressed the letter she had written upon him. + +"What's this?" he said. "Want me to mail it?" + +"No, no. It's for you. I wrote it after you went this morning. Keep +it--keep it--and read it sometime--" She thought, and then her +inspiration came: "Read it if ever you doubt what you've done, or fear +that I regret your having done it. Read it after you've started." + +They strained each other in embraces that seemed as ineffective as their +words, and he kissed her face with quick, hot breaths that were so +unlike him, that made her feel as if she had lost her old lover and +found a stranger in his place. The stranger said, "What a gorgeous +flower you are, with your red hair, and your blue eyes that look black +now, and your face with the color painted out by the white moonshine! +Let me hold you under my chin, to see whether I love blood, you +tiger-lily!" Then he laughed Gearson's laugh, and released her, scared +and giddy. Within her wilfulness she had been frightened by a sense of +subtler force in him, and mystically mastered as she had never been +before. + +She ran all the way back to the house, and mounted the steps panting. +Her mother and father were talking of the great affair. Her mother said: +"Wa'n't Mr. Gearson in rather of an excited state of mind? Didn't you +think he acted curious?" + +"Well, not for a man who'd just been elected captain and had to set 'em +up for the whole of Company A," her father chuckled back. + +"What in the world do you mean, Mr. Balcom? Oh! There's Editha!" She +offered to follow the girl indoors. + +"Don't come, mother!" Editha called, vanishing. + +Mrs. Balcom remained to reproach her husband. "I don't see much of +anything to laugh at." + +"Well, it's catching. Caught it from Gearson. I guess it won't be much +of a war, and I guess Gearson don't think so, either. The other fellows +will back down as soon as they see we mean it. I wouldn't lose any sleep +over it. I'm going back to bed, myself." + + * * * * * + +Gearson came again next afternoon, looking pale, and rather sick, but +quite himself, even to his languid irony. "I guess I'd better tell you, +Editha, that I consecrated myself to your god of battles last night by +pouring too many libations to him down my own throat. But I'm all right, +now. One has to carry off the excitement, somehow." + +"Promise me," she commanded, "that you'll never touch it again!" + +"What! Not let the cannikin clink? Not let the soldier drink? Well, I +promise." + +"You don't belong to yourself now; you don't even belong to _me_. You +belong to your country, and you have a sacred charge to keep yourself +strong and well for your country's sake. I have been thinking, thinking +all night and all day long." + +"You look as if you had been crying a little, too," he said with his +queer smile. + +"That's all past. I've been thinking, and worshipping _you_. Don't you +suppose I know all that you've been through, to come to this? I've +followed you every step from your old theories and opinions." + +"Well, you've had a long row to hoe." + +"And I know you've done this from the highest motives--" + +"Oh, there won't be much pettifogging to do till this cruel war is--" + +"And you haven't simply done it for my sake. I couldn't respect you if +you had." + +"Well, then we'll say I haven't. A man that hasn't got his own respect +intact wants the respect of all the other people he can corner. But we +won't go into that. I'm in for the thing now, and we've got to face our +future. My idea is that this isn't going to be a very protracted +struggle; we shall just scare the enemy to death before it conies to a +fight at all. But we must provide for contingencies, Editha. If anything +happens to me--" + +"Oh, George!" She clung to him sobbing. + +"I don't want you to feel foolishly bound to my memory. I should hate +that, wherever I happened to be." + +"I am yours, for time and eternity--time and eternity." She liked the +words; they satisfied her famine for phrases. + +"Well, say eternity; that's all right; but time's another thing; and I'm +talking about time. But there is something! My mother! If anything +happens--" + +She winced, and he laughed. "You're not the bold soldier-girl of +yesterday!" Then he sobered. "If anything happens, I want you to help my +mother out. She won't like my doing this thing. She brought me up to +think war a fool thing as well as a bad thing. My father was in the +civil war; all through it; lost his arm in it." She thrilled with the +sense of the arm round her; what if that should be lost? He laughed as +if divining her: "Oh, it doesn't run in the family, as far as I know!" +Then he added, gravely, "He came home with misgivings about war, and +they grew on him. I guess he and mother agreed between them that I was +to be brought up in his final mind about it; but that was before my +time. I only knew him from my mother's report of him and his opinions; I +don't know whether they were hers first; but they were hers last. This +will be a blow to her. I shall have to write and tell her--" + +He stopped, and she asked, "Would you like me to write too, George?" + +"I don't believe that would do. No, I'll do the writing. She'll +understand a little if I say that I thought the way to minimize it was +to make war on the largest possible scale at once--that I felt I must +have been helping on the war somehow if I hadn't helped keep it from +coming, and I knew I hadn't; when it came, I had no right to stay out of +it." + +Whether his sophistries satisfied him or not, they satisfied her. She +clung to his breast, and whispered, with closed eyes and quivering lips, +"Yes, yes, yes!" + +"But if anything should happen, you might go to her, and see what you +could do for her. You know? It's rather far off; she can't leave her +chair--" + +"Oh, I'll go, if it's the ends of the earth! But nothing will happen! +Nothing _can_! I--" + +She felt herself lifted with his rising, and Gearson was saying, with +his arm still round her, to her father: "Well, we're off at once, Mr. +Balcom. We're to be formally accepted at the capital, and then bunched +up with the rest somehow; and sent into camp somewhere, and got to the +front as soon as possible. We all want to be in the van, of course; +we're the first company to report to the Governor. I came to tell +Editha, but I hadn't got round to it." + + * * * * * + +She saw him again for a moment at the capital, in the station, just +before the train started southward with his regiment. He looked well, in +his uniform, and very soldierly, but somehow girlish, too, with his +clean-shaven face and slim figure. The manly eyes and the strong voice +satisfied her, and his preoccupation with some unexpected details of +duty flattered her. Other girls were weeping, but she felt a sort of +noble distinction in the abstraction with which they parted. Only at the +last moment he said, "Don't forget my mother. It mayn't be such a +walk-over as I supposed," and he laughed at the notion. + +He waved his hand to her, as the train moved off--she knew it among a +score of hands that were waved to other girls from the platform of the +car, for it held a letter which she knew was hers. Then he went inside +the car to read it, doubtless, and she did not see him again. But she +felt safe for him through the strength of what she called her love. What +she called her God, always speaking the name in a deep voice and with +the implication of a mutual understanding, would watch over him and keep +him and bring him back to her. If with an empty sleeve, then he should +have three arms instead of two, for both of hers should be his for life. +She did not see, though, why she should always be thinking of the arm +his father had lost. + +There were not many letters from him, but they were such as she could +have wished, and she put her whole strength into making hers such as she +imagined he could have wished, glorifying and supporting him. She wrote +to his mother, but the brief answer she got was merely to the effect +that Mrs. Gearson was not well enough to write herself, and thanking her +for her letter by the hand of some one who called herself "Yrs truly, +Mrs. W.J. Andrews." + +Editha determined not to be hurt, but to write again quite as if the +answer had been all she expected. But before it seemed as if she could +have written, there came news of the first skirmish, and in the list of +the killed which was telegraphed as a trifling loss on our side, was +Gearson's name. There was a frantic time of trying to make out that it +might be, must be, some other Gearson; but the name, and the company and +the regiment, and the State were too definitely given. + +Then there was a lapse into depths out of which it seemed as if she +never could rise again; then a lift into clouds far above all grief, +black clouds, that blotted out the sun, but where she soared with him, +with George, George! She had the fever that she expected of herself, but +she did not die in it; she was not even delirious, and it did not last +long. When she was well enough to leave her bed, her one thought was of +George's mother, of his strangely worded wish that she should go to her +and see what she could do for her. In the exaltation of the duty laid +upon her--it buoyed her up instead of burdening her--she rapidly +recovered. + +Her father went with her on the long railroad journey from northern New +York to western Iowa; he had business out at Davenport, and he said he +could just as well go then as any other time; and he went with her to +the little country town where George's mother lived in a little house on +the edge of illimitable corn-fields, under trees pushed to a top of the +rolling prairie. George's father had settled there after the civil war, +as so many other old soldiers had done; but they were Eastern people, +and Editha fancied touches of the East in the June rose overhanging the +front door, and the garden with early summer flowers stretching from the +gate of the paling fence. + +It was very low inside the house, and so dim, with the closed blinds, +that they could scarcely see one another: Editha tall and black in her +crapes which filled the air with the smell of their dyes; her father +standing decorously apart with his hat on his forearm, as at funerals; a +woman rested in a deep armchair, and the woman who had let the strangers +in stood behind the chair. + +The seated woman turned her head round and up, and asked the woman +behind her chair, "_Who_ did you say?" + +Editha, if she had done what she expected of herself, would have gone +down on her knees at the feet of the seated figure and said, "I am +George's Editha," for answer. + +But instead of her own voice she heard that other woman's voice, saying, +"Well, I don't know as I _did_ get the name just right. I guess I'll +have to make a little more light in here," and she went and pushed two +of the shutters ajar. + +Then Editha's father said in his public will-now-address-a-few-remarks +tone, "My name is Balcom, ma'am; Junius H. Balcom, of Balcom's Works, +New York; my daughter--" + +"Oh!" The seated woman broke in, with a powerful voice, the voice that +always surprised Editha from Gearson's slender frame. "Let me see you! +Stand round where the light can strike on your face," and Editha dumbly +obeyed. "So, you're Editha Balcom," she sighed. + +"Yes," Editha said, more like a culprit than a comforter. + +"What did you come for?" + +Editha's face quivered, and her knees shook. "I came--because--because +George--" She could go no farther. + +"Yes," the mother said, "he told me he had asked you to come if he got +killed. You didn't expect that, I suppose, when you sent him." + +"I would rather have died myself than done it!" Editha said with more +truth in her deep voice than she ordinarily found in it. "I tried to +leave him free--" + +"Yes, that letter of yours, that came back with his other things, left +him free." + +Editha saw now where George's irony came from. + +"It was not to be read before--unless--until--I told him so," she +faltered. + +"Of course, he wouldn't read a letter of yours, under the circumstances, +till he thought you wanted him to. Been sick?" the woman abruptly +demanded. + +"Very sick," Editha said, with self-pity. + +"Daughter's life," her father interposed, "was almost despaired of, at +one time." + +Mrs. Gearson gave him no heed. "I suppose you would have been glad to +die, such a brave person as you! I don't believe _he_ was glad to die. +He was always a timid boy, that way; he was afraid of a good many +things; but if he was afraid he did what he made up his mind to. I +suppose he made up his mind to go, but I knew what it cost him, by what +it cost me when I heard of it. I had been through _one_ war before. When +you sent him you didn't expect he would get killed." + +The voice seemed to compassionate Editha, and it was time. "No," she +huskily murmured. + +"No, girls don't; women don't, when they give their men up to their +country. They think they'll come marching back, somehow, just as gay as +they went, or if it's an empty sleeve, or even an empty pantaloon, it's +all the more glory, and they're so much the prouder of them, poor +things." + +The tears began to run down Editha's face; she had not wept till then; +but it was now such a relief to be understood that the tears came. + +"No, you didn't expect him to get killed," Mrs. Gearson repeated in a +voice which was startlingly like George's again. "You just expected him +to kill some one else, some of those foreigners, that weren't there +because they had any say about it, but because they had to be there, +poor wretches--conscripts, or whatever they call 'em. You thought it +would be all right for my George, _your_ George, to kill the sons of +those miserable mothers and the husbands of those girls that you would +never see the faces of." The woman lifted her powerful voice in a +psalmlike note. "I thank my God he didn't live to do it! I thank my God +they killed him first, and that he ain't livin' with their blood on his +hands!" She dropped her eyes which she had raised with her voice, and +glared at Editha. "What you got that black on for?" She lifted herself +by her powerful arms so high that her helpless body seemed to hang limp +its full length. "Take it off, take it off, before I tear it from your +back!" + + * * * * * + +The lady who was passing the summer near Balcom's Works was sketching +Editha's beauty, which lent itself wonderfully to the effects of a +colorist. It had come to that confidence which is rather apt to grow +between artist and sitter, and Editha had told her everything. + +"To think of your having such a tragedy in your life!" the lady said. +She added: "I suppose there are people who feel that way about war. But +when you consider how much this war has done for the country! I can't +understand such people, for my part. And when you had come all the way +out there to console her--got up out of a sick bed! Well!" + +"I think," Editha said, magnanimously, "she wasn't quite in her right +mind; and so did papa." + +"Yes," the lady said, looking at Editha's lips in nature and then at her +lips in art, and giving an empirical touch to them in the picture. "But +how dreadful of her! How perfectly--excuse me--how _vulgar_!" + +A light broke upon Editha in the darkness which she felt had been +without a gleam of brightness for weeks and months. The mystery that had +bewildered her was solved by the word; and from that moment she rose +from grovelling in shame and self-pity, and began to live again in the +ideal. + + + + +The Stout Miss Hopkins's Bicycle + +BY OCTAVE THANET + + +There was a skeleton in Mrs. Margaret Ellis's closet; the same skeleton +abode also in the closet of Miss Lorania Hopkins. + +The skeleton--which really does not seem a proper word--was the dread of +growing stout. They were more afraid of flesh than of sin. Yet they were +both good women. Mrs. Ellis regularly attended church, and could always +be depended on to show hospitality to convention delegates, whether +clerical or lay; she was a liberal subscriber to every good work; she +was almost the only woman in the church aid society that never lost her +temper at the soul-vexing time of the church fair; and she had a larger +clientele of regular pensioners than any one in town, unless it were her +friend Miss Hopkins, who was "so good to the poor" that never a tramp +slighted her kitchen. Miss Hopkins was as amiable as Mrs. Ellis, and +always put her name under that of Mrs. Ellis, with exactly the same +amount, on the subscription papers. She could have given more, for she +had the larger income; but she had no desire to outshine her friend, +whom she admired as the most charming of women. + +Mrs. Ellis, indeed, was agreeable as well as good, and a pretty woman to +the bargain, if she did not choose to be weighed before people. Miss +Hopkins often told her that she was not really stout; she merely had a +plump, trig little figure. Miss Hopkins, alas! was really stout. The two +waged a warfare against the flesh equal to the apostle's in vigor, +although so much less deserving of praise. + +Mrs. Ellis drove her cook to distraction with divers dieting systems, +from Banting's and Dr. Salisbury's to the latest exhortations of some +unknown newspaper prophet. She bought elaborate gymnastic appliances, +and swung dumb-bells and rode imaginary horses and propelled imaginary +boats. She ran races with a professional trainer, and she studied the +principles of Delsarte, and solemnly whirled on one foot and swayed her +body and rolled her head and hopped and kicked and genuflected in +company with eleven other stout and earnest matrons and one slim and +giggling girl who almost choked at every lesson. In all these exercises +Miss Hopkins faithfully kept her company, which was the easier as Miss +Hopkins lived in the next house, a conscientious Colonial mansion with +all the modern conveniences hidden beneath the old-fashioned pomp. + +And yet, despite these struggles and self-denials, it must be told that +Margaret Ellis and Lorania Hopkins were little thinner for their +warfare. Still, as Shuey Cardigan, the trainer, told Mrs. Ellis, there +was no knowing what they might have weighed had they not struggled. + +"It ain't only the fat that's _on_ ye, moind ye," says Shuey, with a +confidential sympathy of mien; "it's what ye'd naturally be getting in +addition. And first ye've got to peel off that, and then ye come down to +the other." + +Shuey was so much the most successful of Mrs. Ellis's reducers that his +words were weighty. And when at last Shuey said, "I got what you need," +Mrs. Ellis listened. "You need a bike, no less," says Shuey. + +"But I never could ride one!" said Margaret, opening her pretty brown +eyes and wrinkling her Grecian forehead. + +"You'd ride in six lessons." + +"But how would I _look_, Cardigan?" + +"You'd look noble, ma'am!" + +"What do you consider the best wheel, Cardigan?" + +The advertising rules of magazines prevent my giving Cardigan's answer; +it is enough that the wheel glittered at Mrs. Ellis's door the very next +day, and that a large pasteboard box was delivered by the expressman the +very next week. He went on to Miss Hopkins's, and delivered the twin of +the box, with a similar yellow printed card bearing the impress of the +same great firm on the inside of the box cover. + +For Margaret had hied her to Lorania Hopkins the instant Shuey was gone. +She presented herself breathless, a little to the embarrassment of +Lorania, who was sitting with her niece before a large box of +cracker-jack. + +"It's a new kind of candy; I was just _tasting_ it, Maggie," faltered +she, while the niece, a girl of nineteen, with the inhuman spirits of +her age, laughed aloud. + +"You needn't mind me," said Mrs. Ellis, cheerfully; "I'm eating +potatoes now!" + +"Oh, Maggie!" Miss Hopkins breathed the words between envy and +disapproval. + +Mrs. Ellis tossed her brown head airily, not a whit abashed. "And I had +beer for luncheon, and I'm going to have champagne for dinner." + +"Maggie, how do you dare? Did they--did they taste good?" + +"They tasted _heavenly_, Lorania. Pass me the candy. I am going to try +something new--the thinningest thing there is. I read in the paper of +one woman who lost forty pounds in three months, and is losing still!" + +"If it is obesity pills, I--" + +"It isn't; it's a bicycle. Lorania, you and I must ride! Sibyl Hopkins, +you heartless child, what are you laughing at?" + +Lorania rose; in the glass over the mantel her figure returned her gaze. +There was no mistake (except that, as is often the case with stout +people, _that_ glass always increased her size), she was a stout lady. +She was taller than the average of women, and well proportioned, and +still light on her feet; but she could not blink away the records; she +was heavy on the scales. Did she stand looking at herself squarely, her +form was shapely enough, although larger than she could wish; but the +full force of the revelation fell when she allowed herself a profile +view, she having what is called "a round waist," and being almost as +large one way as another. Yet Lorania was only thirty-three years old, +and was of no mind to retire from society, and have a special phaeton +built for her use, and hear from her mother's friends how much her +mother weighed before her death. + +"How should _I_ look on a wheel?" she asked, even as Mrs. Ellis had +asked before; and Mrs. Ellis stoutly answered, "You'd look _noble_!" + +"Shuey will teach us," she went on, "and we can have a track made in +your pasture, where nobody can see us learning. Lorania, there's nothing +like it. Let me bring you the bicycle edition of _Harper's Bazar_." + +Miss Hopkins capitulated at once, and sat down to order her costume, +while Sibyl, the niece, revelled silently in visions of a new bicycle +which should presently revert to her. "For it's ridiculous, auntie's +thinking of riding!" Miss Sibyl considered. "She would be a figure of +fun on a wheel; besides, she can never learn in this world!" + +Yet Sibyl was attached to her aunt, and enjoyed visiting Hopkins Manor, +as Lorania had named her new house, into which she moved on the same day +that she joined the Colonial Dames, by right of her ancestor the great +and good divine commemorated by Mrs. Stowe. Lorania's friends were all +fond of her, she was so good-natured and tolerant, with a touch of dry +humor in her vision of things, and not the least a Puritan in her frank +enjoyment of ease and luxury. Nevertheless, Lorania had a good, +able-bodied, New England conscience, capable of staying awake nights +without flinching; and perhaps from her stanch old Puritan forefathers +she inherited her simple integrity so that she neither lied nor +cheated--even in the small, whitewashed manner of her sex--and valued +loyalty above most of the virtues. She had an innocent pride in her +godly and martial ancestry, which was quite on the surface, and led +people who did not know her to consider her haughty. + +For fifteen years she had been an orphan, the mistress of a very large +estate. No doubt she had been sought often in marriage, but never until +lately had Lorania seriously thought of marrying. Sibyl said that she +was too unsentimental to marry. Really she was too romantic. She had a +longing to be loved, not in the quiet, matter-of-fact manner of her +suitors, but with the passion of the poets. Therefore the presence of +another skeleton in Mrs. Ellis's closet, because she knew about a +certain handsome Italian marquis who at this period was conducting an +impassioned wooing by mail. Margaret did not fancy the marquis. He was +not an American. He would take Lorania away. She thought his very virtue +florid, and suspected that he had learned his love-making in a bad +school. She dropped dark hints that frightened Lorania, who would +sometimes piteously demand, "Don't you think he _could_ care for +me--for--for myself?" Margaret knew that she had an overweening distrust +of her own appearance. How many tears she had shed first and last over +her unhappy plumpness it would be hard to reckon. She made no account of +her satin skin, or her glossy black hair, or her lustrous violet eyes +with their long, black lashes, or her flashing white teeth; she glanced +dismally at her shape and scornfully at her features, good, honest, +irregular American features, that might not satisfy a Greek critic, but +suited each other and pleased her countrymen. And then she would sigh +heavily over her figure. Her friend had not the heart to impute the +marquis's beautiful, artless compliments to mercenary motives. After +all, the Italian was a good fellow, according to the point of view of +his own race, if he did intend to live on his wife's money, and had a +very varied assortment of memories of women. + +But Margaret dreaded and disliked him all the more for his good +qualities. To-day this secret apprehension flung a cloud over the +bicycle enthusiasm. She could not help wondering whether at this moment +Lorania was not thinking of the marquis, who rode a wheel and a horse +admirably. + +"Aunt Lorania," said Sibyl, "there comes Mr. Winslow. Shall I run out +and ask him about those cloth-of-gold roses? The aphides are eating them +all up." + +"Yes, to be sure, dear; but don't let Ferguson suspect what you are +talking of; he might feel hurt." + +Ferguson was the gardener. Miss Hopkins left her note to go to the +window. Below she saw a mettled horse, with tossing head and silken +skin, restlessly fretting on his bit and pawing the dust in front of +the fence, while his rider, hat in hand, talked with the young girl. He +was a little man, a very little man, in a gray business suit of the best +cut and material. An air of careful and dainty neatness was diffused +about both horse and rider. He bent towards Miss Sibyl's charming person +a thin, alert, fair face. His head was finely shaped, the brown hair +worn away a little on the temples. He smiled gravely at intervals; the +smile told that he had a dimple in his cheek. + +"I wonder," said Mrs. Ellis, "whether Mr. Winslow can have a penchant +for Sibyl?" + +Lorania opened her eyes. At this moment Mr. Winslow had caught sight of +her at the window, and he bowed almost to his saddle-bow; Sibyl was +saying something at which she laughed, and he visibly reddened. It was a +peculiarity of his that his color turned easily. In a second his hat was +on his head and his horse bounded half across the road. + +"Hardly, I think," said Lorania. "How well he rides! I never knew any +one ride better--in this country." + +"I suppose Sibyl would ridicule such a thing," said Mrs. Ellis, +continuing her own train of thought, and yet vaguely disturbed by the +last sentence. + +"Why should she?" + +"Well, he is so little, for one thing, and she is so tall. And then +Sibyl thinks a great deal of social position." + +"He is a Winslow," said Lorania, archin her neck unconsciously--"a +lineal descendant from Kenelm Winslow, who came over in the _May_--" + +"But his mother--" + +"I don't know anything about his mother before she came here. Oh, of +course I know the gossip that she was a niece of the overseer at a +village poor-house, and that her husband quarrelled with all his family +and married her in the poor-house, and I know that when he died here she +would not take a cent from the Winslows, nor let them have the boy. She +is the meekest-looking little woman, but she must have an iron streak in +her somewhere, for she was left without enough money to pay the funeral +expenses, and she educated the boy and accumulated money enough to pay +for this place they have. + +"She used to run a laundry, and made money; but when Cyril got a place +in the bank she sold out the laundry and went into chickens and +vegetables; she told somebody that it wasn't so profitable as the +laundry, but it was more genteel, and Cyril being now in a position of +trust at the bank, she must consider _him_. Cyril swept out the bank. +People laughed about it, but, do you know, I rather liked Mrs. Winslow +for it. She isn't in the least an assertive woman. How long have we been +up here, Maggie? Isn't it four years? And they have been our next-door +neighbors, and she has never been inside the house. Nor he either, for +that matter, except once when it took fire, you know, and he came in +with that funny little chemical engine tucked under his arm, and took +off his hat in the same prim, polite way that he takes it off when he +talks to Sibyl, and said, 'If you'll excuse me offering advice, Miss +Hopkins, it is not necessary to move anything; it mars furniture very +much to move it at a fire. I think, if you will allow me, I can +extinguish this.' And he did, too, didn't he, as neatly and as coolly as +if it were only adding up a column of figures. And offered me the engine +as a souvenir." + +"Lorania, you never told me that!" + +"It seemed like making fun of him, when he had been so kind. I declined +as civilly as I could. I hope I didn't hurt his feelings. I meant to pay +a visit to his mother and ask them to dinner, but you know I went to +England that week, and somehow when I came back it was difficult. It +seems a little odd we never have seen more of the Winslows, but I fancy +they don't want either to intrude or to be intruded on. But he is +certainly very obliging about the garden. Think of all the slips and +flowers he has given us, and the advice--" + +"All passed over the fence. It is funny our neighborly good offices +which we render at arm's-length. How long have you known him?" + +"Oh, a long time. He is cashier of my bank, you know. First he was +teller, then assistant cashier, and now for five years he has been +cashier. The president wants to resign and let him be president, but he +hardly has enough stock for that. But Oliver says" (Oliver was Miss +Hopkins's brother) "that there isn't a shrewder or straighter banker in +the state. Oliver knows him. He says he is a sandy little fellow." + +"Well, he is," assented Mrs. Ellis. "It isn't many cashiers would let +robbers stab them and shoot them and leave them for dead rather than +give up the combination of the safe!" + +"He wouldn't take a cent for it, either, and he saved ever so many +thousand dollars. Yes, he _is_ brave. I went to the same school with him +once, and saw him fight a big boy twice his size--such a nasty boy, who +called me 'Fatty,' and made a kissing noise with his lips just to scare +me--and poor little Cyril Winslow got awfully beaten, and when I saw him +on the ground, with his nose bleeding and that big brute pounding him, I +ran to the water-bucket, and poured the whole bucket on that big, +bullying boy and stopped the fight, just as the teacher got on the +scene. I cried over little Cyril Winslow. He was crying himself. 'I +ain't crying because he hurt me,' he sobbed; 'I'm crying because I'm so +mad I didn't lick him!' I wonder if he remembers that episode?" + +"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ellis. + +"Maggie, what makes you think he is falling in love with Sibyl?" + +Mrs. Ellis laughed. "I dare say he _isn't_ in love with Sibyl," said +she. "I think the main reason was his always riding by here instead of +taking the shorter road down the other street." + +"Does he always ride by here? I hadn't noticed." + +"Always!" said Mrs. Ellis. "_I_ have noticed." + +"I am sorry for him," said Lorania, musingly. "I think Sibyl is very +much taken with that young Captain Carr at the Arsenal. Young girls +always affect the army. He is a nice fellow, but I don't think he is +the man Winslow is. Now, Maggie, advise me about the suit. I don't want +to look like the escaped fat lady of a museum." + +Lorania thought no more of Sibyl's love-affairs. If she thought of the +Winslows, it was to wish that Mrs. Winslow would sell or rent her +pasture, which, in addition to her own and Mrs. Ellis's pastures thrown +into one, would make such a delightful bicycle-track. + +The Winslow house was very different from the two villas that were the +pride of Fairport. A little story-and-a-half cottage peeped out on the +road behind the tall maples that were planted when Winslow was a boy. +But there was a wonderful green velvet lawn, and the tulips and +sweet-peas and pansies that blazed softly nearer the house were as +beautiful as those over which Miss Lorania's gardener toiled and +worried. + +Mrs. Winslow was a little woman who showed the fierce struggle of her +early life only in the deeper lines between her delicate eyebrows and +the expression of melancholy patience in her brown eyes. + +She always wore a widow's cap and a black gown. In the mornings she +donned a blue figured apron of stout and serviceable stuff; in the +afternoon an apron of that sheer white lawn used by bishops and smart +young waitresses. Of an afternoon, in warm weather, she was accustomed +to sit on the eastern piazza, next to the Hopkins place, and rock as she +sewed. She was thus sitting and sewing when she beheld an extraordinary +procession cross the Hopkins lawn. First marched the tall trainer, Shuey +Cardigan, who worked by day in the Lossing furniture-factory, and gave +bicycle lessons at the armory evenings. He was clad in a white sweater +and buff leggings, and was wheeling a lady's bicycle. Behind him walked +Miss Hopkins in a gray suit, the skirt of which only came to her +ankles--she always so dignified in her toilets. + +"Land's sakes!" gasped Mrs. Winslow, "if she ain't going to ride a bike! +Well, what next?" + +What really happened next was the sneaking (for no other word does +justice to the cautious and circuitous movements of her) of Mrs. Winslow +to the stable, which had one window facing the Hopkins pasture. No cows +were grazing in the pasture. All around the grassy plateau twinkled a +broad brownish-yellow track. At one side of this track a bench had been +placed, and a table, pleasing to the eye, with jugs and glasses. Mrs. +Ellis, in a suit of the same undignified brevity and ease as Miss +Hopkins's, sat on the bench supporting her own wheel. Shuey Cardigan was +drawn up to his full six feet of strength, and, one arm in the air, was +explaining the theory of the balance of power. It was an uncanny moment +to Lorania. She eyed the glistening, restless thing that slipped beneath +her hand, and her fingers trembled. If she could have fled in secret she +would. But since flight was not possible, she assumed a firm expression. +Mrs. Ellis wore a smile of studied and sickly cheerfulness. + +"Don't you think it very _high_?" said Lorania. "I can _never_ get up on +it!" + +"It will be by the block at first," said Shuey, in the soothing tones of +a jockey to a nervous horse; "it's easy by the block. And I'll be +steadying it, of course." + +"Don't they have any with larger saddles? It is a _very_ small saddle." + +"They're all of a size. It wouldn't look sporty larger; it would look +like a special make. Yous wouldn't want a special make." + +Lorania thought that she would be thankful for a special make, but she +suppressed the unsportsmanlike thought. "The pedals are very small too, +Cardigan. Are you _sure_ they can hold me?" + +"They would hold two of ye, Miss Hopkins. Now sit aisy and graceful as +ye would on your chair at home, hold the shoulders back, and toe in a +bit on the pedals--ye won't be skinning your ankles so much then--and +hold your foot up ready to get the other pedal. Hold light on the +steering-bar. Push off hard. _Now!_" + +"Will you hold me? I am going--Oh, it's like riding an earthquake!" + +Here Shuey made a run, letting the wheel have its own wild way--to reach +the balance. "Keep the front wheel under you!" he cried, cheerfully. +"Niver mind _where_ you go. Keep a-pedalling; whatever you do, keep +a-pedalling!" + +"But I haven't got but one pedal!" gasped the rider. + +"Ye lost it?" + +"No; I _never had_ but one! Oh, don't let me fall!" + +"Oh, ye lost it in the beginning; now, then, I'll hold it steady, and +you get both feet right. Here we go!" + +Swaying frightfully from side to side, and wrenched from capsizing the +wheel by the full exercise of Shuey's great muscles, Miss Hopkins reeled +over the track. At short intervals she lost her pedals, and her feet, +for some strange reason, instead of seeking the lost, simply curled up +as if afraid of being hit. She gripped the steering-handles with an iron +grasp, and her turns were such as an engine makes. Nevertheless, Shuey +got her up the track for some hundred feet, and then by a herculean +sweep turned her round and rolled her back to the block. It was at this +painful moment, when her whole being was concentrated on the effort to +keep from toppling against Shuey, and even more to keep from toppling +away from him, that Lorania's strained gaze suddenly fell on the +frightened and sympathetic face of Mrs. Winslow. The good woman saw no +fun in the spectacle, but rather an awful risk to life and limb. Their +eyes met. Not a change passed over Miss Hopkins's features; but she +looked up as soon as she was safe on the ground, and smiled. In a +moment, before Mrs. Winslow could decide whether to run or to stand her +ground, she saw the cyclist approaching--on foot. + +"Won't you come in and sit down?" she said, smiling. "We are trying our +new wheels." + +And because she did not know how to refuse, Mrs. Winslow suffered +herself to be handed over the fence. She sat on the bench beside Miss +Hopkins in the prim attitude which had pertained to gentility in her +youth, her hands loosely clasping each other, her feet crossed at the +ankles. + +"It's an awful sight, ain't it?" she breathed, "those little shiny +things; I don't see how you ever git on them." + +"I don't get on them," said Miss Hopkins. "The only way I shall ever +learn to start off is to start without the pedals. Does your son ride, +Mrs. Winslow?" + +"No, ma'am," said Mrs. Winslow; "but he knows how. When he was a boy +nothing would do but he must have a bicycle, one of those things most as +big as a mill wheel, and if you fell off you broke yourself somewhere, +sure. I always expected he'd be brought home in pieces. So I don't think +he'd have any manner of difficulty. Why, look at your friend; she's +'most riding alone!" + +"She could always do everything better than I," cried Lorania, with +ungrudging admiration. "See how she jumps off! Now I can't jump off any +more than I can jump on. It seems so ridiculous to be told to press hard +on the pedal on the side where you want to jump, and swing your further +leg over first, and cut a kind of a figure eight with your legs, and +turn your wheel the way you don't want to go--all at once. While I'm +trying to think of all those directions I always fall off. I got that +wheel only yesterday, and fell before I even got away from the block. +One of my arms looks like a Persian ribbon." + +Mrs. Winslow cried out in unfeigned sympathy. She wished Miss Hopkins +would use her liniment that she used for Cyril when he was hurt by the +burglars at the bank; he was bruised "terrible." + +"That must have been an awful time to you," said Lorania, looking with +more interest than she had ever felt on the meek little woman; and she +noticed the tremble in the decorously clasped hands. + +"Yes, ma'am," was all she said. + +"I've often looked over at you on the piazza, and thought how cosey you +looked. Mr. Winslow always seems to be at home evenings." + +"Yes, ma'am. We sit a great deal on the piazza. Cyril's a good boy; he +wa'n't nine when his father died; and he's been like a man helping me. +There never was a boy had such willing little feet. And he'd set right +there on the steps and pat my slipper and say what he'd git me when he +got to earning money; and he's got me every last thing, foolish and all, +that he said. There's that black satin gown, a sin and a shame for a +plain body like me, but he would git it. Cyril's got a beautiful +disposition too, jest like his pa's, and he's a handy man about the +house, and prompt at his meals. I wonder sometimes if Cyril was to git +married if his wife would mind his running over now and then and setting +with me awhile." + +She was speaking more rapidly, and her eyes strayed wistfully over to +the Hopkins piazza, where Sibyl was sitting with the young soldier. +Lorania looked at her pityingly. + +"Why, surely," said she. + +"Mothers have kinder selfish feelings," said Mrs. Winslow, moistening +her lips and drawing a quick breath, still watching the girl on the +piazza. "It's so sweet and peaceful for them, they forget their sons may +want something more. But it's kinder hard giving all your little +comforts up at once when you've had him right with you so long, and +could cook just what he liked, and go right into his room nights if he +coughed. It's all right, all right, but it's kinder hard. And beautiful +young ladies that have had everything all their lives might--might not +understand that a homespun old mother isn't wanting to force herself on +them at all when they have company, and they have no call to fear it." + +There was no doubt, however obscure the words seemed, that Mrs. Winslow +had a clear purpose in her mind, nor that she was tremendously in +earnest. Little blotches of red dabbled her cheeks, her breath came more +quickly, and she swallowed between her words. Lorania could see the +quiver in the muscles of her throat. She clasped her hands tight lest +they should shake. "He's in love with Sibyl," thought Lorania. "The poor +woman!" She felt sorry for her, and she spoke gently and reassuringly: + +"No girl with a good heart can help feeling tenderly towards her +husband's mother." + +Mrs. Winslow nodded. "You're real comforting," said she. She was silent +a moment, and then said, in a different tone: "You 'ain't got a large +enough track. Wouldn't you like to have our pasture too?" + +Lorania expressed her gratitude, and invited the Winslows to see the +practice. + +"My niece will come out to-morrow," she said, graciously. + +"Yes? She's a real fine-appearing young lady," said Mrs. Winslow. + +Both the cyclists exulted. Neither of them, however, was prepared to +behold the track made and the fence down the very next morning when +they came out, about ten o'clock, to the west side of Miss Hopkins's +boundaries. + +"As sure as you live, Maggie," exclaimed Lorania, eagerly, "he's got it +all done! Now that is something like a lover. I only hope his heart +won't be bruised as black and blue as I am with the wheel!" + +"Shuey says the only harm your falls do you is to take away your +confidence," said Mrs. Ellis. + +"He wouldn't say so if he could see my _knees_!" retorted Miss Hopkins. + +Mrs. Ellis, it will be observed, sheered away from the love-affairs of +Mr. Cyril Winslow. She had not yet made up her mind. And Mrs. Ellis, who +had been married, did not jump at conclusions regarding the heart of man +so rapidly as her spinster friend. She preferred to talk of the bicycle. +Nor did Miss Hopkins refuse the subject. To her at this moment the most +important object on the globe was the shining machine which she would +allow no hand but hers to oil and dust. Both Mrs. Ellis and she were +simply prostrated (as to their mental powers) by this new sport. They +could not think nor talk nor read of anything but _the wheel_. This is a +peculiarity of the bicyclist. No other sport appears to make such havoc +with the mind. + +One can learn to swim without describing his sensations to every casual +acquaintance or hunting up the natatorial columns in the newspapers. One +may enjoy riding a horse and yet go about his ordinary business with an +equal mind. One learns to play golf and still remains a peaceful citizen +who can discuss politics with interest. But the cyclist, man or woman, +is soaked in every pore with the delight and the perils of wheeling. He +talks of it (as he thinks of it) incessantly. For this fatuous passion +there is one excuse. Other sports have the fearful delight of danger and +the pleasure of the consciousness of dexterity and the dogged +Anglo-Saxon joy of combat and victory; but no other sport restores to +middle age the pure, exultant, muscular intoxication of childhood. Only +on the wheel can an elderly woman feel as she felt when she ran and +leaped and frolicked amid the flowers as a child. + +Lorania, of course, no longer jumped or ran; she kicked in the Delsarte +exercises, but it was a measured, calculated, one may say cold-blooded +kick, which limbered her muscles but did not restore her youthful glow +of soul. Her legs and not her spirits pranced. The same thing may be +said for Margaret Ellis. Now, between their accidents, they obtained +glimpses of an exquisite exhilaration. And there was also to be counted +the approval of their consciences, for they felt that no Turkish bath +could wring out moisture from their systems like half an hour's pumping +at the bicycle treadles. Lorania during the month had ridden through one +bottle of liniment and two of witch-hazel, and by the end of the second +bottle could ride a short distance alone. But Lorania could not yet +dismount unassisted, and several times she had felled poor Winslow to +the earth when he rashly adventured to stop her. Captain Carr had a +peculiar, graceful fling of the arm, catching the saddle-bar with one +hand while he steadied the handles with the other. He did not hesitate +in the least to grab Lorania's belt if necessary. But poor modest +Winslow, who fell upon the wheel and dared not touch the hem of a lady's +bicycle skirt, was as one in the path of a cyclone, and appeared daily +in a fresh pair of white trousers. + +"Yous have now," Shuey remarked, impressively, one day--"yous have now +arrived at the most difficult and dangerous period in learning the +wheel. It's similar to a baby when it's first learned to walk but +'ain't yet got sense in walking. When it was little it would stay put +wherever ye put it, and it didn't know enough to go by itself, which is +similar to you. When I was holding ye you couldn't fall, but now you're +off alone depindent on yourself, object-struck by every tree, taking +most of the pasture to turn in, and not able to git off save by +falling--" + +"Oh, couldn't you go with her somehow?" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow, appalled +at the picture. "Wouldn't a rope round her be some help? I used to put +it round Cyril when he was learning to walk." + +"Well, no, ma'am," said Shuey, patiently. "Don't you be scared; the +riding will come; she's getting on grandly. And ye should see Mr. +Winslow. 'Tis a pleasure to teach him. He rode in one lesson. I ain't +learning him nothing but tricks now." + +"But, Mr. Winslow, why don't you ride here--with us?" said Sibyl, with +her coquettish and flattering smile. "We're always hearing of your +beautiful riding. Are we never to see it?" + +"I think Mr. Winslow is waiting for that swell English cycle suit that I +hear about," said the captain, grinning; and Winslow grew red to his +eyelids. + +Lorania gave an indignant side glance at Sibyl. Why need the girl make +game of an honest man who loved her? Sibyl was biting her lips and +darting side glances at the captain. She called the pasture practice +slow, but she seemed, nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on the +bench, the captain on one side and Winslow on the other, rattling off +her girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. Ellis, with the anxious, set +faces of the beginner, were pedalling frantically after Cardigan. +Lorania began to pity Winslow, for it was growing plain to her that +Sibyl and the captain understood each other. She thought that even if +Sibyl did care for the soldier, she need not be so careless of Winslow's +feelings. She talked with the cashier herself, trying to make amends for +Sibyl's absorption in the other man, and she admired the fortitude that +concealed the pain that he must feel. It became quite the expected thing +for the Winslows to be present at the practice; but Winslow had not yet +appeared on his wheel. He used to bring a box of candy with him, or +rather three boxes--one for each lady, he said--and a box of peppermints +for his mother. He was always very attentive to his mother. + +"And fancy, Aunt Margaret," laughed Sibyl, "he has asked both auntie +and me to the theatre. He is not going to compromise himself by singling +one of us out. He's a careful soul. By the way, Aunt Margaret, Mrs. +Winslow was telling me yesterday that I am the image of auntie at my +age. Am I? Do I look like her? Was she as slender as I?" + +"Almost," said Mrs. Ellis, who was not so inflexibly truthful as her +friend. + +"No, Sibyl," said Lorania, with a deep, deep sigh, "I was always plump; +I was a chubby _child_! And oh, what do you think I heard in the crowd +at Manly's once? One woman said to another, 'Miss Hopkins has got a +wheel.' 'Miss Sibyl?' said the other. 'No; the stout Miss Hopkins,' said +the first creature; and the second--" Lorania groaned. + +"What _did_ she say to make you feel that way?" + +"She said--she said, 'Oh my!'" answered Lorania, with a dying look. + +"Well, she was horrid," said Mrs. Ellis; "but you know you have grown +thin. Come on; let's ride!" + +"I _never_ shall be able to ride," said Lorania, gloomily. "I can get +on, but I can't get off. And they've taken off the brake, so I can't +stop. And I'm object-struck by everything I look at. Some day I shall +look down-hill. Well, my will's in the lower drawer of the mahogany +desk." + +Perhaps Lorania had an occult inkling of the future. For this is what +happened: That evening Winslow rode on to the track in his new English +bicycle suit, which had just come. He hoped that he didn't look like a +fool in those queer clothes. But the instant he entered the pasture he +saw something that drove everything else out of his head, and made him +bend over the steering-bar and race madly across the green; Miss +Hopkins's bicycle was running away down-hill! Cardigan, on foot, was +pelting obliquely, in the hopeless thought to intercept her, while Mrs. +Ellis, who was reeling over the ground with her own bicycle, wheeled as +rapidly as she could to the brow of the hill, where she tumbled off, and +abandoning the wheel, rushed on foot to her friend's rescue. + +She was only in time to see a flash of silver and ebony and a streak of +brown dart before her vision and swim down the hill like a bird. Lorania +was still in the saddle, pedalling from sheer force of habit, and +clinging to the handle bars. Below the hill was a stone wall, and +farther was a creek. There was a narrow opening in the wall where the +cattle went down to drink; if she could steer through that she would +have nothing worse than soft water and mud; but there was not one chance +in a thousand that she could pass that narrow space. Mrs. Winslow, +horror-stricken, watched the rescuer, who evidently was cutting across +to catch the bicycle. + +"He's riding out of sight!" thought Shuey, in the rear. He himself did +not slacken his speed, although he could not be in time for the +catastrophe. Suddenly he stiffened; Winslow was close to the runaway +wheel. + +"Grab her!" yelled Shuey. "Grab her by the belt! _Oh, Lord!_" + +The exclamation exploded like the groan of a shell. For while Winslow's +bicycling was all that could be wished, and he flung himself in the path +of the on-coming wheel with marvellous celerity and precision, he had +not the power to withstand the never yet revealed number of pounds +carried by Miss Lorania, impelled by the rapid descent and gathering +momentum at every whirl. They met; he caught her; but instantly he was +rolling down the steep incline and she was doubled up on the grass. He +crashed sickeningly against the stone wall; she lay stunned and still +on the sod; and their friends, with beating hearts, slid down to them. +Mrs. Winslow was on the brow of the hill. She blesses Shuey to this day +for the shout he sent up, "Nobody killed, and I guess no bones broken." + +When Margaret went home that evening, having seen her friend safely in +bed, not much the worse for her fall, she was told that Cardigan wished +to see her. Shuey produced something from his pocket, saying: "I picked +this up on the hill, ma'am, after the accident. It maybe belongs to him, +or it maybe belongs to her; I'm thinking the safest way is to just give +it to you." He handed Mrs. Ellis a tiny gold-framed miniature of Lorania +in a red leather case. + + * * * * * + +The morning was a sparkling June morning, dewy and fragrant, and the +sunlight burnished handle and pedal of the friends' bicycles standing on +the piazza unheeded. It was the hour for morning practice, but Miss +Hopkins slept in her chamber, and Mrs. Ellis sat in the little parlor +adjoining, and thought. + +She did not look surprised at the maid's announcement that Mrs. Winslow +begged to see her for a few moments. Mrs. Winslow was pale. She was a +good sketch of discomfort on the very edge of her chair, clad in the +black silk which she wore Sundays, her head crowned with her bonnet of +state, and her hands stiff in a pair of new gloves. + +"I hope you'll excuse me not sending up a card," she began. "Cyril got +me some going on a year ago, and I _thought_ I could lay my hand right +on 'em, but I'm so nervous this morning I hunted all over, and they +wasn't anywhere. I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask if you picked up +anything--a little red Russia-leather case--" + +"Was it a miniature--a miniature of my friend Miss Hopkins?" + +"I thought it all over, and I came to explain. You no doubt think it +strange; and I can assure you that my son never let any human being look +at that picture. I never knew about it myself till it was lost and he +got out of his bed--he ain't hardly able to walk--and staggered over +here to look for it, and I followed him; and so he _had_ to tell me. He +had it painted from a picture that came out in the papers. He felt it +was an awful liberty. But--you don't know how my boy feels, Mrs. Ellis; +he has worshipped that woman for years. He 'ain't never had a thought +of anybody but her since they was children in school; and yet he's been +so modest and so shy of pushing himself forward that he didn't do a +thing until I put him on to help you with this bicycle." + +Margaret Ellis did not know what to say. She thought of the marquis; and +Mrs. Winslow poured out her story: "He 'ain't never said a word to me +till this morning. But don't I _know_? Don't I know who looked out so +careful for her investments? Don't I know who was always looking out for +her interest, silent, and always keeping himself in the background? Why, +she couldn't even buy a cow that he wa'n't looking round to see that she +got a good one! 'Twas him saw the gardener, and kept him from buying +that cow with tuberculosis, 'cause he knew about the herd. He knew by +finding out. He worshipped the very cows she owned, you may say, and +I've seen him patting and feeding up her dogs; it's to our house that +big mastiff always goes every night. Mrs. Ellis, it ain't often that a +woman gits love such as my son is offering, only he da'sn't offer it, +and it ain't often a woman is loved by such a good man as my son. He +'ain't got any bad habits; he'll die before he wrongs anybody; and he +has got the sweetest temper you ever see; and he's the tidiest man +about the house you could ask, and the promptest about meals." + +Mrs. Ellis looked at her flushed face, and sent another flood of color +into it, for she said, "Mrs. Winslow, I don't know how much good I may +be able to do, but I am on your side." + +Her eyes followed the little black figure when it crossed the lawn. She +wondered whether her advice was good, for she had counselled that +Winslow come over in the evening. + +"Maggie," said a voice. Lorania was in the doorway. "Maggie," she said, +"I ought to tell you that I heard every word." + +"Then _I_ can tell _you_," cried Mrs. Ellis, "that he is fifty times +more of a man than the marquis, and loves you fifty thousand times +better!" + +Lorania made no answer, not even by a look. What she felt, Mrs. Ellis +could not guess. Nor was she any wiser when Winslow appeared at her +gate, just as the sun was setting. + +"I didn't think I would better intrude on Miss Hopkins," said he, "but +perhaps you could tell me how she is this evening. My mother told me how +kind you were, and perhaps you--you would advise if I might venture to +send Miss Hopkins some flowers." + +Out of the kindness of her heart Mrs. Ellis averted her eyes from his +face; thus she was able to perceive Lorania saunter out of the Hopkins +gate. So changed was she by the bicycle practice that, wrapped in her +niece's shawl, she made Margaret think of the girl. An inspiration +flashed to her; she knew the cashier's dependence on his eye-glasses, +and he was not wearing them. + +"If you want to know how Miss Hopkins is, why not speak to her niece +now?" said she. + +He started. He saw Miss Sibyl, as he supposed, and he went swiftly down +the street. "Miss Sibyl!" he began, "may I ask how is your aunt?"--and +then she turned. + +She blushed, then she laughed aloud. "Has the bicycle done so much for +me?" said she. + +"The bicycle didn't need to do _anything_ for you!" he cried, warmly. + +Mrs. Ellis, a little distance in the rear, heard, turned, and walked +thoughtfully away. "They're off," said she--she had acquired a sporting +tinge of thought from Shuey Cardigan. "If with that start he can't make +the running, it's a wonder." + +"I have invited Mr. Winslow and his mother to dinner," said Miss +Hopkins, in the morning. "Will you come too, Maggie?" + +"I'll back him against the marquis," thought Margaret, gleefully. + +A week later Lorania said: "I really think I must be getting thinner. +Fancy Mr. Winslow, who is so clear-sighted, mistaking me for Sibyl! He +says--I told him how I had suffered from my figure--he says it can't be +what he has suffered from his. Do you think him so very short, Maggie? +Of course he isn't tall, but he has an elegant figure, I think, and I +never saw anywhere such a rider!" + +Mrs. Ellis answered, heartily, "He isn't very small, and he is a +beautiful figure on the wheel!" And added to herself, "I know what was +in that letter she sent yesterday to the marquis! But to think of its +all being due to the bicycle!" + + + + +The Marrying of Esther + +BY MARY M. MEARS + + +"Set there and cry; it's so sensible; and I 'ain't said that a June +weddin' wouldn't be a little nicer. But what you goin' to live on? Joe +can't git his money that soon." + +"He--said he thought he could manage. But I won't be married at all if I +can't have it--right." + +"Well, you can have it right. All is, there are some folks in this town +that if they don't calculate doin' real well by you, I don't feel called +upon to invite." + +"I don't know what you mean," sobbed the girl. She sat by the kitchen +table, her face hidden in her arms. Her mother stood looking at her +tenderly, and yet with a certain anger. + +"I mean about the presents. You've worked in the church, you've sung in +the choir for years, and now it's a chance for folks to show that they +appreciate it, and without they're goin' to--Boxes of cake would be +plenty if they wa'n't goin' to serve you any better than they did Ella +Plummet." + +Esther Robinson lifted her head. She was quite large, in a soft young +way, and her skin was as pure as a baby's. "But you can't know +beforehand how they're going to treat me!" + +"Yes, I can know beforehand, too, and if you're set on next month, it's +none too soon to be seein' about it. I've a good mind to step over to +Mis' Lawrence's and Mis' Stetson's this afternoon." + +"Mother! You--wouldn't ask 'em anything?" + +Mrs. Robinson hung away her dishtowel; then she faced Esther. "Of course +I wouldn't _ask_ 'em; there's other ways of findin' out besides +_asking_. I'd bring the subject round by saying I hoped there wouldn't +be many duplicates, and I'd git out of 'em what they intended givin' +without seemin' to." Esther looked at her mother with a sort of +fascination. "Then we could give some idea about the refreshments; for I +ain't a-goin' to have no elaborate layout without I _do_ know; and it +ain't because I grudge the money, either," she added, in swift +self-defence. + +Mrs. Robinson was a good manager of the moderate means her husband had +left her, but she was not parsimonious or inhospitable. Now she was +actuated by a fierce maternal jealousy. Esther, despite her pleasant +ways and her helpfulness, was often overlooked in a social way. This was +due to her mother. The more pretentious laughed about Mrs. Robinson, and +though the thrifty, contented housewife never missed the amenities which +might have been extended to her, she was keenly alive to any slights put +upon her daughter. And so it was now. + +Mrs. Lawrence, a rich, childless old lady, lived next door, and about +four o'clock she went over there. The girl watched her departure +doubtfully, but the possibility of not having a large wedding kept her +from giving a full expression to her feelings. + +Esther had always dreamed of her wedding; she had looked forward to it +just as definitely before she met Joe Elsworth as after her engagement +to him. There would be flowers and guests and feasting, and she would be +the centre of it all in a white dress and veil. + +She had never thought about there being any presents. Now for the first +time she thought of them as an added glory, but her imagination did not +extend to the separate articles or to their givers. Esther never +pictured her uncle Jonas at the wedding, yet he would surely be in +attendance in his rough farmer clothes, his grizzled, keen old face +towering above the other guests. She did not picture her friends as she +really knew them; the young men would be fine gentlemen, and the girls +ladies in wonderful toilets. As for herself and Joe, hidden away in a +bureau drawer Esther had a poster of one of Frohman's plays. It +represented a bride and groom standing together in a drift of orange +blossoms. + +Mrs. Robinson did not return at supper-time, and Esther ate alone. At +eight o'clock Joe Elsworth came. She met him at the door, and they +kissed in the entry. Then Joe preceded her in, and hung up his cap on a +projecting knob of the what-not--that was where he always put it. He +glanced into the dining-room and took in the waiting table. + +"Haven't you had supper yet!" + +"Mother isn't home." + +He came towards her swiftly; his eyes shone with a sudden elated +tenderness. She raised her arms and turned away her face, but he swept +aside the ineffectual barrier. When he let her go she seated herself on +the farther side of the room. Her glance was full of a soft rebuke. He +met it, then looked down smilingly and awkwardly at his shoes. + +"Where did you say your ma had gone?" + +"She's gone to Mis' Lawrence's, and a few other places." + +"Oh, calling. Old Mis' Norton goes about twice a year, and I ask her +what it amounts to." + +"I guess you'll find ma's calls'll amount to something." + +"How's that?" he demanded. + +"She's--going to try and find out what they intend giving." + +"What they intend giving?" + +"Yes. And without they intend giving something worth while, she says she +won't invite 'em, and maybe we won't have a big wedding at all," she +finished, pathetically. + +Joe did not answer. Esther stole an appealing glance at him. + +"Does it seem a queer thing to do?" + +"Well, yes, rather." + +Her face quivered. "She said I'd done so much for Mis' Lawrence--" + +"Well, you have, and I've wished a good many times that you wouldn't. +I'm sure I never knuckled to her, though she is my great-aunt." + +"I never knuckled to her, either," protested Esther. + +"You've done a sight more for her than I would have done, fixin' her +dresses and things, and she with more money than anybody else in town. +But your mother ain't going to call on everybody, is she?" he asked, +anxiously. + +"Of course she ain't. Only she said, if it was going to be in June--but +I don't want it to be ever," she added, covering her face. + +"Oh, it's all right," said Joe, penitently. He went over and put his arm +around her. Nevertheless, his eyes held a worried look. + +Joe's father had bound him out to a farmer by the name of Norton until +his majority, when the sum of seven hundred dollars, all the little +fortune the father had left, together with three hundred more from +Norton, was to be turned over to him. But Joe would not be twenty-one +until October. It was going to be difficult for him to arrange for the +June wedding Esther desired. He was very much in love, however, and +presently he lifted his boyish cheek from her hair. + +"I think I'll take that cottage of Lanham's; it's the only vacant house +in the village, and he's promised to wait for the rent, so that +confounded old Norton needn't advance me a cent." + +Esther flushed. "What do you suppose makes him act so?" she questioned, +though she knew. + +Joe blushed too. "He don't like it because I'm going to work in the +factory when it opens. But Mis' Norton and Sarah have done everything +for me," he added, decidedly. + +Up to the time of his engagement Joe had been in the habit of showing +Sarah Norton an occasional brotherly attention, and he would have +continued to do so had not Esther and Mrs. Robinson interfered--Esther +from girlish jealousy, and her mother because she did not approve of the +family, she said. She could not say she did not approve of Sarah, for +there was not a more upright, self-respecting girl in the village. But +Sarah, because of her father's miserliness, often went out for extra +work when the neighbors needed help, and this was the real cause of Mrs. +Robinson's feeling. Unconsciously she made the same distinction between +Sarah Norton and Esther that some of the more ambitious of the village +mothers made between their girls and her own daughter. Then it was +common talk that old Jim Norton, for obvious reasons, was displeased +with Joe's matrimonial plans, but Mrs. Robinson professed to believe +that the wife and daughter were really the ones disappointed. Now Esther +began twisting a button of Joe's coat. + +"I don't believe mother'll ask either of 'em to the wedding," said she. + +When Mrs. Robinson entered, Esther stood expectant and fearful by the +table. Her mother drew up a chair and reached for the bread. + +"I didn't stop anywhere for supper. You've had yours, 'ain't you?" + +The girl nodded. + +"Joe come?" + +"He just left." + +But Mrs. Robinson was not to be hurried into divulging the result of her +calls. She remained massively mysterious. Esther began to wish she had +not hurried Joe off so unceremoniously. After her first cup of tea, +however, her mother asked for a slip of paper and a pencil. "I want that +pencil in my machine drawer, that writes black, and any kind of paper'll +do," she said. + +Esther brought them; then she took up her sewing. She was not without a +certain self-restraint. Mrs. Robinson, between her sips of tea, wrote. +The soft gurgle of her drinking annoyed Esther, and she had a tingling +desire to snatch the paper. After a last misdirected placing of her cup +in her plate, however, her mother looked up and smiled triumphantly. + +"I guess we'll have to plan something different than boxes of cake. +Listen to this; Mis' Lawrence--No, I won't read that yet. Mis' +Manning--I went in there because I thought about her not inviting you +when she gave that library party--one salt and pepper with rose-buds +painted on 'em." + +Esther leaned forward; her face was crimson. + +"You needn't look so," remonstrated her mother. "It was all I could do +to keep from laughing at the way she acted. I just mentioned that we +were only goin' to invite those you were indebted to, and she went and +fetched out that salt and pepper. I believe she said they was intended +in the first place for some relative that didn't git married in the +end." + +The girl made an inarticulate noise in her throat. Her mother continued, +in a loud, impressive tone: + +"Mis' Stetson--something worked. She hasn't quite decided what, but +she's goin' to let me know about it. Jane Watson--" + +"You didn't go _there_, mother!" + +Mrs. Robinson treated her daughter to a contemptuous look. "I guess I've +got sense. Jane was at Mis' Stetson's, and when I came away she went +along with me, and insisted that I should stop and see some +lamp-lighters she'd got to copy from--those paper balls. She seemed +afraid a string of those wouldn't be enough, but I told her how pretty +they was, and how much you'd be pleased." + +"I guess I'll think a good deal more of 'em than I will of Mis' +Manning's salt and pepper." Esther was very near tears. + +"Next I went to the Rogerses, and they've about concluded to give you a +lamp; and they can afford to. Then that's all the places I've been, +except to Mis' Lawrence's, and she"--Mrs. Robinson paused for +emphasis--"she's goin' to give you a silver _tea-set_!" + +Esther looked at her mother, her red lips apart. + +"That was the first place I called, and I said pretty plain what I was +gittin' at; but after I knew about the water-set, that settled what kind +of weddin' we'd have." + + * * * * * + +But the next morning the world looked different. Her rheumatic foot +ached, and that always affected her temper; but when they sat down to +sew, the real cause of her irascibleness came out. + +"Mis' Lawrence wa'n't any more civil than she need be," she remarked. "I +guess she'd decided she'd got to do something, being related to Joe. She +said she supposed you were expecting a good many presents; and I said +no, you didn't look for many, and there were some that you'd done a good +deal for that you knew better than to expect anything from. I was mad. +Then she turned kind of red, and mentioned about the water-set." + +And in the afternoon a young girl acquaintance added to Esther's +perturbation. "I just met Susan Rogers," she confided to the other, "and +she said they hated to give that lamp, but they supposed they were in +for it." + +Esther was not herself for some days. All her pretty dreams were blotted +out, and a morbid embarrassment took hold of her; but she was roused to +something like her old interest when the presents began to come in and +she saw her mother's active preparations for the wedding--the more so as +over the village seemed to have spread a pleasant excitement concerning +the event. Presents arrived from unexpected sources, so that +invitations had to be sent afterwards to the givers. Women who had +never crossed the Robinson threshold came now like Hindoo gift-bearers +before some deity whom they wished to propitiate. Meeting there, they +exchanged droll, half-deprecating glances. Mrs. Robinson's calls had +formed the subject of much laughing comment; but weddings were not +common in Marshfield, and the desire to be bidden to this one was +universal; it spread like an epidemic. + +Mrs. Robinson was at first elated. She overlooked the matter of +duplicates, and accepted graciously every article that was +tendered--from a patch-work quilt to a hem-stitched handkerchief. "You +can't have too many of some things," she remarked to Esther. But later +she reversed this statement. Match-safes, photograph-frames, and pretty +nothings accumulated to an alarming extent. + +"Now that's the last pin-cushion you're goin' to take," she declared, as +she returned from answering a call at the door one evening. "There's +fourteen in the parlor now. Some folks seem to have gone crazy on +pin-cushions." + +She grew confused, and the next day she went into the parlor, which, +owing to the nature of the display, resembled a booth at a church fair, +and made an accurate list of the articles received. When she emerged, +her large, handsome face was quite flushed. + +"Little wabbly, fall-down things, most of 'em. It'll take you a week to +dust your house if you have all those things standin' round." + +"Well, I ain't goin' to put none of 'em away," declared Esther. "I like +ornaments." + +"Glad you do; you've got enough of 'em, land knows. _Ornaments!_" The +very word seemed to incense her. "I guess you'll find there's something +needed besides _ornaments_ when you come right down to livin'. For one +thing, you're awful short of dishes and bedding, and you can't ever have +no company--unless," she added, with withering sarcasm, "you give 'em +little vases to drink out of, and put 'em to bed under a picture-drape, +with a pin-cushion or a scent-bag for a piller." + +And from that time Mrs. Robinson accepted no gift without first +consulting her list. It became known that she looked upon useful +articles with favor, and brooms and flat-irons and bright tinware +arrived constantly. Then it was that the heterogeneous collection began +to pall upon Esther. The water-set had not yet been presented, but its +magnificence grew upon her, and she persuaded Joe to get a +spindle-legged stand on which to place it, although he could not furnish +the cottage until October, and had gone in debt for the few necessary +things. She pictured the combination first in one corner of the little +parlor, then another, finally in a window where it could be seen, from +the road. + +Esther's standards did not vary greatly from her mother's, but she had a +bewildered sense that they were somehow stepping from the beaten track +of custom. On one or two points, however, she was firm. The few novels +that had come within her reach she had conned faithfully. Thus, even +before she had a lover, she had decided that the most impressive hour +for a wedding was sunrise, and had arranged the procession which was to +wend its way towards the church. And in these matters her mother, +respecting her superior judgment, stood stanchly by her. + +Nevertheless, when the eventful morning arrived she was bitterly +disappointed. She had set her heart on having the church bell rung, and +overlooked the fact that the meeting-house bell was cracked, till Joe +reminded her. Then the weather was unexpectedly chilly. A damp fog, not +yet dispersed by the sun, hung over the barely awakened village, and the +little flower-girl shivered. She had a shawl pinned about her, and when +the procession was fairly started she tripped over it, and there was a +halt while she gathered up the roses and geraniums in her little +trembling hands and thrust them back into the basket. Celia Smith +tittered. Celia was the bridesmaid, and was accompanied by Joe's friend, +red-headed Harry Baker; and Mrs. Robinson and Uncle Jonas, who were far +behind, made the most of the delay. Mrs. Robinson often explained that +she was not a "good walker," and her brother-in-law tried jocularly to +help her along, although he used a cane himself. His weather-beaten old +face was beaming, but it was as though the smiles were set between the +wrinkles, for he kept his mouth sober. He had a flower in his +button-hole, which gave him a festive air, despite the fact that his +clothes were distinctly untidy. Several buttons were off: he had no wife +to keep them sewed on. + +Esther had given but one glance at him. Her head under its lace veil +bent lower and lower. The flounces of her skirt stood out about her +like the delicate bell of a hollyhock; she followed the way falteringly. +Joe, his young eyes radiant, inclined his curly head towards her, but +she did not heed him. The little procession was as an awkward garment +which hampered and abashed her; but just as they reached the church the +sun crept above the tree-tops, and from the bleakness of dawn the whole +scene warmed into the glorious beauty of a June day. The guests lost +their aspect of chilled waiting; Esther caught their admiring glances. +For one brief moment her triumph was complete; the next she had +overstepped its bounds. She went forward scarcely touching Joe's arm. +Her great desire became a definite purpose. She whispered to a member of +her Sunday-school class, a little fellow. He looked at her wonderingly +at first, then darted forward and grasped the rope which dangled down in +a corner of the vestibule. He pulled with a will, but even as the old +bell responded with a hoarse clank, his arms jerked upward, and with +curls flying and fat legs extended he ascended straight to the ceiling. + +"Oh, suz, the Lord's taking him right up!" shrieked an old woman, the +sepulchral explanation of the broken bell but serving to intensify her +terror; and there were others who refused to understand, even when his +sister caught him by the heels. She was very white, and she shook him +before she set him down. Too scared to realize where he was, he fought +her, his little face quite red, and his blouse strained up so that it +revealed the girth of his round little body in its knitted undershirt. + +"Le' me go," he whimpered; "she telled me to do it." + +His words broke through the general amazement like a stone through the +icy surface of a stream. The guests gave way to mirth. Some of the young +girls averted their faces; they could not look at Esther. The matrons +tilted their bonneted heads towards one another and shook softly. "I +thought at first it might be a part of the show," whispered one, "but I +guess it wasn't planned." + +Esther was conscious of every whisper and every glance; shame seemed to +engulf her, but she entered the church holding her head high. When they +emerged into the sunshine again, she would have been glad to run away, +but she was forced to pause while her mother made an announcement. + +"The refreshments will be ready by ten," she said, "and as we calculate +to keep the tables runnin' all day, those that can't come one time can +come another." + +After which there was a little rice-throwing, and the young couple +departed. The frolic partly revived Esther's spirits; but her mother, +toiling heavily along with a hard day's work before her, was inclined to +speak her mind. Her brother-in-law, however, restrained her. + +"Seems to me I never seen anything quite so cute as that little feller +a-ringin' that bell for the weddin'. Who put him up to it, anyhow?" + +"Why, Esther. She was so set on havin' a 'chime,' as she called it." + +"Well, it was a real good idee! A _real_ good idee!" and he kept +repeating the phrase as though in a perfect ecstasy of appreciation. + +When Esther reached home, she and Joe arranged the tables in the side +yard, but when the first guest turned in at the gate her mother sent her +to the house. "Now you go into the parlor and rest. You can just as well +sit under that dove as stand under it," she said. + +The girl started listlessly to obey, but the next words revived her like +wine: + +"I declare it's Mis' Lawrence, and she's bringing that water-set; she +hung on to it till the last minit." + +Esther flew to her chamber and donned her veil, which she had laid +aside, then sped down-stairs; but when she passed through the parlor she +put her hands over her eyes: she wanted to look at the water-set first +with Joe. He was no longer helping her mother, and she fluttered about +looking for him. The rooms would soon be crowded, and then there would +be no opportunity to examine the wonderful gift. + +She darted down a foot-path that crossed the yard diagonally. It led to +a gap in the stone-wall which opened on a lane. Esther and Joe had been +in the habit of walking here of an evening. It was scarcely more than a +grassy way overhung by leaning branches of old fruit trees, but it was a +short-cut to the cottage Joe had rented. Now Esther's feet, of their own +volition, carried her here. She slid through the opening. "Joe!" she +called, and her voice had the tremulous cadence of a bird summoning its +mate; but it died away in a little smothered cry, for not a rod away was +Joe, and sitting on a large stone was Sarah Norton. They had their backs +towards her, and were engaged in such an earnest conversation that they +did not hear her. Sarah's shoulders moved with her quick breathing; she +had a hand on Joe's arm. Esther stood staring, her thin draperies +circling about her, and her childish face pale. Then she turned, with a +swift impulse to escape, but again she paused, her eyes riveted in the +opposite direction. From where she stood the back door of her future +home was visible, and two men were carrying out furniture. Involuntarily +she opened her lips to call Joe, but no sound came. Yes, they had the +bureau; they would probably take the spindle-legged stand next. A strong +protective instinct is part of possession, and to Esther that sight was +as a magnet to steel. Down the grassy lane she sped, but so lightly that +the couple by the wall were as unobservant of her as they were of the +wind stirring the long grass. + +Sarah Norton rose. "I run every step of the way to get here in time. +Please, Joe!" she panted. + +He shook his head. "It's real kind of you and your mother, Sarah, but I +guess I ain't going to touch any of the money you worked for and earned, +and I can't help but think, when I talk to Lanham--" + +"I tell you, you can't reason with him in his state!" + +"Well, I'll raise it somehow." + +"You'll have to be quick about it, then," she returned, concisely. +"He'll be here in a few minutes, and it's cash down for the first three +months, or he'll let the other party have it." + +"But he promised--" + +"That don't make any difference. He's drunk, and he thought father'd +offer to make you an advance; but father just told him to come down +here, that you were being married, and say he'd poke all your things out +in the road without you paid." + +The young man turned. Sarah blocked his way. She was a tall, +good-looking girl, somewhat older than Joe, and she looked straight up +into his face. + +"See here, Joe; you know what makes father act so, and so do I, and so +does mother, and mother and I want you should take this money; it'll +make us feel better." Sarah flushed, but she looked at him as directly +as if she had been his sister. + +Joe felt an admiration for her that was almost reverence. It carried him +for the moment beyond the consideration of his own predicament. + +"No, I don't know what makes him act so either," he cried, hotly. "Oh +Lord, Sarah, you sha'n't say such a thing!" + +She interrupted him. "Won't you take it?" + +He turned again: "You're just as good as you can be, but I can manage +some way." + +"I'll watch for Lanham," she answered, quietly, "and keep him talking as +long as I can. He's just drunk enough to make a scene." + +Half-way to the house, Joe met Harry Barker. + +"What did she want?" he inquired, curiously. + +When Joe told him he plunged into his pocket and drew out two dollars, +then offered to go among the young fellows and collect the balance of +the amount, but Joe caught hold of him. + +"Think of something else." + +"I could explain to the boys--" + +"You go and ask Mrs. Lawrence if she won't step out on the porch," the +other commanded; "she's my great-aunt, and I never asked anything of her +before." + +But Mrs. Lawrence was not sympathetic. She told Joe flatly that she +never lent money, and that the water-set was as much as she could afford +to give. "It ain't paid for, though," she added; "and if you'd rather +have the money, I suppose I can send it back. But seems to me I +shouldn't have been in such an awful hurry to git married; I should 'a' +waited a month or so, till I had something to git married on. But you're +just like your father--never had no calculation. Do you want I should +return that silver?" + +Joe hesitated. It was an easy way out of the difficulty. Then a vision +of Esther rose before him, and the innocent preparations she had been +making for the display of the gift; "No," he answered, shortly. And Mrs. +Lawrence, with a shake of the shoulders as though she threw off all +responsibility in her young relative's affairs, bustled away. "I'm going +to keep that water-set if everything else has to go," he declared to the +astonished Harry. "Let 'em set me out in the road; I guess I'll git +along." He had a humorous vision of himself and Esther trudging forth, +with the water-set between them, to seek their fortune. + +He flung himself from the porch, and was confronted by Jonas Ingram. The +old fellow emerged from behind a lilac-bush with a guilty yet excited +air. + +"Young man, I ain't given to eaves-dropping, but I was strollin' along +here and I heered it all; and as I was calculatin' to give my niece a +present--" He broke off and laid a hand on Joe's arm. "Where is that +dod-blasted fool of a Lanham? I'll pay him; then I'll break every bone +in his dum body!" he exclaimed, waxing profane. "Come here disturbin' +decent folks' weddin's! Where is he?" + +He started off down the path, striking out savagely with his stick. Joe +watched him a moment, then put after him, and Harry Barker followed. + +"If this ain't the liveliest weddin'!" + +Nevertheless, he was disappointed in his expectations of an encounter. +When the trio emerged through the gap in the wall they found only Sarah +Norton awaiting them. + +"Lanham's come and gone," she announced. "No, I didn't give him a thing, +except a piece of my mind," she answered, in response to a look from +Joe. "I told him that he was acting like a fool; that father was in for +a thousand dollars to you in the fall, and that you would pay then, as +you promised, and that he'd better clear out." + +"Oh, if I could jest git a holt of him!" muttered Jonas Ingram. + +"That seemed to sober him," continued the girl; "but he said he wasn't +the only one that had got scared; that Merrill was going for his tables +and chairs; but Lanham said he'd run up to the cottage, and if he was +there, he'd send him off. You see, father threw out as if he wasn't +owing you anything," she added, in a lower voice, "and that's what +stirred 'em up." + +Joe turned white, in a sudden heat of anger--the first he had shown, +"I'll stir him--" he began; then his eyes met hers. He reddened. "Oh, +Sarah, I'm ever so much obliged to you!" + +"It was nothing. I guess it was lucky I wasn't invited to the wedding, +though." She laughed, and started away, leaving Joe abashed. She glanced +back. "I hope none of this foolishness'll reach Mis' Elsworth's ears," +she called, in a friendly voice. + +"I hope it won't," muttered Joe, fervently, and stood watching her till +the old man pulled his sleeve. + +"Lanham may not keep his word to the girl. Best go down there, hadn't +we?" + +The young man made no answer, but turned and ran. He longed for some one +to wreak vengeance on. The other two had difficulty in keeping up with +him. The first object that attracted their attention was the bureau. It +was standing beside the back steps. Joe tried the door; it was +fastened. He drew forth the key and fitted it into the lock, but still +the door did not yield. He turned and faced the others. "_Some one's in +there!_" + +Jonas Ingram broke forth into an oath. He shook his cane at the house. + +"Some one's in there, and they've got the door bolted on the inside," +continued Joe. His voice had a strange sound even to himself. He seemed +to be looking on at his own wrath. He strode around to a window, but the +blinds were closed; the blinds were closed all over the house; every +door was barred. Whoever was inside was in utter darkness. Joe came back +and gave the door a violent shake; then they all listened, but only the +pecking of a hen along the walk broke the silence. + +"I'll get a crowbar," suggested Harry, scowling in the fierce sunlight. +Jonas Ingram stood with his hair blowing out from under his hat and his +stick grasped firmly in his gnarled old hand. He was all ready to +strike. His chin was thrust out rigidly. They both pressed close to Joe, +but he did not heed them. He put one shoulder against a panel; every +muscle was set. + +"Whoever you are, if I have to break this door down--" + +There was a soft commotion on the inside and the bolt was drawn. Joe, +with the other two at his heels, fairly burst into the darkened place, +just in time to see a white figure dart across the room and cast itself +in a corner. For an instant they could only blink. The figure wrapped +its white arms about some object. + +"You can have everything but this table; you can't have--this." The +words ended in a frightened sob. + +"_Esther!_" + +"_Oh, Joe!_" She struggled to her feet, then shrank back against the +wall. "Oh, I didn't know it was you. Go 'way! go 'way!" + +"Why, Esther, what do you mean?" He started towards her, but she turned +on him. + +"Where is she?" + +"Where's who?" + +She did not reply, but standing against the wall, she stared at him with +a passionate scorn. + +"You don't mean Sarah Norton?" asked Joe, slowly. Esther quivered. "Why, +she came to tell me of the trouble her father was trying to get me into. +But how did you come here, Esther? How did you know anything about it?" + +She did not answer. Her head sank. + +"How did you, Esther?" + +"I saw--you in the lane," she faltered, then caught up her veil as +though it had been a pinafore. Joe went up to her, and Jonas Ingram took +hold of Harry Barker, and the two stepped outside, but not out of +ear-shot; they were still curious. They could hear Esther's sobbing +voice at intervals. "I tried to make 'em stop, but they wouldn't, and I +slipped in past 'em and bolted the door; and when you came, I thought it +was them--and, oh! ain't they our things, Joe?" + +The old man thrust his head in at the door. "Yes," he roared, then +withdrew. + +"And won't they take the table away?" + +"No," he roared again. "I'd just like to see 'em!" + +Esther wept harder. "Oh, I wish they would; I ought to give 'em up. I +didn't care for them after I thought--that. It was just that I had to +have something I wouldn't let go, and I tried to think only of saving +the table for the water-set." + +"Come mighty near bein' no water-set," muttered Jonas to himself; then +he turned to his companion. "Young man, I guess they don't need us no +more," he said. + +When he regained his sister-in-law's, he encountered that lady carrying +a steaming dish. Guests stood about under the trees or sat at the long +tables. + +"For mercy sakes, Jonas, have you seen Esther? She made fuss enough +about havin' that dove fixed up in the parlor, and she and Joe ain't +stood under it a minit yet." + +"That's a fact," chuckled the old fellow. "They ain't stood under no +dove of peace yet; they're just about ready to now, I reckon." + + * * * * * + +And up through the lane, all oblivious, the lovers were walking slowly. +Just before they reached the gap in the wall, they paused by common +consent. Cherry and apple trees drooped over the wall; these had ceased +blossoming, but a tangle of wild-rose bushes was all ablush. It dropped +a thick harvest of petals on the ground. Joe bent his head; and Esther, +resting against his shoulder, lifted her eyes to his face. All +unconsciously she took the pose of the woman in the Frohman poster. They +kissed, and then went on slowly. + + + + +Cordelia's Night of Romance + +BY JULIAN RALPH + + +Cordelia Angeline Mahoney was dressing, as she would say, "to keep a +date" with a beau, who would soon be waiting on the corner nearest her +home in the Big Barracks tenement-house. She smiled as she heard the +shrill catcall of a lad in Forsyth Street. She knew it was Dutch +Johnny's signal to Chrissie Bergen to come down and meet him at the +street doorway. Presently she heard another call--a birdlike +whistle--and she knew which boy's note it was, and which girl it called +out of her home for a sidewalk stroll. She smiled, a trifle sadly, and +yet triumphantly. She had enjoyed herself when she was no wiser and +looked no higher than the younger Barracks girls, who took up the boys +of the neighborhood as if there were no others. + +She was in her own little dark inner room, which she shared with only +two others of the family, arranging a careful toilet by kerosene-light. +The photograph of herself in trunks and tights, of which we heard in the +story of Elsa Muller's hopeless love, was before her, among several +portraits of actresses and salaried beauties. She had taken them out +from under the paper in the top drawer of the bureau. She always kept +them there, and always took them out and spread them in the lamp-light +when she was alone in her room. She glanced approvingly at the portrait +of herself as a picture of which she had said to more than one girlish +confidante that it showed as neat a figure and as perfectly shaped limbs +as any actress's she had ever seen. But the suggestion of a frown +flitted across her brow as she thought how silly she was to have once +been "stage-struck"--how foolish to have thought that mere beauty could +quickly raise a poor girl to a high place on the stage. Julia Fogarty's +case proved that. Julia and she were stage-struck together, and where +was Julia--or Corynne Belvedere, as she now called herself? She started +well as a figurante in a comic opera company up-town, but from that she +dropped to a female minstrel troupe in the Bowery, and now, Lewy Tusch +told Cordelia, she was "tooing ter skirt-tance in ter pickernic parks +for ter sick-baby fund, ant passin' ter hat arount afterwarts." And evil +was being whispered of her--a pretty high price to pay for such small +success; and it must be true, because she sometimes came home late at +night in cabs, which are devilish, except when used at funerals. + +It was Cordelia who attracted Elsa Muller's sweetheart, Yank Hurst, to +her side, and left Elsa to die yearning for his return. And it was +Cordelia who threw Hurst aside when he took to drink and stabbed the +young man who, during a mere walk from church, took his place beside +Cordelia. And yet Cordelia was only ambitious, not wicked. Few men live +who would not look twice at her. She was not of the stunted tenement +type, like her friends Rosie Mulvey and Minnie Bechman and Julia +Moriarty. She was tall and large and stately, and yet plump in every +outline. Moreover, she had the "style" of an American girl, and looked +as well in five dollars' worth of clothes--all home-made, except her +shoes and stockings--as almost any girl in richer circles. It was too +bad that she was called a flirt by the young men, and a stuck-up thing +by the girls, when in fact she was merely more shrewd and calculating +than the others, who were content to drift out of the primary schools +into the shops, and out of the shops into haphazard matrimony. Cordelia +was not lovable, but not all of us are who may be better than she. She +was monopolized by the hope of getting a man; but a mere alliance with +trousers was not the sum of her hope; they must jingle with coin. + +It was strange, then, that she should be dressing to meet Jerry Donahue, +who was no better than gilly to the Commissioner of Public Works, +drawing a small salary from a clerkship he never filled, while he served +the Commissioner as a second left hand. But if we could see into +Cordelia's mind we would be surprised to discover that she did not +regard herself as flesh-and-blood Mahoney, but as romantic Clarice +Delamour, and she only thought of Jerry as James the butler. The +voracious reader of the novels of to-day will recall the story of +_Clarice, or Only a Lady's-Maid,_ which many consider the best of the +several absorbing tales that Lulu Jane Tilley has written. Cordelia had +read it twenty times, and almost knew it by heart. Her constant dream +was that she could be another Clarice, and shape her life like hers. +The plot of the novel needs to be briefly told, since it guided +Cordelia's course. + +Clarice was maid to a wealthy society dowager. James the butler fell in +love with Clarice when she first entered the household, and she, hearing +the servants' gossip about James's savings and salary, had encouraged +his attentions. He pressed her to marry him. But young Nicholas +Stuyvesant came home from abroad to find his mother ill and Clarice +nursing her. Every day he noticed the modest rosy maid moving +noiselessly about like a sunbeam. Her physical perfection profoundly +impressed him. In her presence he constantly talked to his mother about +his admiration for healthy women. Each evening Clarice reported to him +the condition of the mother, and on one occasion mentioned that she had +never known ache, pain, or malady in her life. The young man often +chatted with her in the drawing-room, and James the butler got his +_congé_. Mr. Stuyvesant induced his mother to make Clarice her companion, +and then he met her at picture exhibitions, and in Central Park by +chance, and next--every one will recall the exciting scene--he paid +passionate court to her "in the pink sewing-room, where she had +reclined on soft silken sofa pillows, with her tiny slippers upon the +head of a lion whose skin formed a rug before her." Clarice thought him +unprincipled, and repulsed him. When the widow recovered her health and +went to Newport, the former maid met all society there. A gifted lawyer +fell a victim to Clarice's charms, and, on a moonlit porch overlooking +the sea, warned her against young Stuyvesant. On learning that the +_roué_ had already attempted to weaken the girl's high principles, to +rescue her he made her his wife. He was soon afterward elected Mayor of +New York, but remained a suitor for his beautiful wife's approbation, +waiting upon her in gilded halls with the fidelity of a knight of old. + +Cordelia adored Clarice and fancied herself just like her--beautiful, +ambitious, poor, with a future of her own carving. Of course such a case +is phenomenal. No other young woman was ever so ridiculous. + +"You have on your besht dresh, Cordalia," said her mother. "It'll soon +be wore out, an' ye'll git no other, wid your father oidle, an' no wan +airnin' a pinny but you an' Johnny an' Sarah Rosabel. Fwhere are ye +goin'?" + +"I won't be gone long," said Cordelia, half out of the hall door. + +"Cordalia Angeline, darlin'," said her mother, "mind, now, doan't let +them be talkin' about ye, fwherever ye go--shakin' yer shkirts an' +rollin' yer eyes. It doan't luk well for a gyurl to be makin' hersel' +attractive." + +"Oh, mother, I'm not attractive, and you know it." + +With her head full of meeting Jerry Donahue, Cordelia tripped down the +four flights of stairs to the street door. As Clarice, she thought of +Jerry as James the butler; in fact, all the beaux she had had of late +were so many repetitions of the unfortunate James in her mind. All the +other characters in her acquaintance were made to fit more or less +loosely into her romance life, and she thought of everything she did as +if it all happened in Lulu Jane Tilley's beautiful novel. Let the reader +fancy, if possible, what a feat that must have been for a tenement girl +who had never known what it was to have a parlor, in our sense of the +word, who had never known courtship to be carried on indoors, except in +a tenement hallway, and who had to imagine that the sidewalk flirtations +of actual life were meetings in private parks, that the wharves and +public squares and tenement roofs where she had seen all the young men +and women making love were heavily carpeted drawing-rooms, broad manor, +house verandas, and the fragrant conservatories of luxurious mansions! +But Cordelia managed all this mental necromancy easily, to her own +satisfaction. And now she was tripping down the bare wooden stairs +beside the dark greasy wall, and thinking of her future husband, the +rich Mayor, who must be either the bachelor police captain of the +precinct, or George Fletcher, the wealthy and unmarried factory-owner +near by, or, perhaps, Senator Eisenstone, the district leader, who, she +was forced to reflect, was an unlikely hero for a Catholic girl, since +he was a Hebrew. But just as she reached the street door and decided +that Jerry would do well enough as a mere temporary James the butler, +and while Jerry was waiting for her on the corner, she stepped from the +stoop directly in front of George Fletcher. + +"Good evening," said the wealthy, young employer. + +"Good evening, Mr. Fletcher." + +"It's very embarrassing," said Mr. Fletcher: "I know your given +name--Cordelia, isn't it?--but your last na--Oh, thank you--Miss +Mahoney, of course. You know we met at that very queer wedding in the +home of my little apprentice, Joe--the line-man's wedding, you know." + +"Te he!" Cordelia giggled. "Wasn't that a terrible strange wedding? I +think it was just terrible." + +"Were you going somewhere?" + +"Oh, not at all, Mr. Fletcher," with another nervous giggle or two. "I +have no plans on me mind, only to get out of doors. It's terrible hot, +ain't it?" + +"May I take a walk with you, Miss Mahoney?" + +It seemed to her that if he had called her Clarice the whole novel would +have come true then and there. + +"I can't be out very late, Mr. Fletcher," said she, with a giggle of +delight. + +"Are you sure I am not disarranging your plans? Had you no engagements?" + +"Oh no," said she; "I was only going out with me lonely." + +"Let us take just a short walk, then," said Fletcher; "only you must be +the man and take me in charge, Miss Mahoney, for I never walked with a +young lady in my life." + +"Oh, certainly not; you never did--I _don't_ think." + +"Upon my honor, Miss Mahoney, I know only one woman in this city--Miss +Whitfield, the doctor's daughter, who lives in the same house with you; +and only one other in the world--my aunt, who brought me up, in +Vermont." + +Well indeed did Cordelia know this. All the neighborhood knew it, and +most of the other girls were conscious of a little flutter in their +breasts when his eyes fell upon them in the streets, for it was the +gossip of all who knew his workmen that the prosperous ladder-builder +lived in his factory, where his had spent the life of a monk, without +any society except of his canaries, his books, and his workmen. + +"Well, I declare!" sighed Cordelia. "How terrible cunning you men are, +to get up such a story to make all the girls think you're romantic!" + +But, oh, how happy Cordelia was! At last she had met her prince--the +future Mayor--her Sultan of the gilded halls. In that humid, sticky, +midsummer heat among the tenements, every other woman dragged along as +if she weighed a thousand pounds, but Cordelia felt like a feather +floating among clouds. + +The babel--did the reader ever walk up Forsyth Street on a hot night, +into Second Avenue, and across to Avenue A, and up to Tompkins Park? +The noise of the tens of thousands on the pavements makes a babel that +drowns the racket of the carts and cars. The talking of so many persons, +the squalling of so many babies, the mothers scolding and slapping every +third child, the yelling of the children at play, the shouts and loud +repartee of the men and women--all these noises rolled together in the +air makes a steady hum and roar that not even the breakers on a hard +sea-beach can equal. You might say that the tenements were empty, as +only the very sick, who could not move, were in them. For miles and +miles they were bare of humanity, each flat unguarded and unlocked, with +the women on the sidewalks, with the youngest children in arms or in +perambulators, while those of the next sizes romped in the streets; with +the girls and boys of fourteen giggling in groups in the doorways (the +age and places where sex first asserts itself), and only the young men +and women missing; for they were in the parks, on the wharves, and on +the roofs, all frolicking and love-making. + +And every house front was like a Russian stove, expending the heat it +had sucked from the all-day sun. And every door and window breathed bad +air--air without oxygen, rich and rank and stifling. + +But Cordelia was Clarice, the future Mayoress. She did not know she was +picking a tiresome way around the boys at leap-frog, and the mothers and +babies and baby-carriages. She did not notice the smells, or feel the +bumps she got from those who ran against her. She thought she was in the +blue drawing-room at Newport, where a famous Hungarian count was +trilling the soft prelude to a _csárdás_ on the piano, and Mr. +Stuyvesant had just introduced her to the future Mayor, who was +spellbound by her charms, and was by her side, a captive. She reached +out her hand, and it touched Mr. Fletcher's arm (just as a ragamuffin +propelled himself head first against her), and Mr. Fletcher bent his +elbow, and her wrist rested in the crook of his arm. Oh, her dream was +true; her dream was true! + +Mr. Fletcher, on the other hand, was hardly in a more natural relation. +He was trying to think how the men talked to women in all the literature +he had read. The myriad jokes about the fondness of girls for ice-cream +recurred to him, and he risked everything on their fidelity to fact. + +"Are you fond of ice-cream?" he inquired. + +"Oh no; I _don't_ think," said Cordelia. "What'll you ask next? What +girl ain't crushed on ice-cream, I'd like to know?" + +"Do you know of a nice place to get some?" + +"Do I? The Dutchman's, on the av'noo, another block up, is the finest in +the city. You get mo--that is, you get everything 'way up in G there, +with cakes on the side, and it don't cost no more than anywhere else." + +So to the German's they went, and Clarice fancied herself at the Casino +in Newport. All the girls around her, who seemed to be trying to swallow +the spoons, took on the guise of blue-blooded belles, while the noisy +boys and young men (calling out, "Hully gee, fellers! look at Nifty +gittin' out der winder widout payin'!" and, "Say, Tilly, what kind er +cream is dat you're feedin' your face wid?") seemed to her so many +millionaires and the exquisite sons thereof. To Mr. Fletcher the +German's back-yard saloon, with its green lattice walls, and its rusty +dead Christmas trees in painted butter-kegs, appeared uncommonly +brilliant and fine. The fact that whenever he took a swallow of water +the ice-cream turned to cold candle-grease in his mouth made no +difference. He was happy, and Cordelia was in an ecstasy by the time he +had paid a shock-headed, bare-armed German waiter, and they were again +on the avenue side by side. She put out her hand and rested it on his +arm again--to make sure she was Clarice. + +One would like to know whether, in the breasts of such as these, +familiar environment exerts any remarkable influence. If so, it could +have been in but one direction. For that part of town was one vast +nursery. Everywhere, on every side, were the swarming babies--a baby for +every flag-stone in the pavements. Babies and babies, and little besides +babies, except larger children and the mothers. Perambulators with two, +even three, baby passengers; mothers with as many as five children +trailing after them; babies in broad baggy laps, babies at the breast, +babies creeping, toppling, screaming, overflowing into the gutters. Such +was the unbroken scene from the Big Barracks to Tompkins Square; ay, to +Harlem and to the East River, and almost to Broadway. In the park, as if +the street scenes had been merely preliminary, the paths were alive, +wriggling, with babies of every age, from the new-born to the children +in pigtails and knickerbockers--and, lo! these were already paired and +practising at courtship. The walk that Cordelia was taking was amid a +fever, a delirium, of maternity--a rhapsody, a baby's opera, if one +considered its noise. In that vast region no one inquired whether +marriage was a failure. Nothing that is old and long-beloved and human +is a failure there. + +In Tompkins Park, while they dodged babies and stepped around babies and +over them, they saw many happy couples on the settees, and they noticed +that often the men held their arms around the waists of their +sweethearts. Girls, too, in other instances, leaned loving heads against +the young men's breasts, blissfully regardless of publicity. They passed +a young man and a woman kissing passionately, as kissing is described by +unmarried girl novelists. Cordelia thought it no harm to nudge Mr. +Fletcher and whisper: + +"Sakes alive! They're right in it, ain't they. 'It's funny when you feel +that way,' ain't it?" + +As many another man who does not know the frankness and simplicity of +the plain people might have done, Mr. Fletcher misjudged the girl. He +thought her the sort of girl he was far from seeking. He grew instantly +cold and reserved, and she knew, vaguely, that she had displeased him. + +"I think people who make love in public should be locked up," said he. + +"Some folks wants everybody put away that enjoys themselves," said +Cordelia. Then, lest she had spoken too strongly, she added, "Present +company not intended, Mr. Fletcher, but you said that like them mission +folks that come around praising themselves and tellin' us all we're +wicked." + +"And do you think a girl can be good who behaves so in public?" + +"I know plenty that's done it," said she; "and I don't know any girls +but what's good. They 'ain't got wings, maybe, but you don't want to +monkey with 'em, neither." + +He recollected her words for many a year afterward and pondered them, +and perhaps they enlarged his understanding. She also often thought of +his condemnation of love-making out-of-doors. Kissing in public, +especially promiscuous kissing, she knew to be a debatable pastime, but +she also knew that there was not a flat in the Big Barracks in which a +girl could carry on a courtship. Fancy her attempting it in her front +room, with the room choked with people, with the baby squalling, and her +little brothers and sisters quarrelling, with her mother entertaining +half a dozen women visitors with tea or beer, and with a man or two +dropping in to smoke with her father! Parlor courtship was to her, like +precise English, a thing only known in novels. The thought of novels +floated her soul back into the dream state. + +"I think Cordelia's a pretty name," said Fletcher, cold at heart but +struggling to be companionable. + +"I don't," said Cordelia. "I'm not at all crushed on it. Your name's +terrible pretty. I think my three names looks like a map of Ireland when +they're written down. I know a killin' name for a girl. It's Clarice. +Maybe some day I'll give you a dare. I'll double dare you, maybe, to +call me Clarice." + +Oh, if he only would, she thought--if he would only call her so now! But +she forgot how unelastic his strange routine of life must have left him, +and she did not dream how her behavior in the park had displeased him. + +"Cordelia is a pretty name," he repeated. "At any rate, I think we +should try to make the most and best of whatever name has come to us. I +wouldn't sail under false colors for a minute." + +"Oh!" said she, with a giggle to hide her disappointment; "you're so +terrible wise! When you talk them big words you can pass me in a walk." + +Anxious to display her great conquest to the other girls of the Barracks +neighborhood, Cordelia persuaded Mr. Fletcher to go to what she called +"the dock," to enjoy the cool breath of the river. All the piers and +wharves are called "docks" by the people. Those which are semi-public +and are rented to miscellaneous excursion and river steamers are crowded +nightly. + +The wharf to which our couple strolled was a mere flooring above the +water, edged with a stout string-piece, which formed a bench for the +mothers. They were there in groups, some seated on the string-piece with +babes in arms or with perambulators before them, and others, facing +these, standing and joining in the gossip, and swaying to and fro to +soothe their little ones. Those who gave their offspring the breast did +so publicly, unembarrassed by a modesty they would have considered +false. A few youthful couples, boy by girl and girl by boy, sat on the +string-piece and whispered, or bandied fun with those other lovers who +patrolled the flooring of the wharf. A "gang" of rude young +men--toughs--walked up and down, teasing the girls, wrestling, +scuffling, and roaring out bad language. Troops of children played at +leap-frog, high-spy, jack-stones, bean-bag, hop-scotch, and tag. At the +far end of the pier some young men and women waltzed, while a lad on the +string-piece played for them on his mouth-organ. A steady, cool, +vivifying breeze from the bay swept across the wharf and fanned all the +idlers, and blew out of their heads almost all recollection of the +furnacelike heat of the town. + +Cordelia forgot her desire to display her conquest. She forgot her true +self. She likened the wharf to that "lordly veranda overlooking the +sea," where the future Mayor begged Clarice to be his bride. She knew +just what she would say when her prince spoke his lines. She and Mr. +Fletcher were just about to seat themselves on the great rim of the +wharf, when an uproar of the harsh, froglike voices of half-grown men +caused them to turn around. They saw Jerry Donahue striding towards +them, but with difficulty, because half a dozen lads and youths were +endeavoring to hold him back. + +"Dat's Mr. Fletcher," they said. "It ain't his fault, Jerry. He's dead +square; he's a gent, Jerry." + +The politician's gilly tore himself away from his friends. The gang of +toughs gathered behind the others. Jerry planted himself in front of +Cordelia. Evidently he did not know the submissive part he should have +played in Cordelia's romance. James the butler made no out-break, but +here was Jerry angry through and through. + +"You didn't keep de date wid me," he began. + +"Oh, Jerry, I did--I tried to, but you--" Cordelia was red with shame. + +"The hell you did! Wasn't I--" + +"Here!" said Mr. Fletcher; "you can't swear at this lady." + +"Why wouldn't I?" Jerry asked. "What would you do?" + +"He's right, Jerry. Leave him be--see?" said the chorus of Jerry's +friends. + +"A-a-a-h!" snarled Jerry. "Let him leave me be, then. Cordelia, I heard +you was a dead fraud, an' now I know it, and I'm a-tellin' you so, +straight--see? I was a-waitin' 'cross der street, an' I seen you come +out an' meet dis mug, an' you never turned yer head to see was I on me +post. I seen dat, an' I'm a-tellin' yer friend just der kind of a racket +you give me, der same's you've give a hundred other fellers. Den, if he +likes it he knows what he's gittin'." + +Jerry was so angry that he all but pushed his distorted face against +that of the humiliated girl as he denounced her. Mr. Fletcher gently +moved her backward a step or two, and advanced to where she had stood. + +"That will do," he said to Jerry. "I want no trouble, but you've said +enough. If there's more, say it to me." + +"A-a-a-h!" exclaimed the gilly, expectorating theatrically over his +shoulder. "Me friends is on your side, an' I ain't pickin' no muss wid +you. But she's got der front of der City Hall to do me like she done. +And say, fellers, den she was goin' ter give me a song an' dance 'bout +lookin' fer me. Ba-a-a! She knows my 'pinion of her--see?" + +The crowd parted to let Mr. Fletcher finish his first evening's +gallantry to a lady by escorting Cordelia to her home. It was a chilly +and mainly a silent journey. Cordelia falteringly apologized for Jerry's +misbehavior, but she inferred from what Mr. Fletcher said that he did +not fully join her in blaming the angry youth. Mr. Fletcher touched her +fingertips in bidding her good-night, and nothing was said of a meeting +in the future. Clarice was forgotten, and Cordelia was not only herself +again, but quite a miserable self, for her sobs awoke the little brother +and sister who shared her bed. + + + + +The Prize-Fund Beneficiary + +BY E.A. ALEXANDER + + +Miss Snell began to apologize for interrupting the work almost before +she came in. The Painter, who grudgingly opened one half of the +folding-door wide enough to let her pass into the studio, was annoyed to +observe that, in spite of her apologies, she was loosening the furs +about her throat as if in preparation for a lengthy visit. Then for the +first time, behind her tall, black-draped figure, he caught sight of her +companion, who was shorter, and whose draperies were of a less ample +character--for Miss Snell, being tall and thin, resorted to voluminous +garments to conceal her slimness of person. A large plumed hat +accentuated, her sallowness and sharpness of feature, and her dark eyes, +set under heavy black brows, intensified her look of unhealthy pallor. + +She was perfectly at her ease, and introduced her companion, Miss +Price, in a few words, explaining that the latter had come over for a +year or so to study, and was anxious to have the best advice about it. + +"So I brought her straight here," Miss Snell announced, triumphantly. + +Miss Price seemed a trifle overcome by the novelty of her surroundings, +but managed to say, in a high nasal voice, that she had already begun to +work at Julian's, but did not find it altogether satisfactory. + +The Painter, looking at her indifferently, was roused to a sudden +interest by her face. Her features and complexion were certainly +pleasing, but the untidy mass of straggling hair topped by a battered +straw sailor hat diverted the attention of a casual observer from her +really unusual delicacy of feature and coloring. She was tall and slim, +although now she was dwarfed by Miss Snell's gaunt figure. A worn dress +and shabby green cape fastened at the neck by a button hanging +precariously on its last thread completed her very unsuitable winter +attire. Outside the great studio window a cold December twilight was +settling down over roofs covered with snow and icicles, and the Painter +shivered involuntarily as he noticed the insufficiency of her wraps for +such weather, and got up to stir the fire which glowed in the big stove. + +In one corner his model waited patiently for the guests to depart, and +he now dismissed her for the day, eliciting faint protestations from +Miss Snell, who, however, was settling down comfortably in an easy-chair +by the fire, with an evident intention of staying indefinitely. Miss +Price's large, somewhat expressionless blue eyes were taking in the +whole studio, and the Painter could feel that she was distinctly +disappointed by her inspection. She had evidently anticipated something +much grander, and this bare room was not the ideal place she had fancied +the studio of a world-renowned painter would prove to be. + +Bare painted walls, a peaked roof with a window reaching far overhead, a +polished floor, one or two chairs and a divan, the few necessary +implements of his profession, and many canvases faced to the wall, but +little or no bric-à -brac or delightful studio properties. The Painter +was also conscious that her inspection included him personally, and was +painfully aware that she was regarding him with the same feeling of +disappointment; she quite evidently thought him too young and +insignificant looking for a person of his reputation. + +Miss Snell had not given him time to reply to Miss Price's remark about +her study at Julian's, but prattled on about her own work and the +unsurmountable difficulties that lay in the way of a woman's successful +career as a painter. + +"I have been studying for years under ----," said Miss Snell, "and +really I have no time to lose. It will end by my simply going to him and +saying, quite frankly: 'Now, Monsieur ----, I have been in your atelier +for four years, and I can't afford to waste another minute. There are no +two ways about it. You positively must tell me how to do it. You really +must not keep me waiting any longer. I insist upon it.' How discouraging +it is!" she sighed. "It seems quite impossible to find any one who is +willing to give the necessary information." + +Miss Price's wandering eyes had at last found a resting-place on a +large, half-finished canvas standing on an easel. Something attractive +in the pose and turn of her head made the Painter watch her as he lent a +feeble attention to Miss Snell's conversation. + +Miss Price's lips were very red, and the clear freshness of extreme +youth bloomed in her cheeks; she was certainly charming. During one of +Miss Snell's rare pauses she spoke, and her thin high voice came with +rather a shock from between her full lips. + +"May I look?" was her unnecessary question, for her eyes had never left +the canvas on the easel since they had first rested there. She rose as +she spoke, and went over to the painting. + +The Painter pulled himself out of the cushions on the divan where he had +been lounging, and went over to push the big canvas into a better light. +Then he stood, while the girl gazed at it, saying nothing, and +apparently oblivious to everything but the work before him. + +He was roused, not by Miss Price, who remained admiringly silent, but by +the enraptured Miss Snell, who had also risen, gathering furs and wraps +about her, and was now ecstatically voluble in her admiration. English +being insufficient for the occasion, she had to resort to French for the +expression of her enthusiasm. + +The Painter said nothing, but watched the younger girl, who turned away +at last with a sigh of approbation. He was standing under the window, +leaning against a table littered with paints and brushes. + +"Stay where you are!" exclaimed Miss Snell, excitedly. "Is he not +charming, Cora, in that half-light? You must let me paint you just so +some day--you must indeed." She clutched Miss Price and turned her +forcibly in his direction. + +The Painter, confused by this unexpected onslaught, moved hastily away +and busied himself with a pretence of clearing the table. + +"I--I should be delighted," he stammered, in his embarrassment, and he +caught Miss Price's eye, in which he fancied a smile was lurking. + +"But you have not given Miss Price a word of advice about her work," +said Miss Snell, as she fastened her wraps preparatory to departure. She +seemed quite oblivious to the fact that she had monopolized all the +conversation herself. + +He turned politely to Miss Price, who murmured something about Julian's +being so badly ventilated, but gave him no clew as to her particular +branch of the profession. Miss Snell, however, supplied all details. It +seemed Miss Price was sharing Miss Snell's studio, having been sent over +by the Lynxville, Massachusetts, Sumner Prize Fund, for which she had +successfully competed, and which provided a meagre allowance for two +years' study abroad. + +"She wants to paint heads," said Miss Snell; and in reply to a remark +about the great amount of study required to accomplish this desire, +surprised him by saying, "Oh, she only wants to paint them well enough +to teach, not well enough to sell." + +"I'll drop in and see your work some afternoon," promised the Painter, +warmed by their evident intention of leaving; and he escorted them to +the landing, warning them against the dangerous steepness of his +stairway, which wound down in almost murky darkness. + +Ten minutes later the centre panel of his door displayed a card bearing +these words: "At home only after six o'clock." + +"I wonder I never thought of doing this before," he reflected, as he lit +a cigarette and strolled off to a neighboring restaurant; "I am always +out by that hour." + + * * * * * + +Several weeks elapsed before he saw Miss Price again, for he promptly +forgot his promise to visit her studio and inspect her work. His own +work was very absorbing just then, and the short winter days all too +brief for its accomplishment. He was struggling to complete the large +canvas that Miss Snell had so volubly admired during her visit, and it +really seemed to be progressing. But the weather changed suddenly from +frost to thaw, and he woke one morning to find little runnels of dirty +water coursing down his window and dismally dripping into the muddy +street below. It made him feel blue, and his big picture, which had +seemed so promising the day before, looked hopelessly bad in this new +mood. So he determined to take a day off, and, after his coffee, +strolled out into the Luxembourg Gardens. There the statues were green +with mouldy dampness, and the paths had somewhat the consistency of very +thin oatmeal porridge. Suddenly the sun came out brightly, and he found +a partially dry bench, where he sat down to brood upon the utter +worthlessness of things in general and the Luxembourg statuary in +particular. The sunny façade of the palace glittered in the brightness. +One of his own pictures hung in its gallery. "It is bad," he said to +himself, "hopelessly bad," and he gloomily felt the strongest proof of +its worthlessness was its popularity with the public. He would probably +go on thinking this until the weather or his mood changed. + +As his eyes strayed from the palace, he glanced up a long vista between +leafless trees and muddy grass-plats. A familiar figure in a battered +straw hat and scanty green cloak was advancing in his direction; the +wind, blowing back the fringe of disfiguring short hair, disclosed a +pure unbroken line of delicate profile, strangely simple, and recalling +the profiles in Botticelli's lovely fresco in the Louvre. Miss Price, +for it was she, carried a painting-box, and under one arm a stretcher +that gave her infinite trouble whenever the wind caught it. As she +passed, the Painter half started up to join her, but she gave him such a +cold nod that his intention was nipped in the bud. He felt snubbed, and +sank back on his bench, taking a malicious pleasure in observing that, +womanlike, she ploughed through all the deepest puddles in her path, +making great splashes about the hem of her skirt, that fluttered out +behind her as she walked, for her hands were filled, and she had no +means of holding it up. + +The Painter resented his snubbing. He was used to the most humble +deference from the art students of the quarter, who hung upon his +slightest word, and were grateful for every stray crumb of his +attention. + +He now lost what little interest he had previously taken in his +surroundings. Just before him in a large open space reserved for the +boys to play handball was a broken sheet of glistening water reflecting +the blue sky, the trees rattled their branches about in the wind, and +now and then a tardy leaf fluttered down from where it had clung +desperately late into the winter. The gardens were almost deserted. It +was too early for the throng of beribboned nurses and howling infants +who usually haunt its benches. One or two pedestrians hurried across the +garden, evidently taking the route to make shortcuts to their +destinations, and not for the pleasure of lounging among its blustery +attractions. + +After idling an hour on his bench, he went to breakfast with a friend +who chanced to live conveniently near, and where he made himself very +disagreeable by commenting unfavorably on the work in progress and +painting in particular. Then he brushed himself up and started off for +the rue Notre Dame des Champs, where Miss Snell's studio was situated. +It was one of a number huddled together in an old and rather dilapidated +building, and the porter at the entrance gave him minute directions as +to its exact location, but after stumbling up three flights of dark +stairs he had no trouble in finding it, for Miss Snell's name, preceded +by a number of initials, shone out from a door directly in front of him +as he reached the landing. + +He knocked, and for several minutes there was a wild scurrying within +and a rattle and clash of crockery. Then Miss Snell appeared at the +door, and exclaimed, in delighted surprise: + +"How _do_ you do? We had quite given you up." + +She looked taller and longer than ever swathed in a blue painting-apron +and grasping her palette and brushes. She had to apologize for not +shaking hands with him, because her fingers were covered with paint that +had been hastily but ineffectually wiped off on a rag before she +answered his knock. + +He murmured something about not coming before because of his work, but +she would not let him finish, saying, intensely, + +"We know how precious every minute is to you." + +Miss Price came reluctantly forward and shook hands; she had evidently +not been painting, for her fingers were quite clean. Short ragged hair +once more fell over her forehead, and the Painter felt a shock of +disappointment, and wondered why he had thought her so fine when she +passed him in the morning. + +"I was just going to paint Cora," announced Miss Snell. "She is taking a +holiday this afternoon, and we were hunting for a pose when you +knocked." + +"Don't let me interrupt you," he said, smiling. "Perhaps I can help." + +Miss Snell was in a flutter at once, and protested that she should be +almost afraid to work while he was there. + +"In that case I shall leave at once," he said; but his chair was +comfortable, and he made no motion to go. + +"What a queer little place it is!" he reflected, as he looked about. +"All sorts of odds and ends stuck about helter-skelter, and the +house-keeping things trying to masquerade as bric-à -brac." + +Cora Price looked decidedly sulky when she realized that the Painter +intended to stay, and seeing this he became rooted in his intention. He +wondered why she took this particular attitude towards him, and +concluded she was piqued because of his delay in calling. She acted like +a spoiled child, and caused Miss Snell, who was overcome by his +condescension in staying, no little embarrassment. + +It was quite evident from her behavior that Miss Price was impressed +with her own importance as the beneficiary of the Lynxville Prize Fund, +and would require the greatest deference from her acquaintances in +consequence. + +"Here, Cora, try this," said Miss Snell, planting a small three-legged +stool on a rickety model-stand. + +"Might I make a suggestion?" said the Painter, coolly. "I should push +back all the hair on her forehead; it gives a finer line." + +"Why, of course!" said Miss Snell. "I wonder we never thought of that +before. Cora dear, you are much better with your hair back." + +Cora said nothing, but the Botticelli profile glowered ominously against +a background of sage-green which Miss Snell was elaborately draping +behind it. + +"If I might advise again," the Painter said, "I would take that down and +paint her quite simply against the gray wall." + +Miss Snell was quite willing to adopt every suggestion. She produced her +materials and a fresh canvas, and began making a careful drawing, which, +as it progressed, filled the Painter's soul with awe. + +"I feel awfully like trying it myself," he said, after watching her for +a few moments. "Can I have a bit of canvas?" + +"Take anything," exclaimed Miss Snell; and he helped himself, refusing +the easel which she wanted to force upon him, and propping his little +stretcher up on a chair. Miss Snell stopped her drawing to watch him +commence. It made her rather nervous to see how much paint he squeezed +out on the palette; it seemed to her a reckless prodigality. + +He eyed her assortment of brushes dubiously, selecting three from the +draggled limp collection. + +Cora was certainly a fine subject, in spite of her sulkiness, and he +grew absorbed in his work, and painted away, with Miss Snell at his +elbow making little staccato remarks of admiration as the sketch +progressed. Suddenly he jumped up, realizing how long he had kept the +young model. + +"Dear me," he cried, "you must be exhausted!" and he ran to help her +down from the model-stand. + +She did look tired, and Miss Snell suggested tea, which he stayed to +share. Cora became less and less sulky, and when at last he remembered +that he had come to see her work, she produced it with less +unwillingness than he had expected. + +He was rather floored by her productions. As far as he could judge from +what she showed him, she was hopelessly without talent, and he could +only wonder which of these remarkably bad studies had won for her the +Lynxville Sumner Prize Fund. + +He tried to give her some advice, and was thanked when she put her +things away. + +Then they all looked at his sketch, which Miss Snell pronounced "too +charming," and Cora plainly thought did not do her justice. + +"I wish you would pose a few times for me, Miss Price," he said, before +leaving. "I should like very much to paint you, and it would be doing me +a great favor." + +The girl did not respond to this request with any eagerness. He fancied +he could see she was feeling huffy again at his meagre praise of her +work. + +Miss Snell, however, did not allow her to answer, but rapturously +promised that Cora should sit as often as he liked, and paid no +attention to the girl's protest that she had no time to spare. + +"This has been simply in-spiring!" said Miss Snell, as she bade him +good-bye, and he left very enthusiastic about Cora's profile, and with +his hand covered with paint from Miss Snell's door-knob. + + * * * * * + +In spite of Miss Snell's assurance that Cora would pose, the Painter was +convinced that she would not, if a suitable excuse could be invented. +Feeling this, he wrote her a most civil note about it. The answer came +promptly, and did not surprise him. + +She was very sorry indeed, but she had no leisure hours at her disposal, +and although she felt honored, she really could not do it. This was +written on flimsy paper, in a big unformed handwriting, and it caused +him to betake himself once more to Miss Snell's studio, where he found +her alone--Cora was at Julian's. + +She promised to beg Cora to pose, and accepted an invitation for them to +breakfast with him in his studio on the following Sunday morning. + +He carefully explained to her that his whole winter's work depended upon +Cora's posing for him. He half meant it, having been seized with the +notion that her type was what he needed to realize a cherished ideal, +and he told this to Miss Snell, and enlarged upon it until he left her +rooted in the conviction that he was hopelessly in love with Cora--a +fact she imparted to that young woman on her return from Julian's. + +Cora listened very placidly, and expressed no astonishment. He was not +the first by any means; other people had been in love with her in +Lynxville, Massachusetts, and she confided the details of several of +these love-affairs to Miss Snell's sympathetic ears during the evening. + +Meanwhile, the Painter did nothing, and a fresh canvas stood on his +easel when the girls arrived for breakfast on Sunday morning. The big +unfinished painting was turned to the wall; he had lost all interest in +it. + +"When I fancy doing a thing I am good for nothing else," he explained to +Cora, after she had promised him a few sittings. "So you are really +saving me from idleness by posing." + +Cora laughed, and was silent. The Painter blessed her for not being +talkative; her nasal voice irritated him, although her beautiful +features were a constant delight. + +Miss Snell had succeeded in permanently eliminating the disfiguring +bang, and her charming profile was left unmarred. + +"I want to paint you just as you are," he said, and noticing that she +looked rather disdainfully at her shabby black cashmere, added, "The +black of your dress could not be better." + +"We thought," said Miss Snell, deprecatingly, "that you might like a +costume. We could easily arrange one." + +"Not in the least necessary," said the Painter. "I have set my heart on +painting her just as she is." + +The girls were disappointed in his want of taste. They had had visions +of a creation in which two Liberty scarfs and a velveteen table cover +were combined in a felicitous harmony of color. + +"When can I have the first sitting?" he asked. + +"Tuesday, I think," said Miss Snell, reflectively. + +"Heavens!" thought the Painter. "Is Miss Snell coming with her?" And the +possibility kept him in a state of nervousness until Tuesday afternoon, +when Cora appeared, accompanied by the inevitable Miss Snell. + +It turned out, however, that the latter could not stay. She would call +for Cora later; just now her afternoons were occupied. She was doing a +pastel portrait in the Champs Elysées quarter, so she reluctantly left, +to the Painter's great relief. + +He did not make himself very agreeable during the sittings which +followed. He was apt to get absorbed in his work and to forget to say +anything. Then Miss Snell would appear to fetch her friend, and he would +apologize for being so dull, and Cora would remark that she enjoyed +sitting quietly, it rested her after the noise and confusion at +Julian's. + +"If she talked much I could not paint her, her voice is so irritating," +he confided to a friend who was curious and asked all sorts of questions +about his new sitter. + +The work went well but slowly, for Cora sat only twice a week. She felt +obliged to devote the rest of her time to study, as she was living on +the prize fund, and she even had qualms of conscience about the two +afternoons she gave up to the sittings. + +During all this time Miss Snell continued to weave chapters of romance +about Cora and the Painter, and the girls talked things over after each +sitting when they were alone together. + +Spring had appeared very early in the year, and the public gardens and +boulevards were richly green. Chestnut-trees blossomed and gaudy +flower-beds bloomed in every square. The Salons opened, and were +thronged with an enthusiastic public, although the papers as usual +denounced them as being the poorest exhibitions ever given. + +The Painter had sent nothing, being completely absorbed in finishing +Cora's portrait, to the utter exclusion of everything else. + +Cora did the exhibitions faithfully. It was one of the duties she owed +to the Lynxville fund, and which she diligently carried out. The Painter +bothered and confused her by many things; he persistently admired all +the pictures she liked least, and praised all those she did not care +for. She turned pale with suppressed indignation when he differed from +her opinion, and resented his sweeping contempt of her criticisms. + +On the strength of a remittance from the prize fund, and in honor of the +season, she discarded the sailor hat for a vivid ready-made creation +smacking strongly of the Bon Marché. The weather was warm, and Cora wore +mitts, which the Painter thought unpardonable in a city where gloves are +particularly cheap. The mitts were probably fashionable in Lynxville, +Massachusetts. Miss Snell, who rustled about in stiff black silk and +bugles, seemed quite oblivious to her friend's want of taste; she was +all excitement, for her pastel portrait--by some hideous mistake--had +been accepted and hung in one of the exhibitions, and the girls went +together on varnishing-day to see it. There they met the Painter +prowling aimlessly about, and Miss Snell was delighted to note his +devotion to Cora. It was a strong proof of his attachment to her, she +thought. The truth was he felt obliged to be civil after her kindness in +posing. He wished he could repay her in some fashion, but since his +first visit to Miss Snell's she had never offered to show him her work +again, or asked his advice in any way, and he felt a delicacy about +offering his services as a teacher when she gave him so little +encouragement. He fancied, too, that she did not take much interest in +his work, and knew she did not appreciate his portrait of her, which was +by far the best thing he had ever done. + +Her lack of judgment vexed him, for he knew the value of his work, and +every day his fellow-painters trooped in to see it, and were loud in +their praises. It would certainly be the _clou_ of any exhibition in +which it might be placed. + +During one sitting Cora ventured to remark that she thought it a pity he +did not intend to make the portrait more complete, and suggested the +addition of various accessories which in her opinion would very much +improve it. + +"It's by far the most complete thing I have ever done," he said. "I +sha'n't touch it again," and he flung down his brushes in a fit of +temper. + +She looked at him contemptuously, and putting on her hat, left the +studio without another word; and for several weeks he did not see her +again. + +Then he met her in the street, and begged her to come and pose for a +head in his big picture, which he had taken up once more. His apologies +were so abject that she consented, but she ceased to be punctual, and he +never could feel quite sure that she would keep her appointments. + +Sometimes he would wait a whole afternoon in vain, and one day when she +failed to appear at the promised hour he shut up his office and strolled +down to the Seine. There he caught sight of her with a gay party who +were about to embark on one of the little steamers that ply up and down +the river. + +He shook his fist at her from the quay where he stood, and watched her +and her party step into the boat from the pier. + +"She thinks little enough of the Lynxville Prize Fund when she wants an +outing," he said to himself, scornfully. + +After fretting a little over his wasted afternoon, he forgot all about +her, and set to work with other models. Then he left Paris for the +summer. + + * * * * * + +A few hours after his return, early in the fall, there came a knock at +his door. He had been admiring Cora's portrait, which to his fresh eye +looked exceptionally good. + +Miss Snell, with eyes red and tearful, stood on his door-mat when he +answered the tap. + +"Poor dear Cora," she said, had received a notice from the Lynxville +committee that they did not consider her work sufficiently promising to +continue the fund another year. + +"She will have to go home," sobbed Miss Snell, but said: "I am forced to +admit that Cora has wasted a good deal of time this summer. She is so +young, and needs a little distraction, now and then," and she appealed +to the Painter for confirmation of this undoubted fact. + +He was absent-minded, but assented to all she said. In his heart he +thought it a fortunate thing that the prize fund should be withdrawn. +One female art student the less: he grew pleased with the idea. Cora had +ceased to interest him as an individual, and he considered her only as +one of an obnoxious class. + +"I thought you ought to be the first to know about it," said Miss Snell, +confidentially, "because you might have some plan for keeping her over +here." Miss Snell looked unutterable things that she did not dare to put +into words. + +She made the Painter feel uncomfortable, she looked so knowing, and he +became loud in his advice to send Cora home at once. + +"Pack her off," he cried. "She is wasting time and money by staying. She +never had a particle of talent, and the sooner she goes back to +Lynxville the better." + +Miss Snell shrank from his vehemence, and wished she had not insisted +upon coming to consult him. She had assured Cora that the merest hint +would bring matters to a crisis. Cora would imagine that she had bungled +matters terribly, and she was mortified at the thought of returning with +the news of a repulse. + +As soon as she had gone, the Painter felt sorry he had been so hasty. He +had bundled her unceremoniously out of the studio, pleading important +work. + +He called twice in the rue Notre Dame des Champs, but the porter would +never let him pass her lodge, and he at last realized that she had been +given orders to that effect. A judicious tip extracted from her the fact +that Miss Price expected to leave for America the following Saturday, +and, armed with an immense bouquet, he betook himself to the St. Lazare +station at the hour for the departure of the Havre express. + +He arrived with only a minute to spare before the guard's whistle was +answered by the mosquitolike pipe that sets the train in motion. + +The Botticelli profile was very haughty and cold. Miss Snell was there, +of course, bathed in tears. He had just time enough to hand in his huge +bouquet through the open window before the train started. He caught one +glimpse of an angry face within, when suddenly his great nosegay came +flying out of the compartment, and striking him full in the face, spread +its shattered paper and loosened flowers all over the platform at his +feet. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14744 *** diff --git a/14744-h/14744-h.htm b/14744-h/14744-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..01752b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/14744-h/14744-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6275 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Different Girls, by Various</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; + text-indent: 1em; + } + H1 { + text-align: center; font-size: 175%; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + H5,H6 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + H2 { + text-align: center; font-size: 145%; font-family: garamond, serif; /* centered and coloured */ + } + H3 { + text-align: center; font-size: 125%; font-family: garamond, serif; /* centered and coloured */ + } + H4 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; font-weight: normal;/* all headings centered */ + } + H1.pg { text-align: center; + font-family: Times Roman, serif; } + H3.pg { text-align: center; + font-family: Times Roman, serif; } + H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .cen {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} /* centering paragraphs */ + .sc {font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 100%;} /* small caps, normal size */ + .sc2 {font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 110%;} /* small caps, larger size */ + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + hr.full { width: 100%; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 8pt;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14744 ***</div> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Different Girls, by Various, Edited by +William Dean Howells and Henry Mills Alden</h1> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>Different Girls<a name="Page_i"></a></h1> + +<h2>Harper's Novelettes</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>Edited By</h3> +<h2>William Dean Howells</h2> +<h3>and</h3> +<h2>Henry Mills Alden</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h6>Harper & Brothers Publishers<br /> +New York and London</h6> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>1895, 1896, 1897, 1904, 1905, 1906<a name="Page_ii"></a></h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h2>Contents<a name="Page_iii"></a></h2> +<br /> + +<div class="cen"> + <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Elizabeth Jordan</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Little_Joys"> + <span class="sc">The Little Joys of Margaret</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Richard Le Gallienne</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Kitties_Sister"> + <span class="sc">Kittie's Sister Josephine</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Alice Brown</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Wizards"> + <span class="sc">The Wizard's Touch</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Charles B. De Camp</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Bitter_Cup"> + <span class="sc">The Bitter Cup</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Mary Applewhite Bacon</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#His_Sister"> + <span class="sc">His Sister</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Eleanor A. Hallowell</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Perfect_Year"> + <span class="sc">The Perfect Year</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">William Dean Howells</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Editha"> + <span class="sc">Editha</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Octave Thanet</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Stout_Miss"> + <span class="sc">The Stout Miss Hopkins's Bicycle</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Mary M. Mears</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Esther"> + <span class="sc">The Marrying of Esther</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Julian Ralph</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Romance"> + <span class="sc">Cordelia's Night of Romance</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">E.A. Alexander</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Prize_Fund"> + <span class="sc">The Prize-Fund Beneficiary</span></a></td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="Page_iv"></a> + +<hr /> +<br /> + +<a name="Introduction"></a><h2>Introduction<a name="Page_v"></a></h2> +<br /> + +<p>It is many years now since the American Girl began to engage the +consciousness of the American novelist. Before the expansive period +following the Civil War, in the later eighteen-sixties and the earlier +eighteen-seventies, she had of course been his heroine, unless he went +abroad for one in court circles, or back for one in the feudal ages. +Until the time noted, she had been a heroine and then an American girl. +After that she was an American girl, and then a heroine; and she was +often studied against foreign backgrounds, in contrast with other +international figures, and her value ascertained in comparison with +their valuelessness, though sometimes she was portrayed in those poses +of flirtation of which she was born mistress. Even in these her +superiority to all other kinds of girls was insinuated if not asserted.</p> + +<p>The young ladies in the present collection are all American girls but<a name="Page_vi"></a> +one, if we are to suppose Mr. Le Gallienne's winning type to be of the +same English origin as himself. We can be surer of him than of her, +however; but there is no question of the native Americanness of Mrs. +Alexander's girl, who is done so strikingly to the life, with courage to +grapple a character and a temperament as uncommon as it is true, which +we have rarely found among our fictionists. Having said this, we must +hedge in favor of Miss Jordan's most autochthonic Miss Kittie, so young +a girl as to be still almost a little girl, and with a head full of the +ideals of little-girlhood concerning young-girlhood. The pendant to her +pretty picture is the study of elderly girlhood by Octave Thanet, or +that by Miss Alice Brown, the one with its ideality, and the other with +its humor. The pathos of "The Perfect Year" is as true as either in its +truth to the girlhood which "never knew an earthly close," and yet had +its fill of rapture. Julian Ralph's strong and free sketch contributes a +fresh East Side flower, hollyhock-like in its gaudiness, to the garden +of American girls, Irish-American in this case, but destined to be +companioned hereafter by blossoms <a name="Page_vii"></a>of our Italian-American, +Yiddish-American, and Russian-American civilization, as soon as our +nascent novelists shall have the eye to see and the art to show them. +Meantime, here are some of our Different Girls as far as they or their +photographers have got, and their acquaintance is worth having.</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">W.D.H.</span><br /> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<a name="Little_Joys"></a><hr /> + +<br /> + +<h2><a name="Page_1"></a>The Little Joys of Margaret</h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Richard Le Gallienne</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Margaret had seen her five sisters one by one leave the family nest, to +set up little nests of their own. Her brother, the eldest child of a +family of seven, had left the old home almost beyond memory, and settled +in London. Now and again he made a flying visit to the small provincial +town of his birth, and sometimes he sent two little daughters to +represent him—for he was already a widowed man, and relied occasionally +on the old roof-tree to replace the lost mother. Margaret had seen what +sympathetic spectators called her "fate" slowly approaching for some +time—particularly when, five years ago, she had broken off her +engagement with a worthless boy. She had loved him deeply, and, had she +loved him less, a refined girl in the provinces does not find it easy to +replace a discarded suitor—for the choice of young men is not +<a name="Page_2"></a>excessive. Her sisters had been more fortunate, and so, as I have said, +one by one they left their father's door in bridal veils. But Margaret +stayed on, and at length, as had been foreseen, became the sole nurse of +a beautiful old invalid mother, a kind of lay sister in the nunnery of +home.</p> + +<p>She came of a beautiful family. In all the big family of seven there was +not one without some kind of good looks. Two of her sisters were +acknowledged beauties, and there were those who considered Margaret the +most beautiful of all. It was all the harder, such sympathizers said, +that her youth should thus fade over an invalid's couch, the bloom of +her complexion be rubbed out by arduous vigils, and the lines +prematurely etched in her skin by the strain of a self-denial proper, no +doubt, to homely girls and professional nurses, but peculiarly wanton +and wasteful in the case of a girl so beautiful as Margaret.</p> + +<p>There are, alas! a considerable number of women predestined by their +lack of personal attractiveness for the humbler tasks of life. +Instinctively we associate them with household work, nursing, and the +general drudgery of existence. One never dreams of their <a name="Page_3"></a>having a life +of their own. They have no accomplishments, nor any of the feminine +charms. Women to whom an offer of marriage would seem as terrifying as a +comet, they belong to the neutrals of the human hive, and are, +practically speaking, only a little higher than the paid domestic. +Indeed, perhaps their one distinction is that they receive no wages.</p> + +<p>Now for so attractive a girl as Margaret to be merged in so dreary, +undistinguished a class was manifestly preposterous. It was a stupid +misapplication of human material. A plainer face and a more homespun +fibre would have served the purpose equally well.</p> + +<p>Margaret was by no means so much a saint of self-sacrifice as not to +have realized her situation with natural human pangs. Youth only comes +once—especially to a woman; and</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>No hand can gather up the withered fallen petals of the Rose of youth.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Petal by petal, Margaret had watched the rose of her youth fading and +falling. More than all her sisters, she was endowed with a zest for +existence. Her superb physical constitution cried out for the joy of +life. She was made to <a name="Page_4"></a>be a great lover, a great mother; and to her, +more than most, the sunshine falling in muffled beams through the +lattices of her mother's sick-room came with a maddening summons +to—live. She was so supremely fitted to play a triumphant part in the +world outside there, so gay of heart, so victoriously vital.</p> + +<p>At first, therefore, the renunciation, accepted on the surface with so +kind a face, was a source of secret bitterness and hidden tears. But +time, with its mercy of compensation, had worked for her one of its many +mysterious transmutations, and shown her of what fine gold her +apparently leaden days were made. She was now thirty-three; though, for +all her nursing vigils, she did not look more than twenty-nine, and was +now more than resigned to the loss of the peculiar opportunities of +youth—if, indeed, they could be said to be lost already. "An old maid," +she would say, "who has cheerfully made up her mind to be an old maid, +is one of the happiest, and, indeed, most enviable, people in all the +world."</p> + +<p>Resent the law as we may, it is none the less true that renunciation +brings with it a mysterious initiation, a finer insight. Its discipline +would seem to refine and temper our organs of spiritual <a name="Page_5"></a>perception, and +thus make up for the commoner experience lost by a rarer experience +gained. By dedicating herself to her sick mother, Margaret undoubtedly +lost much of the average experience of her sex and age, but almost +imperceptibly it had been borne in upon her that she made some important +gains of a finer kind. She had been brought very close to the mystery of +human life, closer than those who have nothing to do beyond being +thoughtlessly happy can ever come. The nurse and the priest are +initiates of the same knowledge. Each alike is a sentinel on the +mysterious frontier between this world and the next. The nearer we +approach that frontier, the more we understand not only of that world on +the other side, but of the world on this. It is only when death throws +its shadow over the page of life that we realize the full significance +of what we are reading. Thus, by her mother's bedside, Margaret was +learning to read the page of life under the illuminating shadow of +death.</p> + +<p>But, apart from any such mystical compensation, Margaret's great reward +was that she knew her beautiful old mother better than any one else in +the world knew her. As a rule, and <a name="Page_6"></a>particularly in a large family, +parents remain half mythical to their children, awe-inspiring presences +in the home, colossal figures of antiquity, about whose knees the +younger generation crawls and gropes, but whose heads are hidden in the +mists of prehistoric legend. They are like personages in the Bible. They +impress our imagination, but we cannot think of them as being quite +real. Their histories smack of legend. And this, of course, is natural, +for they had been in the world, had loved and suffered, so long before +us that they seem a part of that antenatal mystery out of which we +sprang. When they speak of their old love-stories, it is as though we +were reading Homer. It sounds so long ago. We are surprised at the +vividness with which they recall happenings and personalities, past and +gone before, as they tell us, we were born. Before we were born! Yes! +They belong to that mysterious epoch of time—"before we were born"; and +unless we have a taste for history, or are drawn close to them by some +sympathetic human exigency, as Margaret had been drawn to her mother, we +are too apt, in the stress of making our own, to regard the history of +our parents as dry-as-dust.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_7"></a>As the old mother sits there so quiet in her corner, her body worn to a +silver thread, and hardly anything left of her but her indomitable eyes, +it is hard, at least for a young thing of nineteen, all aflush and +aflurry with her new party gown, to realize that that old mother is +infinitely more romantic than herself. She has sat there so long, +perhaps, as to have come to seem part of the inanimate furniture of home +rather than a living being. Well! the young thing goes to her party, and +dances with some callow youth who pays her clumsy compliments, and +Margaret remains at home with the old mother in her corner. It is hard +on Margaret! Yes; and yet, as I have said, it is thus she comes to know +her old mother better than any one else knows her—society perhaps not +so poor an exchange for that of smart, immature young men of one's own +age.</p> + +<p>As the door closes behind the important rustle of youthful laces, and +Margaret and her mother are left alone, the mother's old eyes light up +with an almost mischievous smile. If age seems humorous to youth, youth +is even more humorous to age.</p> + +<p>"It is evidently a great occasion, Peg," the old voice says, with the +suspicion of <a name="Page_8"></a>a gentle mockery. "Don't you wish you were going?"</p> + +<p>"You naughty old mother!" answers Margaret, going over and kissing her.</p> + +<p>The two understand each other.</p> + +<p>"Well, shall we go on with our book?" says the mother, after a while.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, in a moment. I have first to get you your diet, and then we +can begin."</p> + +<p>"Bother the diet!" says the courageous old lady; "for two pins I'd go to +the ball myself. That old taffeta silk of mine is old enough to be in +fashion again. What do you say, Peg, if you and I go to the ball +together ..."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's too much trouble dressing, mother. What do you think?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose it is," answers the mother. "Besides, I want to hear +what happens next to those two beautiful young people in our book. So be +quick with my old diet, and come and read ..."</p> + +<p>There is perhaps nothing so lovely or so well worth having as the +gratitude of the old towards the young that care to give them more than +the perfunctory ministrations to which they have long since grown sadly +accustomed. There was no reward in the world that Margaret would have +exchanged for the sweet <a name="Page_9"></a>looks of her old mother, who, being no merely +selfish invalid, knew the value and the cost of the devotion her +daughter was giving her.</p> + +<p>"I can give you so little, my child, for all you are giving me," her +mother would sometimes say; and the tears would spring to Margaret's +eyes.</p> + +<p>Yes! Margaret had her reward in this alone—that she had cared to +decipher the lined old document of her mother's face. Her other sisters +had passed it by more or less impatiently. It was like some ancient +manuscript in a museum, which only a loving and patient scholar takes +the trouble to read. But the moment you begin to pick out the words, how +its crabbed text blossoms with beautiful meanings and fascinating +messages! It is as though you threw a dried rose into some magic water, +and saw it unfold and take on bloom, and fill with perfume, and bring +back the nightingale that sang to it so many years ago. So Margaret +loved her mother's old face, and learned to know the meaning of every +line on it. Privileged to see that old face in all its private moments +of feeling, under the transient revivification of deathless memories, +she was able, so to say, to reconstruct its perished beauty, <a name="Page_10"></a>and +realize the romance of which it was once the alluring candle. For her +mother had been a very great beauty, and if, like Margaret, you are able +to see it, there is no history so fascinating as the bygone love-affairs +of old people. How much more fascinating to read one's mother's +love-letters than one's own!</p> + +<p>Even in the history of the heart recent events have a certain crudity, +and love itself seems the more romantic for having lain in lavender for +fifty years. A certain style, a certain distinction, beyond question, go +with antiquity, and to spend your days with a refined old mother is no +less an education in style and distinction than to spend them in the air +of old cities, under the shadow of august architecture and in the sunset +of classic paintings.</p> + +<p>The longer Margaret lived with her old mother, the less she valued the +so-called "opportunities" she had missed. Coming out of her mother's +world of memories, there seemed something small, even common, about the +younger generation to which she belonged,—something lacking in +significance and dignity.</p> + +<p>For example, it had been her dream, as it is the dream of every true +woman, to be a mother herself: and yet, somehow—<a name="Page_11"></a>though she would not +admit it in so many words—when her young married sisters came with +their babies, there was something about their bustling and complacent +domesticity that seemed to make maternity bourgeois. She had not dreamed +of being a mother like that. She was convinced that her old mother had +never been a mother like that. "They seem more like wet-nurses than +mothers," she said to herself, with her wicked wit.</p> + +<p>Was there, she asked herself, something in realization that inevitably +lost you the dream? Was to incarnate an ideal to materialize it? Did the +finer spirit of love necessarily evaporate like some volatile essence +with marriage? Was it better to remain on idealistic spectator such as +she—than to run the risks of realization?</p> + +<p>She was far too beautiful, and had declined too many offers of +commonplace marriage, for such questioning to seem the philosophy of +disappointment. Indeed, the more she realized her own situation, the +more she came to regard what others considered her sacrifice to her +mother as a safeguard against the risk of a mediocre domesticity. +Indeed, she began to feel a certain pride, as of a priestess, in the +conservation of the dig<a name="Page_12"></a>nity of her nature. It is better to be a vestal +virgin than—some mothers.</p> + +<p>And, after all, the maternal instinct of her nature found an ideal +outlet in her brother's children—the two little motherless girls who +came every year to spend their holidays with their grandmother and their +aunt Margaret.</p> + +<p>Margaret had seen but little of their mother, but her occasional +glimpses of her had left her with a haloed image of a delicate, +spiritual face that grew more and more Madonna-like with memory. The +nimbus of the Divine Mother, as she herself had dreamed of her, had +seemed indeed to illumine that grave young face.</p> + +<p>It pleased her imagination to take the place of that phantom mother, +herself—a phantom mother. And who knows but that such dream-children, +as she called those two little girls, were more satisfactory in the end +than real children? They represented, so to say, the poetry of children. +Had Margaret been a real mother, there would have been the prose of +children as well. But here, as in so much else, Margaret's seclusion +from the responsible activities of the outside world enabled her to +gather the fine flower of existence without losing the sense<a name="Page_13"></a> of it in +the cares of its cultivation. I think that she comprehended the wonder +and joy of children more than if she had been a real mother.</p> + +<p>Seclusion and renunciation are great sharpeners and refiners of the +sense of joy, chiefly because they encourage the habit of attentiveness.</p> + +<p>"Our excitements are very tiny," once said the old mother to Margaret, +"therefore we make the most of them."</p> + +<p>"I don't agree with you, mother," Margaret had answered. "I think it is +theirs that are tiny—trivial indeed, and ours that are great. People in +the world lose the values of life by having too much choice; too much +choice—of things not worth having. This makes them miss the real +things—just as any one living in a city cannot see the stars for the +electric lights. But we, sitting quiet in our corner, have time to watch +and listen, when the others must hurry by. We have time, for instance, +to watch that sunset yonder, whereas some of our worldly friends would +be busy dressing to go out to a bad play. We can sit here and listen to +that bird singing his vespers, as long as he will sing—and personally I +wouldn't exchange him for a prima donna. Far from being poor in<a name="Page_14"></a> +excitements, I think we have quite as many as are good for us, and those +we have are very beautiful and real."</p> + +<p>"You are a brave child," answered her mother. "Come and kiss me," and +she took the beautiful gold head into her hands and kissed her daughter +with her sweet old mouth, so lost among wrinkles that it was sometimes +hard to find it.</p> + +<p>"But am I not right, mother?" said Margaret.</p> + +<p>"Yes! you are right, dear, but you seem too young to know such wisdom."</p> + +<p>"I have to thank you for it, darling," answered Margaret, bending down +and kissing her mother's beautiful gray hair.</p> + +<p>"Ah! little one," replied the mother, "it is well to be wise, but it is +good to be foolish when we are young—and I fear I have robbed you of +your foolishness."</p> + +<p>"I shall believe you have if you talk like that," retorted Margaret, +laughingly taking her mother into her arms and gently shaking her, as +she sometimes did When the old lady was supposed to have been "naughty."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>So for Margaret and her mother the days pass, and at first, as we have +said, it may seem a dull life, and even a hard<a name="Page_15"></a> one, for Margaret. But +she herself has long ceased to think so, and she dreads the inevitable +moment when the divine friendship between her and her old mother must +come to an end. She knows, of course, that it must come, and that the +day cannot be far off when the weary old limbs will refuse to make the +tiny journeys from bedroom to rocking-chair, which have long been all +that has been demanded of them; when the brave, humorous old eyes will +be so weary that they cannot keep open any more in this world. The +thought is one that is insupportably lonely, and sometimes she looks at +the invalid-chair, at the cup and saucer in which she serves her +mother's simple food, at the medicine-bottle and the measuring-glass, at +the knitted shawl which protects the frail old form against draughts, +and at all such sad furniture of an invalid's life, and pictures the day +when the homely, affectionate use of all these things will be gone +forever; for so poignant is humanity that it sanctifies with endearing +associations even objects in themselves so painful and prosaic. And it +seems to Margaret that when that day comes it would be most natural for +her to go on the same journey with her mother.</p><a name="Page_16"></a> + +<p>For who shall fill for her her mother's place on earth—and what +occupation will be left for Margaret when her "beautiful old <i>raison +d'être</i>," as she sometimes calls her mother, has entered into the sleep +of the blessed? She seldom thinks of that, for the thought is too +lonely, and, meanwhile, she uses all her love and care to make this +earth so attractive and cozy that the beautiful mother-spirit who has +been so long prepared for her short journey to heaven may be tempted to +linger here yet a little while longer. These ministrations, which began +as a kind of renunciation, have now turned into an unselfish +selfishness. Margaret began by feeling herself necessary to her mother; +now her mother becomes more and more necessary to Margaret. Sometimes +when she leaves her alone for a few moments in her chair, she laughingly +bends over and says, "Promise me that you won't run away to heaven while +my back is turned."</p> + +<p>And the old mother smiles one of those transfigured smiles which seem +only to light up the faces of those that are already half over the +border of the spiritual world.</p> + +<p>Winter is, of course, Margaret's time of chief anxiety, and then her +loving ef<a name="Page_17"></a>forts are redoubled to detain her beloved spirit in an +inclement world. Each winter passed in safety seems a personal victory +over death. How anxiously she watches for the first sign of the +returning spring, how eagerly she brings the news of early blade and +bud, and with the first violet she feels that the danger is over for +another year. When the spring is so afire that she is able to fill her +mother's lap with a fragrant heap of crocus and daffodil, she dares at +last to laugh and say,</p> + +<p>"Now confess, mother, that you won't find sweeter flowers even in +heaven."</p> + +<p>And when the thrush is on the apple bough outside the window, Margaret +will sometimes employ the same gentle raillery.</p> + +<p>"Do you think, mother," she will say, "that an angel could sing sweeter +than that thrush?"</p> + +<p>"You seem very sure, Margaret, that I am going to heaven," the old +mother will sometimes say, with one of her arch old smiles; "but do you +know that I stole two peppermints yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"You did!" says Margaret.</p> + +<p>"I did indeed! and they have been on my conscience ever since."</p><a name="Page_18"></a> + +<p>"Really, mother! I don't know what to say," answers Margaret. "I had no +idea that you are so wicked."</p> + +<p>Many such little games the two play together, as the days go by; and +often at bedtime, as Margaret tucks her mother into bed, she asks her:</p> + +<p>"Are you comfortable, dear? Do you really think you would be much more +comfortable in heaven?"</p> + +<p>Or sometimes she will draw aside the window-curtains and say:</p> + +<p>"Look at the stars, mother.... Don't you think we get the best view of +them down here?"</p> + +<p>So it is that Margaret persuades her mother to delay her journey a +little while.</p> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Kitties_Sister"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>Kittie's Sister Josephine<a name="Page_19"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Elizabeth Jordan</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Kittie James told me this story about her sister Josephine, and when she +saw my eye light up the way the true artist's does when he hears a good +plot, she said I might use it, if I liked, the next time I "practised +literature."</p> + +<p>I don't think that was a very nice way to say it, especially when one +remembers that Sister Irmingarde read three of my stories to the class +in four months; and as I only write one every week, you can see yourself +what a good average that was. But it takes noble souls to be humble in +the presence of the gifted, and enthusiastic over their success, so only +two of my classmates seemed really happy when Sister Irmingarde read my +third story aloud. It is hardly necessary to mention the names of these +beautiful natures, already so well known to my readers, but I will do +it. They were Maudie Joyce<a name="Page_20"></a> and Mabel Blossom, and they are my dearest +friends at St. Catharine's. And some day, when I am a real writer and +the name of May Iverson shines in gold letters on the tablets of fame, +I'll write a book and dedicate it to them. Then, indeed, they will be +glad they knew me in my schoolgirl days, and recognized real merit when +they saw it, and did not mind the queer things my artistic temperament +often makes me do. Oh, what a slave is one to this artistic, emotional +nature, and how unhappy, how misunderstood! I don't mean that I am +unhappy all the time, of course, but I have Moods. And when I have them +life seems so hollow, so empty, so terrible! At such times natures that +do not understand me are apt to make mistakes, the way Sister Irmingarde +did when she thought I had nervous dyspepsia and made me walk three +miles every day, when it was just Soul that was the matter with me. +Still, I must admit the exercise helped me. It is so soothing, so +restful, so calming to walk on dear nature's breast. Maudie Joyce and +Mabel Blossom always know the minute an attack of artistic temperament +begins in me. Then they go away quietly and reverently, and I write a +story and feel better.</p><a name="Page_21"></a> + +<p>So this time I am going to tell about Kittie James's sister Josephine. +In the very beginning I must explain that Josephine James used to be a +pupil at St. Catharine's herself, ages and ages ago, and finally she +graduated and left, and began to go into society and look around and +decide what her life-work should be. That was long, long before our +time—as much as ten years, I should think, and poor Josephine must be +twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old now. But Kittie says she is just +as nice as she can be, and not a bit poky, and so active and interested +in life you'd think she was young. Of course I know such things can be, +for my own sister Grace, Mrs. George E. Verbeck, is perfectly lovely and +the most popular woman in the society of our city. But Grace is married, +and perhaps that makes a difference. It is said that love keeps the +spirit young. However, perhaps I'd better go on about Josephine and not +dwell on that. Experienced as we girls are, and drinking of life in deep +draughts though we do, we still admit—Maudie, Mabel, and I—that we do +not yet know much about love. But one cannot know everything at fifteen, +and, as Mabel Blossom always says, "there is<a name="Page_22"></a> yet time." We all know +just the kind of men they're going to be, though. Mine will be a brave +young officer, of course, for a general's daughter should not marry out +of the army, and he will die for his country, leaving me with a broken +heart. Maudie Joyce says hers must be a man who will rule her with a rod +of iron and break her will and win her respect, and then be gentle and +loving and tender. And Mabel Blossom says she's perfectly sure hers will +be fat and have a blond mustache and laugh a great deal. Once she said +maybe none of us would ever get <i>any</i>; but the look Maudie Joyce and I +turned upon her checked her thoughtless words. Life is bitter enough as +it is without thinking of dreadful things in the future. I sometimes +fear that underneath her girlish gayety Mabel Blossom conceals a morbid +nature. But I am forgetting Josephine James. This story will tell why, +with all her advantages of wealth and education and beauty, she remained +a maiden lady till she was twenty-eight; and she might have kept on, +too, if Kittie had not taken matters in hand and settled them for her.</p> + +<p>Kittie says Josephine was always romantic and spent long hours of her +young life in girlish reveries and dreams.<a name="Page_23"></a> Of course that isn't the way +Kittie said it, but if I should tell this story in her crude, unformed +fashion, you wouldn't read very far. What Kittie really said was that +Josephine used to "moon around the grounds a lot and bawl, and even try +to write poetry." I understand Josephine's nature, so I will go on and +tell this story in my own way, but you must remember that some of the +credit belongs to Kittie and Mabel Blossom; and if Sister Irmingarde +reads it in class, they can stand right up with me when the author is +called for.</p> + +<p>Well, when Josephine James graduated she got a lot of prizes and things, +for she was a clever girl, and had not spent all her time writing poetry +and thinking deep thoughts about life. She realized the priceless +advantages of a broad and thorough education and of association with the +most cultivated minds. That sentence comes out of our prospectus. Then +she went home and went out a good deal, and was very popular and stopped +writing poetry, and her dear parents began to feel happy and hopeful +about her, and think she would marry and have a nice family, which is +indeed woman's highest, noblest mission in life. But Josephine cherished +an ideal.</p><a name="Page_24"></a> + +<p>A great many young men came to see her, and Kittie liked one of them +very much indeed—better than all the others. He was handsome, and he +laughed and joked a good deal, and always brought Kittie big boxes of +candy and called her his little sister. He said she was going to be that +in the end, anyhow, and there was no use waiting to give her the title +that his heart dictated. He said it just that way. When he took +Josephine out in his automobile he'd say, "Let's take the kid, too," and +they would, and it did not take Kittie long to understand how things +were between George Morgan—for that was indeed his name—and her +sister. Little do grown-up people realize how intelligent are the minds +of the young, and how keen and penetrating their youthful gaze! Clearly +do I recall some things that happened at home, and it would startle papa +and mamma to know I know them, but I will not reveal them here. Once I +would have done so, in the beginning of my art; but now I have learned +to finish one story before I begin another.</p> + +<p>Little did Mr. Morgan and Josephine wot that every time she refused him +Kittie's young heart burned beneath its sense of wrong, for she did +refuse him<a name="Page_25"></a> almost every time they went out together, and yet she kept +right on going. You would think she wouldn't, but women's natures are +indeed inscrutable. Some authors would stop here and tell what was in +Josephine's heart, but this is not that kind of a story. Kittie was only +twelve then, and they used big words and talked in a queer way they +thought she would not understand; but she did, every time, and she never +missed a single word they said. Of course she wasn't <i>listening</i> +exactly, you see, because they knew she was there. That makes it +different and quite proper. For if Kittie was more intelligent than her +elders it was not the poor child's fault.</p> + +<p>Things went on like that and got worse and worse, and they had been +going on that way for five years. One day Kittie was playing tennis with +George at the Country Club, and he had been very kind to her, and all of +a sudden Kittie told him she knew all, and how sorry she was for him, +and that if he would wait till she grew up she would marry him herself. +The poor child was so young, you see, that she did not know how +unmaidenly this was. And of course at St. Catharine's when they taught +us how to enter and leave rooms and how to<a name="Page_26"></a> act in society and at the +table, they didn't think to tell us not to ask young men to marry us. I +can add with confidence that Kittie James was the only girl who ever +did. I asked the rest afterwards, and they were deeply shocked at the +idea.</p> + +<p>Well, anyhow, Kittie did it, and she said George was just as nice as he +could be. He told her he had "never listened to a more alluring +proposition" (she remembered just the words he used), and that she was +"a little trump"; and then he said he feared, alas! it was impossible, +as even his strong manhood could not face the prospect of the long and +dragging years that lay between. Besides, he said, his heart was already +given, and he guessed he'd better stick to Josephine, and would his +little sister help him to get her? Kittie wiped her eyes and said she +would. She had been crying. It must indeed be a bitter experience to +have one's young heart spurned! But George took her into the club-house +and gave her tea and lots of English muffins and jam, and somehow Kittie +cheered up, for she couldn't help feeling there were still some things +in life that were nice.</p> + +<p>Of course after that she wanted dreadfully to help George, but there +didn't<a name="Page_27"></a> seem to be much she could do. Besides, she had to go right back +to school in September, and being a studious child, I need hardly add +that her entire mind was then given to her studies. When she went home +for the Christmas holidays she took Mabel Blossom with her. Mabel was +more than a year older, but Kittie looked up to her, as it is well the +young should do to us older girls. Besides, Kittie had had her +thirteenth birthday in November, and she was letting down her skirts a +little and beginning to think of putting up her hair. She said when she +remembered that she asked George to wait till she grew up it made her +blush, so you see she was developing very fast.</p> + +<p>As I said before, she took Mabel Blossom home for Christmas, and Mr. and +Mrs. James were lovely to her, and she had a beautiful time. But +Josephine was the best of all. She was just fine. Mabel told me with her +own lips that if she hadn't seen Josephine James's name on the catalogue +as a graduate in '93, she never would have believed she was so old. +Josephine took the two girls to matinées and gave a little tea for them, +and George Morgan was as nice as she was. He was always bringing them +candy and violets, exactly as<a name="Page_28"></a> if they were young ladies, and he treated +them both with the greatest respect, and stopped calling them the kids +when he found they didn't like it. Mabel got as fond of him as Kittie +was, and they were both wild to help him to get Josephine to marry him; +but she wouldn't, though Kittie finally talked to her long and +seriously. I asked Kittie what Josephine said when she did that, and she +confessed that Josephine had laughed so she couldn't say anything. That +hurt the sensitive child, of course, but grown-ups are all too +frequently thoughtless of such things. Had Josephine but listened to +Kittie's words on that occasion, it would have saved Kittie a lot of +trouble.</p> + +<p>Now I am getting to the exciting part of the story. I am always so glad +when I get to that. I asked Sister Irmingarde why one couldn't just make +the story out of the exciting part, and she took a good deal of time to +explain why, but she did not convince me; for besides having the +artistic temperament I am strangely logical for one so young. Some day I +shall write a story that is all climax from beginning to end. That will +show her! But at present I must write according to the severe and +cramping rules which she and literature have laid down.</p><a name="Page_29"></a> + +<p>One night Mrs. James gave a large party for Josephine, and of course +Mabel and Kittie, being thirteen and fourteen, had to go to bed. It is +such things as this that embitter the lives of schoolgirls. But they +were allowed to go down and see all the lights and flowers and +decorations before people began to come, and they went into the +conservatory because that was fixed up with little nooks and things. +They got away in and off in a kind of wing of it, and they talked and +pretended they were <i>débutantes</i> at the ball, so they stayed longer than +they knew. Then they heard voices, and they looked and saw Josephine and +Mr. Morgan sitting by the fountain. Before they could move or say they +were there, they heard him say this—Kittie remembers just what it was:</p> + +<p>"I have spent six years following you, and you've treated me as if I +were a dog at the end of a string. This thing must end. I must have you, +or I must learn to live without you, and I must know now which it is to +be. Josephine, you must give me my final answer to-night."</p> + +<p>Wasn't it embarrassing for Kittie and Mabel? They did not want to +listen, but some instinct told them Josephine<a name="Page_30"></a> and George might not be +glad to see them then, so they crept behind a lot of tall palms, and +Mabel put her fingers in her ears so she wouldn't hear. Kittie didn't. +She explained to me afterwards that she thought it being her sister made +things kind of different. It was all in the family, anyhow. So Kittie +heard Josephine tell Mr. Morgan that the reason she did not marry him +was because he was an idler and without an ambition or a purpose in +life. And she said she must respect the man she married as well as love +him. Then George jumped up quickly and asked if she loved him, and she +cried and said she did, but that she would never, never marry him until +he did something to win her admiration and prove he was a man. You can +imagine how exciting it was for Kittie to see with her own innocent eyes +how grown-up people manage such things. She said she was so afraid she'd +miss something that she opened them so wide they hurt her afterwards. +But she didn't miss anything. She saw him kiss Josephine, too, and then +Josephine got up, and he argued and tried to make her change her mind, +and she wouldn't, and finally they left the conservatory. After that +Kittie and Mabel crept out and rushed up-stairs.</p><a name="Page_31"></a> + +<p>The next morning Kittie turned to Mabel with a look on her face which +Mabel had never seen there before. It was grim and determined. She said +she had a plan and wanted Mabel to help her, and not ask any questions, +but get her skates and come out. Mabel did, and they went straight to +George Morgan's house, which was only a few blocks away. He was very +rich and had a beautiful house. An English butler came to the door. +Mabel said she was so frightened her teeth chattered, but he smiled when +he saw Kittie, and said yes, Mr. Morgan was home and at breakfast, and +invited them in. When George came in he had a smoking-jacket on, and +looked very pale and sad and romantic, Mabel thought, but he smiled, +too, when he saw them, and shook hands and asked them if they had +breakfasted.</p> + +<p>Kittie said yes, but they had come to ask him to take them skating, and +they were all ready and had brought their skates. His face fell, as real +writers say, and he hesitated a little, but at last he said he'd go, and +he excused himself, just as if they had been grown up, and went off to +get ready.</p> + +<p>When they were left alone a terrible doubt assailed Mabel, and she asked +Kit<a name="Page_32"></a>tie if she was going to ask George again to marry her. Kittie +blushed and said she was not, of course, and that she knew better now. +For it is indeed true that the human heart is not so easily turned from +its dear object. We know that if once one truly loves it lasts forever +and ever and ever, and then one dies and is buried with things the loved +one wore.</p> + +<p>Kittie said she had a plan to help George, and all Mabel had to do was +to watch and keep on breathing. Mabel felt better then, and said she +guessed she could do that. George came back all ready, and they started +off. Kittie acted rather dark and mysterious, but Mabel conversed with +George in the easy and pleasant fashion young men love. She told him all +about school and how bad she was in mathematics; and he said he had been +a duffer at it too, but that he had learned to shun it while there was +yet time. And he advised her very earnestly to have nothing to do with +it. Mabel didn't, either, after she came back to St. Catharine's; and +when Sister Irmingarde reproached her, Mabel said she was leaning on the +judgment of a strong man, as woman should do. But Sister Irmingarde made +her go on with the arithmetic just the same.</p><a name="Page_33"></a> + +<p>By and by they came to the river, and it was so early not many people +were skating there. When George had fastened on their skates—he did it +in the nicest way, exactly as if they were grown up—Kittie looked more +mysterious than ever, and she started off as fast as she could skate +toward a little inlet where there was no one at all. George and Mabel +followed her. George said he didn't know whether the ice was smooth in +there, but Kittie kept right on, and George did not say any more. I +guess he did not care much where he went. I suppose it disappoints a man +when he wants to marry a woman and she won't. Now that I am beginning to +study deeply this question of love, many things are clear to me.</p> + +<p>Kittie kept far ahead, and all of a sudden Mabel saw that a little +distance further on, and just ahead, there was a big black hole in the +ice, and Kittie was skating straight toward it. Mabel tried to scream, +but she says the sound froze on her pallid lips. Then George saw the +hole, too, and rushed toward Kittie, and quicker than I can write it +Kittie went in that hole and down.</p> + +<p>Mabel says George was there almost as soon, calling to Mabel to keep +back out<a name="Page_34"></a> of danger. Usually when people have to rescue others, +especially in stories, they call to some one to bring a board, and some +one does, and it is easy. But very often in real life there isn't any +board or any one to bring it, and this was indeed the desperate +situation that confronted my hero. There was nothing to do but plunge in +after Kittie, and he plunged, skates and all. Then Mabel heard him gasp +and laugh a little, and he called out: "It's all right, by Jove! The +water isn't much above my knees." And even as he spoke Mabel saw Kittie +rise in the water and sort of hurl herself at him and pull him down into +the water, head and all. When they came up they were both half +strangled, and Mabel was terribly frightened; for she thought George was +mistaken about the depth, and they would both drown before her eyes; and +then she would see that picture all her life, as they do in stories, and +her hair would turn gray. She began to run up and down on the ice and +scream; but even as she did so she heard these extraordinary words come +from between Kittie James's chattering teeth:</p> + +<p>"<i>Now you are good and wet</i>!"</p> + +<p>George did not say a word. He confessed to Mabel afterwards that he<a name="Page_35"></a> +thought poor Kittie had lost her mind through fear. But he tried the ice +till he found a place that would hold him, and he got out and pulled +Kittie out. As soon as Kittie was out she opened her mouth and uttered +more remarkable words.</p> + +<p>"Now," she said, "I'll skate till we get near the club-house. Then you +must pick me up and carry me, and I'll shut my eyes and let my head hang +down. And Mabel must cry—good and hard. Then you must send for +Josephine and let her see how you've saved the life of her precious +little sister."</p> + +<p>Mabel said she was sure that Kittie was crazy, and next she thought +George was crazy, too. For he bent and stared hard into Kittie's eyes +for a minute, and then he began to laugh, and he laughed till he cried. +He tried to speak, but he couldn't at first; and when he did the words +came out between his shouts of boyish glee.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say, you young monkey," he said, "that this is a put-up +job?"</p> + +<p>Kittie nodded as solemnly as a fair young girl can nod when her clothes +are dripping and her nose is blue with cold. When she did that, George +roared again; then, as if he had remembered<a name="Page_36"></a> something, he caught her +hands and began to skate very fast toward the club-house. He was a +thoughtful young man, you see, and he wanted her to get warm. Perhaps he +wanted to get warm, too. Anyhow, they started off, and as they went, +Kittie opened still further the closed flower of her girlish heart. I +heard that expression once, and I've always wanted to get it into one of +my stories. I think this is a good place.</p> + +<p>She told George she knew the hole in the ice, and that it wasn't deep; +and she said she had done it all to make Josephine admire him and marry +him.</p> + +<p>"She will, too," she said. "Her dear little sister—the only one she's +got." And Kittie went on to say what a terrible thing it would have been +if she had died in the promise of her young life, till Mabel said she +almost felt sure herself that George had saved her. But George +hesitated. He said it wasn't "a square deal," whatever that means, but +Kittie said no one need tell any lies. She had gone into the hole and +George had pulled her out. She thought they needn't explain how deep it +was, and George admitted thoughtfully that "no truly loving family +should hunger for statistics at such a moment." Finally he said:<a name="Page_37"></a> "By +Jove! I'll do it. All's fair in love and war." Then he asked Mabel if +she thought she could "lend intelligent support to the star performers," +and she said she could. So George picked Kittie up in his arms, and +Mabel cried—she was so excited it was easy, and she wanted to do it all +the time—and the sad little procession "homeward wended its weary way," +as the poet says.</p> + +<p>Mabel told me Kittie did her part like a real actress. She shut her eyes +and her head hung over George's arm, and her long, wet braid dripped as +it trailed behind them. George laughed to himself every few minutes till +they got near the club-house. Then he looked very sober, and Mabel +Blossom knew her cue had come, the way it does to actresses, and she let +out a wail that almost made Kittie sit up. It was 'most too much of a +one, and Mr. Morgan advised her to "tone it down a little," because, he +said, if she didn't they'd probably have Kittie buried before she could +explain. But of course Mabel had not been prepared and had not had any +practice. She muffled her sobs after that, and they sounded lots better. +People began to rush from the club-house, and get blankets and whiskey, +and telephone for doctors and for Kit<a name="Page_38"></a>tie's family, and things got so +exciting that nobody paid any attention to Mabel. All she had to do was +to mop her eyes occasionally and keep a sharp lookout for Josephine; for +of course, being an ardent student of life, like Maudie and me, she did +not want to miss what came next.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon a horse galloped up, all foaming at the mouth, and he was +pulled back on his haunches, and Josephine and Mr. James jumped out of +the buggy and rushed in, and there was more excitement. When George saw +them coming he turned pale, Mabel said, and hurried off to change his +clothes. One woman looked after him and said, "As modest as he is +brave," and cried over it. When Josephine and Mr. James came in there +was more excitement, and Kittie opened one eye and shut it again right +off, and the doctor said she was all right except for the shock, and her +father and Josephine cried, so Mabel didn't have to any more. She was +glad, too, I can tell you.</p> + +<p>They put Kittie to bed in a room at the club, for the doctor said she +was such a high-strung child it would be wise to keep her perfectly +quiet for a few hours and take precautions against pneumonia. Then +Josephine went around asking for Mr. Morgan.</p><a name="Page_39"></a> + +<p>By and by he came down, in dry clothes but looking dreadfully +uncomfortable. Mabel said she could imagine how he felt. Josephine was +standing by the open fire when he entered the room, and no one else was +there but Mabel. Josephine went right to him and put her arms around his +neck.</p> + +<p>"Dearest, dearest!" she said. "How can I ever thank you?" Her voice was +very low, but Mabel heard it. George said right off, "There is a way." +That shows how quick and clever he is, for some men might not think of +it. Then Mabel Blossom left the room, with slow, reluctant feet, and +went up-stairs to Kittie.</p> + +<p>That's why Mabel has just gone to Kittie's home for a few days. She and +Kittie are to be flower-maids at Josephine's wedding. I hope it is not +necessary for me to explain to my intelligent readers that her husband +will be George Morgan. Kittie says he confessed the whole thing to +Josephine, and she forgave him, and said she would marry him anyhow; but +she explained that she only did it on Kittie's account. She said she did +not know to what lengths the child might go next.</p> + +<p>So my young friends have gone to<a name="Page_40"></a> mingle in scenes of worldly gayety, +and I sit here in the twilight looking at the evening star and writing +about love. How true it is that the pen is mightier than the sword! +Gayety is well in its place, but the soul of the artist finds its +happiness in work and solitude. I hope Josephine will realize, though, +why I cannot describe her wedding. Of course no artist of delicate +sensibilities could describe a wedding when she hadn't been asked to it.</p> + +<p>Poor Josephine! It seems very, very sad to me that she is marrying thus +late in life and only on Kittie's account. Why, oh, why could she not +have wed when she was young and love was in her heart!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Wizards"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Wizard's Touch<a name="Page_41"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Alice Brown</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Jerome Wilmer sat in the garden, painting in a background, with the +carelessness of ease. He seemed to be dabbing little touches at the +canvas, as a spontaneous kind of fun not likely to result in anything +serious, save, perhaps, the necessity of scrubbing them off afterwards, +like a too adventurous child. Mary Brinsley, in her lilac print, stood a +few paces away, the sun on her hair, and watched him.</p> + +<p>"Paris is very becoming to you," she said at last.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked Wilmer, glancing up, and then beginning to +consider her so particularly that she stepped aside, her brows knitted, +with an admonishing,</p> + +<p>"Look out! you'll get me into the landscape."</p> + +<p>"You're always in the landscape. What do you mean about Paris?"</p><a name="Page_42"></a> + +<p>"You look so—so travelled, so equal to any place, and Paris in +particular because it's the finest."</p> + +<p>Other people also had said that, in their various ways. He had the +distinction set by nature upon a muscular body and a rather small head, +well poised. His hair, now turning gray, grew delightfully about the +temples, and though it was brushed back in the style of a man who never +looks at himself twice when once will do, it had a way of seeming +entirely right. His brows were firm, his mouth determined, and the close +pointed beard brought his face to a delicate finish. Even his clothes, +of the kind that never look new, had fallen into lines of easy use.</p> + +<p>"You needn't guy me," he said, and went on painting. But he flashed his +sudden smile at her. "Isn't New England becoming to me, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, for the summer. It's over-powered. In the winter Aunt Celia calls +you 'Jerry Wilmer.' She's quite topping then. But the minute you appear +with European labels on your trunks and that air of speaking foreign +lingo, she gives out completely. Every time she sees your name in the +paper she forgets you went to school at the Academy and built the fires. +She calls you 'our boarder'<a name="Page_43"></a> then, for as much as a week and a half."</p> + +<p>"Quit it, Mary," said he, smiling at her again.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mary, yet without turning, "I must go and weed a while."</p> + +<p>"No," put in Wilmer, innocently; "he won't be over yet. He had a big +mail. I brought it to him."</p> + +<p>Mary blushed, and made as if to go. She was a woman of thirty-five, well +poised, and sweet through wholesomeness. Her face had been cut on a +regular pattern, and then some natural influence had touched it up +beguilingly with contradictions. She swung back, after her one tentative +step, and sobered.</p> + +<p>"How do you think he is looking?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Prime."</p> + +<p>"Not so—"</p> + +<p>"Not so morbid as when I was here last summer," he helped her out. "Not +by any means. Are you going to marry him, Mary?" The question had only a +civil emphasis, but a warmer tone informed it. Mary grew pink under the +morning light, and Jerome went on: "Yes, I have a perfect right to talk +about it, I don't travel three thousand miles every summer to ask you to +marry me without earning some claim to frank<a name="Page_44"></a>ness. I mentioned that to +Marshby himself. We met at the station, you remember, the day I came. We +walked down together. He spoke about my sketching, and I told him I had +come on my annual pilgrimage, to ask Mary Brinsley to marry me."</p> + +<p>"Jerome!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I did. This is my tenth pilgrimage. Mary, will you marry me?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Mary, softly, but as if she liked him very much. "No, +Jerome."</p> + +<p>Wilmer squeezed a tube on his palette and regarded the color frowningly. +"Might as well, Mary," said he. "You'd have an awfully good time in +Paris."</p> + +<p>She was perfectly still, watching him, and he went on:</p> + +<p>"Now you're thinking if Marshby gets the consulate you'll be across the +water anyway, and you could run down to Paris and see the sights. But it +wouldn't be the same thing. It's Marshby you like, but you'd have a +better time with me."</p> + +<p>"It's a foregone conclusion that the consulship will be offered him," +said Mary. Her eyes were now on the path leading through the garden and +over the wall to the neighboring house where Marshby lived.</p> + +<p>"Then you will marry and go with him.<a name="Page_45"></a> Ah, well, that's finished. I +needn't come another summer. When you are in Paris, I can show you the +boulevards and cafés."</p> + +<p>"It is more than probable he won't accept the consulship."</p> + +<p>"Why?" He held his palette arrested in mid-air and stared at her.</p> + +<p>"He is doubtful of himself—doubtful whether he is equal to so +responsible a place."</p> + +<p>"Bah! it's not an embassy."</p> + +<p>"No; but he fancies he has not the address, the social gifts—in fact, +he shrinks from it." Her face had taken on a soft distress; her eyes +appealed to him. She seemed to be confessing, for the other man, +something that might well be misunderstood. Jerome, ignoring the flag of +her discomfort, went on painting, to give her room for confidence.</p> + +<p>"Is it that old plague-spot?" he asked. "Just what aspect does it bear +to him? Why not talk freely about it?"</p> + +<p>"It is the old remorse. He misunderstood his brother when they two were +left alone in the world. He forced the boy out of evil associations when +he ought to have led him. You know the rest of it. The boy was +desperate. He killed himself."</p> + +<p>"When he was drunk. Marshby wasn't responsible."</p><a name="Page_46"></a> + +<p>"No, not directly. But you know that kind of mind. It follows hidden +causes. That's why his essays are so good. Anyway, it has crippled him. +It came when he was too young, and it marked him for life. He has an +inveterate self-distrust."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well," said Winner, including the summer landscape in a wave of his +brush, "give up the consulship. Let him give it up. It isn't as if he +hadn't a roof. Settle down in his house there, you two, and let him +write his essays, and you—just be happy."</p> + +<p>She ignored her own part in the prophecy completely and finally. "It +isn't the consulship as the consulship," she responded. "It is the life +abroad I want for him. It would give him—well, it would give him what +it has given you. His work would show it." She spoke hotly, and at once +Jerome saw himself envied for his brilliant cosmopolitan life, the +bounty of his success fairly coveted for the other man. It gave him a +curious pang. He felt, somehow, impoverished, and drew his breath more +meagrely. But the actual thought in his mind grew too big to be +suppressed, and he stayed his hand to look at her.</p> + +<p>"That's not all," he said.</p> + +<p>"All what?"</p><a name="Page_47"></a> + +<p>"That's not the main reason why you want him to go. You think if he +really asserted himself, really knocked down the spectre of his old +distrust and stamped on it, he would be a different man. If he had once +proved himself, as we say of younger chaps, he could go on proving."</p> + +<p>"No," she declared, in nervous loyalty. She was like a bird fluttering +to save her nest. "No! You are wrong. I ought not to have talked about +him at all. I shouldn't to anybody else. Only, you are so kind."</p> + +<p>"It's easy to be kind," said Jerome, gently, "when there's nothing else +left us."</p> + +<p>She stood wilfully swaying a branch of the tendrilled arbor, and, he +subtly felt, so dissatisfied with herself for her temporary disloyalty +that she felt alien to them both: Marshby because she had wronged him by +admitting another man to this intimate knowledge of him, and the other +man for being her accomplice.</p> + +<p>"Don't be sorry," he said, softly. "You haven't been naughty."</p> + +<p>But she had swung round to some comprehension of what he had a right to +feel.</p> + +<p>"It makes one selfish," she said, "to want—to want things to come out +right."</p><a name="Page_48"></a> + +<p>"I know. Well, can't we make them come out right? He is sure of the +consulship?"</p> + +<p>"Practically."</p> + +<p>"You want to be assured of his taking it."</p> + +<p>She did not answer; but her face lighted, as if to a new appeal. Jerome +followed her look along the path. Marshby himself was coming. He was no +weakling. He swung along easily with the stride of a man accustomed to +using his body well. He had not, perhaps, the urban air, and yet there +was nothing about him which would not have responded at once to a more +exacting civilization. Jerome knew his face,—knew it from their college +days together and through these annual visits of his own; but now, as +Marshby approached, the artist rated him not so much by the friendly as +the professional eye. He saw a man who looked the scholar and the +gentleman, keen though not imperious of glance. His visage, mature even +for its years, had suffered more from emotion than from deeds or the +assaults of fortune. Marshby had lived the life of thought, and, +exaggerating action, had failed to fit himself to any form of it. Wilmer +glanced at his hands, too, as they<a name="Page_49"></a> swung with his walk, and then +remembered that the professional eye had already noted them and laid +their lines away for some suggestive use. As he looked, Marshby stopped +in his approach, caught by the singularity of a gnarled tree limb. It +awoke in him a cognizance of nature's processes, and his face lighted +with the pleasure of it.</p> + +<p>"So you won't marry me?" asked Wilmer, softly, in that pause.</p> + +<p>"Don't!" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Why not, when you won't tell whether you're engaged to him or not? Why +not, anyway? If I were sure you'd be happier with me, I'd snatch you out +of his very maw. Yes, I would. Are you sure you like him, Mary?"</p> + +<p>The girl did not answer, for Marshby had started again. Jerome got the +look in her face, and smiled a little, sadly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "you're sure."</p> + +<p>Mary immediately felt unable to encounter them together. She gave +Marshby a good-morning, and, to his bewilderment, made some excuse about +her weeding and flitted past him on the path. His eyes followed her, and +when they came back to Wilmer the artist nodded brightly.</p> + +<p>"I've just asked her," he said.</p><a name="Page_50"></a> + +<p>"Asked her?" Marshby was about to pass him, pulling out his glasses and +at the same time peering at the picture with the impatience of his +near-sighted look.</p> + +<p>"There, don't you do that!" cried Jerome, stopping, with his brush in +air. "Don't you come round and stare over my shoulder. It makes me +nervous ad the devil. Step back there—there by that mullein. So! I've +got to face my protagonist. Yes, I've been asking her to marry me."</p> + +<p>Marshby stiffened. His head went up, his jaw tightened. He looked the +jealous ire of the male.</p> + +<p>"What do you want me to stand here for?" he asked, irritably.</p> + +<p>"But she refused me," said Wilmer, cheerfully. "Stand still, that's a +good fellow. I'm using you."</p> + +<p>Marshby had by an effort pulled himself together. He dismissed Mary from +his mind, as he wished to drive her from the other man's speech.</p> + +<p>"I've been reading the morning paper on your exhibition," he said, +bringing out the journal from his pocket. "They can't say enough about +you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, can't they! Well, the better for me. What are they pleased to +discover?"</p><a name="Page_51"></a> + +<p>"They say you see round corners and through deal boards. Listen." He +struck open the paper and read: "'A man with a hidden crime upon his +soul will do well to elude this greatest of modern magicians. The man +with a secret tells it the instant he sits down before Jerome Wilmer. +Wilmer does not paint faces, brows, hands. He paints hopes, fears, and +longings. If we could, in our turn, get to the heart of his mystery! If +we could learn whether he says to himself: "I see hate in that face, +hypocrisy, greed. I will paint them. That man is not man, but cur. He +shall fawn on my canvas." Or does he paint through a kind of inspired +carelessness, and as the line obeys the eye and hand, so does the +emotion live in the line?'"</p> + +<p>"Oh, gammon!" snapped Wilmer.</p> + +<p>"Well, do you?" said Marshby, tossing the paper to the little table +where Mary's work-box stood.</p> + +<p>"Do I what? Spy and then paint, or paint and find I've spied? Oh, I +guess I plug along like any other decent workman. When it comes to that, +how do you write your essays?"</p> + +<p>"I! Oh! That's another pair of sleeves. Your work is colossal. I'm still +on cherry-stones."</p><a name="Page_52"></a> + +<p>"Well," said Wilmer, with slow incisiveness, "you've accomplished one +thing I'd sell my name for. You've got Mary Brinsley bound to you so +fast that neither lure nor lash can stir her. I've tried it—tried Paris +even, the crudest bribe there is. No good! She won't have me."</p> + +<p>At her name, Marshby straightened again, and there was fire in his eye. +Wilmer, sketching him in, seemed to gain distinct impulse from the pose, +and worked the faster.</p> + +<p>"Don't move," he ordered. "There, that's right. So, you see, you're the +successful chap. I'm the failure. She won't have me." There was such +feeling in his tone that Marshby's expression softened comprehendingly. +He understood a pain that prompted even such a man to rash avowal.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe we'd better speak of her," he said, in awkward +kindliness.</p> + +<p>"I want to," returned Wilmer. "I want to tell you how lucky you are."</p> + +<p>Again that shade of introspective bitterness clouded Marshby's face. +"Yes," said he, involuntarily. "But how about her? Is <i>she</i> lucky?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Jerome, steadily. "She's got what she wants. She won't +worship you any the less because you don't wor<a name="Page_53"></a>ship yourself. That's the +mad way they have—women. It's an awful challenge. You've got a fight +before you, if you don't refuse it.".</p> + +<p>"God!" groaned Marshby to himself, "it is a fight. I can't refuse it."</p> + +<p>Wilmer put his question without mercy. "Do you want to?"</p> + +<p>"I want her to be happy," said Marshby, with a simple humility afar from +cowardice. "I want her to be safe. I don't see how anybody could be +safe—with me."</p> + +<p>"Well," pursued Wilmer, recklessly, "would she be safe with me?"</p> + +<p>"I think so," said Marshby, keeping an unblemished dignity. "I have +thought that for a good many years."</p> + +<p>"But not happy?"</p> + +<p>"No, not happy. She would—We have been together so long."</p> + +<p>"Yes, she'd miss you. She'd die of homesickness. Well!" He sat +contemplating Marshby with his professional stare; but really his mind +was opened for the first time to the full reason for Mary's unchanging +love. Marshby stood there so quiet, so oblivious of himself in +comparison with unseen things, so much a man from head to foot, that he +justified the woman's loyal passion as<a name="Page_54"></a> nothing had before. "Shall you +accept the consulate?" Wilmer asked, abruptly.</p> + +<p>Brought face to face with fact, Marshby's pose slackened. He drooped +perceptibly. "Probably not," he said. "No, decidedly not."</p> + +<p>Wilmer swore under his breath, and sat, brows bent, marvelling at the +change in him. The man's infirmity of will had blighted him. He was so +truly another creature that not even a woman's unreasoning championship +could pull him into shape again.</p> + +<p>Mary Brinsley came swiftly down the path, trowel in one hand and her +basket of weeds in the other. Wilmer wondered if she had been glancing +up from some flowery screen and read the story of that altered posture. +She looked sharply anxious, like a mother whose child is threatened. +Jerome shrewdly knew that Marshby's telltale attitude was no unfamiliar +one.</p> + +<p>"What have you been saying?" she asked, in laughing challenge, yet with +a note of anxiety underneath.</p> + +<p>"I'm painting him in," said Wilmer; but as she came toward him he turned +the canvas dexterously. "No," said he, "no. I've got my idea from this. +To-morrow Marshby's going to sit."</p><a name="Page_55"></a> + +<p>That was all he would say, and Mary put it aside as one of his +pleasantries made to fit the hour. But next day he set up a big canvas +in the barn that served him as workroom, and summoned Marshby from his +books. He came dressed exactly right, in his every-day clothes that had +comfortable wrinkles in them, and easily took his pose. For all his +concern over the inefficiency of his life, as a life, he was entirely +without self-consciousness in his personal habit. Jerome liked that, and +began to like him better as he knew him more. A strange illuminative +process went on in his mind toward the man as Mary saw him, and more and +more he nursed a fretful sympathy with her desire to see Marshby tuned +up to some pitch that should make him livable to himself. It seemed a +cruelty of nature that any man should so scorn his own company and yet +be forced to keep it through an allotted span. In that sitting Marshby +was at first serious and absent-minded. Though his body was obediently +there, the spirit seemed to be busy somewhere else.</p> + +<p>"Head up!" cried Jerome at last, brutally. "Heavens, man, don't skulk!"</p> + +<p>Marshby straightened under the blow. It hit harder, as Jerome meant it +should,<a name="Page_56"></a> than any verbal rallying. It sent the man back over his own +life to the first stumble in it.</p> + +<p>"I want you to look as if you heard drums and fife," Jerome explained, +with one of his quick smiles, that always wiped out former injury.</p> + +<p>But the flush was not yet out of Marshby's face, and he answered, +bitterly, "I might run."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind your looking as if you'd like to run and knew you +couldn't," said Jerome, dashing in strokes now in a happy certainty.</p> + +<p>"Why couldn't I?" asked Marshby, still from that abiding scorn of his +own ways.</p> + +<p>"Because you can't, that's all. Partly because you get the habit of +facing the music. I should like—" Wilmer had an unconsidered way of +entertaining his sitters, without much expenditure to himself; he +pursued a fantastic habit of talk to keep their blood moving, and did it +with the eye of the mind unswervingly on his work. "If I were you, I'd +do it. I'd write an essay on the muscular habit of courage. Your coward +is born weak-kneed. He shouldn't spill himself all over the place trying +to put on the spiritual make-up of a hero. He must<a name="Page_57"></a> simply strengthen +his knees. When they'll take him anywhere he requests, without buckling, +he wakes up and finds himself a field-marshal. <i>Voilà!</i>"</p> + +<p>"It isn't bad," said Marshby, unconsciously straightening. "Go ahead, +Jerome. Turn us all into field-marshals."</p> + +<p>"Not all," objected Wilmer, seeming to dash his brush at the canvas with +the large carelessness that promised his best work. "The jobs wouldn't +go round. But I don't feel the worse for it when I see the recruity +stepping out, promotion in his eye."</p> + +<p>After the sitting, Wilmer went yawning forward, and with a hand on +Marshby's shoulder, took him to the door.</p> + +<p>"Can't let you look at the thing," he said, as Marshby gave one backward +glance. "That's against the code. Till it's done, no eye touches it but +mine and the light of heaven."</p> + +<p>Marshby had no curiosity. He smiled, and thereafter let the picture +alone, even to the extent of interested speculation. Mary had +scrupulously absented herself from that first sitting; but after it was +over and Marshby had gone home, Wilmer found her in the garden, under an +apple-tree, shelling pease. He lay down on the ground, at a little +distance, and<a name="Page_58"></a> watched her. He noted the quick, capable turn of her +wrist and the dexterous motion of the brown hands as they snapped out +the pease, and he thought how eminently sweet and comfortable it would +be to take this bit of his youth back to France with him, or even to +give up France and grow old with her at home.</p> + +<p>"Mary," said he, "I sha'n't paint any picture of you this summer."</p> + +<p>Mary laughed, and brushed back a yellow lock with the back of her hand. +"No," said she, "I suppose not. Aunt Celia spoke of it yesterday. She +told me the reason."</p> + +<p>"What is Aunt Celia's most excellent theory?"</p> + +<p>"She said I'm not so likely as I used to be."</p> + +<p>"No," said Jerome, not answering her smile in the community of mirth +they always had over Aunt Celia's simple speech. He rolled over on the +grass and began to make a dandelion curl. "No, that's not it. You're a +good deal likelier than you used to be. You're all possibilities now. I +could make a Madonna out of you, quick as a wink. No, it's because I've +decided to paint Marshby instead."</p> + +<p>Mary's hands stilled themselves, and<a name="Page_59"></a> she looked at him anxiously. "Why +are you doing that?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Don't you want the picture?"</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Give it to you, I guess. For a wedding-present, Mary."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't say those things," said Mary, gravely. She went on working, +but her face was serious.</p> + +<p>"It's queer, isn't it," remarked Wilmer, after a pause, "this notion +you've got that Marshby's the only one that could possibly do? I began +asking you first."</p> + +<p>"Please!" said Mary. Her eyes were full of tears. That was rare for her, +and Wilmer saw it meant a shaken poise. She was less certain to-day of +her own fate. It made her more responsively tender toward his. He sat up +and looked at her.</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "No. I won't ask you again. I never meant to. Only I have +to speak of it once in a while. We should have such a tremendously good +time together."</p> + +<p>"We have a tremendously good time now," said Mary, the smile coming +while she again put up the back of her hand and brushed her eyes. "When +you're good."</p><a name="Page_60"></a> + +<p>"When I help all the other little boys at the table, and don't look at +the nice heart-shaped cake I want myself? It's frosted, and got little +pink things all over the top. There! don't drop the corners of your +mouth. If I were asked what kind of a world I'd like to live in, I'd say +one where the corners of Mary's mouth keep quirked up all the time. +Let's talk about Marshby's picture. It's going to be your Marshby."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Not Marshby's Marshby—yours."</p> + +<p>"You're not going to play some dreadful joke on him?" Her eyes were +blazing under knotted brows.</p> + +<p>"Mary!" Wilmer spoke gently, and though the tone recalled her, she could +not forbear at once, in her hurt pride and loyalty.</p> + +<p>"You're not going to put him into any masquerade?—to make him anything +but what he is?"</p> + +<p>"Mary, don't you think that's a little hard on an old chum?"</p> + +<p>"I can't help it." Her cheeks were hot, though now it was with shame. +"Yes, I am mean, jealous, envious. I see you with everything at your +feet—"</p> + +<p>"Not quite everything," said Jerome. "I know it makes you hate me."</p><a name="Page_61"></a> + +<p>"No! no!" The real woman had awakened in her, and she turned to him in a +whole-hearted honesty. "Only, they say you do such wizard things when +you paint. I never saw any of your pictures, you know, except the ones +you did of me. And they're not <i>me</i>. They're lovely—angels with women's +clothes on. Aunt Celia says if I looked like that I'd carry all before +me. But, you see, you've always been—partial to me."</p> + +<p>"And you think I'm not partial to Marshby?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't that. It's only that they say you look inside people and drag +out what is there. And inside him—oh, you'd see his hatred of himself!" +The tears were rolling unregarded down her face.</p> + +<p>"This is dreadful," said Wilmer, chiefly to himself. "Dreadful."</p> + +<p>"There!" said Mary, drearily, emptying the pods from her apron into the +basket at her side. "I suppose I've done it now. I've spoiled the +picture."</p> + +<p>"No," returned Jerome, thoughtfully, "you haven't spoiled the picture. +Really I began it with a very definite conception of what I was going to +do. It will be done in that way or not at all."</p> + +<p>"You're very kind," said Mary, humbly. "I didn't mean to act like +this."</p><a name="Page_62"></a> + +<p>"No,"—he spoke out of a maze of reflection, not looking at her. "You +have an idea he's under the microscope with me. It makes you nervous."</p> + +<p>She nodded, and then caught herself up.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing you mightn't see," she said, proudly, ignoring her +previous outburst. "You or anybody else, even with a microscope."</p> + +<p>"No, of course not. Only you'd say microscopes aren't fair. Well, +perhaps they're not. And portrait-painting is a very simple matter. It's +not the black art. But if I go on with this, you are to let me do it in +my own way. You're not to look at it."</p> + +<p>"Not even when you're not at work?"</p> + +<p>"Not once, morning, noon, or night, till I invite you to. You were +always a good fellow, Mary. You'll keep your word."</p> + +<p>"No, I won't look at it," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Thereafter she stayed away from the barn, not only when he was painting, +but at other times, and Wilmer missed her. He worked very fast, and made +his plans for sailing, and Aunt Celia loudly bemoaned his stinginess in +cutting short the summer. One day, after breakfast, he sought out Mary +again in the garden.<a name="Page_63"></a> She was snipping Coreopsis for the dinner table, +but she did it absently, and Jerome noted the heaviness of her eyes.</p> + +<p>"What's the trouble?" he asked, abruptly, and she was shaken out of her +late constraint. She looked up at him with a piteous smile.</p> + +<p>"Nothing much," she said. "It doesn't matter. I suppose it's fate. He +has written his letter."</p> + +<p>"Marshby?"</p> + +<p>"You knew he got his appointment?"</p> + +<p>"No; I saw something had him by the heels, but he's been still as a +fish."</p> + +<p>"It came three days ago. He has decided not to take it. And it will +break his heart."</p> + +<p>"It will break your heart," Wilmer opened his lips to say; but he dared +not jostle her mood of unconsidered frankness.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I expected it," she went on. "I did expect it. Yet he's been +so different lately, it gave me a kind of hope."</p> + +<p>Jerome started. "How has he been different?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"More confident, less doubtful of himself. It's not anything he has +said. It's in his speech, his walk. He even carries his head +differently, as if he had a right to. Well, we talked half the night +last<a name="Page_64"></a> night, and he went home to write the letter. He promised me not to +mail it till he'd seen me once more; but nothing will make any +difference."</p> + +<p>"You won't beseech him?"</p> + +<p>"No. He is a man. He must decide."</p> + +<p>"You won't tell him what depends on it!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing depends on it," said Mary, calmly. "Nothing except his own +happiness. I shall find mine in letting him accept his life according to +his own free will."</p> + +<p>There was something majestic in her mental attitude. Wilmer felt how +noble her maturity was to be, and told himself, with a thrill of pride, +that he had done well to love her.</p> + +<p>"Marshby is coming," he said. "I want to show you both the picture."</p> + +<p>Mary shook her head. "Not this morning," she told him, and he could see +how meagre canvas and paint must seem to her after her vision of the +body of life. But he took her hand.</p> + +<p>"Come," he said, gently; "you must."</p> + +<p>Still holding her flowers, she went with him, though her mind abode with +her lost cause. Marshby halted when he saw them coming, and Jerome had +time to look at him. The man held himself<a name="Page_65"></a> wilfully erect, but his face +betrayed him. It was haggard, smitten. He had not only met defeat; he +had accepted it. Jerome nodded to him and went on before them to the +barn. The picture stood there in a favoring light. Mary caught her +breath sharply, and then all three were silent. Jerome stood there +forgetful of them, his eyes on his completed work, and for the moment he +had in it the triumph of one who sees intention, brought to fruitage +under perfect auspices. It meant more to him, that recognition, than any +glowing moment of his youth. The scroll of his life unrolled before him, +and he saw his past, as other men acclaimed it, running into the future +ready for his hand to make. A great illumination touched the days to +come. Brilliant in promise, they were yet barren of hope. For as surely +as he had been able to set this seal on Mary's present, he saw how the +thing itself would separate them. He had painted her ideal of Marshby; +but whenever in the future she should nurse the man through the mental +sickness bound always to delay his march, she would remember this moment +with a pang, as something Jerome had dowered him with, not something he +had attained unaided. Marshby faced<a name="Page_66"></a> them from the canvas, erect, +undaunted, a soldier fronting the dawn, expectant of battle, yet with no +dread of its event. He was not in any sense alien to himself. He +dominated, not by crude force, but through the sustained inward strength +of him. It was not youth Jerome had given him. There was maturity in the +face. It had its lines—the lines that are the scars of battle; but +somehow not one suggested, even to the doubtful mind, a battle lost. +Jerome turned from the picture to the man himself, and had his own +surprise. Marshby was transfigured. He breathed humility and hope. He +stirred at Wilmer's motion.</p> + +<p>"Am I"—he glowed—"could I have looked like that?" Then in the +poignancy of the moment he saw how disloyal to the moment it was even to +hint at what should have been, without snapping the link now into the +welding present. He straightened himself and spoke brusquely, but to +Mary:</p> + +<p>"I'll go back and write that letter. Here is the one I wrote last +night."</p> + +<p>He took it from his pocket, tore it in two, and gave it to her. Then he +turned away and walked with the soldier's step home. Jerome could not +look at her. He began moving back the picture.</p><a name="Page_67"></a> + +<p>"There!" he said, "it's finished. Better make up your mind where you'll +have it put. I shall be picking up my traps this morning."</p> + +<p>Then Mary gave him his other surprise. Her hands were on his shoulders. +Her eyes, full of the welling gratitude that is one kind of love, spoke +like her lips.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said she, "do you think I don't know what you've done? I couldn't +take it from anybody else. I couldn't let him take it. It's like +standing beside him in battle; like lending him your horse, your sword. +It's being a comrade. It's helping him fight. And he <i>will</i> fight. +That's the glory of it!"</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<a name="Bitter_Cup"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Bitter Cup<a name="Page_68"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Charles B. De Camp</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Clara Leeds sat by the open window of her sitting-room with her fancy +work. Her hair was done up in an irreproachable style, and her +finger-nails were carefully manicured and pink like little shells. She +had a slender waist, and looked down at it from time to time with +satisfied eyes. At the back of her collar was a little burst of chiffon; +for chiffon so arranged was the fashion. She cast idle glances at the +prospect from the window. It was not an alluring one—a row of brick +houses with an annoying irregularity of open and closed shutters.</p> + +<p>There was the quiet rumble of a carriage in the street, and Clara Leeds +leaned forward, her eyes following the vehicle until to look further +would have necessitated leaning out of the window. There were two women +in the carriage, both young and soberly dressed. To cer<a name="Page_69"></a>tain eyes they +might have appeared out of place in a carriage, and yet, somehow, it was +obvious that it was their own. Clara Leeds resumed her work, making +quick, jerky stitches.</p> + +<p>"Clara Leeds," she murmured, as if irritated. She frowned and then +sighed. "If only—if only it was something else; if it only had two +syllables...." She put aside her work and went and stood before the +mirror of her dresser. She looked long at her face. It was fresh and +pretty, and her blue eyes, in spite of their unhappy look, were clear +and shining. She fingered a strand of hair, and then cast critical +sidelong glances at her profile. She smoothed her waist-line with a +movement peculiar to women. Then she tilted the glass and regarded the +reflection from head to foot.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what is it?" she demanded, distressed, of herself in the glass. She +took up her work again.</p> + +<p>"They don't seem to care how they look and ... they do wear shabby +gloves and shoes." So her thoughts ran. "But they are the Rockwoods and +they don't have to care. It must be so easy for them; they only have to +visit the Day Nursery, and the Home for Incurables, and some old, poor, +sick people. They<a name="Page_70"></a> never have to meet them and ask them to dinner. They +just say a few words and leave some money or things in a nice way, and +they can go home and do what they please." Clara Leeds's eyes rested +unseeingly on the house opposite. "It must be nice to have a rector ... +he is such an intellectual-looking man, so quiet and dignified; just the +way a minister should be, instead of like Mr. Copple, who tries to be +jolly and get up sociables and parlor meetings." There were tears in the +girl's eyes.</p> + +<p>A tea-bell rang, and Clara went down-stairs to eat dinner with her +father. He had just come in and was putting on a short linen coat. +Clara's mother was dead. She was the only child at home, and kept house +for her father.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you are all ready for the lawn-tennis match this afternoon?" +said Mr. Leeds to his daughter. "Mr. Copple said you were going to play +with him. My! that young man is up to date. Think of a preacher getting +up a lawn-tennis club! Why, when I was a young man that would have +shocked people out of their boots. But it's broad-minded, it's +broad-minded," with a wave of the hand. "I like to see a man with ideas, +and if lawn-tennis will help to keep our<a name="Page_71"></a> boys out of sin's pathway, +why, then, lawn-tennis is a strong, worthy means of doing the Lord's +work."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Clara. "Did Mr. Copple say he would call for me? It isn't +necessary."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, yes," said her father; "he said to tell you he would be around +here at two o'clock. I guess I'll have to go over myself and see part of +the athletics. We older folks ain't quite up to taking a hand in the +game, but we can give Copple our support by looking in on you and +cheering on the good work."</p> + +<p>After dinner Mr. Leeds changed the linen coat for a cutaway and started +back to his business. Clara went up-stairs and put on a short skirt and +tennis shoes. She again surveyed herself in the mirror. The skirt +certainly hung just like the model. She sighed and got out her +tennis-racquet. Then she sat down and read in a book of poems that she +was very fond of.</p> + +<p>At two o'clock the bell jangled, and Clara opened the door for Mr. +Copple herself. The clergyman was of slight build, and had let the hair +in front of his ears grow down a little way on his cheeks. He wore a +blue yachting-cap, and white duck trousers which were rolled up and<a name="Page_72"></a> +displayed a good deal of red and black sock. For a moment Clara imaged a +clear-cut face with grave eyes above a length of clerical waistcoat, on +which gleamed a tiny gold cross suspended from a black cord.</p> + +<p>"I guess we might as well go over," she said. "I'm all ready."</p> + +<p>The clergyman insisted on carrying Clara's racquet. "You are looking +very well," he said, somewhat timidly, but with admiring eyes. "But +perhaps you don't feel as much like playing as you look."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I do indeed," replied Clara, inwardly resenting the solicitude +in his tone.</p> + +<p>They set out, and the clergyman appeared to shake his mind free of a +preoccupation.</p> + +<p>"I hope all the boys will be around," he said, with something of +anxiety. "They need the exercise. All young, active fellows ought to +have it. I spoke to Mr. Goodloe and Mr. Sharp and urged them to let Tom +and Fred Martin off this afternoon. I think they will do it. Ralph +Carpenter, I'm afraid, can't get away from the freight-office, but I am +in hopes that Mr. Stiggins can take his place. Did you know that Mrs. +Thompson has promised to donate some lemonade?"</p><a name="Page_73"></a> + +<p>"That's very nice," said Clara. "It's a lovely day for the match." She +was thinking, "What short steps he takes!"</p> + +<p>After some silent walking the clergyman said: "I don't believe you know, +Miss Leeds, how much I appreciate your taking part in these tennis +matches. Somehow I feel that it is asking a great deal of you, for I +know that you have—er—so many interests of your own—that is, you are +different in many ways from most of our people. I want you to know that +I am grateful for the influence—your cooperation, you know—"</p> + +<p>"Please, Mr. Copple, don't mention it," said Clara, hurriedly. "I +haven't so many interests as you imagine, and I am not any different +from the rest of the people. Not at all." If there was any hardness in +the girl's tone the clergyman did not appear to notice it. They had +reached their destination.</p> + +<p>The tennis-court was on the main street just beyond the end of the +business section. It was laid out on a vacant lot between two brick +houses. A wooden sign to one side of the court announced, "First —— +Church Tennis Club." When Clara and Mr. Copple arrived at the court +there were a number of young people gathered in the lot. Most of them<a name="Page_74"></a> +had tennis-racquets, those of the girls being decorated with bows of +yellow, black, and lavender ribbon. Mr. Copple shook hands with +everybody, and ran over the court several times, testing the consistency +of the earth.</p> + +<p>"Everything is capital!" he cried.</p> + +<p>Clara Leeds bowed to the others, shaking hands with only one or two. +They appeared to be afraid of her. The finals in the men's singles were +between Mr. Copple and Elbert Dunklethorn, who was called "Ellie." He +wore a very high collar, and as his shoes had heels, he ran about the +court on his toes.</p> + +<p>Clara, watching him, recalled her father's words at dinner. "How will +this save that boy from sin's pathway?" she thought. She regarded the +clergyman; she recognized his zeal. But why, why must she be a part of +this—what was it?—this system of saving people and this kind of +people? If she could only go and be good to poor and unfortunate people +whom she wouldn't have to know. Clara glanced toward the street. "I hope +they won't come past," she said to herself.</p> + +<p>The set in which Clara and the clergyman were partners was the most +exciting of the afternoon. The space on either<a name="Page_75"></a> side of the court was +quite filled with spectators. Some of the older people who had come with +the lengthening shadows sat on chairs brought from the kitchens of the +adjoining houses. Among them was Mr. Leeds, his face animated. Whenever +a ball went very high up or very far down the lot, he cried, "Hooray!" +Clara was at the net facing the street, when the carriage she had +observed in the morning stopped in view, and the two soberly dressed +women leaned forward to watch the play. Clara felt her face burn, and +when they cried "game," she could not remember whether the clergyman and +she had won it or lost it. She was chiefly conscious of her father's +loud "hoorays." With the end of the play the carriage was driven on.</p> + +<p>Shortly before supper-time that evening Clara went to the drug-store to +buy some stamps. One of the Misses Rockwood was standing by the +show-case waiting for the clerk to wrap up a bottle. Clara noted the +scantily trimmed hat and the scuffed gloves. She nodded in response to +Miss Rockwood's bow. They had met but once.</p> + +<p>"That was a glorious game of tennis you were having this afternoon," +said Miss Rockwood, with a warm smile. "My<a name="Page_76"></a> sister and I should like to +have seen more of it. You all seemed to be having such a good time."</p> + +<p>"<i>You all</i>—"</p> + +<p>Clara fumbled her change. "It's—it's good exercise," she said. That +night she cried herself to sleep.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The rector married the younger Miss Rockwood. To Clara Leeds the match +afforded painfully pleasurable feeling. It was so eminently fitting; and +yet it was hard to believe that any man could see anything in Miss +Rockwood. His courtship had been in keeping with the man, dignified and +yet bold. Clara had met them several times together. She always hurried +past. The rector bowed quietly. He seemed to say to all the world, "I +have chosen me a woman." His manner defied gossip; there was none that +Clara heard. This immunity of theirs distilled the more bitterness in +her heart because gossip was now at the heels of her and Mr. Copple, +following them as chickens do the feed-box. She knew it from such +transmissions as, "But doubtless Mr. Copple has already told you," or, +"You ought to know, if any one does."</p> + +<p>It had been some time apparent to Clara<a name="Page_77"></a> that the minister held her in a +different regard from the other members of his congregation. His talks +with her were more personal; his manner was bashfully eager. He sought +to present the congeniality of their minds. Mr. Copple had a nice taste +in poetry, but somehow Clara, in after-reading, skipped those poems that +he had read aloud to her. On several occasions she knew that a +declaration was imminent. She extricated herself with a feeling of +unspeakable relief. It would not be a simple matter to refuse him. Their +relations had been peculiar, and to tell him that she did not love him +would not suffice in bringing them to an end. Mr. Copple was odious to +her. She could not have explained why clearly, yet she knew. And she +would have blushed in the attempt to explain why; it would have revealed +a detestation of her lot. Clara had lately discovered the meaning of the +word "plebeian"; more, she believed she comprehended its applicableness. +The word was a burr in her thoughts. Mr. Copple was the personification +of the word. Clara had not repulsed him. You do not do that sort of +thing in a small town. She knew intuitively that the clergyman<a name="Page_78"></a> would +not be satisfied with the statement that he was not loved. She also knew +that he would extract part, at least, of the real reason from her. It is +more painful for a lover to learn that he is not liked than that he is +not loved. Clara did not wish to cause him pain.</p> + +<p>She was spared the necessity. The minister fell from a scaffolding on +the new church and was picked up dead.</p> + +<p>Clara's position was pitiful. Sudden death does not grow less shocking +because of its frequency. Clara shared the common shock, but not the +common grief. Fortunately, as hers was supposed to be a peculiar grief, +she could manifest it in a peculiar way. She chose silence. The shock +had bereft her of much thought. Death had laid a hand over the mouth of +her mind. But deep down a feeling of relief swam in her heart. She gave +it no welcome, but it would take no dismissal.</p> + +<p>About a week after the funeral, Clara, who walked out much alone, was +returning home near the outskirts of town. The houses were far apart, +and between them stretched deep lots fringed with flowered weeds +man-high. A level sun shot long golden needles through the blanched +maple-trees, and the street beneath them was filled with lemon-colored<a name="Page_79"></a> +light. The roll of a light vehicle approaching from behind grew distinct +enough to attract Clara's attention. "It is Mrs. Custer coming back from +the Poor Farm," she thought. It was Mrs. Everett Custer, who was +formerly the younger Miss Rockwood, and she was coming from the Poor +Farm. The phaeton came into Clara's sight beside her at the curb. As she +remarked it, Mrs. Custer said, in her thin, sympathetic voice, "Miss +Leeds, won't you drive with me back to town? I wish you would."</p> + +<p>An excuse rose instinctively to Clara's lips. She was walking for +exercise. But suddenly a thought came to her, and after a moment's +hesitation, she said: "You are very kind. I am a little tired." She got +into the phaeton, and the sober horse resumed his trot down the yellow +street.</p> + +<p>Clara's thought was: "Why shouldn't I accept? She is too well bred to +sympathize with me, and perhaps, now that I am free, I can get to know +her and show her that I am not just the same as all the rest, and +perhaps I'll get to going with her sort of people."</p> + +<p>She listened to the rhythm of the horse's hoof-beats, and was not a +little uneasy. Mrs. Custer remarked the beauty of the late afternoon, +the glorious sym<a name="Page_80"></a>phonies of color in sky and tree, in response to which +Clara said, "Yes, indeed," and, "Isn't it?" between long breaths. She +was about to essay a question concerning the Poor Farm, when Mrs. Custer +began to speak, at first faltering, in a tone that sent the blood out of +Clara's face and drew a sudden catching pain down her breast.</p> + +<p>"I—really, Miss Leeds, I want to say something to you and I don't quite +know how to say it, and yet it is something I want very much for you to +know." Mrs. Custer's eyes looked the embarrassment of unencouraged +frankness. "I know it is presumptuous for me, almost a stranger, to +speak to you, but I feel so deeply on the matter—Everett—Mr. Custer +feels so deeply—My dear Miss Leeds, I want you to know what a grief his +loss was to us. Oh, believe me, I am not trying to sympathize with you. +I have no right to do that. But if you could know how Mr. Custer always +regarded Mr. Copple! It might mean something to you to know that. I +don't think there was a man for whom he expressed greater +admiration—than what, I mean, he expressed to me. He saw in him all +that he lacked himself. I am telling you a great deal. It is difficult +for my husband to go among men in<a name="Page_81"></a> that way—in the way <i>he</i> did. And +yet he firmly believes that the Kingdom of God can only be brought to +men by the ministers of God going among them and being of them. He +envied Mr. Copple his ability to do that, to know his people as one of +them, to take part in their—their sports and all that. You don't know +how he envied him and admired him. And his admiration was my admiration. +He brought me to see it. I envied you, too—your opportunity to help +your people in an intimate, real way which seemed so much better than +mine. I don't know why it is my way, but I mean going about as I do, as +I did to-day to the Poor Farm. It seems so perfunctory.</p> + +<p>"Don't misunderstand me, Miss Leeds," and Mrs. Custer laid a hand on +Clara's arm. "There is no reason why you should care what Mr. Custer and +I think about your—about our—all our very great loss. But I felt that +it must be some comfort for you to know that we, my husband and I, who +might seem indifferent—not that—say unaffected by what has +happened,—feel it very, very deeply; and to know that his life, which I +can't conceive of as finished, has left a deep, deep print on ours."</p> + +<p>The phaeton was rolling through fre<a name="Page_82"></a>quented streets. It turned a corner +as Mrs. Custer ceased speaking.</p> + +<p>"I—I must get out here," said Clara Leeds. "You needn't drive me. It is +only a block to walk."</p> + +<p>"Miss Leeds, forgive me—" Mrs. Custer's lips trembled with compassion.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there isn't anything—it isn't that—good night." Clara backed down +to the street and hurried off through the dusk. And as she went tears +dropped slowly to her cheeks—cold, wretched tears.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<a name="His_Sister"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>His Sister<a name="Page_83"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Mary Applewhite Bacon</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"But you couldn't see me leave, mother, anyway, unless I was there to +go."</p> + +<p>It was characteristic of the girl adjusting her new travelling-hat +before the dim little looking-glass that, while her heart was beating +with excitement which was strangely like grief, she could give herself +at once to her stepmother's inquietude and turn it aside with a jest.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Morgan, arrested in her anxious movement towards the door, stood +for a moment taking in the reasonableness of Stella's proposition, and +then sank back to the edge of her chair. "The train gets here at two +o'clock," she argued.</p> + +<p>Lindsay Cowart came into the room, his head bent over the satchel he had +been mending. "You had better say good-by to Stella here at the house, +mother," he suggested; "there's no use for you to walk down to the depot +in the hot sun."<a name="Page_84"></a> And then he noticed that his stepmother had on her +bonnet with the veil to it—she had married since his father's death and +was again a widow,—and, in extreme disregard of the September heat, was +dressed in the black worsted of a diagonal weave which she wore only on +occasions which demanded some special tribute to their importance.</p> + +<p>She began smoothing out on her knees the black gloves which, in her +nervous haste to be going, she had been holding squeezed in a tight ball +in her left hand. "I can get there, I reckon," she answered with mild +brevity, and as if the young man's words had barely grazed her +consciousness.</p> + +<p>A moment later she went to the window and, with her back to Lindsay, +poured the contents of a small leather purse into one hand and began to +count them softly.</p> + +<p>He looked up again. "I am going to pay for Stella's ticket, mother. You +must not do it," he said.</p> + +<p>She replaced the money immediately, but without impatience, and as +acquiescing in his assumption of his sister's future. "You have done so +much already," he apologized; but he knew that she was hurt, and chafed +to feel that only<a name="Page_85"></a> the irrational thing on his part would have seemed to +her the kind one.</p> + +<p>Stella turned from the verdict of the dim looking-glass upon her +appearance to that of her brother's face. As she stood there in that +moment of pause, she might have been the type of all innocent and +budding life. The delicacy of floral bloom was in the fine texture of +her skin, the purple of dewy violets in her soft eyes; and this new +access of sadness, which was as yet hardly conscious of itself, had +thrown over the natural gayety of her young girlhood something akin to +the pathetic tenderness which veils the earth in the dawn of a summer +morning.</p> + +<p>He felt it to be so, but dimly; and, young himself and already strained +by the exactions of personal desires, he answered only the look of +inquiry in her face,—"Will the merchants here never learn any taste in +dry-goods?"</p> + +<p>Instantly he was sick with regret. Of what consequence was the too +pronounced blue of her dress in comparison with the light of happiness +in her dear face? How impossible for him to be here for even these few +hours without running counter to some cherished illusion or dear habit +of speech or manner.</p><a name="Page_86"></a> + +<p>"I tell you it's time we were going," Mrs. Morgan appealed, her anxiety +returning.</p> + +<p>"We have thirty-five minutes yet," Lindsay said, looking at his watch; +but he gathered up the bags and umbrellas and followed as she moved +ponderously to the door.</p> + +<p>Stella waited until they were out in the hall, and then looked around +the room, a poignant tenderness in her eyes. There was nothing congruous +between its shabby walls and cheap worn furniture and her own beautiful +young life; but the heart establishes its own relations, and tears rose +suddenly to her eyes and fell in quick succession. Even so brief a +farewell was broken in upon by her stepmother's call, and pressing her +wet cheek for a moment against the discolored door-facing, she hurried +out to join her.</p> + +<p>Lindsay did not at first connect the unusual crowd in and around the +little station with his sister's departure; but the young people at once +formed a circle around her, into which one and another older person +entered and retired again with about the same expressions of +affectionate regret and good wishes. He had known them all so long! But, +except for the growing up of the younger<a name="Page_87"></a> boys and girls during his five +years of absence, they were to him still what they had been since he was +a child, affecting him still with the old depressing sense of distance +and dislike. The grammarless speech of the men, the black-rimmed nails +of Stella's schoolmaster—a good classical scholar, but heedless as he +was good-hearted,—jarred upon him, indeed, with the discomfort of a new +experience. Upon his own slender, erect figure, clothed in poor but +well-fitting garments, gentleman was written as plainly as in words, +just as idealist was written on his forehead and the other features +which thought had chiselled perhaps too finely for his years.</p> + +<p>The brightness had come back to Stella's face, and he could not but feel +grateful to the men who had left their shops and dingy little stores to +bid her good-by, and to the placid, kindly-faced women ranged along the +settees against the wall and conversing in low tones about how she would +be missed; but the noisy flock of young people, who with their chorus of +expostulations, assurances, and prophecies seemed to make her one of +themselves, filled him with strong displeasure. He knew how foolish it +would be for him to show it, but he could<a name="Page_88"></a> get no further in his effort +at concealment than a cold silence which was itself significant enough. +A tall youth with bold and handsome features and a pretty girl in a +showy red muslin ignored him altogether, with a pride which really quite +overmatched his own; but the rest shrank back a little as he passed +looking after the checks and tickets, either cutting short their +sentences at his approach or missing the point of what they had to say. +The train seemed to him long in coming.</p> + +<p>His stepmother moved to the end of the settee and made a place for him +at her side. "Lindsay," she said, under cover of the talk and laughter, +and speaking with some difficulty, "I hope you will be able to carry out +all your plans for yourself and Stella; but while you're making the +money, she will have to make the friends. Don't you ever interfere with +her doing it. From what little I have seen of the world, it's going to +take both to carry you through."</p> + +<p>His face flushed a little, but he recognized her faithfulness and did it +honor. "That is true, mother, and I will remember what you say. But I +have some friends," he added, in enforced self-vindication, "in Vaucluse +if not here."</p><a name="Page_89"></a> + +<p>A whistle sounded up the road. She caught his hand with a swift +accession of tenderness towards his youth. "You've done the best you +could, Lindsay," she said. "I wish you well, my son, I wish you well." +There were tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>George Morrow and the girl in red followed Stella into the car, not at +all disconcerted at having to get off after the train was in motion. +"Don't forget me, Stella," the girl called back. "Don't you ever forget +Ida Brand!"</p> + +<p>There was a waving of hands and handkerchiefs from the little station, +aglare in the early afternoon sun. A few moments later the train had +rounded a curve, shutting the meagre village from sight, and, to Lindsay +Cowart's thought, shutting it into a remote past as well.</p> + +<p>He arose and began rearranging their luggage. "Do you want these?" he +inquired, holding up a bouquet of dahlias, scarlet sage, and purple +petunias, and thinking of only one answer as possible.</p> + +<p>"I will take them," she said, as he stood waiting her formal consent to +drop them from the car window. Her voice was quite as usual, but +something in her face suggested to him that this going away from her +childhood's home might be a different thing to her from what he had<a name="Page_90"></a> +conceived it to be. He caught the touch of tender vindication in her +manner as she untied the cheap red ribbon which held the flowers +together and rearranged them into two bunches so that the jarring colors +might no longer offend, and felt that the really natural thing for her +to do was to weep, and that she only restrained her tears for his sake. +Sixteen was so young! His heart grew warm and brotherly towards her +youth and inexperience; but, after all, how infinitely better that she +should have cause for this passing sorrow.</p> + +<p>He left her alone, but not for long. He was eager to talk with her of +the plans about which he had been writing her the two years since he +himself had been a student at Vaucluse, of the future which they should +achieve together. It seemed to him only necessary for him to show her +his point of view to have her adopt it as her own; and he believed, +building on her buoyancy and responsiveness of disposition, that nothing +he might propose would be beyond the scope of her courage.</p> + +<p>"It may be a little lonely for you at first," he told her. "There are +only a handful of women students at the college, and all of them much +older than<a name="Page_91"></a> you; but it is your studies at last that are the really +important thing, and I will help you with them all I can. Mrs. Bancroft +will have no other lodgers and there will be nothing to interrupt our +work."</p> + +<p>"And the money, Lindsay?" she asked, a little anxiously.</p> + +<p>"What I have will carry us through this year. Next summer we can teach +and make almost enough for the year after. The trustees are planning to +establish a fellowship in Greek, and if they do and I can secure it—and +Professor Wayland thinks I can,—that will make us safe the next two +years until you are through."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>He straightened up buoyantly. "Then your two years at Vassar and mine at +Harvard, with some teaching thrown in along the way, of course. And then +Europe—Greece—all the great things!"</p> + +<p>She smiled with him in his enthusiasm. "You are used to such bold +thoughts. It is too high a flight for me all at once."</p> + +<p>"It will not be, a year from now," he declared, confidently.</p> + +<p>A silence fell between them, and the noise of the train made a pleasant +accompaniment to his thoughts as he<a name="Page_92"></a> sketched in detail the work of the +coming months. But always as a background to his hopes was that +honorable social position which he meant eventually to achieve, the +passion for which was a part of his Southern inheritance. Little as he +had yet participated in any interests outside his daily tasks, he had +perceived in the old college town its deeply grained traditions of birth +and custom, perceived and respected them, and discounted the more their +absence in the sorry village he had left. Sometime when he should assail +it, the exclusiveness of his new environment might beat him back +cruelly, but thus far it existed for him only as a barrier to what was +ultimately precious and desirable. One day the gates would open at his +touch, and he and the sister of his heart should enter their rightful +heritage.</p> + +<p>The afternoon waned. He pointed outside the car window. "See how +different all this is from the part of the State which we have left," he +said. "The landscape is still rural, but what mellowness it has; because +it has been enriched by a larger, more generous human life. One can +imagine what this whole section must have been in those old days, before +the coming of war and desolation. And Vau<a name="Page_93"></a>cluse was the flower, the +centre of it all!" His eye kindled. "Some day external prosperity will +return, and then Vaucluse and her ideals will be needed more than ever; +it is she who must hold in check the commercial spirit, and dominate, as +she has always done, the material with the intellectual." There was a +noble emotion in his face, reflecting itself in the younger countenance +beside his own. Poor, young, unknown, their hearts thrilled with pride +in their State, with the possibility that they also should give to her +of their best when the opportunity should be theirs.</p> + +<p>"It is a wonderful old town," Lindsay went on again. "Even Wayland says +so,—our Greek professor, you know." His voice thrilled with the +devotion of the hero-worshipper as he spoke the name. "He is a Harvard +man, and has seen the best of everything, and even he has felt the charm +of the place; he told me so. You will feel it, too. It is just as if the +little town and the college together had preserved in amber all that was +finest in our Southern life. And now to think you and I are to share in +all its riches!"</p> + +<p>His early consecration to such a purpose, the toil and sacrifice by +which it had been achieved, came movingly before her;<a name="Page_94"></a> yet, mingled with +her pride in him, something within her pleaded for the things which he +rated so low. "It used to be hard for you at home, Lindsay," she said, +softly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was hard." His face flushed. "I never really lived till I left +there. I was like an animal caught in a net, like a man struggling for +air. You can't know what it is to me now to be with people who are +thinking of something else than of how to make a few dollars in a +miserable country store."</p> + +<p>"But they were good people in Bowersville, Lindsay," she urged, with +gentle loyalty.</p> + +<p>"I am sure they were, if you say so," he agreed. "But at any rate we are +done with it all now." He laid his hand over hers. "At last I am going +to take you into our own dear world."</p> + +<p>It was, after all, a very small world as to its actual dimensions, but +to the brother it had the largeness of opportunity, and to Stella it +seemed infinitely complex. She found security at first only in following +minutely the programme which Lindsay had laid out for her. It was his +own as well, and simple enough. Study was the supreme thing; exercise +came in as a necessity, pleasure only as the rarest<a name="Page_95"></a> incident. She took +all things cheerfully, after her nature, but after two or three months +the color began to go from her cheeks, the elasticity from her step; nor +was her class standing, though creditable, quite what her brother had +expected it to be.</p> + +<p>Wayland detained him one day in his class-room. "Do you think your +sister is quite happy here, Cowart?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The boy thrilled, as he always did at any special evidence of interest +from such a source, but he had never put this particular question to +himself and had no reply at hand.</p> + +<p>"I have never thought this absolute surrender to books the wisest thing +for you," Wayland went on; "but for your sister it is impossible. She +was formed for companionship, for happiness, not for the isolation of +the scholar. Why did you not put her into one of the girls' schools of +the State, where she would have had associations more suited to her +years?" he asked, bluntly.</p> + +<p>Lindsay could scarcely believe that he was listening to the young +professor whose scholarly attainments seemed to him the sum of what was +most desirable in life. "Our girls' colleges are very superficial," he +answered; "and even if<a name="Page_96"></a> they were not, she could get no Greek in any of +them."</p> + +<p>"My dear boy," Wayland said, "the amount of Greek which your sister +knows or doesn't know will always be a very unimportant matter; she has +things that are so infinitely more valuable to give to the world. And +deserves so much better things for herself," he added, drawing together +his texts for the next recitation.</p> + +<p>Lindsay returned to Mrs. Bancroft's quiet, old-fashioned house in a sort +of daze. "Stella," he said, "do you think you enter enough into the +social side of our college life?"</p> + +<p>"No," she answered. "But I think neither of us does."</p> + +<p>"Well, leave me out of the count. If I get through my Junior year as I +ought, I am obliged to grind; and when there is any time left, I feel +that I must have it for reading in the library. But it needn't be so +with you. Didn't an invitation come to you for the reception Friday +evening?"</p> + +<p>Her face grew wistful. "I don't care to go to things, Lindsay, unless +you will go with me," she said.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he had his way, and when once she made it possible, +opportunities for social pleasures poured in upon her.<a name="Page_97"></a> As Wayland had +said, she was formed for friendship, for joy; and that which was her own +came to her unsought. She was by nature too simple and sweet to be +spoiled by the attention she received; the danger perhaps was the less +because she missed in it all the comradeship of her brother, without +which in her eyes the best things lost something of their charm. It was +not merely personal ambition which kept him at his books; the passion of +the scholar was upon him and made him count all moments lost that were +spent away from them. Sometimes Stella sought him as he pored over them +alone, and putting her arm shyly about him, would beg that he would go +with her for a walk, or a ride on the river; but almost always his +answer was the same: "I am so busy, Stella dear; if you knew how much I +have to do you would not even ask me."</p> + +<p>There was one interruption, indeed, which the young student never +refused. Sometimes their Greek professor dropped in at Mrs. Bancroft's +to bring or to ask for a book; sometimes, with the lovely coming of the +spring, he would join them as they were leaving the college grounds, and +lead them away into some of the woodland walks, rich in wild<a name="Page_98"></a> flowers, +that environed the little town. Such hours seemed to both brother and +sister to have a flavor, a brightness, quite beyond what ordinary life +could give. Wayland, too, must have found in them his own share of +pleasure, for he made them more frequent as the months went by.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>It was in the early spring of her second year at Vaucluse that the +accident occurred. The poor lad who had taken her out in the boat was +almost beside himself with grief and remorse.</p> + +<p>"We had enjoyed the afternoon so much," he said, trying to tell how it +had happened. "I thought I had never seen her so happy, so gay,—but you +know she was that always. It was nearly sunset, and I remember how she +spoke of the light as we saw it through the open spaces of the woods and +as it slanted across the water. Farther down the river the yellow +jasmine was beginning to open. A beech-tree that leaned out over the +water was hung with it. She wanted some, and I guided the boat under the +branches. I meant to get it for her myself, but she was reaching up +after it almost before I knew it. The bough that had the finest blossoms +on it was just beyond her reach,<a name="Page_99"></a> and while I steadied the boat, she +pulled it towards her by one of the vines hanging from it. She must have +put too much weight on it—</p> + +<p>"It all happened so quickly. I called to her to be careful, but while I +was saying the words the vine snapped and she fell back with such force +that the boat tipped, and in a second we were both in the water. I knew +I could not swim, but I hoped that the water so near the bank would be +shallow; and it was, but there was a deep hole under the roots of the +tree."</p> + +<p>He could get no further. Poor lad! the wonder was that he had not been +drowned himself. A negro ploughing in the field near by saw the accident +and ran to his help, catching him as he was sinking for the third time. +Stella never rose after she went down; her clothing had been entangled +in the roots of the beech.</p> + +<p>Sorrow for the young life cut off so untimely was deep and universal, +and sought to manifest itself in tender ministrations to the brother so +cruelly bereaved. But Lindsay shrank from all offices of sympathy, and +except for seeking now and then Wayland's silent companionship, bore his +grief alone.</p> + +<p>The college was too poor to establish<a name="Page_100"></a> the fellowship in Greek, but the +adjunct professor in mathematics resigned, and young Cowart was elected +to his place, with the proviso that he give two months further study to +the subject in the summer school of some university. Wayland decided +which by taking him back with him to Cambridge, where he showed the boy +an admirable friendship.</p> + +<p>Lindsay applied himself to his special studies with the utmost +diligence. It was impossible, moreover, that his new surroundings should +not appeal to his tastes in many directions; but in spite of his +response to these larger opportunities, his friend discerned that the +wound which the young man kept so carefully hidden had not, after all +these weeks, begun even slightly to heal.</p> + +<p>Late on an August night, impelled as he often was to share the solitude +which Lindsay affected, he sought him at his lodgings, and not finding +him, followed what he knew was a favorite walk with the boy, and came +upon him half hidden under the shadows of an elm in the woods that +skirted Mount Auburn. "I thought you might be here," he said, taking the +place that Lindsay made for him on the seat. Many words were never +necessary between them.</p><a name="Page_101"></a> + +<p>The moon was full and the sky cloudless, and for some time they sat in +silence, yielding to the tranquil loveliness of the scene and to that +inner experience of the soul brooding over each, and more inscrutable +than the fathomless vault above them.</p> + +<p>"I suppose we shall never get used to a midnight that is still and at +the same time lustrous, as this is to-night," Wayland said. "The sense +of its uniqueness is as fresh whenever it is spread before us as if we +had never seen it before."</p> + +<p>It was but a part of what he meant. He was thinking how sorrow, the wide +sense of personal loss, was in some way like the pervasiveness, the +voiceless speech, of this shadowed radiance around them.</p> + +<p>He drew a little nearer the relaxed and slender figure beside his own. +"It is of <i>her</i> you are thinking, Lindsay," he said, gently, and +mentioning for the first time the young man's loss. "All that you see +seems saturated with her memory. I think it will always be so—scenes of +exceptional beauty, moments of high emotion, will always bring her +back."</p> + +<p>The boy's response came with difficulty: "Perhaps so. I do not know. I +think the thought of her is always with me."</p><a name="Page_102"></a> + +<p>"If so, it should be for strength, for comfort," his friend pleaded. +"She herself brought only gladness wherever she came."</p> + +<p>There was something unusual in his voice, something that for a moment +raised a vague questioning in Lindsay's mind; but absorbed as he was in +his own sadness, it eluded his feeble inquiry. To what Wayland had said +he could make no reply.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is the apparent waste of a life so beautiful that seems to +you so intolerable—" He felt the strong man's impulse to arrest an +irrational grief, and groped for the assurance he desired. "Yet, +Lindsay, we know things are not wasted; not in the natural world, not in +the world of the spirit." But on the last words his voice lapsed +miserably, and he half rose to go.</p> + +<p>Lindsay caught his arm and drew him back. "Don't go yet," he said, +brokenly. "I know you think it would help me if I would talk +about—Stella; if I should tell it all out to you. I thank you for being +willing to listen. Perhaps it will help me."</p> + +<p>He paused, seeking for some words in which to express the sense of +poverty which scourged him. Of all who had loved his sister, he himself +was left poor<a name="Page_103"></a>est! Others had taken freely of her friendship, had +delighted themselves in her face, her words, her smile, had all these +things for memories. He had been separated from her, in part by the hard +conditions of their youth, and at the last, when they had been together, +by his own will. Oh, what had been her inner life during these last two +years, when it had gone on beside his own, while he was too busy to +attend?</p> + +<p>But the self-reproach was too bitter for utterance to even the kindest +of friends. "I thought I could tell you," he said at last, "but I can't. +Oh, Professor Wayland," he cried, "there is an element in my grief that +is peculiar to itself, that no one else in sorrow ever had!"</p> + +<p>"I think every mourner on earth would say that, Lindsay." Again the +younger man discerned the approach of a mystery, but again he left it +unchallenged.</p> + +<p>The professor rose to his feet. "Good night," he said; "unless you will +go back with me. Even with such moonlight as this, one must sleep." He +had dropped to that kind level of the commonplace by which we spare +ourselves and one another.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"'Where the love light never, never dies,'"<br /></span> +</div></div><a name="Page_104"></a> + +<p>The boy's voice ringing out blithely through the drip and dampness of +the winter evening marked his winding route across the college grounds. +Lindsay Cowart, busy at his study table, listened without definite +effort and placed the singer as the lad newly come from the country. He +could have identified any other of the Vaucluse students by connections +as slight—Marchman by his whistling, tender, elusive sounds, flute +notes sublimated, heard only when the night was late and the campus +still; others by tricks of voice, fragments of laughter, by their +footfalls, even, on the narrow brick walk below his study window. Such +the easy proficiency of affection.</p> + +<p>Attention to the lad's singing suddenly was lifted above the +subconscious. The simple melody had entangled itself in some forgotten +association of the professor's boyhood, seeking to marshal which before +him, he received the full force of the single line sung in direct +ear-shot. Like the tune, the words also became a challenge; pricked +through the unregarded heaviness in which he was plying his familiar +task, and demanded that he should name its cause.</p> + +<p>For him the love light of his marriage had been dead so long! No, not +dead;<a name="Page_105"></a> nothing so dignified, so tragic. Burnt down, smoldered; +suffocated by the hateful dust of the commonplace. There was a touch of +contempt in the effort with which he dismissed the matter from his mind +and turned back to his work. And yet, he stopped a moment longer to +think, for him life without the light of love fell so far below its best +achievement!</p> + +<p>The front of his desk was covered with the papers in mathematics over +which he had spent his evenings for more than a week. Most of them had +been corrected and graded, with the somewhat full comment or elucidation +here and there which had made his progress slow. He examined a +half-dozen more, and then in sheer mental revolt against the subject, +slipped them under the rubber bands with others of their kind and +dropped the neat packages out of his sight into one of the drawers of +the desk. Wayland's book on Greece, the fruit of eighteen months' +sojourn there, had come through the mail on the same day when the +calculus papers had been handed in, and he had read it through at once, +not to be teased intolerably by its invitation. He had mastered the +text, avid through the long winter night, but he picked it up again now, +and for a little while studied the<a name="Page_106"></a> sumptuous illustrations. How long +Wayland had been away from Vaucluse, how much of enrichment had come to +him in the years since he had left! He himself might have gone also, to +larger opportunities—he had chosen to remain, held by a sentiment! The +professor closed the book with a little sigh, and taking it to a small +shelf on the opposite side of the room, stood it with a half-dozen +others worthy of such association.</p> + +<p>Returning, he got together before him the few Greek authors habitually +in hand's reach, whether handled or not, and from a compartment of his +desk took out several sheets of manuscript, metrical translations from +favorite passages in the tragedists or the short poems of the Anthology. +Like the rest of the Vaucluse professors—a mere handful they were,—he +was straitened by the hard exactions of class-room work, and the book +which he hoped sometime to publish grew slowly. How far he was in actual +miles from the men who were getting their thoughts into print, how much +farther in environment! Things which to them were the commonplaces of a +scholar's life were to him impossible luxuries; few even of their books +found their way to his shelves. At least the original sources of +inspiration<a name="Page_107"></a> were his, and sometimes he felt that his verses were not +without spirit, flavor.</p> + +<p>He took up a little volume of Theocritus, which opened easily at the +Seventh Idyl, and began to read aloud. Half-way through the poem the +door opened and his wife entered. He did not immediately adjust himself +to the interruption, and she remained standing a few moments in the +centre of the room.</p> + +<p>"Thank you; I believe I will be seated," she said, the sarcasm in her +words carefully excluded from her voice.</p> + +<p>He wondered that she should find interest in so sorry a game. "I thought +you felt enough at home in here to sit down without being asked," he +said, rising, and trying to speak lightly.</p> + +<p>She took the rocking-chair he brought for her and leaned back in it +without speaking. Her maroon-colored evening gown suggested that whoever +planned it had been somewhat straitened by economy, but it did well by +her rich complexion and creditable figure. Her features were creditable +too, the dark hair a little too heavy, perhaps, and the expression, +defined as it is apt to be when one is thirty-five, not wholly +satisfying. In truth, the countenance, like the gown, suffered a little +from economy, a sparse<a name="Page_108"></a>ness of the things one loves best in a woman's +face. Half the sensitiveness belonging to her husband's eyes and mouth +would have made her beautiful.</p> + +<p>"It is a pity the Barkers have such a bad night for their party," Cowart +said.</p> + +<p>"The reception is at the Fieldings';" and again he felt himself rebuked.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I didn't think much about the matter after you told me the +Dillinghams were coming by for you in their carriage. Fortunately +neither family holds us college people to very strict social account."</p> + +<p>"They have their virtues, even if they are so vulgar as to be rich."</p> + +<p>"Why, I believe I had just been thinking, before you came in, that it is +only the rich who have any virtues at all." He managed to speak +genially, but the consciousness that she was waiting for him to make +conversation, as she had waited for the chair, stiffened upon him like +frost.</p> + +<p>He cast about for something to say, but the one interest which he would +have preferred to keep to himself was all that presented itself to his +grasp. "I have often thought," he suggested, "that if only we were in +sight of the Gulf, our landscape in early summer might not be very +unlike that of ancient Greece." She<a name="Page_109"></a> looked at him a little blankly, and +he drew one of his books nearer and began turning its leaves.</p> + +<p>"I thought you were correcting your mathematics papers."</p> + +<p>"I am, or have been; but I am reading Theocritus, too."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't see anything in a day like this to make anybody think of +summer. The dampness goes to your very marrow."</p> + +<p>"It isn't the day; it's the poetry. That's the good of there being +poetry."</p> + +<p>She skipped his parenthesis. "And you keep this room as cold as a +vault." Not faultfinding, but a somewhat irritating concern for his +comfort was in the complaint.</p> + +<p>She went to the hearth and in her efficient way shook down the ashes +from the grate and heaped it with coal. A cabinet photograph of a girl +in her early teens, which had the appearance of having just been put +there, was supported against a slender glass vase. Mrs. Cowart took it +up and examined it critically. "I don't think this picture does +Arnoldina justice," she said. "One of the eyes seems to droop a little, +and the mouth looks sad. Arnoldina never did look sad."</p><a name="Page_110"></a> + +<p>They were on common ground now, and he could speak without constraint. +"I hadn't observed that it looked sad. She seems somehow to have got a +good deal older since September."</p> + +<p>"She is maturing, of course." All a mother's pride and approbation, were +in the reserve of the speech. To have put more definitely her estimate +of the sweet young face would have been a clumsy thing in comparison.</p> + +<p>Lindsay's countenance lighted up. He arose, and standing by his wife, +looked over her shoulder as she held the photograph to the light. "Do +you know, Gertrude," he said, "there is something in her face that +reminds me of Stella?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I see it," she answered, indifferently, replacing the +photograph and returning to her chair. The purpose which had brought her +to the room rose to her face. "I stopped at the warehouse this +afternoon," she said, "and had a talk with father. Jamieson really goes +to Mobile—the first of next month. The place is open to you if you want +it."</p> + +<p>"But, Gertrude, how should I possibly want it?" he expostulated.</p> + +<p>"You would be a member of the firm. You might as well be making money as +the rest of them."</p><a name="Page_111"></a> + +<p>He offered no comment.</p> + +<p>"It is not now like it was when you were made professor. The town has +become a commercial centre and its educational interests have declined. +The professors will always have their social position, of course, but +they cannot hope for anything more."</p> + +<p>"It is not merely Vaucluse, but the South, that is passing into this +phase. But economic independence has become a necessity. When once it is +achieved, our people will turn to higher things."</p> + +<p>"Not soon enough to benefit you and me."</p> + +<p>"Probably not."</p> + +<p>"Then why waste your talents on the college, when the best years of your +life are still before you?"</p> + +<p>"I am not teaching for money, Gertrude." He hated putting into the bald +phrase his consecration to his ideals for the young men of his State; he +hated putting it into words at all; but something in his voice told her +that the argument was finished.</p> + +<p>There was a sound of carriage wheels on the drive. He arose and began to +assist her with her wraps. "It is too bad for you to be dependent on +even such nice escorts as the Dillinghams are," he<a name="Page_112"></a> solaced, recovering +himself. "We college folk are a sorry lot."</p> + +<p>But when she was gone, the mood for composition which an hour before had +seemed so near had escaped him, and he put away his books and +manuscript, standing for a while, a little chilled in mind and body, +before the grate and looking at the photograph on the mantel. While he +did so the haunting likeness he had seen grew more distinct and by +degrees another face overspread that of his young daughter, the face of +the sister he had loved and lost.</p> + +<p>With a sudden impulse he crossed the room to an old-fashioned mahogany +secretary, opened its slanting lid, and unlocking with some difficulty a +small inner drawer, returned with it to his desk. Several packages of +letters tied with faded ribbon filled the small receptacle, but they +struck upon him with the strangeness of something utterly forgotten. The +pieces of ribbon had once held for him each its own association of time +or place; now he could only remember, looking down upon them with tender +gaze, that they had been Stella's, worn in her hair, or at her throat or +waist. Simple and inexpensive he saw they were. Arnoldina would not have +looked at them.</p><a name="Page_113"></a> + +<p>Overcoming something of reluctance, he took one of the packages from its +place. It contained the letters he had found in her writing-table after +her death, most of them written after she had come to Vaucluse by her +stepmother and the friends she had left in the village. He knew there +was nothing in any of them she would have withheld from him; in reading +them he was merely taking back something from the vanished years which, +if not looked at now, would perish utterly from earth. How affecting +they were—these utterances of true and humble hearts, written to one +equally true and good! His youth and hers in the remote country village +rose before him; not now, as once, pinched and narrow, but as salutary, +even gracious. He could but feel how changed his standards had become +since then, how different his measure of the great and the small of +life.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, as he was thus borne back into the past, the old sorrow sprang +upon him, and he bowed before it. The old bitter cry which he had been +able to utter to no human consoler swept once more to his lips: "Oh, +Stella, Stella, you died before I really knew you; your brother, who +should have known and loved you best! And now it is too late, too +late."</p><a name="Page_114"></a> + +<p>He sent out as of old his voiceless call to one afar off, in some land +where her whiteness, her budding soul, had found their rightful place; +but even as he did so, his thought of her seemed to be growing clearer. +From that far, reverenced, but unimagined sphere she was coming back to +the range of his apprehension, to comradeship in the life which they +once had shared together.</p> + +<p>He trembled with the hope of a fuller attainment, lifting his bowed head +and taking another package of the letters from their place. Her letters! +He had begged them of her friends in his desperate sense of ignorance, +his longing to make good something of all that he had lost in those last +two years of her life. What an innocent life it was that was spread +before him; and how young,—oh, how young! And it was a happy life. He +was astonished, after all his self-reproach, to realize how happy; to +find himself smiling with her in some girlish drollery such as used to +come so readily to her lips. He could detect, too, how the note of +gladness, how her whole life, indeed, had grown richer in the larger +existence of Vaucluse. At last he could be comforted that, however it +had ended, it was he who had made it hers.</p><a name="Page_115"></a> + +<p>He had been feeding eagerly, too eagerly, and under the pressure of +emotion was constrained to rise and walk the floor, sinking at last into +his armchair and gazing with unseeing eyes upon the ruddy coals in the +grate. That lovely life, which he had thought could never in its +completeness be his, was rebuilt before his vision from the materials +which she herself had left. What he had believed to be loss, bitter, +unspeakable even to himself, had in these few hours of the night become +wealth.</p> + +<p>His quickened thought moved on from plane to plane. He scanned the +present conditions of his life, and saw with clarified vision how good +they were. What it was given him to do for his students, at least what +he was trying to do for them; the preciousness of their regard; the long +friendship with his colleagues; the associations with the little +community in which his lot was cast, limited in some directions as they +might be; the fair demesne of Greek literature in which his feet were so +much at home; his own literary gift, even if a slender one; his dear, +dear child.</p> + +<p>And Gertrude? Under the invigoration of his mood a situation which had +long seemed unamenable to change re<a name="Page_116"></a>solved itself into new and simpler +proportions. The worthier aspects of his home life, the finer traits of +his wife's character, stood before him as proofs of what might yet be. +His memory had kept no record of the fact that when in the first year of +his youthful sorrow, sick for comfort and believing her all tenderness, +he had married her, to find her impatient of his grief, nor of the many +times since when she had appeared almost wilfully blind to his ideals +and purposes. His judgment held only this, that she had never understood +him. For this he had seldom blamed her; but to-night he blamed himself. +Instead of shrinking away sensitively, keeping the vital part of his +life to himself and making what he could of it alone, he should have set +himself steadily to create a place for it in her understanding and +sympathy. Was not a perfect married love worth the minor sacrifices as +well as the supreme surrender from which he believed that neither of +them would have shrunk?</p> + +<p>He returned to his desk and began to rearrange the contents of the +little drawer. Among them was a small sandalwood box which had been +their mother's, and which Stella had prized with special fondness. He +had never opened it since<a name="Page_117"></a> her death, but as he lifted it now the frail +clasp gave way, the lid fell back, and the contents slipped upon the +desk. They were few: a ring, a thin gold locket containing the +miniatures of their father and mother, a small tintype of himself taken +when he first left home, and two or three notes addressed in a +handwriting which he recognized as Wayland's. He replaced them with +reverent touch, turning away even in thought from what he had never +meant to see.</p> + +<p>By and by he heard in the distance the roll of carriages returning from +the Fieldings' reception. He replenished the fire generously, found a +long cloak in the closet at the end of the hall, and waited the sound of +wheels before his own door. "The rain has grown heavier," he said, +drawing the cloak around his wife as she descended from the carriage. +Something in his manner seemed to envelop her. He brought her into the +study and seated her before the fire. She had expected to find the house +silent; the glow and warmth of the room were grateful after the chill +and darkness outside, her husband's presence after that vague sense of +futility which the evening's gayety had left upon her.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I ought to tell you about<a name="Page_118"></a> the party," she said, a little +wearily; "but if you don't mind, I will wait till breakfast. Everybody +was there, of course, and it was all very fine, as we all knew it would +be. I hope you've enjoyed your Latin poets more."</p> + +<p>"They are Greek, dear," he said. "I have been making translations from +some of them now and then. Some day we will take a day off and then I'll +read them to you. But neither the party nor the poets to-night. See, it +is almost two o'clock."</p> + +<p>"I knew it must be late. But you look as fresh as a child that has just +waked from sleep."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I have just waked."</p> + +<p>They rose to go up-stairs. "I will go in front and make a light in our +room while you turn off the gas in the hall."</p> + +<p>He paused for a moment after she had gone out and turned to a page in +the Greek Anthology for a single stanza. Shelley's translation was +written in pencil beside it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Thou wert the morning star among the living,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ere thy fair light had fled;<br /></span> +<span>Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus giving<br /></span> +<span class="i2">New splendor to the dead.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Perfect_Year"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Perfect Year<a name="Page_119"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Eleanor A. Hallowell</h3> +<br /> + +<p>When Dolly Leonard died, on the night of my <i>débutante</i> party, our +little community was aghast. If I live to be a thousand, I shall never +outgrow the paralyzing shock of that disaster. I think that the girls in +our younger set never fully recovered from it.</p> + +<p>It was six o'clock when we got the news. Things had been jolly and +bustling all the afternoon. The house was filled with florists and +caterers, and I had gone to my room to escape the final responsibilities +of the occasion. There were seven of us girl chums dressing in my room, +and we were lolling round in various stages of lace and ruffles when the +door-bell rang. Partly out of consideration for the tired servants, and +partly out of nervous curiosity incited by the day's influx of presents +and bouquets, I slipped into my pink eider-down wrapper<a name="Page_120"></a> and ran down to +the door. The hall was startlingly sweet with roses. Indeed, the whole +house was a perfect bower of leaf and blossom, and I suppose I did look +elfish as I ran, for a gruff old workman peered up at me and smiled, and +muttered something about "pinky-posy"—and I know it did not seem +impertinent to me at the time.</p> + +<p>At the door, in the chill blast of the night, stood our little old gray +postman with some letters in his hand. "Oh!" I said, disappointed, "just +letters."</p> + +<p>The postman looked at me a trifle queerly—I thought it was my pink +wrapper,—and he said, "Don't worry about 'just letters'; Dolly Leonard +is dead!"</p> + +<p>"Dead?" I gasped. "Dead?" and I remember how I reeled back against the +open door and stared out with horror-stricken eyes across the common to +Dolly Leonard's house, where every window was blazing with calamity.</p> + +<p>"Dead?" I gasped again. "Dead? What happened?"</p> + +<p>The postman eyed me with quizzical fatherliness. "Ask your mother," he +answered, reluctantly, and I turned and groped my way leaden-footed up +the stairs, muttering, "Oh, mother, mother, I don't <i>need</i> to ask you."</p><a name="Page_121"></a> + +<p>When I got back to my room at last through a tortuous maze of gaping +workmen and sickening flowers, three startled girls jumped up to catch +me as I staggered across the threshold. I did not faint, I did not cry +out. I just sat huddled on the floor rocking myself to and fro, and +mumbling, as through a mouthful of sawdust: "Dolly Leonard is dead. +Dolly Leonard is dead. Dolly Leonard is dead."</p> + +<p>I will not attempt to describe too fully the scene that followed. There +were seven of us, you know, and we were only eighteen, and no young +person of our acquaintance had ever died before. Indeed, only one aged +death had ever disturbed our personal life history, and even that remote +catastrophe had sent us scampering to each other's beds a whole winter +long, for the individual fear of "seeing things at night."</p> + +<p>"Dolly Leonard is dead." I can feel myself yet in that huddled news-heap +on the floor. A girl at the mirror dropped her hand-glass with a +shivering crash. Some one on the sofa screamed. The only one of us who +was dressed began automatically to unfasten her lace collar and strip +off her silken gown, and I can hear yet the soft lush sound of a<a name="Page_122"></a> folded +sash, and the strident click of the little French stays that pressed too +close on a heaving breast.</p> + +<p>Then some one threw wood on the fire with a great bang, and then more +wood and more wood, and we crowded round the hearth and scorched our +faces and hands, but we could not get warm enough.</p> + +<p>Dolly Leonard was not even in our set. She was an older girl by several +years. But she was the belle of the village. Dolly Leonard's gowns, +Dolly Leonard's parties, Dolly Leonard's lovers, were the envy of all +womankind. And Dolly Leonard's courtship and marriage were to us the +fitting culmination of her wonderful career. She was our ideal of +everything that a girl should be. She was good, she was beautiful, she +was irresistibly fascinating. She was, in fact, everything that we +girlishly longed to be in the revel of a ballroom or the white sanctity +of a church.</p> + +<p>And now she, the bright, the joyous, the warm, was colder than we were, +and <i>would never be warm again</i>. Never again ... And there were garish +flowers down-stairs, and music and favors and ices—nasty shivery +ices,—and pretty soon a brawling crowd of people would come<a name="Page_123"></a> and +<i>dance</i> because I was eighteen—and still alive.</p> + +<p>Into our hideous brooding broke a husky little voice that had not yet +spoken:</p> + +<p>"Dolly Leonard told my big sister a month ago that she wasn't a bit +frightened,—that she had had one perfect year, and a perfect year was +well worth dying for—if one had to. Of course she hoped she wouldn't +die, but if she did, it was a wonderful thing to die happy. Dolly was +queer about it; I heard my big sister telling mother. Dolly said, 'Life +couldn't always be at high tide—there was only one high tide in any +one's life, and she thought it was beautiful to go in the full flush +before the tide turned.'"</p> + +<p>The speaker ended with a harsh sob.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly into our awed silence broke my mother in full evening +dress. She was a very handsome mother.</p> + +<p>As she looked down on our huddled group there were tears in her eyes, +but there was no shock. I noticed distinctly that there was no shock. +"Why, girls," she exclaimed, with a certain terse brightness, "aren't +you dressed yet? It's eight o'clock and people are beginning to arrive." +She seemed so frivolous to me.<a name="Page_124"></a> I remember that I felt a little ashamed +of her.</p> + +<p>"We don't want any party," I answered, glumly. "The girls are going +home."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" said my mother, catching me by the hand and pulling me +almost roughly to my feet. "Go quickly and call one of the maids to come +and help you dress. Angeline, I'll do your hair. Bertha, where are your +shoes? Gertrude, that's a beautiful gown—just your color. Hurry into +it. There goes the bell. Hark! the orchestra is beginning."</p> + +<p>And so, with a word here, a touch there, a searching look everywhere, +mother marshalled us into line. I had never heard her voice raised +before.</p> + +<p>The color came back to our cheeks, the light to our eyes. We bubbled +over with spirits—nervous spirits, to be sure, but none the less +vivacious ones.</p> + +<p>When the last hook was fastened, the last glove buttoned, the last curl +fluffed into place, mother stood for an instant tapping her foot on the +floor. She looked like a little general.</p> + +<p>"Girls," she said, "there are five hundred people coming to-night from +all over the State, and fully two-thirds of them never heard of Dolly +Leonard. We<a name="Page_125"></a> must never spoil other people's pleasures by flaunting our +own personal griefs. I expect my daughter to conduct herself this +evening with perfect cheerfulness and grace. She owes it to her guests; +and"—mother's chin went high up in the air—"I refuse to receive in my +house again any one of you girls who mars my daughter's <i>débutante</i> +party by tears or hysterics. You may go now."</p> + +<p>We went, silently berating the brutal harshness of grown people. We +went, airily, flutteringly, luminously, like a bunch of butterflies. At +the head of the stairs the music caught us up in a maelstrom of +excitement and whirled us down into the throng of pleasure. And when we +reached the drawing-room and found mother we felt as though we were +walking on air. We thought it was self-control. We were not old enough +to know it was mostly "youth."</p> + +<p>My <i>débutante</i> party was the gayest party ever given in our town. We +seven girls were like sprites gone mad. We were like fairy torches that +kindled the whole throng. We flitted among the palms like +will-o'-the-wisps. We danced the toes out of our satin slippers. We led +our old boy-friends a wild chase of young love and laughter, and +because<a name="Page_126"></a> our hearts were like frozen lead within us we sought, as it +were, "to warm both hands at the fires of life." We trifled with older +men. We flirted, as it were, with our fathers.</p> + +<p>My <i>débutante</i> party turned out a revel. I have often wondered if my +mother was frightened. I don't know what went on in the other girls' +brains, but mine were seared with the old-world recklessness—"Eat, +drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." <i>We</i> die!</p> + +<p>I had a lover—a boy lover. His name was Gordon. He was twenty-one years +old, and he had courted me with boyish seriousness for three years. +Mother had always pooh-poohed his love-story and said: "Wait, wait. Why, +my daughter isn't even <i>out</i> yet. Wait till she's out."</p> + +<p>And Gordon had narrowed his near-sighted eyes ominously and shut his +lips tight. "Very well," he had answered, "I will wait till she is +out—but no longer."</p> + +<p>He was rich, he was handsome, he was well-born, he was strong, but more +than all that he held my fancy with a certain thrilling tenacity that +frightened me while it lured me. And I had always looked forward to my +<i>débutante</i> party on my eighteenth birthday with the tingling +realization, half joy, half fear,<a name="Page_127"></a> that on that day I should have to +settle once and forever with—<i>man</i>.</p> + +<p>I had often wondered how Gordon would propose. He was a proud, +high-strung boy. If he was humble, and pleaded and pleaded with the hurt +look in his eyes that I knew so well, I thought I would accept him; and +if we could get to mother in the crowd, perhaps we could announce the +engagement at supper-time. It seemed to me that it would be a very +wonderful thing to be engaged on one's eighteenth birthday. So many +girls were not engaged till nineteen or even twenty. But if he was +masterful and high-stepping, as he knew so well how to be, I had decided +to refuse him scornfully with a toss of my head and a laugh. I could +break his heart with the sort of laugh I had practised before my mirror.</p> + +<p>It is a terrible thing to have a long-anticipated event finally overtake +you. It is the most terrible thing of all to have to settle once and +forever with <i>man</i>.</p> + +<p>Gordon came for me at eleven o'clock. I was flirting airily at the time +with our village Beau Brummel, who was old enough to be my grandfather.</p> + +<p>Gordon slipped my little hand through his arm and carried me off to a +lonely place in the conservatory. For a second<a name="Page_128"></a> it seemed a beautiful +relief to be out of the noise and the glare—and alone with Gordon. But +instantly my realization of the potential moment rushed over me like a +flood, and I began to tremble violently. All the nervous strain of the +evening reacted suddenly on me.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you to-night?" asked Gordon, a little sternly. +"What makes you so wild?" he persisted, with a grim little attempt at a +laugh.</p> + +<p>At his words, my heart seemed to turn over within me and settle heavily. +It was before the days when we discussed life's tragedies with our best +men friends. Indeed, it was so long before that I sickened and grew +faint at the very thought of the sorrowful knowledge which I kept secret +from him.</p> + +<p>Again he repeated, "What's the matter with you?" but I could find no +answer. I just sat shivering, with my lace scarf drawn close across my +bare shoulders.</p> + +<p>Gordon took hold of a white ruffle on my gown and began to fidget with +it. I could see the fine thoughts go flitting through his eyes, but when +he spoke again it was quite commonplacely.</p> + +<p>"Will you do me a favor?" he asked. "Will you do me the favor of +marry<a name="Page_129"></a>ing me?" And he laughed. Good God! he <i>laughed</i>!</p> + +<p>"A favor" to marry him! And he asked it as he might have asked for a +posie or a dance. So flippantly—with a laugh. "<i>A favor!</i>" And Dolly +Leonard lay dead of <i>her</i> favor!</p> + +<p>I jumped to my feet—I was half mad with fear and sex and sorrow and +excitement. Something in my brain snapped. And I struck Gordon—struck +him across the face with my open hand. And he turned as white as the +dead Dolly Leonard, and went away—oh, very far away.</p> + +<p>Then I ran back alone to the hall and stumbled into my father's arms.</p> + +<p>"Are you having a good time?" asked my father, pointing playfully at my +blazing cheeks.</p> + +<p>I went to my answer like an arrow to its mark. "I am having the most +wonderful time in the world," I cried; "<i>I have settled with man</i>."</p> + +<p>My father put back his head and shouted. He thought it was a fine joke. +He laughed about it long after my party was over. He thought my head was +turned. He laughed about it long after other people had stopped +wondering why Gordon went away.</p> + +<p>I never told any one why Gordon<a name="Page_130"></a> went away. I might under certain +circumstances have told a girl, but it was not the sort of thing one +could have told one's mother. This is the first time I have ever told +the story of Dolly Leonard's death and my <i>débutante</i> party.</p> + +<p>Dolly Leonard left a little son behind her—a joyous, rollicking little +son. His name is Paul Yardley. We girls were pleased with the +initials—P.Y. They stand to us for "Perfect Year."</p> + +<p>Dolly Leonard's husband has married again, and his wife has borne him +safely three daughters and a son. Each one of my six girl chums is the +mother of a family. Now and again in my experience some woman has +shirked a duty. But I have never yet met a woman who dared to shirk a +happiness. Duties repeat themselves. There is no duplicate of happiness.</p> + +<p>I am fifty-eight years old. I have never married. I do not say whether I +am glad or sorry. I only know that I have never had a Perfect Year. I +only know that I have never been warm since the night that Dolly Leonard +died.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Editha"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>Editha<a name="Page_131"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by William Dean Howells</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The air was thick with the war I feeling, like the electricity of a +storm which has not yet burst. Editha sat looking out into the hot +spring afternoon, with her lips parted, and panting with the intensity +of the question whether she could let him go. She had decided that she +could not let him stay, when she saw him at the end of the still +leafless avenue, making slowly up toward the house, with his head down, +and his figure relaxed. She ran impatiently out on the veranda, to the +edge of the steps, and imperatively demanded greater haste of him with +her will before she called aloud to him, "George!"</p> + +<p>He had quickened his pace in mystical response to her mystical urgence, +before he could have heard her; now he looked up and answered, "Well?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, how united we are!" she exulted,<a name="Page_132"></a> and then she swooped down the +steps to him. "What is it?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"It's war," he said, and he pulled her up to him, and kissed her.</p> + +<p>She kissed him back intensely, but irrelevantly, as to their passion, +and uttered from deep in her throat, "How glorious!"</p> + +<p>"It's war," he repeated, without consenting to her sense of it; and she +did not know just what to think at first. She never knew what to think +of him; that made his mystery, his charm. All through their courtship, +which was contemporaneous with the growth of the war feeling, she had +been puzzled by his want of seriousness about it. He seemed to despise +it even more than he abhorred it. She could have understood his +abhorring any sort of bloodshed; that would have been a survival of his +old life when he thought he would be a minister, and before he changed +and took up the law. But making light of a cause so high and noble +seemed to show a want of earnestness at the core of his being. Not but +that she felt herself able to cope with a congenital defect of that +sort, and make his love for her save him from himself. Now perhaps the +miracle<a name="Page_133"></a> was already wrought in him, In the presence of the tremendous +fact that he announced, all triviality seemed to have gone out of him; +she began to feel that. He sank down on the top step, and wiped his +forehead with his handkerchief, while she poured out upon him her +question of the origin and authenticity of his news.</p> + +<p>All the while, in her duplex emotioning, she was aware that now at the +very beginning she must put a guard upon herself against urging him, by +any word or act, to take the part that her whole soul willed him to +take, for the completion of her ideal of him. He was very nearly perfect +as he was, and he must be allowed to perfect himself. But he was +peculiar, and he might very well be reasoned out of his peculiarity. +Before her reasoning went her emotioning: her nature pulling upon his +nature, her womanhood upon his manhood, without her knowing the means +she was using to the end she was willing. She had always supposed that +the man who won her would have done something to win her; she did not +know what, but something. George Gearson had simply asked her for her +love, on the way home from a concert, and she gave her<a name="Page_134"></a> love to him, +without, as it were, thinking. But now, it flashed upon her, if he could +do something worthy to <i>have</i> won her—be a hero, <i>her</i> hero—it would +be even better than if he had done it before asking her; it would be +grander. Besides, she had believed in the war from the beginning.</p> + +<p>"But don't you see, dearest," she said, "that it wouldn't have come to +this, if it hadn't been in the order of Providence? And I call any war +glorious that is for the liberation of people who have been struggling +for years against the cruelest oppression. Don't you think so too?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," he returned, languidly. "But war! Is it glorious to +break the peace of the world?"</p> + +<p>"That ignoble peace! It was no peace at all, with that crime and shame +at our very gates." She was conscious of parroting the current phrases +of the newspapers, but it was no time to pick and choose her words. She +must sacrifice anything to the high ideal she had for him, and after a +good deal of rapid argument she ended with the climax: "But now it +doesn't matter about the how or why. Since the war has come, all that is +gone. There are no two sides,<a name="Page_135"></a> any more. There is nothing now but our +country."</p> + +<p>He sat with his eyes closed and his head leant back against the veranda, +and he said with a vague smile, as if musing aloud, "Our country—right +or wrong."</p> + +<p>"Yes, right or wrong!" she returned fervidly. "I'll go and get you some +lemonade." She rose rustling, and whisked away; when she came back with +two tall glasses of clouded liquid, on a tray, and the ice clucking in +them, he still sat as she had left him, and she said as if there had +been no interruption: "But there is no question of wrong in this case. I +call it a sacred war. A war for liberty, and humanity, if ever there was +one. And I know you will see it just as I do, yet."</p> + +<p>He took half the lemonade at a gulp, and he answered as he set the glass +down: "I know you always have the highest ideal. When I differ from you, +I ought to doubt myself."</p> + +<p>A generous sob rose in Editha's throat for the humility of a man, so +very nearly perfect, who was willing to put himself below her.</p> + +<p>Besides, she felt that he was never so near slipping through her fingers +as when he took that meek way.</p><a name="Page_136"></a> + +<p>"You shall not say that! Only, for once I happen to be right." She +seized his hand in her two hands, and poured her soul from her eyes into +his. "Don't you think so?" she entreated him.</p> + +<p>He released his hand and drank the rest of his lemonade, and she added, +"Have mine, too," but he shook his head in answering, "I've no business +to think so, unless I act so, too."</p> + +<p>Her heart stopped a beat before it pulsed on with leaps that she felt in +her neck. She had noticed that strange thing in men; they seemed to feel +bound to do what they believed, and not think a thing was finished when +they said it, as girls did. She knew what was in his mind, but she +pretended not, and she said, "Oh, I am not sure."</p> + +<p>He went on as if to himself without apparently heeding her. "There's +only one way of proving one's faith in a thing like this."</p> + +<p>She could not say that she understood, but she did understand.</p> + +<p>He went on again. "If I believed—if I felt as you do about this war—Do +you wish me to feel as you do?"</p> + +<p>Now she was really not sure; so she said, "George, I don't know what you +mean."</p><a name="Page_137"></a> + +<p>He seemed to muse away from her as before. "There is a sort of +fascination in it. I suppose that at the bottom of his heart every man +would like at times to have his courage tested; to see how he would +act."</p> + +<p>"How can you talk in that ghastly way!"</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> rather morbid. Still, that's what it comes to, unless you're +swept away by ambition, or driven by conviction. I haven't the +conviction or the ambition, and the other thing is what it comes to with +me. I ought to have been a preacher, after all; then I couldn't have +asked it of myself, as I must, now I'm a lawyer. And you believe it's a +holy war, Editha?" he suddenly addressed her. "Or, I know you do! But +you wish me to believe so, too?"</p> + +<p>She hardly knew whether he was mocking or not, in the ironical way he +always had with her plainer mind. But the only thing was to be outspoken +with him.</p> + +<p>"George, I wish you to believe whatever you think is true, at any and +every cost. If I've tried to talk you into anything, I take it all +back."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know that, Editha. I know how sincere you are, and how—I wish<a name="Page_138"></a> I +had your undoubting spirit! I'll think it over; I'd like to believe as +you do. But I don't, now; I don't, indeed. It isn't this war alone; +though this seems peculiarly wanton and needless; but it's every war—so +stupid; it makes me sick. Why shouldn't this thing have been settled +reasonably?"</p> + +<p>"Because," she said, very throatily again, "God meant it to be war."</p> + +<p>"You think it was God? Yes, I suppose that is what people will say."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose it would have been war if God hadn't meant it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Sometimes it seems as if God had put this world into +men's keeping to work it as they pleased."</p> + +<p>"Now, George, that is blasphemy."</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't blaspheme. I'll try to believe in your pocket +Providence," he said, and then he rose to go.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you stay to dinner?" Dinner at Balcom's Works was at one +o'clock.</p> + +<p>"I'll come back to supper, if you'll let me. Perhaps I shall bring you a +convert."</p> + +<p>"Well, you may come back, on that condition."</p> + +<p>"All right. If I don't come, you'll understand?"</p><a name="Page_139"></a> + +<p>He went away without kissing her, and she felt it a suspension of their +engagement. It all interested her intensely; she was undergoing a +tremendous experience, and she was being equal to it. While she stood +looking after him, her mother came out through one of the long windows, +on to the veranda, with a catlike softness and vagueness.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't he stay to dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Because—because—war has been declared," Editha pronounced, without +turning.</p> + +<p>Her mother said, "Oh, my!" and then said nothing more until she had sat +down in one of the large Shaker chairs, and rocked herself for some +time. Then she closed whatever tacit passage of thought there had been +in her mind with the spoken words, "Well, I hope <i>he</i> won't go."</p> + +<p>"And <i>I</i> hope he <i>will</i>" the girl said, and confronted her mother with a +stormy exaltation that would have frightened any creature less +unimpressionable than a cat.</p> + +<p>Her mother rocked herself again for an interval of cogitation. What she +arrived at in speech was, "Well, I guess you've done a wicked thing, +Editha Balcom."</p><a name="Page_140"></a> + +<p>The girl said, as she passed indoors through the same window her mother +had come out by, "I haven't done anything—yet."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>In her room, she put together all her letters and gifts from Gearson, +down to the withered petals of the first flower he had offered, with +that timidity of his veiled in that irony of his. In the heart of the +packet she enshrined her engagement ring which she had restored to the +pretty box he had brought it her in. Then she sat down, if not calmly +yet strongly, and wrote:</p> +<br /> + +<div style="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;"> +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"<span class="sc">George</span>: I + understood—when you left me. But I think we had + better emphasize your meaning that if we cannot be one in + everything we had better be one in nothing. So I am sending + these things for your keeping till you have made up your mind.</p> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"I shall always love you, and therefore I shall never marry any + one else. But the man I marry must love his country first of + all, and be able to say to me,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"'I could not love thee, dear, so much,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Loved I not honor more.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"There is no honor above America<a name="Page_141"></a> with me. In this great hour + there is no other honor.</p> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"Your heart will make my words clear to you. I had never + expected to say so much, but it has come upon me that I must + say the utmost.</p> + +<p class="sc" style="text-indent: 15em;">"Editha."</p> +</div> + +<br /> + +<p>She thought she had worded her letter well, worded it in a way that +could not be bettered; all had been implied and nothing expressed.</p> + +<p>She had it ready to send with the packet she had tied with red, white, +and blue ribbon, when it occurred to her that she was not just to him, +that she was not giving him a fair chance. He had said he would go and +think it over, and she was not waiting. She was pushing, threatening, +compelling. That was not a woman's part. She must leave him free, free, +free. She could not accept for her country or herself a forced +sacrifice.</p> + +<p>In writing her letter she had satisfied the impulse from which it +sprang; she could well afford to wait till he had thought it over. She +put the packet and the letter by, and rested serene in the consciousness +of having done what was laid upon her by her love itself to do, and yet +used patience, mercy, justice.</p><a name="Page_142"></a> + +<p>She had her reward. Gearson did not come to tea, but she had given him +till morning, when, late at night there came up from the village the +sound of a fife and drum with a tumult of voices, in shouting, singing, +and laughing. The noise drew nearer and nearer; it reached the Street +end of the avenue; there it silenced itself, and one voice, the voice +she knew best, rose over the silence. It fell; the air was filled with +cheers; the fife and drum struck up, with the shouting, singing, and +laughing again, but now retreating; and a single figure came hurrying up +the avenue.</p> + +<p>She ran down to meet her lover and clung to him. He was very gay, and he +put his arm round her with a boisterous laugh. "Well, you must call me +Captain, now; or Cap, if you prefer; that's what the boys call me. Yes, +we've had a meeting at the town hall, and everybody has volunteered; and +they selected me for captain, and I'm going to the war, the big war, the +glorious war, the holy war ordained by the pocket Providence that +blesses butchery. Come along; let's tell the whole family about it. Call +them from their downy beds, father, mother, Aunt Hitty, and all the +folks!"</p> + +<p>But when they mounted the veranda<a name="Page_143"></a> steps he did not wait for a larger +audience; he poured the story out upon Editha alone.</p> + +<p>"There was a lot of speaking, and then some of the fools set up a shout +for me. It was all going one way, and I thought it would be a good joke +to sprinkle a little cold water on them. But you can't do that with a +crowd that adores you. The first thing I knew I was sprinkling hell-fire +on them, 'Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.' That was the style. +Now that it had come to the fight, there were no two parties; there was +one country, and the thing was to fight the fight to a finish as quick +as possible. I suggested volunteering then and there, and I wrote my +name first of all on the roster. Then they elected me—that's all. I +wish I had some ice-water!"</p> + +<p>She left him walking up and down the veranda, while she ran for the +ice-pitcher and a goblet, and when she came back he was still walking up +and down, shouting the story he had told her to her father and mother, +who had come out more sketchily dressed than they commonly were by day. +He drank goblet after goblet of the ice-water without noticing who was +giving it, and kept on talking, and<a name="Page_144"></a> laughing through his talk wildly. +"It's astonishing," he said, "how well the worse reason looks when you +try to make it appear the better. Why, I believe I was the first convert +to the war in that crowd to-night! I never thought I should like to kill +a man; but now, I shouldn't care; and the smokeless powder lets you see +the man drop that you kill. It's all for the country! What a thing it is +to have a country that <i>can't</i> be wrong, but if it is, is right anyway!"</p> + +<p>Editha had a great, vital thought, an inspiration. She set down the +ice-pitcher on the veranda floor, and ran up-stairs and got the letter +she had written him. When at last he noisily bade her father and mother, +"Well, good night. I forgot I woke you up; I sha'n't want any sleep +myself," she followed him down the avenue to the gate. There, after the +whirling words that seemed to fly away from her thoughts and refuse to +serve them, she made a last effort to solemnize the moment that seemed +so crazy, and pressed the letter she had written upon him.</p> + +<p>"What's this?" he said. "Want me to mail it?"</p> + +<p>"No, no. It's for you. I wrote it after you went this morning. Keep +it—<a name="Page_145"></a>keep it—and read it sometime—" She thought, and then her +inspiration came: "Read it if ever you doubt what you've done, or fear +that I regret your having done it. Read it after you've started."</p> + +<p>They strained each other in embraces that seemed as ineffective as their +words, and he kissed her face with quick, hot breaths that were so +unlike him, that made her feel as if she had lost her old lover and +found a stranger in his place. The stranger said, "What a gorgeous +flower you are, with your red hair, and your blue eyes that look black +now, and your face with the color painted out by the white moonshine! +Let me hold you under my chin, to see whether I love blood, you +tiger-lily!" Then he laughed Gearson's laugh, and released her, scared +and giddy. Within her wilfulness she had been frightened by a sense of +subtler force in him, and mystically mastered as she had never been +before.</p> + +<p>She ran all the way back to the house, and mounted the steps panting. +Her mother and father were talking of the great affair. Her mother said: +"Wa'n't Mr. Gearson in rather of an excited state of mind? Didn't you +think he acted curious?"</p><a name="Page_146"></a> + +<p>"Well, not for a man who'd just been elected captain and had to set 'em +up for the whole of Company A," her father chuckled back.</p> + +<p>"What in the world do you mean, Mr. Balcom? Oh! There's Editha!" She +offered to follow the girl indoors.</p> + +<p>"Don't come, mother!" Editha called, vanishing.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balcom remained to reproach her husband. "I don't see much of +anything to laugh at."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's catching. Caught it from Gearson. I guess it won't be much +of a war, and I guess Gearson don't think so, either. The other fellows +will back down as soon as they see we mean it. I wouldn't lose any sleep +over it. I'm going back to bed, myself."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>Gearson came again next afternoon, looking pale, and rather sick, but +quite himself, even to his languid irony. "I guess I'd better tell you, +Editha, that I consecrated myself to your god of battles last night by +pouring too many libations to him down my own throat. But I'm all right, +now. One has to carry off the excitement, somehow."</p> + +<p>"Promise me," she commanded, "that you'll never touch it again!"</p><a name="Page_147"></a> + +<p>"What! Not let the cannikin clink? Not let the soldier drink? Well, I +promise."</p> + +<p>"You don't belong to yourself now; you don't even belong to <i>me</i>. You +belong to your country, and you have a sacred charge to keep yourself +strong and well for your country's sake. I have been thinking, thinking +all night and all day long."</p> + +<p>"You look as if you had been crying a little, too," he said with his +queer smile.</p> + +<p>"That's all past. I've been thinking, and worshipping <i>you</i>. Don't you +suppose I know all that you've been through, to come to this? I've +followed you every step from your old theories and opinions."</p> + +<p>"Well, you've had a long row to hoe."</p> + +<p>"And I know you've done this from the highest motives—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, there won't be much pettifogging to do till this cruel war is—"</p> + +<p>"And you haven't simply done it for my sake. I couldn't respect you if +you had."</p> + +<p>"Well, then we'll say I haven't. A man that hasn't got his own respect +intact wants the respect of all the other people he can corner. But we +won't go into that. I'm in for the thing now, and we've got to face our +future. My idea<a name="Page_148"></a> is that this isn't going to be a very protracted +struggle; we shall just scare the enemy to death before it conies to a +fight at all. But we must provide for contingencies, Editha. If anything +happens to me—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, George!" She clung to him sobbing.</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to feel foolishly bound to my memory. I should hate +that, wherever I happened to be."</p> + +<p>"I am yours, for time and eternity—time and eternity." She liked the +words; they satisfied her famine for phrases.</p> + +<p>"Well, say eternity; that's all right; but time's another thing; and I'm +talking about time. But there is something! My mother! If anything +happens—"</p> + +<p>She winced, and he laughed. "You're not the bold soldier-girl of +yesterday!" Then he sobered. "If anything happens, I want you to help my +mother out. She won't like my doing this thing. She brought me up to +think war a fool thing as well as a bad thing. My father was in the +civil war; all through it; lost his arm in it." She thrilled with the +sense of the arm round her; what if that should be lost? He laughed as +if divining her: "Oh, it doesn't run in the family, as far as I know!" +Then he added, gravely,<a name="Page_149"></a> "He came home with misgivings about war, and +they grew on him. I guess he and mother agreed between them that I was +to be brought up in his final mind about it; but that was before my +time. I only knew him from my mother's report of him and his opinions; I +don't know whether they were hers first; but they were hers last. This +will be a blow to her. I shall have to write and tell her—"</p> + +<p>He stopped, and she asked, "Would you like me to write too, George?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe that would do. No, I'll do the writing. She'll +understand a little if I say that I thought the way to minimize it was +to make war on the largest possible scale at once—that I felt I must +have been helping on the war somehow if I hadn't helped keep it from +coming, and I knew I hadn't; when it came, I had no right to stay out of +it."</p> + +<p>Whether his sophistries satisfied him or not, they satisfied her. She +clung to his breast, and whispered, with closed eyes and quivering lips, +"Yes, yes, yes!"</p> + +<p>"But if anything should happen, you might go to her, and see what you +could do for her. You know? It's rather far off; she can't leave her +chair—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll go, if it's the ends of the<a name="Page_150"></a> earth! But nothing will happen! +Nothing <i>can</i>! I—"</p> + +<p>She felt herself lifted with his rising, and Gearson was saying, with +his arm still round her, to her father: "Well, we're off at once, Mr. +Balcom. We're to be formally accepted at the capital, and then bunched +up with the rest somehow; and sent into camp somewhere, and got to the +front as soon as possible. We all want to be in the van, of course; +we're the first company to report to the Governor. I came to tell +Editha, but I hadn't got round to it."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>She saw him again for a moment at the capital, in the station, just +before the train started southward with his regiment. He looked well, in +his uniform, and very soldierly, but somehow girlish, too, with his +clean-shaven face and slim figure. The manly eyes and the strong voice +satisfied her, and his preoccupation with some unexpected details of +duty flattered her. Other girls were weeping, but she felt a sort of +noble distinction in the abstraction with which they parted. Only at the +last moment he said, "Don't forget my mother. It mayn't be such a +walk-over as I supposed," and he laughed at the notion.</p><a name="Page_151"></a> + +<p>He waved his hand to her, as the train moved off—she knew it among a +score of hands that were waved to other girls from the platform of the +car, for it held a letter which she knew was hers. Then he went inside +the car to read it, doubtless, and she did not see him again. But she +felt safe for him through the strength of what she called her love. What +she called her God, always speaking the name in a deep voice and with +the implication of a mutual understanding, would watch over him and keep +him and bring him back to her. If with an empty sleeve, then he should +have three arms instead of two, for both of hers should be his for life. +She did not see, though, why she should always be thinking of the arm +his father had lost.</p> + +<p>There were not many letters from him, but they were such as she could +have wished, and she put her whole strength into making hers such as she +imagined he could have wished, glorifying and supporting him. She wrote +to his mother, but the brief answer she got was merely to the effect +that Mrs. Gearson was not well enough to write herself, and thanking her +for her letter by the hand of some one who called herself "Yrs truly, +Mrs. W.J. Andrews."</p><a name="Page_152"></a> + +<p>Editha determined not to be hurt, but to write again quite as if the +answer had been all she expected. But before it seemed as if she could +have written, there came news of the first skirmish, and in the list of +the killed which was telegraphed as a trifling loss on our side, was +Gearson's name. There was a frantic time of trying to make out that it +might be, must be, some other Gearson; but the name, and the company and +the regiment, and the State were too definitely given.</p> + +<p>Then there was a lapse into depths out of which it seemed as if she +never could rise again; then a lift into clouds far above all grief, +black clouds, that blotted out the sun, but where she soared with him, +with George, George! She had the fever that she expected of herself, but +she did not die in it; she was not even delirious, and it did not last +long. When she was well enough to leave her bed, her one thought was of +George's mother, of his strangely worded wish that she should go to her +and see what she could do for her. In the exaltation of the duty laid +upon her—it buoyed her up instead of burdening her—she rapidly +recovered.</p> + +<p>Her father went with her on the long<a name="Page_153"></a> railroad journey from northern New +York to western Iowa; he had business out at Davenport, and he said he +could just as well go then as any other time; and he went with her to +the little country town where George's mother lived in a little house on +the edge of illimitable corn-fields, under trees pushed to a top of the +rolling prairie. George's father had settled there after the civil war, +as so many other old soldiers had done; but they were Eastern people, +and Editha fancied touches of the East in the June rose overhanging the +front door, and the garden with early summer flowers stretching from the +gate of the paling fence.</p> + +<p>It was very low inside the house, and so dim, with the closed blinds, +that they could scarcely see one another: Editha tall and black in her +crapes which filled the air with the smell of their dyes; her father +standing decorously apart with his hat on his forearm, as at funerals; a +woman rested in a deep armchair, and the woman who had let the strangers +in stood behind the chair.</p> + +<p>The seated woman turned her head round and up, and asked the woman +behind her chair, "<i>Who</i> did you say?"</p> + +<p>Editha, if she had done what she expected of herself, would have gone +down<a name="Page_154"></a> on her knees at the feet of the seated figure and said, "I am +George's Editha," for answer.</p> + +<p>But instead of her own voice she heard that other woman's voice, saying, +"Well, I don't know as I <i>did</i> get the name just right. I guess I'll +have to make a little more light in here," and she went and pushed two +of the shutters ajar.</p> + +<p>Then Editha's father said in his public will-now-address-a-few-remarks +tone, "My name is Balcom, ma'am; Junius H. Balcom, of Balcom's Works, +New York; my daughter—"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" The seated woman broke in, with a powerful voice, the voice that +always surprised Editha from Gearson's slender frame. "Let me see you! +Stand round where the light can strike on your face," and Editha dumbly +obeyed. "So, you're Editha Balcom," she sighed.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Editha said, more like a culprit than a comforter.</p> + +<p>"What did you come for?"</p> + +<p>Editha's face quivered, and her knees shook. "I came—because—because +George—" She could go no farther.</p> + +<p>"Yes," the mother said, "he told me he had asked you to come if he got +killed. You didn't expect that, I suppose, when you sent him."</p><a name="Page_155"></a> + +<p>"I would rather have died myself than done it!" Editha said with more +truth in her deep voice than she ordinarily found in it. "I tried to +leave him free—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that letter of yours, that came back with his other things, left +him free."</p> + +<p>Editha saw now where George's irony came from.</p> + +<p>"It was not to be read before—unless—until—I told him so," she +faltered.</p> + +<p>"Of course, he wouldn't read a letter of yours, under the circumstances, +till he thought you wanted him to. Been sick?" the woman abruptly +demanded.</p> + +<p>"Very sick," Editha said, with self-pity.</p> + +<p>"Daughter's life," her father interposed, "was almost despaired of, at +one time."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gearson gave him no heed. "I suppose you would have been glad to +die, such a brave person as you! I don't believe <i>he</i> was glad to die. +He was always a timid boy, that way; he was afraid of a good many +things; but if he was afraid he did what he made up his mind to. I +suppose he made up his mind to go, but I knew what it cost him, by what +it cost me when I heard of it. I had been through <i>one</i> war before. When +you sent him you didn't expect he would get killed."</p><a name="Page_156"></a> + +<p>The voice seemed to compassionate Editha, and it was time. "No," she +huskily murmured.</p> + +<p>"No, girls don't; women don't, when they give their men up to their +country. They think they'll come marching back, somehow, just as gay as +they went, or if it's an empty sleeve, or even an empty pantaloon, it's +all the more glory, and they're so much the prouder of them, poor +things."</p> + +<p>The tears began to run down Editha's face; she had not wept till then; +but it was now such a relief to be understood that the tears came.</p> + +<p>"No, you didn't expect him to get killed," Mrs. Gearson repeated in a +voice which was startlingly like George's again. "You just expected him +to kill some one else, some of those foreigners, that weren't there +because they had any say about it, but because they had to be there, +poor wretches—conscripts, or whatever they call 'em. You thought it +would be all right for my George, <i>your</i> George, to kill the sons of +those miserable mothers and the husbands of those girls that you would +never see the faces of." The woman lifted her powerful voice in a +psalmlike note. "I thank my God he didn't live to do it! I thank my God<a name="Page_157"></a> +they killed him first, and that he ain't livin' with their blood on his +hands!" She dropped her eyes which she had raised with her voice, and +glared at Editha. "What you got that black on for?" She lifted herself +by her powerful arms so high that her helpless body seemed to hang limp +its full length. "Take it off, take it off, before I tear it from your +back!"</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>The lady who was passing the summer near Balcom's Works was sketching +Editha's beauty, which lent itself wonderfully to the effects of a +colorist. It had come to that confidence which is rather apt to grow +between artist and sitter, and Editha had told her everything.</p> + +<p>"To think of your having such a tragedy in your life!" the lady said. +She added: "I suppose there are people who feel that way about war. But +when you consider how much this war has done for the country! I can't +understand such people, for my part. And when you had come all the way +out there to console her—got up out of a sick bed! Well!"</p> + +<p>"I think," Editha said, magnanimously, "she wasn't quite in her right +mind; and so did papa."</p><a name="Page_158"></a> + +<p>"Yes," the lady said, looking at Editha's lips in nature and then at her +lips in art, and giving an empirical touch to them in the picture. "But +how dreadful of her! How perfectly—excuse me—how <i>vulgar</i>!"</p> + +<p>A light broke upon Editha in the darkness which she felt had been +without a gleam of brightness for weeks and months. The mystery that had +bewildered her was solved by the word; and from that moment she rose +from grovelling in shame and self-pity, and began to live again in the +ideal.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Stout_Miss"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Stout Miss Hopkins's Bicycle<a name="Page_159"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Octave Thanet</h3> +<br /> + +<p>There was a skeleton in Mrs. Margaret Ellis's closet; the same skeleton +abode also in the closet of Miss Lorania Hopkins.</p> + +<p>The skeleton—which really does not seem a proper word—was the dread of +growing stout. They were more afraid of flesh than of sin. Yet they were +both good women. Mrs. Ellis regularly attended church, and could always +be depended on to show hospitality to convention delegates, whether +clerical or lay; she was a liberal subscriber to every good work; she +was almost the only woman in the church aid society that never lost her +temper at the soul-vexing time of the church fair; and she had a larger +clientele of regular pensioners than any one in town, unless it were her +friend Miss Hopkins, who was "so good to the poor" that never a tramp +slighted her kitchen. Miss Hopkins was as amia<a name="Page_160"></a>ble as Mrs. Ellis, and +always put her name under that of Mrs. Ellis, with exactly the same +amount, on the subscription papers. She could have given more, for she +had the larger income; but she had no desire to outshine her friend, +whom she admired as the most charming of women.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis, indeed, was agreeable as well as good, and a pretty woman to +the bargain, if she did not choose to be weighed before people. Miss +Hopkins often told her that she was not really stout; she merely had a +plump, trig little figure. Miss Hopkins, alas! was really stout. The two +waged a warfare against the flesh equal to the apostle's in vigor, +although so much less deserving of praise.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis drove her cook to distraction with divers dieting systems, +from Banting's and Dr. Salisbury's to the latest exhortations of some +unknown newspaper prophet. She bought elaborate gymnastic appliances, +and swung dumb-bells and rode imaginary horses and propelled imaginary +boats. She ran races with a professional trainer, and she studied the +principles of Delsarte, and solemnly whirled on one foot and swayed her +body and rolled her head and<a name="Page_161"></a> hopped and kicked and genuflected in +company with eleven other stout and earnest matrons and one slim and +giggling girl who almost choked at every lesson. In all these exercises +Miss Hopkins faithfully kept her company, which was the easier as Miss +Hopkins lived in the next house, a conscientious Colonial mansion with +all the modern conveniences hidden beneath the old-fashioned pomp.</p> + +<p>And yet, despite these struggles and self-denials, it must be told that +Margaret Ellis and Lorania Hopkins were little thinner for their +warfare. Still, as Shuey Cardigan, the trainer, told Mrs. Ellis, there +was no knowing what they might have weighed had they not struggled.</p> + +<p>"It ain't only the fat that's <i>on</i> ye, moind ye," says Shuey, with a +confidential sympathy of mien; "it's what ye'd naturally be getting in +addition. And first ye've got to peel off that, and then ye come down to +the other."</p> + +<p>Shuey was so much the most successful of Mrs. Ellis's reducers that his +words were weighty. And when at last Shuey said, "I got what you need," +Mrs. Ellis listened. "You need a bike, no less," says Shuey.</p><a name="Page_162"></a> + +<p>"But I never could ride one!" said Margaret, opening her pretty brown +eyes and wrinkling her Grecian forehead.</p> + +<p>"You'd ride in six lessons."</p> + +<p>"But how would I <i>look</i>, Cardigan?"</p> + +<p>"You'd look noble, ma'am!"</p> + +<p>"What do you consider the best wheel, Cardigan?"</p> + +<p>The advertising rules of magazines prevent my giving Cardigan's answer; +it is enough that the wheel glittered at Mrs. Ellis's door the very next +day, and that a large pasteboard box was delivered by the expressman the +very next week. He went on to Miss Hopkins's, and delivered the twin of +the box, with a similar yellow printed card bearing the impress of the +same great firm on the inside of the box cover.</p> + +<p>For Margaret had hied her to Lorania Hopkins the instant Shuey was gone. +She presented herself breathless, a little to the embarrassment of +Lorania, who was sitting with her niece before a large box of +cracker-jack.</p> + +<p>"It's a new kind of candy; I was just <i>tasting</i> it, Maggie," faltered +she, while the niece, a girl of nineteen, with the inhuman spirits of +her age, laughed aloud.</p> + +<p>"You needn't mind me," said Mrs.<a name="Page_163"></a> Ellis, cheerfully; "I'm eating +potatoes now!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Maggie!" Miss Hopkins breathed the words between envy and +disapproval.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis tossed her brown head airily, not a whit abashed. "And I had +beer for luncheon, and I'm going to have champagne for dinner."</p> + +<p>"Maggie, how do you dare? Did they—did they taste good?"</p> + +<p>"They tasted <i>heavenly</i>, Lorania. Pass me the candy. I am going to try +something new—the thinningest thing there is. I read in the paper of +one woman who lost forty pounds in three months, and is losing still!"</p> + +<p>"If it is obesity pills, I—"</p> + +<p>"It isn't; it's a bicycle. Lorania, you and I must ride! Sibyl Hopkins, +you heartless child, what are you laughing at?"</p> + +<p>Lorania rose; in the glass over the mantel her figure returned her gaze. +There was no mistake (except that, as is often the case with stout +people, <i>that</i> glass always increased her size), she was a stout lady. +She was taller than the average of women, and well proportioned, and +still light on her feet; but she could not blink away the records; she +was heavy on the scales. Did she stand looking at<a name="Page_164"></a> herself squarely, her +form was shapely enough, although larger than she could wish; but the +full force of the revelation fell when she allowed herself a profile +view, she having what is called "a round waist," and being almost as +large one way as another. Yet Lorania was only thirty-three years old, +and was of no mind to retire from society, and have a special phaeton +built for her use, and hear from her mother's friends how much her +mother weighed before her death.</p> + +<p>"How should <i>I</i> look on a wheel?" she asked, even as Mrs. Ellis had +asked before; and Mrs. Ellis stoutly answered, "You'd look <i>noble</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Shuey will teach us," she went on, "and we can have a track made in +your pasture, where nobody can see us learning. Lorania, there's nothing +like it. Let me bring you the bicycle edition of <i>Harper's Bazar</i>."</p> + +<p>Miss Hopkins capitulated at once, and sat down to order her costume, +while Sibyl, the niece, revelled silently in visions of a new bicycle +which should presently revert to her. "For it's ridiculous, auntie's +thinking of riding!" Miss Sibyl considered. "She would be a figure of +fun on a wheel; besides, she can never learn in this world!"</p><a name="Page_165"></a> + +<p>Yet Sibyl was attached to her aunt, and enjoyed visiting Hopkins Manor, +as Lorania had named her new house, into which she moved on the same day +that she joined the Colonial Dames, by right of her ancestor the great +and good divine commemorated by Mrs. Stowe. Lorania's friends were all +fond of her, she was so good-natured and tolerant, with a touch of dry +humor in her vision of things, and not the least a Puritan in her frank +enjoyment of ease and luxury. Nevertheless, Lorania had a good, +able-bodied, New England conscience, capable of staying awake nights +without flinching; and perhaps from her stanch old Puritan forefathers +she inherited her simple integrity so that she neither lied nor +cheated—even in the small, whitewashed manner of her sex—and valued +loyalty above most of the virtues. She had an innocent pride in her +godly and martial ancestry, which was quite on the surface, and led +people who did not know her to consider her haughty.</p> + +<p>For fifteen years she had been an orphan, the mistress of a very large +estate. No doubt she had been sought often in marriage, but never until +lately had Lorania seriously thought of marrying. Sibyl said that she +was too unsentimental to<a name="Page_166"></a> marry. Really she was too romantic. She had a +longing to be loved, not in the quiet, matter-of-fact manner of her +suitors, but with the passion of the poets. Therefore the presence of +another skeleton in Mrs. Ellis's closet, because she knew about a +certain handsome Italian marquis who at this period was conducting an +impassioned wooing by mail. Margaret did not fancy the marquis. He was +not an American. He would take Lorania away. She thought his very virtue +florid, and suspected that he had learned his love-making in a bad +school. She dropped dark hints that frightened Lorania, who would +sometimes piteously demand, "Don't you think he <i>could</i> care for +me—for—for myself?" Margaret knew that she had an overweening distrust +of her own appearance. How many tears she had shed first and last over +her unhappy plumpness it would be hard to reckon. She made no account of +her satin skin, or her glossy black hair, or her lustrous violet eyes +with their long, black lashes, or her flashing white teeth; she glanced +dismally at her shape and scornfully at her features, good, honest, +irregular American features, that might not satisfy a Greek critic, but +suited each other and pleased her countrymen. And then<a name="Page_167"></a> she would sigh +heavily over her figure. Her friend had not the heart to impute the +marquis's beautiful, artless compliments to mercenary motives. After +all, the Italian was a good fellow, according to the point of view of +his own race, if he did intend to live on his wife's money, and had a +very varied assortment of memories of women.</p> + +<p>But Margaret dreaded and disliked him all the more for his good +qualities. To-day this secret apprehension flung a cloud over the +bicycle enthusiasm. She could not help wondering whether at this moment +Lorania was not thinking of the marquis, who rode a wheel and a horse +admirably.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Lorania," said Sibyl, "there comes Mr. Winslow. Shall I run out +and ask him about those cloth-of-gold roses? The aphides are eating them +all up."</p> + +<p>"Yes, to be sure, dear; but don't let Ferguson suspect what you are +talking of; he might feel hurt."</p> + +<p>Ferguson was the gardener. Miss Hopkins left her note to go to the +window. Below she saw a mettled horse, with tossing head and silken +skin, restlessly fretting on his bit and pawing the dust in front of +the fence, while his rider, hat in hand, talked with the young girl. He<a name="Page_168"></a> +was a little man, a very little man, in a gray business suit of the best +cut and material. An air of careful and dainty neatness was diffused +about both horse and rider. He bent towards Miss Sibyl's charming person +a thin, alert, fair face. His head was finely shaped, the brown hair +worn away a little on the temples. He smiled gravely at intervals; the +smile told that he had a dimple in his cheek.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Mrs. Ellis, "whether Mr. Winslow can have a penchant +for Sibyl?"</p> + +<p>Lorania opened her eyes. At this moment Mr. Winslow had caught sight of +her at the window, and he bowed almost to his saddle-bow; Sibyl was +saying something at which she laughed, and he visibly reddened. It was a +peculiarity of his that his color turned easily. In a second his hat was +on his head and his horse bounded half across the road.</p> + +<p>"Hardly, I think," said Lorania. "How well he rides! I never knew any +one ride better—in this country."</p> + +<p>"I suppose Sibyl would ridicule such a thing," said Mrs. Ellis, +continuing her own train of thought, and yet vaguely disturbed by the +last sentence.</p> + +<p>"Why should she?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he is so little, for one thing,<a name="Page_169"></a> and she is so tall. And then +Sibyl thinks a great deal of social position."</p> + +<p>"He is a Winslow," said Lorania, archin her neck unconsciously—"a +lineal descendant from Kenelm Winslow, who came over in the <i>May</i>—"</p> + +<p>"But his mother—"</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything about his mother before she came here. Oh, of +course I know the gossip that she was a niece of the overseer at a +village poor-house, and that her husband quarrelled with all his family +and married her in the poor-house, and I know that when he died here she +would not take a cent from the Winslows, nor let them have the boy. She +is the meekest-looking little woman, but she must have an iron streak in +her somewhere, for she was left without enough money to pay the funeral +expenses, and she educated the boy and accumulated money enough to pay +for this place they have.</p> + +<p>"She used to run a laundry, and made money; but when Cyril got a place +in the bank she sold out the laundry and went into chickens and +vegetables; she told somebody that it wasn't so profitable as the +laundry, but it was more genteel, and Cyril being now in a position of +trust at the bank, she must consider <i>him</i>. Cyril<a name="Page_170"></a> swept out the bank. +People laughed about it, but, do you know, I rather liked Mrs. Winslow +for it. She isn't in the least an assertive woman. How long have we been +up here, Maggie? Isn't it four years? And they have been our next-door +neighbors, and she has never been inside the house. Nor he either, for +that matter, except once when it took fire, you know, and he came in +with that funny little chemical engine tucked under his arm, and took +off his hat in the same prim, polite way that he takes it off when he +talks to Sibyl, and said, 'If you'll excuse me offering advice, Miss +Hopkins, it is not necessary to move anything; it mars furniture very +much to move it at a fire. I think, if you will allow me, I can +extinguish this.' And he did, too, didn't he, as neatly and as coolly as +if it were only adding up a column of figures. And offered me the engine +as a souvenir."</p> + +<p>"Lorania, you never told me that!"</p> + +<p>"It seemed like making fun of him, when he had been so kind. I declined +as civilly as I could. I hope I didn't hurt his feelings. I meant to pay +a visit to his mother and ask them to dinner, but you know I went to +England that week, and somehow when I came back it was difficult. It +seems a little odd we<a name="Page_171"></a> never have seen more of the Winslows, but I fancy +they don't want either to intrude or to be intruded on. But he is +certainly very obliging about the garden. Think of all the slips and +flowers he has given us, and the advice—"</p> + +<p>"All passed over the fence. It is funny our neighborly good offices +which we render at arm's-length. How long have you known him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a long time. He is cashier of my bank, you know. First he was +teller, then assistant cashier, and now for five years he has been +cashier. The president wants to resign and let him be president, but he +hardly has enough stock for that. But Oliver says" (Oliver was Miss +Hopkins's brother) "that there isn't a shrewder or straighter banker in +the state. Oliver knows him. He says he is a sandy little fellow."</p> + +<p>"Well, he is," assented Mrs. Ellis. "It isn't many cashiers would let +robbers stab them and shoot them and leave them for dead rather than +give up the combination of the safe!"</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't take a cent for it, either, and he saved ever so many +thousand dollars. Yes, he <i>is</i> brave. I went to the same school with him +once, and saw him fight a big boy twice his size—such a nas<a name="Page_172"></a>ty boy, who +called me 'Fatty,' and made a kissing noise with his lips just to scare +me—and poor little Cyril Winslow got awfully beaten, and when I saw him +on the ground, with his nose bleeding and that big brute pounding him, I +ran to the water-bucket, and poured the whole bucket on that big, +bullying boy and stopped the fight, just as the teacher got on the +scene. I cried over little Cyril Winslow. He was crying himself. 'I +ain't crying because he hurt me,' he sobbed; 'I'm crying because I'm so +mad I didn't lick him!' I wonder if he remembers that episode?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ellis.</p> + +<p>"Maggie, what makes you think he is falling in love with Sibyl?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis laughed. "I dare say he <i>isn't</i> in love with Sibyl," said +she. "I think the main reason was his always riding by here instead of +taking the shorter road down the other street."</p> + +<p>"Does he always ride by here? I hadn't noticed."</p> + +<p>"Always!" said Mrs. Ellis. "<i>I</i> have noticed."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry for him," said Lorania, musingly. "I think Sibyl is very +much taken with that young Captain Carr at the Arsenal. Young girls +always affect the army. He is a nice fellow, but I<a name="Page_173"></a> don't think he is +the man Winslow is. Now, Maggie, advise me about the suit. I don't want +to look like the escaped fat lady of a museum."</p> + +<p>Lorania thought no more of Sibyl's love-affairs. If she thought of the +Winslows, it was to wish that Mrs. Winslow would sell or rent her +pasture, which, in addition to her own and Mrs. Ellis's pastures thrown +into one, would make such a delightful bicycle-track.</p> + +<p>The Winslow house was very different from the two villas that were the +pride of Fairport. A little story-and-a-half cottage peeped out on the +road behind the tall maples that were planted when Winslow was a boy. +But there was a wonderful green velvet lawn, and the tulips and +sweet-peas and pansies that blazed softly nearer the house were as +beautiful as those over which Miss Lorania's gardener toiled and +worried.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winslow was a little woman who showed the fierce struggle of her +early life only in the deeper lines between her delicate eyebrows and +the expression of melancholy patience in her brown eyes.</p> + +<p>She always wore a widow's cap and a black gown. In the mornings she +donned a blue figured apron of stout and serviceable stuff; in the +afternoon an apron of<a name="Page_174"></a> that sheer white lawn used by bishops and smart +young waitresses. Of an afternoon, in warm weather, she was accustomed +to sit on the eastern piazza, next to the Hopkins place, and rock as she +sewed. She was thus sitting and sewing when she beheld an extraordinary +procession cross the Hopkins lawn. First marched the tall trainer, Shuey +Cardigan, who worked by day in the Lossing furniture-factory, and gave +bicycle lessons at the armory evenings. He was clad in a white sweater +and buff leggings, and was wheeling a lady's bicycle. Behind him walked +Miss Hopkins in a gray suit, the skirt of which only came to her +ankles—she always so dignified in her toilets.</p> + +<p>"Land's sakes!" gasped Mrs. Winslow, "if she ain't going to ride a bike! +Well, what next?"</p> + +<p>What really happened next was the sneaking (for no other word does +justice to the cautious and circuitous movements of her) of Mrs. Winslow +to the stable, which had one window facing the Hopkins pasture. No cows +were grazing in the pasture. All around the grassy plateau twinkled a +broad brownish-yellow track. At one side of this track a bench had been +placed, and a table, pleasing to the eye, with jugs and glasses. Mrs.<a name="Page_175"></a> +Ellis, in a suit of the same undignified brevity and ease as Miss +Hopkins's, sat on the bench supporting her own wheel. Shuey Cardigan was +drawn up to his full six feet of strength, and, one arm in the air, was +explaining the theory of the balance of power. It was an uncanny moment +to Lorania. She eyed the glistening, restless thing that slipped beneath +her hand, and her fingers trembled. If she could have fled in secret she +would. But since flight was not possible, she assumed a firm expression. +Mrs. Ellis wore a smile of studied and sickly cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think it very <i>high</i>?" said Lorania. "I can <i>never</i> get up on +it!"</p> + +<p>"It will be by the block at first," said Shuey, in the soothing tones of +a jockey to a nervous horse; "it's easy by the block. And I'll be +steadying it, of course."</p> + +<p>"Don't they have any with larger saddles? It is a <i>very</i> small saddle."</p> + +<p>"They're all of a size. It wouldn't look sporty larger; it would look +like a special make. Yous wouldn't want a special make."</p> + +<p>Lorania thought that she would be thankful for a special make, but she +suppressed the unsportsmanlike thought. "The pedals are very small too, +Cardigan. Are you <i>sure</i> they can hold me?"</p><a name="Page_176"></a> + +<p>"They would hold two of ye, Miss Hopkins. Now sit aisy and graceful as +ye would on your chair at home, hold the shoulders back, and toe in a +bit on the pedals—ye won't be skinning your ankles so much then—and +hold your foot up ready to get the other pedal. Hold light on the +steering-bar. Push off hard. <i>Now!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Will you hold me? I am going—Oh, it's like riding an earthquake!"</p> + +<p>Here Shuey made a run, letting the wheel have its own wild way—to reach +the balance. "Keep the front wheel under you!" he cried, cheerfully. +"Niver mind <i>where</i> you go. Keep a-pedalling; whatever you do, keep +a-pedalling!"</p> + +<p>"But I haven't got but one pedal!" gasped the rider.</p> + +<p>"Ye lost it?"</p> + +<p>"No; I <i>never had</i> but one! Oh, don't let me fall!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, ye lost it in the beginning; now, then, I'll hold it steady, and +you get both feet right. Here we go!"</p> + +<p>Swaying frightfully from side to side, and wrenched from capsizing the +wheel by the full exercise of Shuey's great muscles, Miss Hopkins reeled +over the track. At short intervals she lost her pedals, and her feet, +for some strange reason, instead<a name="Page_177"></a> of seeking the lost, simply curled up +as if afraid of being hit. She gripped the steering-handles with an iron +grasp, and her turns were such as an engine makes. Nevertheless, Shuey +got her up the track for some hundred feet, and then by a herculean +sweep turned her round and rolled her back to the block. It was at this +painful moment, when her whole being was concentrated on the effort to +keep from toppling against Shuey, and even more to keep from toppling +away from him, that Lorania's strained gaze suddenly fell on the +frightened and sympathetic face of Mrs. Winslow. The good woman saw no +fun in the spectacle, but rather an awful risk to life and limb. Their +eyes met. Not a change passed over Miss Hopkins's features; but she +looked up as soon as she was safe on the ground, and smiled. In a +moment, before Mrs. Winslow could decide whether to run or to stand her +ground, she saw the cyclist approaching—on foot.</p> + +<p>"Won't you come in and sit down?" she said, smiling. "We are trying our +new wheels."</p> + +<p>And because she did not know how to refuse, Mrs. Winslow suffered +herself to be handed over the fence. She sat on the bench beside Miss +Hopkins in the prim attitude which had pertained to<a name="Page_178"></a> gentility in her +youth, her hands loosely clasping each other, her feet crossed at the +ankles.</p> + +<p>"It's an awful sight, ain't it?" she breathed, "those little shiny +things; I don't see how you ever git on them."</p> + +<p>"I don't get on them," said Miss Hopkins. "The only way I shall ever +learn to start off is to start without the pedals. Does your son ride, +Mrs. Winslow?"</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am," said Mrs. Winslow; "but he knows how. When he was a boy +nothing would do but he must have a bicycle, one of those things most as +big as a mill wheel, and if you fell off you broke yourself somewhere, +sure. I always expected he'd be brought home in pieces. So I don't think +he'd have any manner of difficulty. Why, look at your friend; she's +'most riding alone!"</p> + +<p>"She could always do everything better than I," cried Lorania, with +ungrudging admiration. "See how she jumps off! Now I can't jump off any +more than I can jump on. It seems so ridiculous to be told to press hard +on the pedal on the side where you want to jump, and swing your further +leg over first, and cut a kind of a figure eight with your legs, and +turn your wheel the way you don't want to go—all at once. While I'm +trying to think<a name="Page_179"></a> of all those directions I always fall off. I got that +wheel only yesterday, and fell before I even got away from the block. +One of my arms looks like a Persian ribbon."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winslow cried out in unfeigned sympathy. She wished Miss Hopkins +would use her liniment that she used for Cyril when he was hurt by the +burglars at the bank; he was bruised "terrible."</p> + +<p>"That must have been an awful time to you," said Lorania, looking with +more interest than she had ever felt on the meek little woman; and she +noticed the tremble in the decorously clasped hands.</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am," was all she said.</p> + +<p>"I've often looked over at you on the piazza, and thought how cosey you +looked. Mr. Winslow always seems to be at home evenings."</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am. We sit a great deal on the piazza. Cyril's a good boy; he +wa'n't nine when his father died; and he's been like a man helping me. +There never was a boy had such willing little feet. And he'd set right +there on the steps and pat my slipper and say what he'd git me when he +got to earning money; and he's got me every last thing, foolish and all, +that he said. There's that black satin gown, a sin and a shame for a +plain body like me,<a name="Page_180"></a> but he would git it. Cyril's got a beautiful +disposition too, jest like his pa's, and he's a handy man about the +house, and prompt at his meals. I wonder sometimes if Cyril was to git +married if his wife would mind his running over now and then and setting +with me awhile."</p> + +<p>She was speaking more rapidly, and her eyes strayed wistfully over to +the Hopkins piazza, where Sibyl was sitting with the young soldier. +Lorania looked at her pityingly.</p> + +<p>"Why, surely," said she.</p> + +<p>"Mothers have kinder selfish feelings," said Mrs. Winslow, moistening +her lips and drawing a quick breath, still watching the girl on the +piazza. "It's so sweet and peaceful for them, they forget their sons may +want something more. But it's kinder hard giving all your little +comforts up at once when you've had him right with you so long, and +could cook just what he liked, and go right into his room nights if he +coughed. It's all right, all right, but it's kinder hard. And beautiful +young ladies that have had everything all their lives might—might not +understand that a homespun old mother isn't wanting to force herself on +them at all when they have company, and they have no call to fear it."</p><a name="Page_181"></a> + +<p>There was no doubt, however obscure the words seemed, that Mrs. Winslow +had a clear purpose in her mind, nor that she was tremendously in +earnest. Little blotches of red dabbled her cheeks, her breath came more +quickly, and she swallowed between her words. Lorania could see the +quiver in the muscles of her throat. She clasped her hands tight lest +they should shake. "He's in love with Sibyl," thought Lorania. "The poor +woman!" She felt sorry for her, and she spoke gently and reassuringly:</p> + +<p>"No girl with a good heart can help feeling tenderly towards her +husband's mother."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winslow nodded. "You're real comforting," said she. She was silent +a moment, and then said, in a different tone: "You 'ain't got a large +enough track. Wouldn't you like to have our pasture too?"</p> + +<p>Lorania expressed her gratitude, and invited the Winslows to see the +practice.</p> + +<p>"My niece will come out to-morrow," she said, graciously.</p> + +<p>"Yes? She's a real fine-appearing young lady," said Mrs. Winslow.</p> + +<p>Both the cyclists exulted. Neither of them, however, was prepared to +behold the track made and the fence down the<a name="Page_182"></a> very next morning when +they came out, about ten o'clock, to the west side of Miss Hopkins's +boundaries.</p> + +<p>"As sure as you live, Maggie," exclaimed Lorania, eagerly, "he's got it +all done! Now that is something like a lover. I only hope his heart +won't be bruised as black and blue as I am with the wheel!"</p> + +<p>"Shuey says the only harm your falls do you is to take away your +confidence," said Mrs. Ellis.</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't say so if he could see my <i>knees</i>!" retorted Miss Hopkins.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis, it will be observed, sheered away from the love-affairs of +Mr. Cyril Winslow. She had not yet made up her mind. And Mrs. Ellis, who +had been married, did not jump at conclusions regarding the heart of man +so rapidly as her spinster friend. She preferred to talk of the bicycle. +Nor did Miss Hopkins refuse the subject. To her at this moment the most +important object on the globe was the shining machine which she would +allow no hand but hers to oil and dust. Both Mrs. Ellis and she were +simply prostrated (as to their mental powers) by this new sport. They +could not think nor talk nor read of anything but <i>the wheel</i>. This is a +peculiarity of the bicyclist. No<a name="Page_183"></a> other sport appears to make such havoc +with the mind.</p> + +<p>One can learn to swim without describing his sensations to every casual +acquaintance or hunting up the natatorial columns in the newspapers. One +may enjoy riding a horse and yet go about his ordinary business with an +equal mind. One learns to play golf and still remains a peaceful citizen +who can discuss politics with interest. But the cyclist, man or woman, +is soaked in every pore with the delight and the perils of wheeling. He +talks of it (as he thinks of it) incessantly. For this fatuous passion +there is one excuse. Other sports have the fearful delight of danger and +the pleasure of the consciousness of dexterity and the dogged +Anglo-Saxon joy of combat and victory; but no other sport restores to +middle age the pure, exultant, muscular intoxication of childhood. Only +on the wheel can an elderly woman feel as she felt when she ran and +leaped and frolicked amid the flowers as a child.</p> + +<p>Lorania, of course, no longer jumped or ran; she kicked in the Delsarte +exercises, but it was a measured, calculated, one may say cold-blooded +kick, which limbered her muscles but did not restore her youthful glow +of soul. Her legs and not<a name="Page_184"></a> her spirits pranced. The same thing may be +said for Margaret Ellis. Now, between their accidents, they obtained +glimpses of an exquisite exhilaration. And there was also to be counted +the approval of their consciences, for they felt that no Turkish bath +could wring out moisture from their systems like half an hour's pumping +at the bicycle treadles. Lorania during the month had ridden through one +bottle of liniment and two of witch-hazel, and by the end of the second +bottle could ride a short distance alone. But Lorania could not yet +dismount unassisted, and several times she had felled poor Winslow to +the earth when he rashly adventured to stop her. Captain Carr had a +peculiar, graceful fling of the arm, catching the saddle-bar with one +hand while he steadied the handles with the other. He did not hesitate +in the least to grab Lorania's belt if necessary. But poor modest +Winslow, who fell upon the wheel and dared not touch the hem of a lady's +bicycle skirt, was as one in the path of a cyclone, and appeared daily +in a fresh pair of white trousers.</p> + +<p>"Yous have now," Shuey remarked, impressively, one day—"yous have now +arrived at the most difficult and dangerous period in learning the +wheel. It's<a name="Page_185"></a> similar to a baby when it's first learned to walk but +'ain't yet got sense in walking. When it was little it would stay put +wherever ye put it, and it didn't know enough to go by itself, which is +similar to you. When I was holding ye you couldn't fall, but now you're +off alone depindent on yourself, object-struck by every tree, taking +most of the pasture to turn in, and not able to git off save by +falling—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, couldn't you go with her somehow?" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow, appalled +at the picture. "Wouldn't a rope round her be some help? I used to put +it round Cyril when he was learning to walk."</p> + +<p>"Well, no, ma'am," said Shuey, patiently. "Don't you be scared; the +riding will come; she's getting on grandly. And ye should see Mr. +Winslow. 'Tis a pleasure to teach him. He rode in one lesson. I ain't +learning him nothing but tricks now."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Winslow, why don't you ride here—with us?" said Sibyl, with +her coquettish and flattering smile. "We're always hearing of your +beautiful riding. Are we never to see it?"</p> + +<p>"I think Mr. Winslow is waiting for that swell English cycle suit that I +hear about," said the captain, grinning; and Winslow grew red to his +eyelids.</p><a name="Page_186"></a> + +<p>Lorania gave an indignant side glance at Sibyl. Why need the girl make +game of an honest man who loved her? Sibyl was biting her lips and +darting side glances at the captain. She called the pasture practice +slow, but she seemed, nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on the +bench, the captain on one side and Winslow on the other, rattling off +her girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. Ellis, with the anxious, set +faces of the beginner, were pedalling frantically after Cardigan. +Lorania began to pity Winslow, for it was growing plain to her that +Sibyl and the captain understood each other. She thought that even if +Sibyl did care for the soldier, she need not be so careless of Winslow's +feelings. She talked with the cashier herself, trying to make amends for +Sibyl's absorption in the other man, and she admired the fortitude that +concealed the pain that he must feel. It became quite the expected thing +for the Winslows to be present at the practice; but Winslow had not yet +appeared on his wheel. He used to bring a box of candy with him, or +rather three boxes—one for each lady, he said—and a box of peppermints +for his mother. He was always very attentive to his mother.</p> + +<p>"And fancy, Aunt Margaret," laughed<a name="Page_187"></a> Sibyl, "he has asked both auntie +and me to the theatre. He is not going to compromise himself by singling +one of us out. He's a careful soul. By the way, Aunt Margaret, Mrs. +Winslow was telling me yesterday that I am the image of auntie at my +age. Am I? Do I look like her? Was she as slender as I?"</p> + +<p>"Almost," said Mrs. Ellis, who was not so inflexibly truthful as her +friend.</p> + +<p>"No, Sibyl," said Lorania, with a deep, deep sigh, "I was always plump; +I was a chubby <i>child</i>! And oh, what do you think I heard in the crowd +at Manly's once? One woman said to another, 'Miss Hopkins has got a +wheel.' 'Miss Sibyl?' said the other. 'No; the stout Miss Hopkins,' said +the first creature; and the second—" Lorania groaned.</p> + +<p>"What <i>did</i> she say to make you feel that way?"</p> + +<p>"She said—she said, 'Oh my!'" answered Lorania, with a dying look.</p> + +<p>"Well, she was horrid," said Mrs. Ellis; "but you know you have grown +thin. Come on; let's ride!"</p> + +<p>"I <i>never</i> shall be able to ride," said Lorania, gloomily. "I can get +on, but I can't get off. And they've taken off the brake, so I can't +stop. And I'm object-struck by everything I look at. Some<a name="Page_188"></a> day I shall +look down-hill. Well, my will's in the lower drawer of the mahogany +desk."</p> + +<p>Perhaps Lorania had an occult inkling of the future. For this is what +happened: That evening Winslow rode on to the track in his new English +bicycle suit, which had just come. He hoped that he didn't look like a +fool in those queer clothes. But the instant he entered the pasture he +saw something that drove everything else out of his head, and made him +bend over the steering-bar and race madly across the green; Miss +Hopkins's bicycle was running away down-hill! Cardigan, on foot, was +pelting obliquely, in the hopeless thought to intercept her, while Mrs. +Ellis, who was reeling over the ground with her own bicycle, wheeled as +rapidly as she could to the brow of the hill, where she tumbled off, and +abandoning the wheel, rushed on foot to her friend's rescue.</p> + +<p>She was only in time to see a flash of silver and ebony and a streak of +brown dart before her vision and swim down the hill like a bird. Lorania +was still in the saddle, pedalling from sheer force of habit, and +clinging to the handle bars. Below the hill was a stone wall, and +farther was a creek. There was a narrow<a name="Page_189"></a> opening in the wall where the +cattle went down to drink; if she could steer through that she would +have nothing worse than soft water and mud; but there was not one chance +in a thousand that she could pass that narrow space. Mrs. Winslow, +horror-stricken, watched the rescuer, who evidently was cutting across +to catch the bicycle.</p> + +<p>"He's riding out of sight!" thought Shuey, in the rear. He himself did +not slacken his speed, although he could not be in time for the +catastrophe. Suddenly he stiffened; Winslow was close to the runaway +wheel.</p> + +<p>"Grab her!" yelled Shuey. "Grab her by the belt! <i>Oh, Lord!</i>"</p> + +<p>The exclamation exploded like the groan of a shell. For while Winslow's +bicycling was all that could be wished, and he flung himself in the path +of the on-coming wheel with marvellous celerity and precision, he had +not the power to withstand the never yet revealed number of pounds +carried by Miss Lorania, impelled by the rapid descent and gathering +momentum at every whirl. They met; he caught her; but instantly he was +rolling down the steep incline and she was doubled up on the grass. He +crashed sickeningly against the stone wall; she<a name="Page_190"></a> lay stunned and still +on the sod; and their friends, with beating hearts, slid down to them. +Mrs. Winslow was on the brow of the hill. She blesses Shuey to this day +for the shout he sent up, "Nobody killed, and I guess no bones broken."</p> + +<p>When Margaret went home that evening, having seen her friend safely in +bed, not much the worse for her fall, she was told that Cardigan wished +to see her. Shuey produced something from his pocket, saying: "I picked +this up on the hill, ma'am, after the accident. It maybe belongs to him, +or it maybe belongs to her; I'm thinking the safest way is to just give +it to you." He handed Mrs. Ellis a tiny gold-framed miniature of Lorania +in a red leather case.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>The morning was a sparkling June morning, dewy and fragrant, and the +sunlight burnished handle and pedal of the friends' bicycles standing on +the piazza unheeded. It was the hour for morning practice, but Miss +Hopkins slept in her chamber, and Mrs. Ellis sat in the little parlor +adjoining, and thought.</p> + +<p>She did not look surprised at the maid's announcement that Mrs. Winslow +begged to see her for a few moments. Mrs.<a name="Page_191"></a> Winslow was pale. She was a +good sketch of discomfort on the very edge of her chair, clad in the +black silk which she wore Sundays, her head crowned with her bonnet of +state, and her hands stiff in a pair of new gloves.</p> + +<p>"I hope you'll excuse me not sending up a card," she began. "Cyril got +me some going on a year ago, and I <i>thought</i> I could lay my hand right +on 'em, but I'm so nervous this morning I hunted all over, and they +wasn't anywhere. I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask if you picked up +anything—a little red Russia-leather case—"</p> + +<p>"Was it a miniature—a miniature of my friend Miss Hopkins?"</p> + +<p>"I thought it all over, and I came to explain. You no doubt think it +strange; and I can assure you that my son never let any human being look +at that picture. I never knew about it myself till it was lost and he +got out of his bed—he ain't hardly able to walk—and staggered over +here to look for it, and I followed him; and so he <i>had</i> to tell me. He +had it painted from a picture that came out in the papers. He felt it +was an awful liberty. But—you don't know how my boy feels, Mrs. Ellis; +he has worshipped that woman for years. He 'ain't never<a name="Page_192"></a> had a thought +of anybody but her since they was children in school; and yet he's been +so modest and so shy of pushing himself forward that he didn't do a +thing until I put him on to help you with this bicycle."</p> + +<p>Margaret Ellis did not know what to say. She thought of the marquis; and +Mrs. Winslow poured out her story: "He 'ain't never said a word to me +till this morning. But don't I <i>know</i>? Don't I know who looked out so +careful for her investments? Don't I know who was always looking out for +her interest, silent, and always keeping himself in the background? Why, +she couldn't even buy a cow that he wa'n't looking round to see that she +got a good one! 'Twas him saw the gardener, and kept him from buying +that cow with tuberculosis, 'cause he knew about the herd. He knew by +finding out. He worshipped the very cows she owned, you may say, and +I've seen him patting and feeding up her dogs; it's to our house that +big mastiff always goes every night. Mrs. Ellis, it ain't often that a +woman gits love such as my son is offering, only he da'sn't offer it, +and it ain't often a woman is loved by such a good man as my son. He +'ain't got any bad habits; he'll die before he wrongs anybody; and he +has<a name="Page_193"></a> got the sweetest temper you ever see; and he's the tidiest man +about the house you could ask, and the promptest about meals."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis looked at her flushed face, and sent another flood of color +into it, for she said, "Mrs. Winslow, I don't know how much good I may +be able to do, but I am on your side."</p> + +<p>Her eyes followed the little black figure when it crossed the lawn. She +wondered whether her advice was good, for she had counselled that +Winslow come over in the evening.</p> + +<p>"Maggie," said a voice. Lorania was in the doorway. "Maggie," she said, +"I ought to tell you that I heard every word."</p> + +<p>"Then <i>I</i> can tell <i>you</i>," cried Mrs. Ellis, "that he is fifty times +more of a man than the marquis, and loves you fifty thousand times +better!"</p> + +<p>Lorania made no answer, not even by a look. What she felt, Mrs. Ellis +could not guess. Nor was she any wiser when Winslow appeared at her +gate, just as the sun was setting.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think I would better intrude on Miss Hopkins," said he, "but +perhaps you could tell me how she is this evening. My mother told me how +kind you were, and perhaps you—you would ad<a name="Page_194"></a>vise if I might venture to +send Miss Hopkins some flowers."</p> + +<p>Out of the kindness of her heart Mrs. Ellis averted her eyes from his +face; thus she was able to perceive Lorania saunter out of the Hopkins +gate. So changed was she by the bicycle practice that, wrapped in her +niece's shawl, she made Margaret think of the girl. An inspiration +flashed to her; she knew the cashier's dependence on his eye-glasses, +and he was not wearing them.</p> + +<p>"If you want to know how Miss Hopkins is, why not speak to her niece +now?" said she.</p> + +<p>He started. He saw Miss Sibyl, as he supposed, and he went swiftly down +the street. "Miss Sibyl!" he began, "may I ask how is your aunt?"—and +then she turned.</p> + +<p>She blushed, then she laughed aloud. "Has the bicycle done so much for +me?" said she.</p> + +<p>"The bicycle didn't need to do <i>anything</i> for you!" he cried, warmly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis, a little distance in the rear, heard, turned, and walked +thoughtfully away. "They're off," said she—she had acquired a sporting +tinge of thought from Shuey Cardigan. "If with that start he can't make +the running, it's a wonder."</p><a name="Page_195"></a> + +<p>"I have invited Mr. Winslow and his mother to dinner," said Miss +Hopkins, in the morning. "Will you come too, Maggie?"</p> + +<p>"I'll back him against the marquis," thought Margaret, gleefully.</p> + +<p>A week later Lorania said: "I really think I must be getting thinner. +Fancy Mr. Winslow, who is so clear-sighted, mistaking me for Sibyl! He +says—I told him how I had suffered from my figure—he says it can't be +what he has suffered from his. Do you think him so very short, Maggie? +Of course he isn't tall, but he has an elegant figure, I think, and I +never saw anywhere such a rider!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis answered, heartily, "He isn't very small, and he is a +beautiful figure on the wheel!" And added to herself, "I know what was +in that letter she sent yesterday to the marquis! But to think of its +all being due to the bicycle!"</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<a name="Esther"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Marrying of Esther<a name="Page_196"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Mary M. Mears</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"Set there and cry; it's so sensible; and I 'ain't said that a June +weddin' wouldn't be a little nicer. But what you goin' to live on? Joe +can't git his money that soon."</p> + +<p>"He—said he thought he could manage. But I won't be married at all if I +can't have it—right."</p> + +<p>"Well, you can have it right. All is, there are some folks in this town +that if they don't calculate doin' real well by you, I don't feel called +upon to invite."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean," sobbed the girl. She sat by the kitchen +table, her face hidden in her arms. Her mother stood looking at her +tenderly, and yet with a certain anger.</p> + +<p>"I mean about the presents. You've worked in the church, you've sung in +the choir for years, and now it's a chance for folks to show that they +appreciate it, and without they're goin' to—Boxes of cake<a name="Page_197"></a> would be +plenty if they wa'n't goin' to serve you any better than they did Ella +Plummet."</p> + +<p>Esther Robinson lifted her head. She was quite large, in a soft young +way, and her skin was as pure as a baby's. "But you can't know +beforehand how they're going to treat me!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I can know beforehand, too, and if you're set on next month, it's +none too soon to be seein' about it. I've a good mind to step over to +Mis' Lawrence's and Mis' Stetson's this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Mother! You—wouldn't ask 'em anything?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Robinson hung away her dishtowel; then she faced Esther. "Of course +I wouldn't <i>ask</i> 'em; there's other ways of findin' out besides +<i>asking</i>. I'd bring the subject round by saying I hoped there wouldn't +be many duplicates, and I'd git out of 'em what they intended givin' +without seemin' to." Esther looked at her mother with a sort of +fascination. "Then we could give some idea about the refreshments; for I +ain't a-goin' to have no elaborate layout without I <i>do</i> know; and it +ain't because I grudge the money, either," she added, in swift +self-defence.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Robinson was a good manager of<a name="Page_198"></a> the moderate means her husband had +left her, but she was not parsimonious or inhospitable. Now she was +actuated by a fierce maternal jealousy. Esther, despite her pleasant +ways and her helpfulness, was often overlooked in a social way. This was +due to her mother. The more pretentious laughed about Mrs. Robinson, and +though the thrifty, contented housewife never missed the amenities which +might have been extended to her, she was keenly alive to any slights put +upon her daughter. And so it was now.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lawrence, a rich, childless old lady, lived next door, and about +four o'clock she went over there. The girl watched her departure +doubtfully, but the possibility of not having a large wedding kept her +from giving a full expression to her feelings.</p> + +<p>Esther had always dreamed of her wedding; she had looked forward to it +just as definitely before she met Joe Elsworth as after her engagement +to him. There would be flowers and guests and feasting, and she would be +the centre of it all in a white dress and veil.</p> + +<p>She had never thought about there being any presents. Now for the first +time she thought of them as an added glory, but her imagination did not +extend to the<a name="Page_199"></a> separate articles or to their givers. Esther never +pictured her uncle Jonas at the wedding, yet he would surely be in +attendance in his rough farmer clothes, his grizzled, keen old face +towering above the other guests. She did not picture her friends as she +really knew them; the young men would be fine gentlemen, and the girls +ladies in wonderful toilets. As for herself and Joe, hidden away in a +bureau drawer Esther had a poster of one of Frohman's plays. It +represented a bride and groom standing together in a drift of orange +blossoms.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Robinson did not return at supper-time, and Esther ate alone. At +eight o'clock Joe Elsworth came. She met him at the door, and they +kissed in the entry. Then Joe preceded her in, and hung up his cap on a +projecting knob of the what-not—that was where he always put it. He +glanced into the dining-room and took in the waiting table.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you had supper yet!"</p> + +<p>"Mother isn't home."</p> + +<p>He came towards her swiftly; his eyes shone with a sudden elated +tenderness. She raised her arms and turned away her face, but he swept +aside the ineffectual barrier. When he let her go she seated herself on +the farther side of the room.<a name="Page_200"></a> Her glance was full of a soft rebuke. He +met it, then looked down smilingly and awkwardly at his shoes.</p> + +<p>"Where did you say your ma had gone?"</p> + +<p>"She's gone to Mis' Lawrence's, and a few other places."</p> + +<p>"Oh, calling. Old Mis' Norton goes about twice a year, and I ask her +what it amounts to."</p> + +<p>"I guess you'll find ma's calls'll amount to something."</p> + +<p>"How's that?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"She's—going to try and find out what they intend giving."</p> + +<p>"What they intend giving?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And without they intend giving something worth while, she says she +won't invite 'em, and maybe we won't have a big wedding at all," she +finished, pathetically.</p> + +<p>Joe did not answer. Esther stole an appealing glance at him.</p> + +<p>"Does it seem a queer thing to do?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, rather."</p> + +<p>Her face quivered. "She said I'd done so much for Mis' Lawrence—"</p> + +<p>"Well, you have, and I've wished a good many times that you wouldn't. +I'm sure I never knuckled to her, though she is my great-aunt."</p><a name="Page_201"></a> + +<p>"I never knuckled to her, either," protested Esther.</p> + +<p>"You've done a sight more for her than I would have done, fixin' her +dresses and things, and she with more money than anybody else in town. +But your mother ain't going to call on everybody, is she?" he asked, +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Of course she ain't. Only she said, if it was going to be in June—but +I don't want it to be ever," she added, covering her face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's all right," said Joe, penitently. He went over and put his arm +around her. Nevertheless, his eyes held a worried look.</p> + +<p>Joe's father had bound him out to a farmer by the name of Norton until +his majority, when the sum of seven hundred dollars, all the little +fortune the father had left, together with three hundred more from +Norton, was to be turned over to him. But Joe would not be twenty-one +until October. It was going to be difficult for him to arrange for the +June wedding Esther desired. He was very much in love, however, and +presently he lifted his boyish cheek from her hair.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll take that cottage of Lanham's; it's the only vacant house +in the village, and he's promised to wait for the<a name="Page_202"></a> rent, so that +confounded old Norton needn't advance me a cent."</p> + +<p>Esther flushed. "What do you suppose makes him act so?" she questioned, +though she knew.</p> + +<p>Joe blushed too. "He don't like it because I'm going to work in the +factory when it opens. But Mis' Norton and Sarah have done everything +for me," he added, decidedly.</p> + +<p>Up to the time of his engagement Joe had been in the habit of showing +Sarah Norton an occasional brotherly attention, and he would have +continued to do so had not Esther and Mrs. Robinson interfered—Esther +from girlish jealousy, and her mother because she did not approve of the +family, she said. She could not say she did not approve of Sarah, for +there was not a more upright, self-respecting girl in the village. But +Sarah, because of her father's miserliness, often went out for extra +work when the neighbors needed help, and this was the real cause of Mrs. +Robinson's feeling. Unconsciously she made the same distinction between +Sarah Norton and Esther that some of the more ambitious of the village +mothers made between their girls and her own daughter. Then it was +common talk that old Jim Norton, for obvi<a name="Page_203"></a>ous reasons, was displeased +with Joe's matrimonial plans, but Mrs. Robinson professed to believe +that the wife and daughter were really the ones disappointed. Now Esther +began twisting a button of Joe's coat.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe mother'll ask either of 'em to the wedding," said she.</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Robinson entered, Esther stood expectant and fearful by the +table. Her mother drew up a chair and reached for the bread.</p> + +<p>"I didn't stop anywhere for supper. You've had yours, 'ain't you?"</p> + +<p>The girl nodded.</p> + +<p>"Joe come?"</p> + +<p>"He just left."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Robinson was not to be hurried into divulging the result of her +calls. She remained massively mysterious. Esther began to wish she had +not hurried Joe off so unceremoniously. After her first cup of tea, +however, her mother asked for a slip of paper and a pencil. "I want that +pencil in my machine drawer, that writes black, and any kind of paper'll +do," she said.</p> + +<p>Esther brought them; then she took up her sewing. She was not without a +certain self-restraint. Mrs. Robinson, between her sips of tea, wrote. +The soft<a name="Page_204"></a> gurgle of her drinking annoyed Esther, and she had a tingling +desire to snatch the paper. After a last misdirected placing of her cup +in her plate, however, her mother looked up and smiled triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"I guess we'll have to plan something different than boxes of cake. +Listen to this; Mis' Lawrence—No, I won't read that yet. Mis' +Manning—I went in there because I thought about her not inviting you +when she gave that library party—one salt and pepper with rose-buds +painted on 'em."</p> + +<p>Esther leaned forward; her face was crimson.</p> + +<p>"You needn't look so," remonstrated her mother. "It was all I could do +to keep from laughing at the way she acted. I just mentioned that we +were only goin' to invite those you were indebted to, and she went and +fetched out that salt and pepper. I believe she said they was intended +in the first place for some relative that didn't git married in the +end."</p> + +<p>The girl made an inarticulate noise in her throat. Her mother continued, +in a loud, impressive tone:</p> + +<p>"Mis' Stetson—something worked. She hasn't quite decided what, but +she's goin' to let me know about it. Jane Watson—"</p><a name="Page_205"></a> + +<p>"You didn't go <i>there</i>, mother!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Robinson treated her daughter to a contemptuous look. "I guess I've +got sense. Jane was at Mis' Stetson's, and when I came away she went +along with me, and insisted that I should stop and see some +lamp-lighters she'd got to copy from—those paper balls. She seemed +afraid a string of those wouldn't be enough, but I told her how pretty +they was, and how much you'd be pleased."</p> + +<p>"I guess I'll think a good deal more of 'em than I will of Mis' +Manning's salt and pepper." Esther was very near tears.</p> + +<p>"Next I went to the Rogerses, and they've about concluded to give you a +lamp; and they can afford to. Then that's all the places I've been, +except to Mis' Lawrence's, and she"—Mrs. Robinson paused for +emphasis—"she's goin' to give you a silver <i>tea-set</i>!"</p> + +<p>Esther looked at her mother, her red lips apart.</p> + +<p>"That was the first place I called, and I said pretty plain what I was +gittin' at; but after I knew about the water-set, that settled what kind +of weddin' we'd have."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>But the next morning the world looked different. Her rheumatic foot +ached, and that always affected her temper; but when<a name="Page_206"></a> they sat down to +sew, the real cause of her irascibleness came out.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Lawrence wa'n't any more civil than she need be," she remarked. "I +guess she'd decided she'd got to do something, being related to Joe. She +said she supposed you were expecting a good many presents; and I said +no, you didn't look for many, and there were some that you'd done a good +deal for that you knew better than to expect anything from. I was mad. +Then she turned kind of red, and mentioned about the water-set."</p> + +<p>And in the afternoon a young girl acquaintance added to Esther's +perturbation. "I just met Susan Rogers," she confided to the other, "and +she said they hated to give that lamp, but they supposed they were in +for it."</p> + +<p>Esther was not herself for some days. All her pretty dreams were blotted +out, and a morbid embarrassment took hold of her; but she was roused to +something like her old interest when the presents began to come in and +she saw her mother's active preparations for the wedding—the more so as +over the village seemed to have spread a pleasant excitement concerning +the event. Presents arrived from unexpected sources, so that +in<a name="Page_207"></a>vitations had to be sent afterwards to the givers. Women who had +never crossed the Robinson threshold came now like Hindoo gift-bearers +before some deity whom they wished to propitiate. Meeting there, they +exchanged droll, half-deprecating glances. Mrs. Robinson's calls had +formed the subject of much laughing comment; but weddings were not +common in Marshfield, and the desire to be bidden to this one was +universal; it spread like an epidemic.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Robinson was at first elated. She overlooked the matter of +duplicates, and accepted graciously every article that was +tendered—from a patch-work quilt to a hem-stitched handkerchief. "You +can't have too many of some things," she remarked to Esther. But later +she reversed this statement. Match-safes, photograph-frames, and pretty +nothings accumulated to an alarming extent.</p> + +<p>"Now that's the last pin-cushion you're goin' to take," she declared, as +she returned from answering a call at the door one evening. "There's +fourteen in the parlor now. Some folks seem to have gone crazy on +pin-cushions."</p> + +<p>She grew confused, and the next day she went into the parlor, which, +owing to the nature of the display, resembled a<a name="Page_208"></a> booth at a church fair, +and made an accurate list of the articles received. When she emerged, +her large, handsome face was quite flushed.</p> + +<p>"Little wabbly, fall-down things, most of 'em. It'll take you a week to +dust your house if you have all those things standin' round."</p> + +<p>"Well, I ain't goin' to put none of 'em away," declared Esther. "I like +ornaments."</p> + +<p>"Glad you do; you've got enough of 'em, land knows. <i>Ornaments!</i>" The +very word seemed to incense her. "I guess you'll find there's something +needed besides <i>ornaments</i> when you come right down to livin'. For one +thing, you're awful short of dishes and bedding, and you can't ever have +no company—unless," she added, with withering sarcasm, "you give 'em +little vases to drink out of, and put 'em to bed under a picture-drape, +with a pin-cushion or a scent-bag for a piller."</p> + +<p>And from that time Mrs. Robinson accepted no gift without first +consulting her list. It became known that she looked upon useful +articles with favor, and brooms and flat-irons and bright tinware +arrived constantly. Then it was that the heterogeneous collection began<a name="Page_209"></a> +to pall upon Esther. The water-set had not yet been presented, but its +magnificence grew upon her, and she persuaded Joe to get a +spindle-legged stand on which to place it, although he could not furnish +the cottage until October, and had gone in debt for the few necessary +things. She pictured the combination first in one corner of the little +parlor, then another, finally in a window where it could be seen, from +the road.</p> + +<p>Esther's standards did not vary greatly from her mother's, but she had a +bewildered sense that they were somehow stepping from the beaten track +of custom. On one or two points, however, she was firm. The few novels +that had come within her reach she had conned faithfully. Thus, even +before she had a lover, she had decided that the most impressive hour +for a wedding was sunrise, and had arranged the procession which was to +wend its way towards the church. And in these matters her mother, +respecting her superior judgment, stood stanchly by her.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when the eventful morning arrived she was bitterly +disappointed. She had set her heart on having the church bell rung, and +overlooked the fact that the meeting-house bell was cracked,<a name="Page_210"></a> till Joe +reminded her. Then the weather was unexpectedly chilly. A damp fog, not +yet dispersed by the sun, hung over the barely awakened village, and the +little flower-girl shivered. She had a shawl pinned about her, and when +the procession was fairly started she tripped over it, and there was a +halt while she gathered up the roses and geraniums in her little +trembling hands and thrust them back into the basket. Celia Smith +tittered. Celia was the bridesmaid, and was accompanied by Joe's friend, +red-headed Harry Baker; and Mrs. Robinson and Uncle Jonas, who were far +behind, made the most of the delay. Mrs. Robinson often explained that +she was not a "good walker," and her brother-in-law tried jocularly to +help her along, although he used a cane himself. His weather-beaten old +face was beaming, but it was as though the smiles were set between the +wrinkles, for he kept his mouth sober. He had a flower in his +button-hole, which gave him a festive air, despite the fact that his +clothes were distinctly untidy. Several buttons were off: he had no wife +to keep them sewed on.</p> + +<p>Esther had given but one glance at him. Her head under its lace veil +bent lower and lower. The flounces of her<a name="Page_211"></a> skirt stood out about her +like the delicate bell of a hollyhock; she followed the way falteringly. +Joe, his young eyes radiant, inclined his curly head towards her, but +she did not heed him. The little procession was as an awkward garment +which hampered and abashed her; but just as they reached the church the +sun crept above the tree-tops, and from the bleakness of dawn the whole +scene warmed into the glorious beauty of a June day. The guests lost +their aspect of chilled waiting; Esther caught their admiring glances. +For one brief moment her triumph was complete; the next she had +overstepped its bounds. She went forward scarcely touching Joe's arm. +Her great desire became a definite purpose. She whispered to a member of +her Sunday-school class, a little fellow. He looked at her wonderingly +at first, then darted forward and grasped the rope which dangled down in +a corner of the vestibule. He pulled with a will, but even as the old +bell responded with a hoarse clank, his arms jerked upward, and with +curls flying and fat legs extended he ascended straight to the ceiling.</p> + +<p>"Oh, suz, the Lord's taking him right up!" shrieked an old woman, the +sepulchral explanation of the broken bell but<a name="Page_212"></a> serving to intensify her +terror; and there were others who refused to understand, even when his +sister caught him by the heels. She was very white, and she shook him +before she set him down. Too scared to realize where he was, he fought +her, his little face quite red, and his blouse strained up so that it +revealed the girth of his round little body in its knitted undershirt.</p> + +<p>"Le' me go," he whimpered; "she telled me to do it."</p> + +<p>His words broke through the general amazement like a stone through the +icy surface of a stream. The guests gave way to mirth. Some of the young +girls averted their faces; they could not look at Esther. The matrons +tilted their bonneted heads towards one another and shook softly. "I +thought at first it might be a part of the show," whispered one, "but I +guess it wasn't planned."</p> + +<p>Esther was conscious of every whisper and every glance; shame seemed to +engulf her, but she entered the church holding her head high. When they +emerged into the sunshine again, she would have been glad to run away, +but she was forced to pause while her mother made an announcement.</p> + +<p>"The refreshments will be ready by<a name="Page_213"></a> ten," she said, "and as we calculate +to keep the tables runnin' all day, those that can't come one time can +come another."</p> + +<p>After which there was a little rice-throwing, and the young couple +departed. The frolic partly revived Esther's spirits; but her mother, +toiling heavily along with a hard day's work before her, was inclined to +speak her mind. Her brother-in-law, however, restrained her.</p> + +<p>"Seems to me I never seen anything quite so cute as that little feller +a-ringin' that bell for the weddin'. Who put him up to it, anyhow?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Esther. She was so set on havin' a 'chime,' as she called it."</p> + +<p>"Well, it was a real good idee! A <i>real</i> good idee!" and he kept +repeating the phrase as though in a perfect ecstasy of appreciation.</p> + +<p>When Esther reached home, she and Joe arranged the tables in the side +yard, but when the first guest turned in at the gate her mother sent her +to the house. "Now you go into the parlor and rest. You can just as well +sit under that dove as stand under it," she said.</p> + +<p>The girl started listlessly to obey, but the next words revived her like +wine:</p> + +<p>"I declare it's Mis' Lawrence, and she's<a name="Page_214"></a> bringing that water-set; she +hung on to it till the last minit."</p> + +<p>Esther flew to her chamber and donned her veil, which she had laid +aside, then sped down-stairs; but when she passed through the parlor she +put her hands over her eyes: she wanted to look at the water-set first +with Joe. He was no longer helping her mother, and she fluttered about +looking for him. The rooms would soon be crowded, and then there would +be no opportunity to examine the wonderful gift.</p> + +<p>She darted down a foot-path that crossed the yard diagonally. It led to +a gap in the stone-wall which opened on a lane. Esther and Joe had been +in the habit of walking here of an evening. It was scarcely more than a +grassy way overhung by leaning branches of old fruit trees, but it was a +short-cut to the cottage Joe had rented. Now Esther's feet, of their own +volition, carried her here. She slid through the opening. "Joe!" she +called, and her voice had the tremulous cadence of a bird summoning its +mate; but it died away in a little smothered cry, for not a rod away was +Joe, and sitting on a large stone was Sarah Norton. They had their backs +towards her, and were engaged in such an earnest conver<a name="Page_215"></a>sation that they +did not hear her. Sarah's shoulders moved with her quick breathing; she +had a hand on Joe's arm. Esther stood staring, her thin draperies +circling about her, and her childish face pale. Then she turned, with a +swift impulse to escape, but again she paused, her eyes riveted in the +opposite direction. From where she stood the back door of her future +home was visible, and two men were carrying out furniture. Involuntarily +she opened her lips to call Joe, but no sound came. Yes, they had the +bureau; they would probably take the spindle-legged stand next. A strong +protective instinct is part of possession, and to Esther that sight was +as a magnet to steel. Down the grassy lane she sped, but so lightly that +the couple by the wall were as unobservant of her as they were of the +wind stirring the long grass.</p> + +<p>Sarah Norton rose. "I run every step of the way to get here in time. +Please, Joe!" she panted.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "It's real kind of you and your mother, Sarah, but I +guess I ain't going to touch any of the money you worked for and earned, +and I can't help but think, when I talk to Lanham—"</p> + +<p>"I tell you, you can't reason with him in his state!"</p><a name="Page_216"></a> + +<p>"Well, I'll raise it somehow."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to be quick about it, then," she returned, concisely. +"He'll be here in a few minutes, and it's cash down for the first three +months, or he'll let the other party have it."</p> + +<p>"But he promised—"</p> + +<p>"That don't make any difference. He's drunk, and he thought father'd +offer to make you an advance; but father just told him to come down +here, that you were being married, and say he'd poke all your things out +in the road without you paid."</p> + +<p>The young man turned. Sarah blocked his way. She was a tall, +good-looking girl, somewhat older than Joe, and she looked straight up +into his face.</p> + +<p>"See here, Joe; you know what makes father act so, and so do I, and so +does mother, and mother and I want you should take this money; it'll +make us feel better." Sarah flushed, but she looked at him as directly +as if she had been his sister.</p> + +<p>Joe felt an admiration for her that was almost reverence. It carried him +for the moment beyond the consideration of his own predicament.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't know what makes him act so either," he cried, hotly. "Oh<a name="Page_217"></a> +Lord, Sarah, you sha'n't say such a thing!"</p> + +<p>She interrupted him. "Won't you take it?"</p> + +<p>He turned again: "You're just as good as you can be, but I can manage +some way."</p> + +<p>"I'll watch for Lanham," she answered, quietly, "and keep him talking as +long as I can. He's just drunk enough to make a scene."</p> + +<p>Half-way to the house, Joe met Harry Barker.</p> + +<p>"What did she want?" he inquired, curiously.</p> + +<p>When Joe told him he plunged into his pocket and drew out two dollars, +then offered to go among the young fellows and collect the balance of +the amount, but Joe caught hold of him.</p> + +<p>"Think of something else."</p> + +<p>"I could explain to the boys—"</p> + +<p>"You go and ask Mrs. Lawrence if she won't step out on the porch," the +other commanded; "she's my great-aunt, and I never asked anything of her +before."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Lawrence was not sympathetic. She told Joe flatly that she +never lent money, and that the water-set was as much as she could afford +to give. "It ain't paid for, though," she added; "and<a name="Page_218"></a> if you'd rather +have the money, I suppose I can send it back. But seems to me I +shouldn't have been in such an awful hurry to git married; I should 'a' +waited a month or so, till I had something to git married on. But you're +just like your father—never had no calculation. Do you want I should +return that silver?"</p> + +<p>Joe hesitated. It was an easy way out of the difficulty. Then a vision +of Esther rose before him, and the innocent preparations she had been +making for the display of the gift; "No," he answered, shortly. And Mrs. +Lawrence, with a shake of the shoulders as though she threw off all +responsibility in her young relative's affairs, bustled away. "I'm going +to keep that water-set if everything else has to go," he declared to the +astonished Harry. "Let 'em set me out in the road; I guess I'll git +along." He had a humorous vision of himself and Esther trudging forth, +with the water-set between them, to seek their fortune.</p> + +<p>He flung himself from the porch, and was confronted by Jonas Ingram. The +old fellow emerged from behind a lilac-bush with a guilty yet excited +air.</p> + +<p>"Young man, I ain't given to eaves-dropping, but I was strollin' along +here and I heered it all; and as I was calcula<a name="Page_219"></a>tin' to give my niece a +present—" He broke off and laid a hand on Joe's arm. "Where is that +dod-blasted fool of a Lanham? I'll pay him; then I'll break every bone +in his dum body!" he exclaimed, waxing profane. "Come here disturbin' +decent folks' weddin's! Where is he?"</p> + +<p>He started off down the path, striking out savagely with his stick. Joe +watched him a moment, then put after him, and Harry Barker followed.</p> + +<p>"If this ain't the liveliest weddin'!"</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he was disappointed in his expectations of an encounter. +When the trio emerged through the gap in the wall they found only Sarah +Norton awaiting them.</p> + +<p>"Lanham's come and gone," she announced. "No, I didn't give him a thing, +except a piece of my mind," she answered, in response to a look from +Joe. "I told him that he was acting like a fool; that father was in for +a thousand dollars to you in the fall, and that you would pay then, as +you promised, and that he'd better clear out."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if I could jest git a holt of him!" muttered Jonas Ingram.</p> + +<p>"That seemed to sober him," continued the girl; "but he said he wasn't +the only<a name="Page_220"></a> one that had got scared; that Merrill was going for his tables +and chairs; but Lanham said he'd run up to the cottage, and if he was +there, he'd send him off. You see, father threw out as if he wasn't +owing you anything," she added, in a lower voice, "and that's what +stirred 'em up."</p> + +<p>Joe turned white, in a sudden heat of anger—the first he had shown, +"I'll stir him—" he began; then his eyes met hers. He reddened. "Oh, +Sarah, I'm ever so much obliged to you!"</p> + +<p>"It was nothing. I guess it was lucky I wasn't invited to the wedding, +though." She laughed, and started away, leaving Joe abashed. She glanced +back. "I hope none of this foolishness'll reach Mis' Elsworth's ears," +she called, in a friendly voice.</p> + +<p>"I hope it won't," muttered Joe, fervently, and stood watching her till +the old man pulled his sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Lanham may not keep his word to the girl. Best go down there, hadn't +we?"</p> + +<p>The young man made no answer, but turned and ran. He longed for some one +to wreak vengeance on. The other two had difficulty in keeping up with +him. The first object that attracted their attention was the bureau. It +was standing beside the back steps. Joe tried the door;<a name="Page_221"></a> it was +fastened. He drew forth the key and fitted it into the lock, but still +the door did not yield. He turned and faced the others. "<i>Some one's in +there!</i>"</p> + +<p>Jonas Ingram broke forth into an oath. He shook his cane at the house.</p> + +<p>"Some one's in there, and they've got the door bolted on the inside," +continued Joe. His voice had a strange sound even to himself. He seemed +to be looking on at his own wrath. He strode around to a window, but the +blinds were closed; the blinds were closed all over the house; every +door was barred. Whoever was inside was in utter darkness. Joe came back +and gave the door a violent shake; then they all listened, but only the +pecking of a hen along the walk broke the silence.</p> + +<p>"I'll get a crowbar," suggested Harry, scowling in the fierce sunlight. +Jonas Ingram stood with his hair blowing out from under his hat and his +stick grasped firmly in his gnarled old hand. He was all ready to +strike. His chin was thrust out rigidly. They both pressed close to Joe, +but he did not heed them. He put one shoulder against a panel; every +muscle was set.</p> + +<p>"Whoever you are, if I have to break this door down—"</p> + +<p>There was a soft commotion on the in<a name="Page_222"></a>side and the bolt was drawn. Joe, +with the other two at his heels, fairly burst into the darkened place, +just in time to see a white figure dart across the room and cast itself +in a corner. For an instant they could only blink. The figure wrapped +its white arms about some object.</p> + +<p>"You can have everything but this table; you can't have—this." The +words ended in a frightened sob.</p> + +<p>"<i>Esther!</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oh, Joe!</i>" She struggled to her feet, then shrank back against the +wall. "Oh, I didn't know it was you. Go 'way! go 'way!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Esther, what do you mean?" He started towards her, but she turned +on him.</p> + +<p>"Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"Where's who?"</p> + +<p>She did not reply, but standing against the wall, she stared at him with +a passionate scorn.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean Sarah Norton?" asked Joe, slowly. Esther quivered. "Why, +she came to tell me of the trouble her father was trying to get me into. +But how did you come here, Esther? How did you know anything about it?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer. Her head sank.</p><a name="Page_223"></a> + +<p>"How did you, Esther?"</p> + +<p>"I saw—you in the lane," she faltered, then caught up her veil as +though it had been a pinafore. Joe went up to her, and Jonas Ingram took +hold of Harry Barker, and the two stepped outside, but not out of +ear-shot; they were still curious. They could hear Esther's sobbing +voice at intervals. "I tried to make 'em stop, but they wouldn't, and I +slipped in past 'em and bolted the door; and when you came, I thought it +was them—and, oh! ain't they our things, Joe?"</p> + +<p>The old man thrust his head in at the door. "Yes," he roared, then +withdrew.</p> + +<p>"And won't they take the table away?"</p> + +<p>"No," he roared again. "I'd just like to see 'em!"</p> + +<p>Esther wept harder. "Oh, I wish they would; I ought to give 'em up. I +didn't care for them after I thought—that. It was just that I had to +have something I wouldn't let go, and I tried to think only of saving +the table for the water-set."</p> + +<p>"Come mighty near bein' no water-set," muttered Jonas to himself; then +he turned to his companion. "Young man, I guess they don't need us no +more," he said.</p> + +<p>When he regained his sister-in-law's, he encountered that lady carrying +a steam<a name="Page_224"></a>ing dish. Guests stood about under the trees or sat at the long +tables.</p> + +<p>"For mercy sakes, Jonas, have you seen Esther? She made fuss enough +about havin' that dove fixed up in the parlor, and she and Joe ain't +stood under it a minit yet."</p> + +<p>"That's a fact," chuckled the old fellow. "They ain't stood under no +dove of peace yet; they're just about ready to now, I reckon."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>And up through the lane, all oblivious, the lovers were walking slowly. +Just before they reached the gap in the wall, they paused by common +consent. Cherry and apple trees drooped over the wall; these had ceased +blossoming, but a tangle of wild-rose bushes was all ablush. It dropped +a thick harvest of petals on the ground. Joe bent his head; and Esther, +resting against his shoulder, lifted her eyes to his face. All +unconsciously she took the pose of the woman in the Frohman poster. They +kissed, and then went on slowly.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<a name="Romance"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>Cordelia's Night of Romance<a name="Page_225"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Julian Ralph</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Cordelia Angeline Mahoney was dressing, as she would say, "to keep a +date" with a beau, who would soon be waiting on the corner nearest her +home in the Big Barracks tenement-house. She smiled as she heard the +shrill catcall of a lad in Forsyth Street. She knew it was Dutch +Johnny's signal to Chrissie Bergen to come down and meet him at the +street doorway. Presently she heard another call—a birdlike +whistle—and she knew which boy's note it was, and which girl it called +out of her home for a sidewalk stroll. She smiled, a trifle sadly, and +yet triumphantly. She had enjoyed herself when she was no wiser and +looked no higher than the younger Barracks girls, who took up the boys +of the neighborhood as if there were no others.</p> + +<p>She was in her own little dark inner room, which she shared with only +two<a name="Page_226"></a> others of the family, arranging a careful toilet by kerosene-light. +The photograph of herself in trunks and tights, of which we heard in the +story of Elsa Muller's hopeless love, was before her, among several +portraits of actresses and salaried beauties. She had taken them out +from under the paper in the top drawer of the bureau. She always kept +them there, and always took them out and spread them in the lamp-light +when she was alone in her room. She glanced approvingly at the portrait +of herself as a picture of which she had said to more than one girlish +confidante that it showed as neat a figure and as perfectly shaped limbs +as any actress's she had ever seen. But the suggestion of a frown +flitted across her brow as she thought how silly she was to have once +been "stage-struck"—how foolish to have thought that mere beauty could +quickly raise a poor girl to a high place on the stage. Julia Fogarty's +case proved that. Julia and she were stage-struck together, and where +was Julia—or Corynne Belvedere, as she now called herself? She started +well as a figurante in a comic opera company up-town, but from that she +dropped to a female minstrel troupe in the Bowery, and now, Lewy Tusch +told Cordelia, she was "tooing ter skirt-tance<a name="Page_227"></a> in ter pickernic parks +for ter sick-baby fund, ant passin' ter hat arount afterwarts." And evil +was being whispered of her—a pretty high price to pay for such small +success; and it must be true, because she sometimes came home late at +night in cabs, which are devilish, except when used at funerals.</p> + +<p>It was Cordelia who attracted Elsa Muller's sweetheart, Yank Hurst, to +her side, and left Elsa to die yearning for his return. And it was +Cordelia who threw Hurst aside when he took to drink and stabbed the +young man who, during a mere walk from church, took his place beside +Cordelia. And yet Cordelia was only ambitious, not wicked. Few men live +who would not look twice at her. She was not of the stunted tenement +type, like her friends Rosie Mulvey and Minnie Bechman and Julia +Moriarty. She was tall and large and stately, and yet plump in every +outline. Moreover, she had the "style" of an American girl, and looked +as well in five dollars' worth of clothes—all home-made, except her +shoes and stockings—as almost any girl in richer circles. It was too +bad that she was called a flirt by the young men, and a stuck-up thing +by the girls, when in fact she was merely more shrewd and cal<a name="Page_228"></a>culating +than the others, who were content to drift out of the primary schools +into the shops, and out of the shops into haphazard matrimony. Cordelia +was not lovable, but not all of us are who may be better than she. She +was monopolized by the hope of getting a man; but a mere alliance with +trousers was not the sum of her hope; they must jingle with coin.</p> + +<p>It was strange, then, that she should be dressing to meet Jerry Donahue, +who was no better than gilly to the Commissioner of Public Works, +drawing a small salary from a clerkship he never filled, while he served +the Commissioner as a second left hand. But if we could see into +Cordelia's mind we would be surprised to discover that she did not +regard herself as flesh-and-blood Mahoney, but as romantic Clarice +Delamour, and she only thought of Jerry as James the butler. The +voracious reader of the novels of to-day will recall the story of +<i>Clarice, or Only a Lady's-Maid,</i> which many consider the best of the +several absorbing tales that Lulu Jane Tilley has written. Cordelia had +read it twenty times, and almost knew it by heart. Her constant dream +was that she could be another Clarice, and shape her life like<a name="Page_229"></a> hers. +The plot of the novel needs to be briefly told, since it guided +Cordelia's course.</p> + +<p>Clarice was maid to a wealthy society dowager. James the butler fell in +love with Clarice when she first entered the household, and she, hearing +the servants' gossip about James's savings and salary, had encouraged +his attentions. He pressed her to marry him. But young Nicholas +Stuyvesant came home from abroad to find his mother ill and Clarice +nursing her. Every day he noticed the modest rosy maid moving +noiselessly about like a sunbeam. Her physical perfection profoundly +impressed him. In her presence he constantly talked to his mother about +his admiration for healthy women. Each evening Clarice reported to him +the condition of the mother, and on one occasion mentioned that she had +never known ache, pain, or malady in her life. The young man often +chatted with her in the drawing-room, and James the butler got his +<i>congé</i>. Mr. Stuyvesant induced his mother to make Clarice her companion, +and then he met her at picture exhibitions, and in Central Park by +chance, and next—every one will recall the exciting scene—he paid +passionate court to her "in the pink sewing-room,<a name="Page_230"></a> where she had +reclined on soft silken sofa pillows, with her tiny slippers upon the +head of a lion whose skin formed a rug before her." Clarice thought him +unprincipled, and repulsed him. When the widow recovered her health and +went to Newport, the former maid met all society there. A gifted lawyer +fell a victim to Clarice's charms, and, on a moonlit porch overlooking +the sea, warned her against young Stuyvesant. On learning that the +<i>roué</i> had already attempted to weaken the girl's high principles, to +rescue her he made her his wife. He was soon afterward elected Mayor of +New York, but remained a suitor for his beautiful wife's approbation, +waiting upon her in gilded halls with the fidelity of a knight of old.</p> + +<p>Cordelia adored Clarice and fancied herself just like her—beautiful, +ambitious, poor, with a future of her own carving. Of course such a case +is phenomenal. No other young woman was ever so ridiculous.</p> + +<p>"You have on your besht dresh, Cordalia," said her mother. "It'll soon +be wore out, an' ye'll git no other, wid your father oidle, an' no wan +airnin' a pinny but you an' Johnny an' Sarah Rosabel. Fwhere are ye +goin'?"</p><a name="Page_231"></a> + +<p>"I won't be gone long," said Cordelia, half out of the hall door.</p> + +<p>"Cordalia Angeline, darlin'," said her mother, "mind, now, doan't let +them be talkin' about ye, fwherever ye go—shakin' yer shkirts an' +rollin' yer eyes. It doan't luk well for a gyurl to be makin' hersel' +attractive."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, I'm not attractive, and you know it."</p> + +<p>With her head full of meeting Jerry Donahue, Cordelia tripped down the +four flights of stairs to the street door. As Clarice, she thought of +Jerry as James the butler; in fact, all the beaux she had had of late +were so many repetitions of the unfortunate James in her mind. All the +other characters in her acquaintance were made to fit more or less +loosely into her romance life, and she thought of everything she did as +if it all happened in Lulu Jane Tilley's beautiful novel. Let the reader +fancy, if possible, what a feat that must have been for a tenement girl +who had never known what it was to have a parlor, in our sense of the +word, who had never known courtship to be carried on indoors, except in +a tenement hallway, and who had to imagine that the sidewalk flirtations +of actual life were meetings in private parks, that the<a name="Page_232"></a> wharves and +public squares and tenement roofs where she had seen all the young men +and women making love were heavily carpeted drawing-rooms, broad manor, +house verandas, and the fragrant conservatories of luxurious mansions! +But Cordelia managed all this mental necromancy easily, to her own +satisfaction. And now she was tripping down the bare wooden stairs +beside the dark greasy wall, and thinking of her future husband, the +rich Mayor, who must be either the bachelor police captain of the +precinct, or George Fletcher, the wealthy and unmarried factory-owner +near by, or, perhaps, Senator Eisenstone, the district leader, who, she +was forced to reflect, was an unlikely hero for a Catholic girl, since +he was a Hebrew. But just as she reached the street door and decided +that Jerry would do well enough as a mere temporary James the butler, +and while Jerry was waiting for her on the corner, she stepped from the +stoop directly in front of George Fletcher.</p> + +<p>"Good evening," said the wealthy, young employer.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Mr. Fletcher."</p> + +<p>"It's very embarrassing," said Mr. Fletcher: "I know your given +name—Cordelia, isn't it?—but your last na—<a name="Page_233"></a>Oh, thank you—Miss +Mahoney, of course. You know we met at that very queer wedding in the +home of my little apprentice, Joe—the line-man's wedding, you know."</p> + +<p>"Te he!" Cordelia giggled. "Wasn't that a terrible strange wedding? I +think it was just terrible."</p> + +<p>"Were you going somewhere?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all, Mr. Fletcher," with another nervous giggle or two. "I +have no plans on me mind, only to get out of doors. It's terrible hot, +ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"May I take a walk with you, Miss Mahoney?"</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that if he had called her Clarice the whole novel would +have come true then and there.</p> + +<p>"I can't be out very late, Mr. Fletcher," said she, with a giggle of +delight.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure I am not disarranging your plans? Had you no engagements?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no," said she; "I was only going out with me lonely."</p> + +<p>"Let us take just a short walk, then," said Fletcher; "only you must be +the man and take me in charge, Miss Mahoney, for I never walked with a +young lady in my life."</p> + +<p>"Oh, certainly not; you never did—I <i>don't</i> think."</p> + +<p>"Upon my honor, Miss Mahoney, I<a name="Page_234"></a> know only one woman in this city—Miss +Whitfield, the doctor's daughter, who lives in the same house with you; +and only one other in the world—my aunt, who brought me up, in +Vermont."</p> + +<p>Well indeed did Cordelia know this. All the neighborhood knew it, and +most of the other girls were conscious of a little flutter in their +breasts when his eyes fell upon them in the streets, for it was the +gossip of all who knew his workmen that the prosperous ladder-builder +lived in his factory, where his had spent the life of a monk, without +any society except of his canaries, his books, and his workmen.</p> + +<p>"Well, I declare!" sighed Cordelia. "How terrible cunning you men are, +to get up such a story to make all the girls think you're romantic!"</p> + +<p>But, oh, how happy Cordelia was! At last she had met her prince—the +future Mayor—her Sultan of the gilded halls. In that humid, sticky, +midsummer heat among the tenements, every other woman dragged along as +if she weighed a thousand pounds, but Cordelia felt like a feather +floating among clouds.</p> + +<p>The babel—did the reader ever walk up Forsyth Street on a hot night, +into Sec<a name="Page_235"></a>ond Avenue, and across to Avenue A, and up to Tompkins Park? +The noise of the tens of thousands on the pavements makes a babel that +drowns the racket of the carts and cars. The talking of so many persons, +the squalling of so many babies, the mothers scolding and slapping every +third child, the yelling of the children at play, the shouts and loud +repartee of the men and women—all these noises rolled together in the +air makes a steady hum and roar that not even the breakers on a hard +sea-beach can equal. You might say that the tenements were empty, as +only the very sick, who could not move, were in them. For miles and +miles they were bare of humanity, each flat unguarded and unlocked, with +the women on the sidewalks, with the youngest children in arms or in +perambulators, while those of the next sizes romped in the streets; with +the girls and boys of fourteen giggling in groups in the doorways (the +age and places where sex first asserts itself), and only the young men +and women missing; for they were in the parks, on the wharves, and on +the roofs, all frolicking and love-making.</p> + +<p>And every house front was like a Russian stove, expending the heat it +had sucked from the all-day sun. And<a name="Page_236"></a> every door and window breathed bad +air—air without oxygen, rich and rank and stifling.</p> + +<p>But Cordelia was Clarice, the future Mayoress. She did not know she was +picking a tiresome way around the boys at leap-frog, and the mothers and +babies and baby-carriages. She did not notice the smells, or feel the +bumps she got from those who ran against her. She thought she was in the +blue drawing-room at Newport, where a famous Hungarian count was +trilling the soft prelude to a <i>csárdás</i> on the piano, and Mr. +Stuyvesant had just introduced her to the future Mayor, who was +spellbound by her charms, and was by her side, a captive. She reached +out her hand, and it touched Mr. Fletcher's arm (just as a ragamuffin +propelled himself head first against her), and Mr. Fletcher bent his +elbow, and her wrist rested in the crook of his arm. Oh, her dream was +true; her dream was true!</p> + +<p>Mr. Fletcher, on the other hand, was hardly in a more natural relation. +He was trying to think how the men talked to women in all the literature +he had read. The myriad jokes about the fondness of girls for ice-cream +recurred to him, and he risked everything on their fidelity to fact.</p><a name="Page_237"></a> + +<p>"Are you fond of ice-cream?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Oh no; I <i>don't</i> think," said Cordelia. "What'll you ask next? What +girl ain't crushed on ice-cream, I'd like to know?"</p> + +<p>"Do you know of a nice place to get some?"</p> + +<p>"Do I? The Dutchman's, on the av'noo, another block up, is the finest in +the city. You get mo—that is, you get everything 'way up in G there, +with cakes on the side, and it don't cost no more than anywhere else."</p> + +<p>So to the German's they went, and Clarice fancied herself at the Casino +in Newport. All the girls around her, who seemed to be trying to swallow +the spoons, took on the guise of blue-blooded belles, while the noisy +boys and young men (calling out, "Hully gee, fellers! look at Nifty +gittin' out der winder widout payin'!" and, "Say, Tilly, what kind er +cream is dat you're feedin' your face wid?") seemed to her so many +millionaires and the exquisite sons thereof. To Mr. Fletcher the +German's back-yard saloon, with its green lattice walls, and its rusty +dead Christmas trees in painted butter-kegs, appeared uncommonly +brilliant and fine. The fact that whenever he took a<a name="Page_238"></a> swallow of water +the ice-cream turned to cold candle-grease in his mouth made no +difference. He was happy, and Cordelia was in an ecstasy by the time he +had paid a shock-headed, bare-armed German waiter, and they were again +on the avenue side by side. She put out her hand and rested it on his +arm again—to make sure she was Clarice.</p> + +<p>One would like to know whether, in the breasts of such as these, +familiar environment exerts any remarkable influence. If so, it could +have been in but one direction. For that part of town was one vast +nursery. Everywhere, on every side, were the swarming babies—a baby for +every flag-stone in the pavements. Babies and babies, and little besides +babies, except larger children and the mothers. Perambulators with two, +even three, baby passengers; mothers with as many as five children +trailing after them; babies in broad baggy laps, babies at the breast, +babies creeping, toppling, screaming, overflowing into the gutters. Such +was the unbroken scene from the Big Barracks to Tompkins Square; ay, to +Harlem and to the East River, and almost to Broadway. In the park, as if +the street scenes had been merely preliminary, the paths were alive, +wriggling, with babies<a name="Page_239"></a> of every age, from the new-born to the children +in pigtails and knickerbockers—and, lo! these were already paired and +practising at courtship. The walk that Cordelia was taking was amid a +fever, a delirium, of maternity—a rhapsody, a baby's opera, if one +considered its noise. In that vast region no one inquired whether +marriage was a failure. Nothing that is old and long-beloved and human +is a failure there.</p> + +<p>In Tompkins Park, while they dodged babies and stepped around babies and +over them, they saw many happy couples on the settees, and they noticed +that often the men held their arms around the waists of their +sweethearts. Girls, too, in other instances, leaned loving heads against +the young men's breasts, blissfully regardless of publicity. They passed +a young man and a woman kissing passionately, as kissing is described by +unmarried girl novelists. Cordelia thought it no harm to nudge Mr. +Fletcher and whisper:</p> + +<p>"Sakes alive! They're right in it, ain't they. 'It's funny when you feel +that way,' ain't it?"</p> + +<p>As many another man who does not know the frankness and simplicity of +the plain people might have done, Mr. Fletcher misjudged the girl. He +thought her<a name="Page_240"></a> the sort of girl he was far from seeking. He grew instantly +cold and reserved, and she knew, vaguely, that she had displeased him.</p> + +<p>"I think people who make love in public should be locked up," said he.</p> + +<p>"Some folks wants everybody put away that enjoys themselves," said +Cordelia. Then, lest she had spoken too strongly, she added, "Present +company not intended, Mr. Fletcher, but you said that like them mission +folks that come around praising themselves and tellin' us all we're +wicked."</p> + +<p>"And do you think a girl can be good who behaves so in public?"</p> + +<p>"I know plenty that's done it," said she; "and I don't know any girls +but what's good. They 'ain't got wings, maybe, but you don't want to +monkey with 'em, neither."</p> + +<p>He recollected her words for many a year afterward and pondered them, +and perhaps they enlarged his understanding. She also often thought of +his condemnation of love-making out-of-doors. Kissing in public, +especially promiscuous kissing, she knew to be a debatable pastime, but +she also knew that there was not a flat in the Big Barracks in which a +girl could carry on a courtship. Fancy her attempt<a name="Page_241"></a>ing it in her front +room, with the room choked with people, with the baby squalling, and her +little brothers and sisters quarrelling, with her mother entertaining +half a dozen women visitors with tea or beer, and with a man or two +dropping in to smoke with her father! Parlor courtship was to her, like +precise English, a thing only known in novels. The thought of novels +floated her soul back into the dream state.</p> + +<p>"I think Cordelia's a pretty name," said Fletcher, cold at heart but +struggling to be companionable.</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Cordelia. "I'm not at all crushed on it. Your name's +terrible pretty. I think my three names looks like a map of Ireland when +they're written down. I know a killin' name for a girl. It's Clarice. +Maybe some day I'll give you a dare. I'll double dare you, maybe, to +call me Clarice."</p> + +<p>Oh, if he only would, she thought—if he would only call her so now! But +she forgot how unelastic his strange routine of life must have left him, +and she did not dream how her behavior in the park had displeased him.</p> + +<p>"Cordelia is a pretty name," he repeated. "At any rate, I think we +should try to make the most and best of whatever<a name="Page_242"></a> name has come to us. I +wouldn't sail under false colors for a minute."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said she, with a giggle to hide her disappointment; "you're so +terrible wise! When you talk them big words you can pass me in a walk."</p> + +<p>Anxious to display her great conquest to the other girls of the Barracks +neighborhood, Cordelia persuaded Mr. Fletcher to go to what she called +"the dock," to enjoy the cool breath of the river. All the piers and +wharves are called "docks" by the people. Those which are semi-public +and are rented to miscellaneous excursion and river steamers are crowded +nightly.</p> + +<p>The wharf to which our couple strolled was a mere flooring above the +water, edged with a stout string-piece, which formed a bench for the +mothers. They were there in groups, some seated on the string-piece with +babes in arms or with perambulators before them, and others, facing +these, standing and joining in the gossip, and swaying to and fro to +soothe their little ones. Those who gave their offspring the breast did +so publicly, unembarrassed by a modesty they would have considered +false. A few youthful couples, boy by girl and girl by boy, sat on the +string-piece and whispered, or bandied fun with those other lovers who<a name="Page_243"></a> +patrolled the flooring of the wharf. A "gang" of rude young +men—toughs—walked up and down, teasing the girls, wrestling, +scuffling, and roaring out bad language. Troops of children played at +leap-frog, high-spy, jack-stones, bean-bag, hop-scotch, and tag. At the +far end of the pier some young men and women waltzed, while a lad on the +string-piece played for them on his mouth-organ. A steady, cool, +vivifying breeze from the bay swept across the wharf and fanned all the +idlers, and blew out of their heads almost all recollection of the +furnacelike heat of the town.</p> + +<p>Cordelia forgot her desire to display her conquest. She forgot her true +self. She likened the wharf to that "lordly veranda overlooking the +sea," where the future Mayor begged Clarice to be his bride. She knew +just what she would say when her prince spoke his lines. She and Mr. +Fletcher were just about to seat themselves on the great rim of the +wharf, when an uproar of the harsh, froglike voices of half-grown men +caused them to turn around. They saw Jerry Donahue striding towards +them, but with difficulty, because half a dozen lads and youths were +endeavoring to hold him back.</p> + +<p>"Dat's Mr. Fletcher," they said. "It<a name="Page_244"></a> ain't his fault, Jerry. He's dead +square; he's a gent, Jerry."</p> + +<p>The politician's gilly tore himself away from his friends. The gang of +toughs gathered behind the others. Jerry planted himself in front of +Cordelia. Evidently he did not know the submissive part he should have +played in Cordelia's romance. James the butler made no out-break, but +here was Jerry angry through and through.</p> + +<p>"You didn't keep de date wid me," he began.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jerry, I did—I tried to, but you—" Cordelia was red with shame.</p> + +<p>"The hell you did! Wasn't I—"</p> + +<p>"Here!" said Mr. Fletcher; "you can't swear at this lady."</p> + +<p>"Why wouldn't I?" Jerry asked. "What would you do?"</p> + +<p>"He's right, Jerry. Leave him be—see?" said the chorus of Jerry's +friends.</p> + +<p>"A-a-a-h!" snarled Jerry. "Let him leave me be, then. Cordelia, I heard +you was a dead fraud, an' now I know it, and I'm a-tellin' you so, +straight—see? I was a-waitin' 'cross der street, an' I seen you come +out an' meet dis mug, an' you never turned yer head to see was I on me +post. I seen dat, an' I'm a-tellin' yer friend just der kind of a racket +you give me, der<a name="Page_245"></a> same's you've give a hundred other fellers. Den, if he +likes it he knows what he's gittin'."</p> + +<p>Jerry was so angry that he all but pushed his distorted face against +that of the humiliated girl as he denounced her. Mr. Fletcher gently +moved her backward a step or two, and advanced to where she had stood.</p> + +<p>"That will do," he said to Jerry. "I want no trouble, but you've said +enough. If there's more, say it to me."</p> + +<p>"A-a-a-h!" exclaimed the gilly, expectorating theatrically over his +shoulder. "Me friends is on your side, an' I ain't pickin' no muss wid +you. But she's got der front of der City Hall to do me like she done. +And say, fellers, den she was goin' ter give me a song an' dance 'bout +lookin' fer me. Ba-a-a! She knows my 'pinion of her—see?"</p> + +<p>The crowd parted to let Mr. Fletcher finish his first evening's +gallantry to a lady by escorting Cordelia to her home. It was a chilly +and mainly a silent journey. Cordelia falteringly apologized for Jerry's +misbehavior, but she inferred from what Mr. Fletcher said that he did +not fully join her in blaming the angry youth. Mr. Fletcher touched her +fingertips in bidding her good-night, and noth<a name="Page_246"></a>ing was said of a meeting +in the future. Clarice was forgotten, and Cordelia was not only herself +again, but quite a miserable self, for her sobs awoke the little brother +and sister who shared her bed.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Prize_Fund"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Prize-Fund Beneficiary<a name="Page_247"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by E.A. Alexander</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Miss Snell began to apologize for interrupting the work almost before +she came in. The Painter, who grudgingly opened one half of the +folding-door wide enough to let her pass into the studio, was annoyed to +observe that, in spite of her apologies, she was loosening the furs +about her throat as if in preparation for a lengthy visit. Then for the +first time, behind her tall, black-draped figure, he caught sight of her +companion, who was shorter, and whose draperies were of a less ample +character—for Miss Snell, being tall and thin, resorted to voluminous +garments to conceal her slimness of person. A large plumed hat +accentuated, her sallowness and sharpness of feature, and her dark eyes, +set under heavy black brows, intensified her look of unhealthy pallor.</p> + +<p>She was perfectly at her ease, and<a name="Page_248"></a> introduced her companion, Miss +Price, in a few words, explaining that the latter had come over for a +year or so to study, and was anxious to have the best advice about it.</p> + +<p>"So I brought her straight here," Miss Snell announced, triumphantly.</p> + +<p>Miss Price seemed a trifle overcome by the novelty of her surroundings, +but managed to say, in a high nasal voice, that she had already begun to +work at Julian's, but did not find it altogether satisfactory.</p> + +<p>The Painter, looking at her indifferently, was roused to a sudden +interest by her face. Her features and complexion were certainly +pleasing, but the untidy mass of straggling hair topped by a battered +straw sailor hat diverted the attention of a casual observer from her +really unusual delicacy of feature and coloring. She was tall and slim, +although now she was dwarfed by Miss Snell's gaunt figure. A worn dress +and shabby green cape fastened at the neck by a button hanging +precariously on its last thread completed her very unsuitable winter +attire. Outside the great studio window a cold December twilight was +settling down over roofs covered with snow and icicles, and<a name="Page_249"></a> the Painter +shivered involuntarily as he noticed the insufficiency of her wraps for +such weather, and got up to stir the fire which glowed in the big stove.</p> + +<p>In one corner his model waited patiently for the guests to depart, and +he now dismissed her for the day, eliciting faint protestations from +Miss Snell, who, however, was settling down comfortably in an easy-chair +by the fire, with an evident intention of staying indefinitely. Miss +Price's large, somewhat expressionless blue eyes were taking in the +whole studio, and the Painter could feel that she was distinctly +disappointed by her inspection. She had evidently anticipated something +much grander, and this bare room was not the ideal place she had fancied +the studio of a world-renowned painter would prove to be.</p> + +<p>Bare painted walls, a peaked roof with a window reaching far overhead, a +polished floor, one or two chairs and a divan, the few necessary +implements of his profession, and many canvases faced to the wall, but +little or no bric-à-brac or delightful studio properties. The Painter +was also conscious that her inspection included him personally, and was +painfully aware that she was regarding him with the same feeling of +disappointment; she<a name="Page_250"></a> quite evidently thought him too young and +insignificant looking for a person of his reputation.</p> + +<p>Miss Snell had not given him time to reply to Miss Price's remark about +her study at Julian's, but prattled on about her own work and the +unsurmountable difficulties that lay in the way of a woman's successful +career as a painter.</p> + +<p>"I have been studying for years under ——," said Miss Snell, "and +really I have no time to lose. It will end by my simply going to him and +saying, quite frankly: 'Now, Monsieur ——, I have been in your atelier +for four years, and I can't afford to waste another minute. There are no +two ways about it. You positively must tell me how to do it. You really +must not keep me waiting any longer. I insist upon it.' How discouraging +it is!" she sighed. "It seems quite impossible to find any one who is +willing to give the necessary information."</p> + +<p>Miss Price's wandering eyes had at last found a resting-place on a +large, half-finished canvas standing on an easel. Something attractive +in the pose and turn of her head made the Painter watch her as he lent a +feeble attention to Miss Snell's conversation.</p> + +<p>Miss Price's lips were very red, and the<a name="Page_251"></a> clear freshness of extreme +youth bloomed in her cheeks; she was certainly charming. During one of +Miss Snell's rare pauses she spoke, and her thin high voice came with +rather a shock from between her full lips.</p> + +<p>"May I look?" was her unnecessary question, for her eyes had never left +the canvas on the easel since they had first rested there. She rose as +she spoke, and went over to the painting.</p> + +<p>The Painter pulled himself out of the cushions on the divan where he had +been lounging, and went over to push the big canvas into a better light. +Then he stood, while the girl gazed at it, saying nothing, and +apparently oblivious to everything but the work before him.</p> + +<p>He was roused, not by Miss Price, who remained admiringly silent, but by +the enraptured Miss Snell, who had also risen, gathering furs and wraps +about her, and was now ecstatically voluble in her admiration. English +being insufficient for the occasion, she had to resort to French for the +expression of her enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>The Painter said nothing, but watched the younger girl, who turned away +at last with a sigh of approbation. He was standing under the window, +leaning against a table littered with paints and brushes.</p><a name="Page_252"></a> + +<p>"Stay where you are!" exclaimed Miss Snell, excitedly. "Is he not +charming, Cora, in that half-light? You must let me paint you just so +some day—you must indeed." She clutched Miss Price and turned her +forcibly in his direction.</p> + +<p>The Painter, confused by this unexpected onslaught, moved hastily away +and busied himself with a pretence of clearing the table.</p> + +<p>"I—I should be delighted," he stammered, in his embarrassment, and he +caught Miss Price's eye, in which he fancied a smile was lurking.</p> + +<p>"But you have not given Miss Price a word of advice about her work," +said Miss Snell, as she fastened her wraps preparatory to departure. She +seemed quite oblivious to the fact that she had monopolized all the +conversation herself.</p> + +<p>He turned politely to Miss Price, who murmured something about Julian's +being so badly ventilated, but gave him no clew as to her particular +branch of the profession. Miss Snell, however, supplied all details. It +seemed Miss Price was sharing Miss Snell's studio, having been sent over +by the Lynxville, Massachusetts, Sumner Prize Fund, for which she had +successfully competed, and which pro<a name="Page_253"></a>vided a meagre allowance for two +years' study abroad.</p> + +<p>"She wants to paint heads," said Miss Snell; and in reply to a remark +about the great amount of study required to accomplish this desire, +surprised him by saying, "Oh, she only wants to paint them well enough +to teach, not well enough to sell."</p> + +<p>"I'll drop in and see your work some afternoon," promised the Painter, +warmed by their evident intention of leaving; and he escorted them to +the landing, warning them against the dangerous steepness of his +stairway, which wound down in almost murky darkness.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later the centre panel of his door displayed a card bearing +these words: "At home only after six o'clock."</p> + +<p>"I wonder I never thought of doing this before," he reflected, as he lit +a cigarette and strolled off to a neighboring restaurant; "I am always +out by that hour."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>Several weeks elapsed before he saw Miss Price again, for he promptly +forgot his promise to visit her studio and inspect her work. His own +work was very absorbing just then, and the short winter days all too +brief for its accomplishment. He was struggling to complete the large<a name="Page_254"></a> +canvas that Miss Snell had so volubly admired during her visit, and it +really seemed to be progressing. But the weather changed suddenly from +frost to thaw, and he woke one morning to find little runnels of dirty +water coursing down his window and dismally dripping into the muddy +street below. It made him feel blue, and his big picture, which had +seemed so promising the day before, looked hopelessly bad in this new +mood. So he determined to take a day off, and, after his coffee, +strolled out into the Luxembourg Gardens. There the statues were green +with mouldy dampness, and the paths had somewhat the consistency of very +thin oatmeal porridge. Suddenly the sun came out brightly, and he found +a partially dry bench, where he sat down to brood upon the utter +worthlessness of things in general and the Luxembourg statuary in +particular. The sunny façade of the palace glittered in the brightness. +One of his own pictures hung in its gallery. "It is bad," he said to +himself, "hopelessly bad," and he gloomily felt the strongest proof of +its worthlessness was its popularity with the public. He would probably +go on thinking this until the weather or his mood changed.</p> + +<p>As his eyes strayed from the palace, he<a name="Page_255"></a> glanced up a long vista between +leafless trees and muddy grass-plats. A familiar figure in a battered +straw hat and scanty green cloak was advancing in his direction; the +wind, blowing back the fringe of disfiguring short hair, disclosed a +pure unbroken line of delicate profile, strangely simple, and recalling +the profiles in Botticelli's lovely fresco in the Louvre. Miss Price, +for it was she, carried a painting-box, and under one arm a stretcher +that gave her infinite trouble whenever the wind caught it. As she +passed, the Painter half started up to join her, but she gave him such a +cold nod that his intention was nipped in the bud. He felt snubbed, and +sank back on his bench, taking a malicious pleasure in observing that, +womanlike, she ploughed through all the deepest puddles in her path, +making great splashes about the hem of her skirt, that fluttered out +behind her as she walked, for her hands were filled, and she had no +means of holding it up.</p> + +<p>The Painter resented his snubbing. He was used to the most humble +deference from the art students of the quarter, who hung upon his +slightest word, and were grateful for every stray crumb of his +attention.</p> + +<p>He now lost what little interest he had<a name="Page_256"></a> previously taken in his +surroundings. Just before him in a large open space reserved for the +boys to play handball was a broken sheet of glistening water reflecting +the blue sky, the trees rattled their branches about in the wind, and +now and then a tardy leaf fluttered down from where it had clung +desperately late into the winter. The gardens were almost deserted. It +was too early for the throng of beribboned nurses and howling infants +who usually haunt its benches. One or two pedestrians hurried across the +garden, evidently taking the route to make shortcuts to their +destinations, and not for the pleasure of lounging among its blustery +attractions.</p> + +<p>After idling an hour on his bench, he went to breakfast with a friend +who chanced to live conveniently near, and where he made himself very +disagreeable by commenting unfavorably on the work in progress and +painting in particular. Then he brushed himself up and started off for +the rue Notre Dame des Champs, where Miss Snell's studio was situated. +It was one of a number huddled together in an old and rather dilapidated +building, and the porter at the entrance gave him minute directions as +to its exact location, but after stumbling up three flights of<a name="Page_257"></a> dark +stairs he had no trouble in finding it, for Miss Snell's name, preceded +by a number of initials, shone out from a door directly in front of him +as he reached the landing.</p> + +<p>He knocked, and for several minutes there was a wild scurrying within +and a rattle and clash of crockery. Then Miss Snell appeared at the +door, and exclaimed, in delighted surprise:</p> + +<p>"How <i>do</i> you do? We had quite given you up."</p> + +<p>She looked taller and longer than ever swathed in a blue painting-apron +and grasping her palette and brushes. She had to apologize for not +shaking hands with him, because her fingers were covered with paint that +had been hastily but ineffectually wiped off on a rag before she +answered his knock.</p> + +<p>He murmured something about not coming before because of his work, but +she would not let him finish, saying, intensely,</p> + +<p>"We know how precious every minute is to you."</p> + +<p>Miss Price came reluctantly forward and shook hands; she had evidently +not been painting, for her fingers were quite clean. Short ragged hair +once more fell over her forehead, and the Painter felt a<a name="Page_258"></a> shock of +disappointment, and wondered why he had thought her so fine when she +passed him in the morning.</p> + +<p>"I was just going to paint Cora," announced Miss Snell. "She is taking a +holiday this afternoon, and we were hunting for a pose when you +knocked."</p> + +<p>"Don't let me interrupt you," he said, smiling. "Perhaps I can help."</p> + +<p>Miss Snell was in a flutter at once, and protested that she should be +almost afraid to work while he was there.</p> + +<p>"In that case I shall leave at once," he said; but his chair was +comfortable, and he made no motion to go.</p> + +<p>"What a queer little place it is!" he reflected, as he looked about. +"All sorts of odds and ends stuck about helter-skelter, and the +house-keeping things trying to masquerade as bric-à-brac."</p> + +<p>Cora Price looked decidedly sulky when she realized that the Painter +intended to stay, and seeing this he became rooted in his intention. He +wondered why she took this particular attitude towards him, and +concluded she was piqued because of his delay in calling. She acted like +a spoiled child, and caused Miss Snell, who was overcome by his +condescension in staying, no little embarrassment.</p> + +<p>It was quite evident from her behavior<a name="Page_259"></a> that Miss Price was impressed +with her own importance as the beneficiary of the Lynxville Prize Fund, +and would require the greatest deference from her acquaintances in +consequence.</p> + +<p>"Here, Cora, try this," said Miss Snell, planting a small three-legged +stool on a rickety model-stand.</p> + +<p>"Might I make a suggestion?" said the Painter, coolly. "I should push +back all the hair on her forehead; it gives a finer line."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course!" said Miss Snell. "I wonder we never thought of that +before. Cora dear, you are much better with your hair back."</p> + +<p>Cora said nothing, but the Botticelli profile glowered ominously against +a background of sage-green which Miss Snell was elaborately draping +behind it.</p> + +<p>"If I might advise again," the Painter said, "I would take that down and +paint her quite simply against the gray wall."</p> + +<p>Miss Snell was quite willing to adopt every suggestion. She produced her +materials and a fresh canvas, and began making a careful drawing, which, +as it progressed, filled the Painter's soul with awe.</p> + +<p>"I feel awfully like trying it myself,"<a name="Page_260"></a> he said, after watching her for +a few moments. "Can I have a bit of canvas?"</p> + +<p>"Take anything," exclaimed Miss Snell; and he helped himself, refusing +the easel which she wanted to force upon him, and propping his little +stretcher up on a chair. Miss Snell stopped her drawing to watch him +commence. It made her rather nervous to see how much paint he squeezed +out on the palette; it seemed to her a reckless prodigality.</p> + +<p>He eyed her assortment of brushes dubiously, selecting three from the +draggled limp collection.</p> + +<p>Cora was certainly a fine subject, in spite of her sulkiness, and he +grew absorbed in his work, and painted away, with Miss Snell at his +elbow making little staccato remarks of admiration as the sketch +progressed. Suddenly he jumped up, realizing how long he had kept the +young model.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," he cried, "you must be exhausted!" and he ran to help her +down from the model-stand.</p> + +<p>She did look tired, and Miss Snell suggested tea, which he stayed to +share. Cora became less and less sulky, and when at last he remembered +that he had come to see her work, she produced it with less +unwillingness than he had expected.</p><a name="Page_261"></a> + +<p>He was rather floored by her productions. As far as he could judge from +what she showed him, she was hopelessly without talent, and he could +only wonder which of these remarkably bad studies had won for her the +Lynxville Sumner Prize Fund.</p> + +<p>He tried to give her some advice, and was thanked when she put her +things away.</p> + +<p>Then they all looked at his sketch, which Miss Snell pronounced "too +charming," and Cora plainly thought did not do her justice.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would pose a few times for me, Miss Price," he said, before +leaving. "I should like very much to paint you, and it would be doing me +a great favor."</p> + +<p>The girl did not respond to this request with any eagerness. He fancied +he could see she was feeling huffy again at his meagre praise of her +work.</p> + +<p>Miss Snell, however, did not allow her to answer, but rapturously +promised that Cora should sit as often as he liked, and paid no +attention to the girl's protest that she had no time to spare.</p> + +<p>"This has been simply in-spiring!" said Miss Snell, as she bade him +good-bye, and he left very enthusiastic about Cora's<a name="Page_262"></a> profile, and with +his hand covered with paint from Miss Snell's door-knob.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>In spite of Miss Snell's assurance that Cora would pose, the Painter was +convinced that she would not, if a suitable excuse could be invented. +Feeling this, he wrote her a most civil note about it. The answer came +promptly, and did not surprise him.</p> + +<p>She was very sorry indeed, but she had no leisure hours at her disposal, +and although she felt honored, she really could not do it. This was +written on flimsy paper, in a big unformed handwriting, and it caused +him to betake himself once more to Miss Snell's studio, where he found +her alone—Cora was at Julian's.</p> + +<p>She promised to beg Cora to pose, and accepted an invitation for them to +breakfast with him in his studio on the following Sunday morning.</p> + +<p>He carefully explained to her that his whole winter's work depended upon +Cora's posing for him. He half meant it, having been seized with the +notion that her type was what he needed to realize a cherished ideal, +and he told this to Miss Snell, and enlarged upon it until he left her +rooted in the conviction that he was hopelessly in love with Cora—a +fact she<a name="Page_263"></a> imparted to that young woman on her return from Julian's.</p> + +<p>Cora listened very placidly, and expressed no astonishment. He was not +the first by any means; other people had been in love with her in +Lynxville, Massachusetts, and she confided the details of several of +these love-affairs to Miss Snell's sympathetic ears during the evening.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the Painter did nothing, and a fresh canvas stood on his +easel when the girls arrived for breakfast on Sunday morning. The big +unfinished painting was turned to the wall; he had lost all interest in +it.</p> + +<p>"When I fancy doing a thing I am good for nothing else," he explained to +Cora, after she had promised him a few sittings. "So you are really +saving me from idleness by posing."</p> + +<p>Cora laughed, and was silent. The Painter blessed her for not being +talkative; her nasal voice irritated him, although her beautiful +features were a constant delight.</p> + +<p>Miss Snell had succeeded in permanently eliminating the disfiguring +bang, and her charming profile was left unmarred.</p> + +<p>"I want to paint you just as you are," he said, and noticing that she +looked<a name="Page_264"></a> rather disdainfully at her shabby black cashmere, added, "The +black of your dress could not be better."</p> + +<p>"We thought," said Miss Snell, deprecatingly, "that you might like a +costume. We could easily arrange one."</p> + +<p>"Not in the least necessary," said the Painter. "I have set my heart on +painting her just as she is."</p> + +<p>The girls were disappointed in his want of taste. They had had visions +of a creation in which two Liberty scarfs and a velveteen table cover +were combined in a felicitous harmony of color.</p> + +<p>"When can I have the first sitting?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Tuesday, I think," said Miss Snell, reflectively.</p> + +<p>"Heavens!" thought the Painter. "Is Miss Snell coming with her?" And the +possibility kept him in a state of nervousness until Tuesday afternoon, +when Cora appeared, accompanied by the inevitable Miss Snell.</p> + +<p>It turned out, however, that the latter could not stay. She would call +for Cora later; just now her afternoons were occupied. She was doing a +pastel portrait in the Champs Elysées quarter, so she reluctantly left, +to the Painter's great relief.</p> + +<p>He did not make himself very agree<a name="Page_265"></a>able during the sittings which +followed. He was apt to get absorbed in his work and to forget to say +anything. Then Miss Snell would appear to fetch her friend, and he would +apologize for being so dull, and Cora would remark that she enjoyed +sitting quietly, it rested her after the noise and confusion at +Julian's.</p> + +<p>"If she talked much I could not paint her, her voice is so irritating," +he confided to a friend who was curious and asked all sorts of questions +about his new sitter.</p> + +<p>The work went well but slowly, for Cora sat only twice a week. She felt +obliged to devote the rest of her time to study, as she was living on +the prize fund, and she even had qualms of conscience about the two +afternoons she gave up to the sittings.</p> + +<p>During all this time Miss Snell continued to weave chapters of romance +about Cora and the Painter, and the girls talked things over after each +sitting when they were alone together.</p> + +<p>Spring had appeared very early in the year, and the public gardens and +boulevards were richly green. Chestnut-trees blossomed and gaudy +flower-beds bloomed in every square. The Salons opened, and were +thronged with an enthusiastic<a name="Page_266"></a> public, although the papers as usual +denounced them as being the poorest exhibitions ever given.</p> + +<p>The Painter had sent nothing, being completely absorbed in finishing +Cora's portrait, to the utter exclusion of everything else.</p> + +<p>Cora did the exhibitions faithfully. It was one of the duties she owed +to the Lynxville fund, and which she diligently carried out. The Painter +bothered and confused her by many things; he persistently admired all +the pictures she liked least, and praised all those she did not care +for. She turned pale with suppressed indignation when he differed from +her opinion, and resented his sweeping contempt of her criticisms.</p> + +<p>On the strength of a remittance from the prize fund, and in honor of the +season, she discarded the sailor hat for a vivid ready-made creation +smacking strongly of the Bon Marché. The weather was warm, and Cora wore +mitts, which the Painter thought unpardonable in a city where gloves are +particularly cheap. The mitts were probably fashionable in Lynxville, +Massachusetts. Miss Snell, who rustled about in stiff black silk and +bugles, seemed quite oblivious to her friend's want of taste; she was +all<a name="Page_267"></a> excitement, for her pastel portrait—by some hideous mistake—had +been accepted and hung in one of the exhibitions, and the girls went +together on varnishing-day to see it. There they met the Painter +prowling aimlessly about, and Miss Snell was delighted to note his +devotion to Cora. It was a strong proof of his attachment to her, she +thought. The truth was he felt obliged to be civil after her kindness in +posing. He wished he could repay her in some fashion, but since his +first visit to Miss Snell's she had never offered to show him her work +again, or asked his advice in any way, and he felt a delicacy about +offering his services as a teacher when she gave him so little +encouragement. He fancied, too, that she did not take much interest in +his work, and knew she did not appreciate his portrait of her, which was +by far the best thing he had ever done.</p> + +<p>Her lack of judgment vexed him, for he knew the value of his work, and +every day his fellow-painters trooped in to see it, and were loud in +their praises. It would certainly be the <i>clou</i> of any exhibition in +which it might be placed.</p> + +<p>During one sitting Cora ventured to remark that she thought it a pity he +did not intend to make the portrait more<a name="Page_268"></a> complete, and suggested the +addition of various accessories which in her opinion would very much +improve it.</p> + +<p>"It's by far the most complete thing I have ever done," he said. "I +sha'n't touch it again," and he flung down his brushes in a fit of +temper.</p> + +<p>She looked at him contemptuously, and putting on her hat, left the +studio without another word; and for several weeks he did not see her +again.</p> + +<p>Then he met her in the street, and begged her to come and pose for a +head in his big picture, which he had taken up once more. His apologies +were so abject that she consented, but she ceased to be punctual, and he +never could feel quite sure that she would keep her appointments.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he would wait a whole afternoon in vain, and one day when she +failed to appear at the promised hour he shut up his office and strolled +down to the Seine. There he caught sight of her with a gay party who +were about to embark on one of the little steamers that ply up and down +the river.</p> + +<p>He shook his fist at her from the quay where he stood, and watched her +and her party step into the boat from the pier.</p> + +<p>"She thinks little enough of the Lynx<a name="Page_269"></a>ville Prize Fund when she wants an +outing," he said to himself, scornfully.</p> + +<p>After fretting a little over his wasted afternoon, he forgot all about +her, and set to work with other models. Then he left Paris for the +summer.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>A few hours after his return, early in the fall, there came a knock at +his door. He had been admiring Cora's portrait, which to his fresh eye +looked exceptionally good.</p> + +<p>Miss Snell, with eyes red and tearful, stood on his door-mat when he +answered the tap.</p> + +<p>"Poor dear Cora," she said, had received a notice from the Lynxville +committee that they did not consider her work sufficiently promising to +continue the fund another year.</p> + +<p>"She will have to go home," sobbed Miss Snell, but said: "I am forced to +admit that Cora has wasted a good deal of time this summer. She is so +young, and needs a little distraction, now and then," and she appealed +to the Painter for confirmation of this undoubted fact.</p> + +<p>He was absent-minded, but assented to all she said. In his heart he +thought it a fortunate thing that the prize fund should<a name="Page_270"></a> be withdrawn. +One female art student the less: he grew pleased with the idea. Cora had +ceased to interest him as an individual, and he considered her only as +one of an obnoxious class.</p> + +<p>"I thought you ought to be the first to know about it," said Miss Snell, +confidentially, "because you might have some plan for keeping her over +here." Miss Snell looked unutterable things that she did not dare to put +into words.</p> + +<p>She made the Painter feel uncomfortable, she looked so knowing, and he +became loud in his advice to send Cora home at once.</p> + +<p>"Pack her off," he cried. "She is wasting time and money by staying. She +never had a particle of talent, and the sooner she goes back to +Lynxville the better."</p> + +<p>Miss Snell shrank from his vehemence, and wished she had not insisted +upon coming to consult him. She had assured Cora that the merest hint +would bring matters to a crisis. Cora would imagine that she had bungled +matters terribly, and she was mortified at the thought of returning with +the news of a repulse.</p> + +<p>As soon as she had gone, the Painter felt sorry he had been so hasty. He +had<a name="Page_271"></a> bundled her unceremoniously out of the studio, pleading important +work.</p> + +<p>He called twice in the rue Notre Dame des Champs, but the porter would +never let him pass her lodge, and he at last realized that she had been +given orders to that effect. A judicious tip extracted from her the fact +that Miss Price expected to leave for America the following Saturday, +and, armed with an immense bouquet, he betook himself to the St. Lazare +station at the hour for the departure of the Havre express.</p> + +<p>He arrived with only a minute to spare before the guard's whistle was +answered by the mosquitolike pipe that sets the train in motion.</p> + +<p>The Botticelli profile was very haughty and cold. Miss Snell was there, +of course, bathed in tears. He had just time enough to hand in his huge +bouquet through the open window before the train started. He caught one +glimpse of an angry face within, when suddenly his great nosegay came +flying out of the compartment, and striking him full in the face, spread +its shattered paper and loosened flowers all over the platform at his +feet.</p> + +<br /> +<p> </p> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14744 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..19faa89 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14744 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14744) diff --git a/old/14744-8.txt b/old/14744-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fbec519 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14744-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6449 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Different Girls, by Various, Edited by +William Dean Howells and Henry Mills Alden + + +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: Different Girls + +Author: Various + +Release Date: January 20, 2005 [eBook #14744] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIFFERENT GIRLS*** + + +E-text prepared by David Garcia, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +DIFFERENT GIRLS + +Harper's Novelettes + +Edited by + +WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS and HENRY MILLS ALDEN + +Harper & Brothers Publishers +New York and London + +1895, 1896, 1897, 1904, 1905, 1906 + + + + + + + +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE +"THE LITTLE JOYS OF MARGARET" + +ELIZABETH JORDAN +"KITTIE'S SISTER JOSEPHINE" + +ALICE BROWN +"THE WIZARD'S TOUCH" + +CHARLES B. DE CAMP +"THE BITTER CUP" + +MARY APPLEWHITE BACON +"HIS SISTER" + +ELEANOR A. HALLOWELL +"THE PERFECT YEAR" + +WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS +"EDITHA" + +OCTAVE THANET +"THE STOUT MISS HOPKINS'S BICYCLE" + +MARY M. MEARS +"THE MARRYING OF ESTHER" + +JULIAN RALPH +"CORDELIA'S NIGHT OF ROMANCE" + +E. A. ALEXANDER +"THE PRIZE-FUND BENEFICIARY" + + + + + +Introduction + + +It is many years now since the American Girl began to engage the +consciousness of the American novelist. Before the expansive period +following the Civil War, in the later eighteen-sixties and the earlier +eighteen-seventies, she had of course been his heroine, unless he went +abroad for one in court circles, or back for one in the feudal ages. +Until the time noted, she had been a heroine and then an American girl. +After that she was an American girl, and then a heroine; and she was +often studied against foreign backgrounds, in contrast with other +international figures, and her value ascertained in comparison with +their valuelessness, though sometimes she was portrayed in those poses +of flirtation of which she was born mistress. Even in these her +superiority to all other kinds of girls was insinuated if not asserted. + +The young ladies in the present collection are all American girls but +one, if we are to suppose Mr. Le Gallienne's winning type to be of the +same English origin as himself. We can be surer of him than of her, +however; but there is no question of the native Americanness of Mrs. +Alexander's girl, who is done so strikingly to the life, with courage to +grapple a character and a temperament as uncommon as it is true, which +we have rarely found among our fictionists. Having said this, we must +hedge in favor of Miss Jordan's most autochthonic Miss Kittie, so young +a girl as to be still almost a little girl, and with a head full of the +ideals of little-girlhood concerning young-girlhood. The pendant to her +pretty picture is the study of elderly girlhood by Octave Thanet, or +that by Miss Alice Brown, the one with its ideality, and the other with +its humor. The pathos of "The Perfect Year" is as true as either in its +truth to the girlhood which "never knew an earthly close," and yet had +its fill of rapture. Julian Ralph's strong and free sketch contributes a +fresh East Side flower, hollyhock-like in its gaudiness, to the garden +of American girls, Irish-American in this case, but destined to be +companioned hereafter by blossoms of our Italian-American, +Yiddish-American, and Russian-American civilization, as soon as our +nascent novelists shall have the eye to see and the art to show them. +Meantime, here are some of our Different Girls as far as they or their +photographers have got, and their acquaintance is worth having. + + W.D.H. + + + + + +The Little Joys of Margaret + +BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + +Margaret had seen her five sisters one by one leave the family nest, to +set up little nests of their own. Her brother, the eldest child of a +family of seven, had left the old home almost beyond memory, and settled +in London. Now and again he made a flying visit to the small provincial +town of his birth, and sometimes he sent two little daughters to +represent him--for he was already a widowed man, and relied occasionally +on the old roof-tree to replace the lost mother. Margaret had seen what +sympathetic spectators called her "fate" slowly approaching for some +time--particularly when, five years ago, she had broken off her +engagement with a worthless boy. She had loved him deeply, and, had she +loved him less, a refined girl in the provinces does not find it easy to +replace a discarded suitor--for the choice of young men is not +excessive. Her sisters had been more fortunate, and so, as I have said, +one by one they left their father's door in bridal veils. But Margaret +stayed on, and at length, as had been foreseen, became the sole nurse of +a beautiful old invalid mother, a kind of lay sister in the nunnery of +home. + +She came of a beautiful family. In all the big family of seven there was +not one without some kind of good looks. Two of her sisters were +acknowledged beauties, and there were those who considered Margaret the +most beautiful of all. It was all the harder, such sympathizers said, +that her youth should thus fade over an invalid's couch, the bloom of +her complexion be rubbed out by arduous vigils, and the lines +prematurely etched in her skin by the strain of a self-denial proper, no +doubt, to homely girls and professional nurses, but peculiarly wanton +and wasteful in the case of a girl so beautiful as Margaret. + +There are, alas! a considerable number of women predestined by their +lack of personal attractiveness for the humbler tasks of life. +Instinctively we associate them with household work, nursing, and the +general drudgery of existence. One never dreams of their having a life +of their own. They have no accomplishments, nor any of the feminine +charms. Women to whom an offer of marriage would seem as terrifying as a +comet, they belong to the neutrals of the human hive, and are, +practically speaking, only a little higher than the paid domestic. +Indeed, perhaps their one distinction is that they receive no wages. + +Now for so attractive a girl as Margaret to be merged in so dreary, +undistinguished a class was manifestly preposterous. It was a stupid +misapplication of human material. A plainer face and a more homespun +fibre would have served the purpose equally well. + +Margaret was by no means so much a saint of self-sacrifice as not to +have realized her situation with natural human pangs. Youth only comes +once--especially to a woman; and + + No hand can gather up the withered fallen + petals of the Rose of youth. + +Petal by petal, Margaret had watched the rose of her youth fading and +falling. More than all her sisters, she was endowed with a zest for +existence. Her superb physical constitution cried out for the joy of +life. She was made to be a great lover, a great mother; and to her, +more than most, the sunshine falling in muffled beams through the +lattices of her mother's sick-room came with a maddening summons +to--live. She was so supremely fitted to play a triumphant part in the +world outside there, so gay of heart, so victoriously vital. + +At first, therefore, the renunciation, accepted on the surface with so +kind a face, was a source of secret bitterness and hidden tears. But +time, with its mercy of compensation, had worked for her one of its many +mysterious transmutations, and shown her of what fine gold her +apparently leaden days were made. She was now thirty-three; though, for +all her nursing vigils, she did not look more than twenty-nine, and was +now more than resigned to the loss of the peculiar opportunities of +youth--if, indeed, they could be said to be lost already. "An old maid," +she would say, "who has cheerfully made up her mind to be an old maid, +is one of the happiest, and, indeed, most enviable, people in all the +world." + +Resent the law as we may, it is none the less true that renunciation +brings with it a mysterious initiation, a finer insight. Its discipline +would seem to refine and temper our organs of spiritual perception, and +thus make up for the commoner experience lost by a rarer experience +gained. By dedicating herself to her sick mother, Margaret undoubtedly +lost much of the average experience of her sex and age, but almost +imperceptibly it had been borne in upon her that she made some important +gains of a finer kind. She had been brought very close to the mystery of +human life, closer than those who have nothing to do beyond being +thoughtlessly happy can ever come. The nurse and the priest are +initiates of the same knowledge. Each alike is a sentinel on the +mysterious frontier between this world and the next. The nearer we +approach that frontier, the more we understand not only of that world on +the other side, but of the world on this. It is only when death throws +its shadow over the page of life that we realize the full significance +of what we are reading. Thus, by her mother's bedside, Margaret was +learning to read the page of life under the illuminating shadow of +death. + +But, apart from any such mystical compensation, Margaret's great reward +was that she knew her beautiful old mother better than any one else in +the world knew her. As a rule, and particularly in a large family, +parents remain half mythical to their children, awe-inspiring presences +in the home, colossal figures of antiquity, about whose knees the +younger generation crawls and gropes, but whose heads are hidden in the +mists of prehistoric legend. They are like personages in the Bible. They +impress our imagination, but we cannot think of them as being quite +real. Their histories smack of legend. And this, of course, is natural, +for they had been in the world, had loved and suffered, so long before +us that they seem a part of that antenatal mystery out of which we +sprang. When they speak of their old love-stories, it is as though we +were reading Homer. It sounds so long ago. We are surprised at the +vividness with which they recall happenings and personalities, past and +gone before, as they tell us, we were born. Before we were born! Yes! +They belong to that mysterious epoch of time--"before we were born"; and +unless we have a taste for history, or are drawn close to them by some +sympathetic human exigency, as Margaret had been drawn to her mother, we +are too apt, in the stress of making our own, to regard the history of +our parents as dry-as-dust. + +As the old mother sits there so quiet in her corner, her body worn to a +silver thread, and hardly anything left of her but her indomitable eyes, +it is hard, at least for a young thing of nineteen, all aflush and +aflurry with her new party gown, to realize that that old mother is +infinitely more romantic than herself. She has sat there so long, +perhaps, as to have come to seem part of the inanimate furniture of home +rather than a living being. Well! the young thing goes to her party, and +dances with some callow youth who pays her clumsy compliments, and +Margaret remains at home with the old mother in her corner. It is hard +on Margaret! Yes; and yet, as I have said, it is thus she comes to know +her old mother better than any one else knows her--society perhaps not +so poor an exchange for that of smart, immature young men of one's own +age. + +As the door closes behind the important rustle of youthful laces, and +Margaret and her mother are left alone, the mother's old eyes light up +with an almost mischievous smile. If age seems humorous to youth, youth +is even more humorous to age. + +"It is evidently a great occasion, Peg," the old voice says, with the +suspicion of a gentle mockery. "Don't you wish you were going?" + +"You naughty old mother!" answers Margaret, going over and kissing her. + +The two understand each other. + +"Well, shall we go on with our book?" says the mother, after a while. + +"Yes, dear, in a moment. I have first to get you your diet, and then we +can begin." + +"Bother the diet!" says the courageous old lady; "for two pins I'd go to +the ball myself. That old taffeta silk of mine is old enough to be in +fashion again. What do you say, Peg, if you and I go to the ball +together ..." + +"Oh, it's too much trouble dressing, mother. What do you think?" + +"Well, I suppose it is," answers the mother. "Besides, I want to hear +what happens next to those two beautiful young people in our book. So be +quick with my old diet, and come and read ..." + +There is perhaps nothing so lovely or so well worth having as the +gratitude of the old towards the young that care to give them more than +the perfunctory ministrations to which they have long since grown sadly +accustomed. There was no reward in the world that Margaret would have +exchanged for the sweet looks of her old mother, who, being no merely +selfish invalid, knew the value and the cost of the devotion her +daughter was giving her. + +"I can give you so little, my child, for all you are giving me," her +mother would sometimes say; and the tears would spring to Margaret's +eyes. + +Yes! Margaret had her reward in this alone--that she had cared to +decipher the lined old document of her mother's face. Her other sisters +had passed it by more or less impatiently. It was like some ancient +manuscript in a museum, which only a loving and patient scholar takes +the trouble to read. But the moment you begin to pick out the words, how +its crabbed text blossoms with beautiful meanings and fascinating +messages! It is as though you threw a dried rose into some magic water, +and saw it unfold and take on bloom, and fill with perfume, and bring +back the nightingale that sang to it so many years ago. So Margaret +loved her mother's old face, and learned to know the meaning of every +line on it. Privileged to see that old face in all its private moments +of feeling, under the transient revivification of deathless memories, +she was able, so to say, to reconstruct its perished beauty, and +realize the romance of which it was once the alluring candle. For her +mother had been a very great beauty, and if, like Margaret, you are able +to see it, there is no history so fascinating as the bygone love-affairs +of old people. How much more fascinating to read one's mother's +love-letters than one's own! + +Even in the history of the heart recent events have a certain crudity, +and love itself seems the more romantic for having lain in lavender for +fifty years. A certain style, a certain distinction, beyond question, go +with antiquity, and to spend your days with a refined old mother is no +less an education in style and distinction than to spend them in the air +of old cities, under the shadow of august architecture and in the sunset +of classic paintings. + +The longer Margaret lived with her old mother, the less she valued the +so-called "opportunities" she had missed. Coming out of her mother's +world of memories, there seemed something small, even common, about the +younger generation to which she belonged,--something lacking in +significance and dignity. + +For example, it had been her dream, as it is the dream of every true +woman, to be a mother herself: and yet, somehow--though she would not +admit it in so many words--when her young married sisters came with +their babies, there was something about their bustling and complacent +domesticity that seemed to make maternity bourgeois. She had not dreamed +of being a mother like that. She was convinced that her old mother had +never been a mother like that. "They seem more like wet-nurses than +mothers," she said to herself, with her wicked wit. + +Was there, she asked herself, something in realization that inevitably +lost you the dream? Was to incarnate an ideal to materialize it? Did the +finer spirit of love necessarily evaporate like some volatile essence +with marriage? Was it better to remain on idealistic spectator such as +she--than to run the risks of realization? + +She was far too beautiful, and had declined too many offers of +commonplace marriage, for such questioning to seem the philosophy of +disappointment. Indeed, the more she realized her own situation, the +more she came to regard what others considered her sacrifice to her +mother as a safeguard against the risk of a mediocre domesticity. +Indeed, she began to feel a certain pride, as of a priestess, in the +conservation of the dignity of her nature. It is better to be a vestal +virgin than--some mothers. + +And, after all, the maternal instinct of her nature found an ideal +outlet in her brother's children--the two little motherless girls who +came every year to spend their holidays with their grandmother and their +aunt Margaret. + +Margaret had seen but little of their mother, but her occasional +glimpses of her had left her with a haloed image of a delicate, +spiritual face that grew more and more Madonna-like with memory. The +nimbus of the Divine Mother, as she herself had dreamed of her, had +seemed indeed to illumine that grave young face. + +It pleased her imagination to take the place of that phantom mother, +herself--a phantom mother. And who knows but that such dream-children, +as she called those two little girls, were more satisfactory in the end +than real children? They represented, so to say, the poetry of children. +Had Margaret been a real mother, there would have been the prose of +children as well. But here, as in so much else, Margaret's seclusion +from the responsible activities of the outside world enabled her to +gather the fine flower of existence without losing the sense of it in +the cares of its cultivation. I think that she comprehended the wonder +and joy of children more than if she had been a real mother. + +Seclusion and renunciation are great sharpeners and refiners of the +sense of joy, chiefly because they encourage the habit of attentiveness. + +"Our excitements are very tiny," once said the old mother to Margaret, +"therefore we make the most of them." + +"I don't agree with you, mother," Margaret had answered. "I think it is +theirs that are tiny--trivial indeed, and ours that are great. People in +the world lose the values of life by having too much choice; too much +choice--of things not worth having. This makes them miss the real +things--just as any one living in a city cannot see the stars for the +electric lights. But we, sitting quiet in our corner, have time to watch +and listen, when the others must hurry by. We have time, for instance, +to watch that sunset yonder, whereas some of our worldly friends would +be busy dressing to go out to a bad play. We can sit here and listen to +that bird singing his vespers, as long as he will sing--and personally I +wouldn't exchange him for a prima donna. Far from being poor in +excitements, I think we have quite as many as are good for us, and those +we have are very beautiful and real." + +"You are a brave child," answered her mother. "Come and kiss me," and +she took the beautiful gold head into her hands and kissed her daughter +with her sweet old mouth, so lost among wrinkles that it was sometimes +hard to find it. + +"But am I not right, mother?" said Margaret. + +"Yes! you are right, dear, but you seem too young to know such wisdom." + +"I have to thank you for it, darling," answered Margaret, bending down +and kissing her mother's beautiful gray hair. + +"Ah! little one," replied the mother, "it is well to be wise, but it is +good to be foolish when we are young--and I fear I have robbed you of +your foolishness." + +"I shall believe you have if you talk like that," retorted Margaret, +laughingly taking her mother into her arms and gently shaking her, as +she sometimes did When the old lady was supposed to have been "naughty." + + * * * * * + +So for Margaret and her mother the days pass, and at first, as we have +said, it may seem a dull life, and even a hard one, for Margaret. But +she herself has long ceased to think so, and she dreads the inevitable +moment when the divine friendship between her and her old mother must +come to an end. She knows, of course, that it must come, and that the +day cannot be far off when the weary old limbs will refuse to make the +tiny journeys from bedroom to rocking-chair, which have long been all +that has been demanded of them; when the brave, humorous old eyes will +be so weary that they cannot keep open any more in this world. The +thought is one that is insupportably lonely, and sometimes she looks at +the invalid-chair, at the cup and saucer in which she serves her +mother's simple food, at the medicine-bottle and the measuring-glass, at +the knitted shawl which protects the frail old form against draughts, +and at all such sad furniture of an invalid's life, and pictures the day +when the homely, affectionate use of all these things will be gone +forever; for so poignant is humanity that it sanctifies with endearing +associations even objects in themselves so painful and prosaic. And it +seems to Margaret that when that day comes it would be most natural for +her to go on the same journey with her mother. + +For who shall fill for her her mother's place on earth--and what +occupation will be left for Margaret when her "beautiful old _raison +d'être_," as she sometimes calls her mother, has entered into the sleep +of the blessed? She seldom thinks of that, for the thought is too +lonely, and, meanwhile, she uses all her love and care to make this +earth so attractive and cozy that the beautiful mother-spirit who has +been so long prepared for her short journey to heaven may be tempted to +linger here yet a little while longer. These ministrations, which began +as a kind of renunciation, have now turned into an unselfish +selfishness. Margaret began by feeling herself necessary to her mother; +now her mother becomes more and more necessary to Margaret. Sometimes +when she leaves her alone for a few moments in her chair, she laughingly +bends over and says, "Promise me that you won't run away to heaven while +my back is turned." + +And the old mother smiles one of those transfigured smiles which seem +only to light up the faces of those that are already half over the +border of the spiritual world. + +Winter is, of course, Margaret's time of chief anxiety, and then her +loving efforts are redoubled to detain her beloved spirit in an +inclement world. Each winter passed in safety seems a personal victory +over death. How anxiously she watches for the first sign of the +returning spring, how eagerly she brings the news of early blade and +bud, and with the first violet she feels that the danger is over for +another year. When the spring is so afire that she is able to fill her +mother's lap with a fragrant heap of crocus and daffodil, she dares at +last to laugh and say, + +"Now confess, mother, that you won't find sweeter flowers even in +heaven." + +And when the thrush is on the apple bough outside the window, Margaret +will sometimes employ the same gentle raillery. + +"Do you think, mother," she will say, "that an angel could sing sweeter +than that thrush?" + +"You seem very sure, Margaret, that I am going to heaven," the old +mother will sometimes say, with one of her arch old smiles; "but do you +know that I stole two peppermints yesterday?" + +"You did!" says Margaret. + +"I did indeed! and they have been on my conscience ever since." + +"Really, mother! I don't know what to say," answers Margaret. "I had no +idea that you are so wicked." + +Many such little games the two play together, as the days go by; and +often at bedtime, as Margaret tucks her mother into bed, she asks her: + +"Are you comfortable, dear? Do you really think you would be much more +comfortable in heaven?" + +Or sometimes she will draw aside the window-curtains and say: + +"Look at the stars, mother.... Don't you think we get the best view of +them down here?" + +So it is that Margaret persuades her mother to delay her journey a +little while. + + + + +Kittie's Sister Josephine + +BY ELIZABETH JORDAN + + +Kittie James told me this story about her sister Josephine, and when she +saw my eye light up the way the true artist's does when he hears a good +plot, she said I might use it, if I liked, the next time I "practised +literature." + +I don't think that was a very nice way to say it, especially when one +remembers that Sister Irmingarde read three of my stories to the class +in four months; and as I only write one every week, you can see yourself +what a good average that was. But it takes noble souls to be humble in +the presence of the gifted, and enthusiastic over their success, so only +two of my classmates seemed really happy when Sister Irmingarde read my +third story aloud. It is hardly necessary to mention the names of these +beautiful natures, already so well known to my readers, but I will do +it. They were Maudie Joyce and Mabel Blossom, and they are my dearest +friends at St. Catharine's. And some day, when I am a real writer and +the name of May Iverson shines in gold letters on the tablets of fame, +I'll write a book and dedicate it to them. Then, indeed, they will be +glad they knew me in my schoolgirl days, and recognized real merit when +they saw it, and did not mind the queer things my artistic temperament +often makes me do. Oh, what a slave is one to this artistic, emotional +nature, and how unhappy, how misunderstood! I don't mean that I am +unhappy all the time, of course, but I have Moods. And when I have them +life seems so hollow, so empty, so terrible! At such times natures that +do not understand me are apt to make mistakes, the way Sister Irmingarde +did when she thought I had nervous dyspepsia and made me walk three +miles every day, when it was just Soul that was the matter with me. +Still, I must admit the exercise helped me. It is so soothing, so +restful, so calming to walk on dear nature's breast. Maudie Joyce and +Mabel Blossom always know the minute an attack of artistic temperament +begins in me. Then they go away quietly and reverently, and I write a +story and feel better. + +So this time I am going to tell about Kittie James's sister Josephine. +In the very beginning I must explain that Josephine James used to be a +pupil at St. Catharine's herself, ages and ages ago, and finally she +graduated and left, and began to go into society and look around and +decide what her life-work should be. That was long, long before our +time--as much as ten years, I should think, and poor Josephine must be +twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old now. But Kittie says she is just +as nice as she can be, and not a bit poky, and so active and interested +in life you'd think she was young. Of course I know such things can be, +for my own sister Grace, Mrs. George E. Verbeck, is perfectly lovely and +the most popular woman in the society of our city. But Grace is married, +and perhaps that makes a difference. It is said that love keeps the +spirit young. However, perhaps I'd better go on about Josephine and not +dwell on that. Experienced as we girls are, and drinking of life in deep +draughts though we do, we still admit--Maudie, Mabel, and I--that we do +not yet know much about love. But one cannot know everything at fifteen, +and, as Mabel Blossom always says, "there is yet time." We all know +just the kind of men they're going to be, though. Mine will be a brave +young officer, of course, for a general's daughter should not marry out +of the army, and he will die for his country, leaving me with a broken +heart. Maudie Joyce says hers must be a man who will rule her with a rod +of iron and break her will and win her respect, and then be gentle and +loving and tender. And Mabel Blossom says she's perfectly sure hers will +be fat and have a blond mustache and laugh a great deal. Once she said +maybe none of us would ever get _any_; but the look Maudie Joyce and I +turned upon her checked her thoughtless words. Life is bitter enough as +it is without thinking of dreadful things in the future. I sometimes +fear that underneath her girlish gayety Mabel Blossom conceals a morbid +nature. But I am forgetting Josephine James. This story will tell why, +with all her advantages of wealth and education and beauty, she remained +a maiden lady till she was twenty-eight; and she might have kept on, +too, if Kittie had not taken matters in hand and settled them for her. + +Kittie says Josephine was always romantic and spent long hours of her +young life in girlish reveries and dreams. Of course that isn't the way +Kittie said it, but if I should tell this story in her crude, unformed +fashion, you wouldn't read very far. What Kittie really said was that +Josephine used to "moon around the grounds a lot and bawl, and even try +to write poetry." I understand Josephine's nature, so I will go on and +tell this story in my own way, but you must remember that some of the +credit belongs to Kittie and Mabel Blossom; and if Sister Irmingarde +reads it in class, they can stand right up with me when the author is +called for. + +Well, when Josephine James graduated she got a lot of prizes and things, +for she was a clever girl, and had not spent all her time writing poetry +and thinking deep thoughts about life. She realized the priceless +advantages of a broad and thorough education and of association with the +most cultivated minds. That sentence comes out of our prospectus. Then +she went home and went out a good deal, and was very popular and stopped +writing poetry, and her dear parents began to feel happy and hopeful +about her, and think she would marry and have a nice family, which is +indeed woman's highest, noblest mission in life. But Josephine cherished +an ideal. + +A great many young men came to see her, and Kittie liked one of them +very much indeed--better than all the others. He was handsome, and he +laughed and joked a good deal, and always brought Kittie big boxes of +candy and called her his little sister. He said she was going to be that +in the end, anyhow, and there was no use waiting to give her the title +that his heart dictated. He said it just that way. When he took +Josephine out in his automobile he'd say, "Let's take the kid, too," and +they would, and it did not take Kittie long to understand how things +were between George Morgan--for that was indeed his name--and her +sister. Little do grown-up people realize how intelligent are the minds +of the young, and how keen and penetrating their youthful gaze! Clearly +do I recall some things that happened at home, and it would startle papa +and mamma to know I know them, but I will not reveal them here. Once I +would have done so, in the beginning of my art; but now I have learned +to finish one story before I begin another. + +Little did Mr. Morgan and Josephine wot that every time she refused him +Kittie's young heart burned beneath its sense of wrong, for she did +refuse him almost every time they went out together, and yet she kept +right on going. You would think she wouldn't, but women's natures are +indeed inscrutable. Some authors would stop here and tell what was in +Josephine's heart, but this is not that kind of a story. Kittie was only +twelve then, and they used big words and talked in a queer way they +thought she would not understand; but she did, every time, and she never +missed a single word they said. Of course she wasn't _listening_ +exactly, you see, because they knew she was there. That makes it +different and quite proper. For if Kittie was more intelligent than her +elders it was not the poor child's fault. + +Things went on like that and got worse and worse, and they had been +going on that way for five years. One day Kittie was playing tennis with +George at the Country Club, and he had been very kind to her, and all of +a sudden Kittie told him she knew all, and how sorry she was for him, +and that if he would wait till she grew up she would marry him herself. +The poor child was so young, you see, that she did not know how +unmaidenly this was. And of course at St. Catharine's when they taught +us how to enter and leave rooms and how to act in society and at the +table, they didn't think to tell us not to ask young men to marry us. I +can add with confidence that Kittie James was the only girl who ever +did. I asked the rest afterwards, and they were deeply shocked at the +idea. + +Well, anyhow, Kittie did it, and she said George was just as nice as he +could be. He told her he had "never listened to a more alluring +proposition" (she remembered just the words he used), and that she was +"a little trump"; and then he said he feared, alas! it was impossible, +as even his strong manhood could not face the prospect of the long and +dragging years that lay between. Besides, he said, his heart was already +given, and he guessed he'd better stick to Josephine, and would his +little sister help him to get her? Kittie wiped her eyes and said she +would. She had been crying. It must indeed be a bitter experience to +have one's young heart spurned! But George took her into the club-house +and gave her tea and lots of English muffins and jam, and somehow Kittie +cheered up, for she couldn't help feeling there were still some things +in life that were nice. + +Of course after that she wanted dreadfully to help George, but there +didn't seem to be much she could do. Besides, she had to go right back +to school in September, and being a studious child, I need hardly add +that her entire mind was then given to her studies. When she went home +for the Christmas holidays she took Mabel Blossom with her. Mabel was +more than a year older, but Kittie looked up to her, as it is well the +young should do to us older girls. Besides, Kittie had had her +thirteenth birthday in November, and she was letting down her skirts a +little and beginning to think of putting up her hair. She said when she +remembered that she asked George to wait till she grew up it made her +blush, so you see she was developing very fast. + +As I said before, she took Mabel Blossom home for Christmas, and Mr. and +Mrs. James were lovely to her, and she had a beautiful time. But +Josephine was the best of all. She was just fine. Mabel told me with her +own lips that if she hadn't seen Josephine James's name on the catalogue +as a graduate in '93, she never would have believed she was so old. +Josephine took the two girls to matinées and gave a little tea for them, +and George Morgan was as nice as she was. He was always bringing them +candy and violets, exactly as if they were young ladies, and he treated +them both with the greatest respect, and stopped calling them the kids +when he found they didn't like it. Mabel got as fond of him as Kittie +was, and they were both wild to help him to get Josephine to marry him; +but she wouldn't, though Kittie finally talked to her long and +seriously. I asked Kittie what Josephine said when she did that, and she +confessed that Josephine had laughed so she couldn't say anything. That +hurt the sensitive child, of course, but grown-ups are all too +frequently thoughtless of such things. Had Josephine but listened to +Kittie's words on that occasion, it would have saved Kittie a lot of +trouble. + +Now I am getting to the exciting part of the story. I am always so glad +when I get to that. I asked Sister Irmingarde why one couldn't just make +the story out of the exciting part, and she took a good deal of time to +explain why, but she did not convince me; for besides having the +artistic temperament I am strangely logical for one so young. Some day I +shall write a story that is all climax from beginning to end. That will +show her! But at present I must write according to the severe and +cramping rules which she and literature have laid down. + +One night Mrs. James gave a large party for Josephine, and of course +Mabel and Kittie, being thirteen and fourteen, had to go to bed. It is +such things as this that embitter the lives of schoolgirls. But they +were allowed to go down and see all the lights and flowers and +decorations before people began to come, and they went into the +conservatory because that was fixed up with little nooks and things. +They got away in and off in a kind of wing of it, and they talked and +pretended they were _débutantes_ at the ball, so they stayed longer than +they knew. Then they heard voices, and they looked and saw Josephine and +Mr. Morgan sitting by the fountain. Before they could move or say they +were there, they heard him say this--Kittie remembers just what it was: + +"I have spent six years following you, and you've treated me as if I +were a dog at the end of a string. This thing must end. I must have you, +or I must learn to live without you, and I must know now which it is to +be. Josephine, you must give me my final answer to-night." + +Wasn't it embarrassing for Kittie and Mabel? They did not want to +listen, but some instinct told them Josephine and George might not be +glad to see them then, so they crept behind a lot of tall palms, and +Mabel put her fingers in her ears so she wouldn't hear. Kittie didn't. +She explained to me afterwards that she thought it being her sister made +things kind of different. It was all in the family, anyhow. So Kittie +heard Josephine tell Mr. Morgan that the reason she did not marry him +was because he was an idler and without an ambition or a purpose in +life. And she said she must respect the man she married as well as love +him. Then George jumped up quickly and asked if she loved him, and she +cried and said she did, but that she would never, never marry him until +he did something to win her admiration and prove he was a man. You can +imagine how exciting it was for Kittie to see with her own innocent eyes +how grown-up people manage such things. She said she was so afraid she'd +miss something that she opened them so wide they hurt her afterwards. +But she didn't miss anything. She saw him kiss Josephine, too, and then +Josephine got up, and he argued and tried to make her change her mind, +and she wouldn't, and finally they left the conservatory. After that +Kittie and Mabel crept out and rushed up-stairs. + +The next morning Kittie turned to Mabel with a look on her face which +Mabel had never seen there before. It was grim and determined. She said +she had a plan and wanted Mabel to help her, and not ask any questions, +but get her skates and come out. Mabel did, and they went straight to +George Morgan's house, which was only a few blocks away. He was very +rich and had a beautiful house. An English butler came to the door. +Mabel said she was so frightened her teeth chattered, but he smiled when +he saw Kittie, and said yes, Mr. Morgan was home and at breakfast, and +invited them in. When George came in he had a smoking-jacket on, and +looked very pale and sad and romantic, Mabel thought, but he smiled, +too, when he saw them, and shook hands and asked them if they had +breakfasted. + +Kittie said yes, but they had come to ask him to take them skating, and +they were all ready and had brought their skates. His face fell, as real +writers say, and he hesitated a little, but at last he said he'd go, and +he excused himself, just as if they had been grown up, and went off to +get ready. + +When they were left alone a terrible doubt assailed Mabel, and she asked +Kittie if she was going to ask George again to marry her. Kittie +blushed and said she was not, of course, and that she knew better now. +For it is indeed true that the human heart is not so easily turned from +its dear object. We know that if once one truly loves it lasts forever +and ever and ever, and then one dies and is buried with things the loved +one wore. + +Kittie said she had a plan to help George, and all Mabel had to do was +to watch and keep on breathing. Mabel felt better then, and said she +guessed she could do that. George came back all ready, and they started +off. Kittie acted rather dark and mysterious, but Mabel conversed with +George in the easy and pleasant fashion young men love. She told him all +about school and how bad she was in mathematics; and he said he had been +a duffer at it too, but that he had learned to shun it while there was +yet time. And he advised her very earnestly to have nothing to do with +it. Mabel didn't, either, after she came back to St. Catharine's; and +when Sister Irmingarde reproached her, Mabel said she was leaning on the +judgment of a strong man, as woman should do. But Sister Irmingarde made +her go on with the arithmetic just the same. + +By and by they came to the river, and it was so early not many people +were skating there. When George had fastened on their skates--he did it +in the nicest way, exactly as if they were grown up--Kittie looked more +mysterious than ever, and she started off as fast as she could skate +toward a little inlet where there was no one at all. George and Mabel +followed her. George said he didn't know whether the ice was smooth in +there, but Kittie kept right on, and George did not say any more. I +guess he did not care much where he went. I suppose it disappoints a man +when he wants to marry a woman and she won't. Now that I am beginning to +study deeply this question of love, many things are clear to me. + +Kittie kept far ahead, and all of a sudden Mabel saw that a little +distance further on, and just ahead, there was a big black hole in the +ice, and Kittie was skating straight toward it. Mabel tried to scream, +but she says the sound froze on her pallid lips. Then George saw the +hole, too, and rushed toward Kittie, and quicker than I can write it +Kittie went in that hole and down. + +Mabel says George was there almost as soon, calling to Mabel to keep +back out of danger. Usually when people have to rescue others, +especially in stories, they call to some one to bring a board, and some +one does, and it is easy. But very often in real life there isn't any +board or any one to bring it, and this was indeed the desperate +situation that confronted my hero. There was nothing to do but plunge in +after Kittie, and he plunged, skates and all. Then Mabel heard him gasp +and laugh a little, and he called out: "It's all right, by Jove! The +water isn't much above my knees." And even as he spoke Mabel saw Kittie +rise in the water and sort of hurl herself at him and pull him down into +the water, head and all. When they came up they were both half +strangled, and Mabel was terribly frightened; for she thought George was +mistaken about the depth, and they would both drown before her eyes; and +then she would see that picture all her life, as they do in stories, and +her hair would turn gray. She began to run up and down on the ice and +scream; but even as she did so she heard these extraordinary words come +from between Kittie James's chattering teeth: + +"_Now you are good and wet_!" + +George did not say a word. He confessed to Mabel afterwards that he +thought poor Kittie had lost her mind through fear. But he tried the ice +till he found a place that would hold him, and he got out and pulled +Kittie out. As soon as Kittie was out she opened her mouth and uttered +more remarkable words. + +"Now," she said, "I'll skate till we get near the club-house. Then you +must pick me up and carry me, and I'll shut my eyes and let my head hang +down. And Mabel must cry--good and hard. Then you must send for +Josephine and let her see how you've saved the life of her precious +little sister." + +Mabel said she was sure that Kittie was crazy, and next she thought +George was crazy, too. For he bent and stared hard into Kittie's eyes +for a minute, and then he began to laugh, and he laughed till he cried. +He tried to speak, but he couldn't at first; and when he did the words +came out between his shouts of boyish glee. + +"Do you mean to say, you young monkey," he said, "that this is a put-up +job?" + +Kittie nodded as solemnly as a fair young girl can nod when her clothes +are dripping and her nose is blue with cold. When she did that, George +roared again; then, as if he had remembered something, he caught her +hands and began to skate very fast toward the club-house. He was a +thoughtful young man, you see, and he wanted her to get warm. Perhaps he +wanted to get warm, too. Anyhow, they started off, and as they went, +Kittie opened still further the closed flower of her girlish heart. I +heard that expression once, and I've always wanted to get it into one of +my stories. I think this is a good place. + +She told George she knew the hole in the ice, and that it wasn't deep; +and she said she had done it all to make Josephine admire him and marry +him. + +"She will, too," she said. "Her dear little sister--the only one she's +got." And Kittie went on to say what a terrible thing it would have been +if she had died in the promise of her young life, till Mabel said she +almost felt sure herself that George had saved her. But George +hesitated. He said it wasn't "a square deal," whatever that means, but +Kittie said no one need tell any lies. She had gone into the hole and +George had pulled her out. She thought they needn't explain how deep it +was, and George admitted thoughtfully that "no truly loving family +should hunger for statistics at such a moment." Finally he said: "By +Jove! I'll do it. All's fair in love and war." Then he asked Mabel if +she thought she could "lend intelligent support to the star performers," +and she said she could. So George picked Kittie up in his arms, and +Mabel cried--she was so excited it was easy, and she wanted to do it all +the time--and the sad little procession "homeward wended its weary way," +as the poet says. + +Mabel told me Kittie did her part like a real actress. She shut her eyes +and her head hung over George's arm, and her long, wet braid dripped as +it trailed behind them. George laughed to himself every few minutes till +they got near the club-house. Then he looked very sober, and Mabel +Blossom knew her cue had come, the way it does to actresses, and she let +out a wail that almost made Kittie sit up. It was 'most too much of a +one, and Mr. Morgan advised her to "tone it down a little," because, he +said, if she didn't they'd probably have Kittie buried before she could +explain. But of course Mabel had not been prepared and had not had any +practice. She muffled her sobs after that, and they sounded lots better. +People began to rush from the club-house, and get blankets and whiskey, +and telephone for doctors and for Kittie's family, and things got so +exciting that nobody paid any attention to Mabel. All she had to do was +to mop her eyes occasionally and keep a sharp lookout for Josephine; for +of course, being an ardent student of life, like Maudie and me, she did +not want to miss what came next. + +Pretty soon a horse galloped up, all foaming at the mouth, and he was +pulled back on his haunches, and Josephine and Mr. James jumped out of +the buggy and rushed in, and there was more excitement. When George saw +them coming he turned pale, Mabel said, and hurried off to change his +clothes. One woman looked after him and said, "As modest as he is +brave," and cried over it. When Josephine and Mr. James came in there +was more excitement, and Kittie opened one eye and shut it again right +off, and the doctor said she was all right except for the shock, and her +father and Josephine cried, so Mabel didn't have to any more. She was +glad, too, I can tell you. + +They put Kittie to bed in a room at the club, for the doctor said she +was such a high-strung child it would be wise to keep her perfectly +quiet for a few hours and take precautions against pneumonia. Then +Josephine went around asking for Mr. Morgan. + +By and by he came down, in dry clothes but looking dreadfully +uncomfortable. Mabel said she could imagine how he felt. Josephine was +standing by the open fire when he entered the room, and no one else was +there but Mabel. Josephine went right to him and put her arms around his +neck. + +"Dearest, dearest!" she said. "How can I ever thank you?" Her voice was +very low, but Mabel heard it. George said right off, "There is a way." +That shows how quick and clever he is, for some men might not think of +it. Then Mabel Blossom left the room, with slow, reluctant feet, and +went up-stairs to Kittie. + +That's why Mabel has just gone to Kittie's home for a few days. She and +Kittie are to be flower-maids at Josephine's wedding. I hope it is not +necessary for me to explain to my intelligent readers that her husband +will be George Morgan. Kittie says he confessed the whole thing to +Josephine, and she forgave him, and said she would marry him anyhow; but +she explained that she only did it on Kittie's account. She said she did +not know to what lengths the child might go next. + +So my young friends have gone to mingle in scenes of worldly gayety, +and I sit here in the twilight looking at the evening star and writing +about love. How true it is that the pen is mightier than the sword! +Gayety is well in its place, but the soul of the artist finds its +happiness in work and solitude. I hope Josephine will realize, though, +why I cannot describe her wedding. Of course no artist of delicate +sensibilities could describe a wedding when she hadn't been asked to it. + +Poor Josephine! It seems very, very sad to me that she is marrying thus +late in life and only on Kittie's account. Why, oh, why could she not +have wed when she was young and love was in her heart! + + + + +The Wizard's Touch + +BY ALICE BROWN + + +Jerome Wilmer sat in the garden, painting in a background, with the +carelessness of ease. He seemed to be dabbing little touches at the +canvas, as a spontaneous kind of fun not likely to result in anything +serious, save, perhaps, the necessity of scrubbing them off afterwards, +like a too adventurous child. Mary Brinsley, in her lilac print, stood a +few paces away, the sun on her hair, and watched him. + +"Paris is very becoming to you," she said at last. + +"What do you mean?" asked Wilmer, glancing up, and then beginning to +consider her so particularly that she stepped aside, her brows knitted, +with an admonishing, + +"Look out! you'll get me into the landscape." + +"You're always in the landscape. What do you mean about Paris?" + +"You look so--so travelled, so equal to any place, and Paris in +particular because it's the finest." + +Other people also had said that, in their various ways. He had the +distinction set by nature upon a muscular body and a rather small head, +well poised. His hair, now turning gray, grew delightfully about the +temples, and though it was brushed back in the style of a man who never +looks at himself twice when once will do, it had a way of seeming +entirely right. His brows were firm, his mouth determined, and the close +pointed beard brought his face to a delicate finish. Even his clothes, +of the kind that never look new, had fallen into lines of easy use. + +"You needn't guy me," he said, and went on painting. But he flashed his +sudden smile at her. "Isn't New England becoming to me, too?" + +"Yes, for the summer. It's over-powered. In the winter Aunt Celia calls +you 'Jerry Wilmer.' She's quite topping then. But the minute you appear +with European labels on your trunks and that air of speaking foreign +lingo, she gives out completely. Every time she sees your name in the +paper she forgets you went to school at the Academy and built the fires. +She calls you 'our boarder' then, for as much as a week and a half." + +"Quit it, Mary," said he, smiling at her again. + +"Well," said Mary, yet without turning, "I must go and weed a while." + +"No," put in Wilmer, innocently; "he won't be over yet. He had a big +mail. I brought it to him." + +Mary blushed, and made as if to go. She was a woman of thirty-five, well +poised, and sweet through wholesomeness. Her face had been cut on a +regular pattern, and then some natural influence had touched it up +beguilingly with contradictions. She swung back, after her one tentative +step, and sobered. + +"How do you think he is looking?" she asked. + +"Prime." + +"Not so--" + +"Not so morbid as when I was here last summer," he helped her out. "Not +by any means. Are you going to marry him, Mary?" The question had only a +civil emphasis, but a warmer tone informed it. Mary grew pink under the +morning light, and Jerome went on: "Yes, I have a perfect right to talk +about it, I don't travel three thousand miles every summer to ask you to +marry me without earning some claim to frankness. I mentioned that to +Marshby himself. We met at the station, you remember, the day I came. We +walked down together. He spoke about my sketching, and I told him I had +come on my annual pilgrimage, to ask Mary Brinsley to marry me." + +"Jerome!" + +"Yes, I did. This is my tenth pilgrimage. Mary, will you marry me?" + +"No," said Mary, softly, but as if she liked him very much. "No, +Jerome." + +Wilmer squeezed a tube on his palette and regarded the color frowningly. +"Might as well, Mary," said he. "You'd have an awfully good time in +Paris." + +She was perfectly still, watching him, and he went on: + +"Now you're thinking if Marshby gets the consulate you'll be across the +water anyway, and you could run down to Paris and see the sights. But it +wouldn't be the same thing. It's Marshby you like, but you'd have a +better time with me." + +"It's a foregone conclusion that the consulship will be offered him," +said Mary. Her eyes were now on the path leading through the garden and +over the wall to the neighboring house where Marshby lived. + +"Then you will marry and go with him. Ah, well, that's finished. I +needn't come another summer. When you are in Paris, I can show you the +boulevards and cafés." + +"It is more than probable he won't accept the consulship." + +"Why?" He held his palette arrested in mid-air and stared at her. + +"He is doubtful of himself--doubtful whether he is equal to so +responsible a place." + +"Bah! it's not an embassy." + +"No; but he fancies he has not the address, the social gifts--in fact, +he shrinks from it." Her face had taken on a soft distress; her eyes +appealed to him. She seemed to be confessing, for the other man, +something that might well be misunderstood. Jerome, ignoring the flag of +her discomfort, went on painting, to give her room for confidence. + +"Is it that old plague-spot?" he asked. "Just what aspect does it bear +to him? Why not talk freely about it?" + +"It is the old remorse. He misunderstood his brother when they two were +left alone in the world. He forced the boy out of evil associations when +he ought to have led him. You know the rest of it. The boy was +desperate. He killed himself." + +"When he was drunk. Marshby wasn't responsible." + +"No, not directly. But you know that kind of mind. It follows hidden +causes. That's why his essays are so good. Anyway, it has crippled him. +It came when he was too young, and it marked him for life. He has an +inveterate self-distrust." + +"Ah, well," said Winner, including the summer landscape in a wave of his +brush, "give up the consulship. Let him give it up. It isn't as if he +hadn't a roof. Settle down in his house there, you two, and let him +write his essays, and you--just be happy." + +She ignored her own part in the prophecy completely and finally. "It +isn't the consulship as the consulship," she responded. "It is the life +abroad I want for him. It would give him--well, it would give him what +it has given you. His work would show it." She spoke hotly, and at once +Jerome saw himself envied for his brilliant cosmopolitan life, the +bounty of his success fairly coveted for the other man. It gave him a +curious pang. He felt, somehow, impoverished, and drew his breath more +meagrely. But the actual thought in his mind grew too big to be +suppressed, and he stayed his hand to look at her. + +"That's not all," he said. + +"All what?" + +"That's not the main reason why you want him to go. You think if he +really asserted himself, really knocked down the spectre of his old +distrust and stamped on it, he would be a different man. If he had once +proved himself, as we say of younger chaps, he could go on proving." + +"No," she declared, in nervous loyalty. She was like a bird fluttering +to save her nest. "No! You are wrong. I ought not to have talked about +him at all. I shouldn't to anybody else. Only, you are so kind." + +"It's easy to be kind," said Jerome, gently, "when there's nothing else +left us." + +She stood wilfully swaying a branch of the tendrilled arbor, and, he +subtly felt, so dissatisfied with herself for her temporary disloyalty +that she felt alien to them both: Marshby because she had wronged him by +admitting another man to this intimate knowledge of him, and the other +man for being her accomplice. + +"Don't be sorry," he said, softly. "You haven't been naughty." + +But she had swung round to some comprehension of what he had a right to +feel. + +"It makes one selfish," she said, "to want--to want things to come out +right." + +"I know. Well, can't we make them come out right? He is sure of the +consulship?" + +"Practically." + +"You want to be assured of his taking it." + +She did not answer; but her face lighted, as if to a new appeal. Jerome +followed her look along the path. Marshby himself was coming. He was no +weakling. He swung along easily with the stride of a man accustomed to +using his body well. He had not, perhaps, the urban air, and yet there +was nothing about him which would not have responded at once to a more +exacting civilization. Jerome knew his face,--knew it from their college +days together and through these annual visits of his own; but now, as +Marshby approached, the artist rated him not so much by the friendly as +the professional eye. He saw a man who looked the scholar and the +gentleman, keen though not imperious of glance. His visage, mature even +for its years, had suffered more from emotion than from deeds or the +assaults of fortune. Marshby had lived the life of thought, and, +exaggerating action, had failed to fit himself to any form of it. Wilmer +glanced at his hands, too, as they swung with his walk, and then +remembered that the professional eye had already noted them and laid +their lines away for some suggestive use. As he looked, Marshby stopped +in his approach, caught by the singularity of a gnarled tree limb. It +awoke in him a cognizance of nature's processes, and his face lighted +with the pleasure of it. + +"So you won't marry me?" asked Wilmer, softly, in that pause. + +"Don't!" said Mary. + +"Why not, when you won't tell whether you're engaged to him or not? Why +not, anyway? If I were sure you'd be happier with me, I'd snatch you out +of his very maw. Yes, I would. Are you sure you like him, Mary?" + +The girl did not answer, for Marshby had started again. Jerome got the +look in her face, and smiled a little, sadly. + +"Yes," he said, "you're sure." + +Mary immediately felt unable to encounter them together. She gave +Marshby a good-morning, and, to his bewilderment, made some excuse about +her weeding and flitted past him on the path. His eyes followed her, and +when they came back to Wilmer the artist nodded brightly. + +"I've just asked her," he said. + +"Asked her?" Marshby was about to pass him, pulling out his glasses and +at the same time peering at the picture with the impatience of his +near-sighted look. + +"There, don't you do that!" cried Jerome, stopping, with his brush in +air. "Don't you come round and stare over my shoulder. It makes me +nervous ad the devil. Step back there--there by that mullein. So! I've +got to face my protagonist. Yes, I've been asking her to marry me." + +Marshby stiffened. His head went up, his jaw tightened. He looked the +jealous ire of the male. + +"What do you want me to stand here for?" he asked, irritably. + +"But she refused me," said Wilmer, cheerfully. "Stand still, that's a +good fellow. I'm using you." + +Marshby had by an effort pulled himself together. He dismissed Mary from +his mind, as he wished to drive her from the other man's speech. + +"I've been reading the morning paper on your exhibition," he said, +bringing out the journal from his pocket. "They can't say enough about +you." + +"Oh, can't they! Well, the better for me. What are they pleased to +discover?" + +"They say you see round corners and through deal boards. Listen." He +struck open the paper and read: "'A man with a hidden crime upon his +soul will do well to elude this greatest of modern magicians. The man +with a secret tells it the instant he sits down before Jerome Wilmer. +Wilmer does not paint faces, brows, hands. He paints hopes, fears, and +longings. If we could, in our turn, get to the heart of his mystery! If +we could learn whether he says to himself: "I see hate in that face, +hypocrisy, greed. I will paint them. That man is not man, but cur. He +shall fawn on my canvas." Or does he paint through a kind of inspired +carelessness, and as the line obeys the eye and hand, so does the +emotion live in the line?'" + +"Oh, gammon!" snapped Wilmer. + +"Well, do you?" said Marshby, tossing the paper to the little table +where Mary's work-box stood. + +"Do I what? Spy and then paint, or paint and find I've spied? Oh, I +guess I plug along like any other decent workman. When it comes to that, +how do you write your essays?" + +"I! Oh! That's another pair of sleeves. Your work is colossal. I'm still +on cherry-stones." + +"Well," said Wilmer, with slow incisiveness, "you've accomplished one +thing I'd sell my name for. You've got Mary Brinsley bound to you so +fast that neither lure nor lash can stir her. I've tried it--tried Paris +even, the crudest bribe there is. No good! She won't have me." + +At her name, Marshby straightened again, and there was fire in his eye. +Wilmer, sketching him in, seemed to gain distinct impulse from the pose, +and worked the faster. + +"Don't move," he ordered. "There, that's right. So, you see, you're the +successful chap. I'm the failure. She won't have me." There was such +feeling in his tone that Marshby's expression softened comprehendingly. +He understood a pain that prompted even such a man to rash avowal. + +"I don't believe we'd better speak of her," he said, in awkward +kindliness. + +"I want to," returned Wilmer. "I want to tell you how lucky you are." + +Again that shade of introspective bitterness clouded Marshby's face. +"Yes," said he, involuntarily. "But how about her? Is _she_ lucky?" + +"Yes," replied Jerome, steadily. "She's got what she wants. She won't +worship you any the less because you don't worship yourself. That's the +mad way they have--women. It's an awful challenge. You've got a fight +before you, if you don't refuse it.". + +"God!" groaned Marshby to himself, "it is a fight. I can't refuse it." + +Wilmer put his question without mercy. "Do you want to?" + +"I want her to be happy," said Marshby, with a simple humility afar from +cowardice. "I want her to be safe. I don't see how anybody could be +safe--with me." + +"Well," pursued Wilmer, recklessly, "would she be safe with me?" + +"I think so," said Marshby, keeping an unblemished dignity. "I have +thought that for a good many years." + +"But not happy?" + +"No, not happy. She would--We have been together so long." + +"Yes, she'd miss you. She'd die of homesickness. Well!" He sat +contemplating Marshby with his professional stare; but really his mind +was opened for the first time to the full reason for Mary's unchanging +love. Marshby stood there so quiet, so oblivious of himself in +comparison with unseen things, so much a man from head to foot, that he +justified the woman's loyal passion as nothing had before. "Shall you +accept the consulate?" Wilmer asked, abruptly. + +Brought face to face with fact, Marshby's pose slackened. He drooped +perceptibly. "Probably not," he said. "No, decidedly not." + +Wilmer swore under his breath, and sat, brows bent, marvelling at the +change in him. The man's infirmity of will had blighted him. He was so +truly another creature that not even a woman's unreasoning championship +could pull him into shape again. + +Mary Brinsley came swiftly down the path, trowel in one hand and her +basket of weeds in the other. Wilmer wondered if she had been glancing +up from some flowery screen and read the story of that altered posture. +She looked sharply anxious, like a mother whose child is threatened. +Jerome shrewdly knew that Marshby's telltale attitude was no unfamiliar +one. + +"What have you been saying?" she asked, in laughing challenge, yet with +a note of anxiety underneath. + +"I'm painting him in," said Wilmer; but as she came toward him he turned +the canvas dexterously. "No," said he, "no. I've got my idea from this. +To-morrow Marshby's going to sit." + +That was all he would say, and Mary put it aside as one of his +pleasantries made to fit the hour. But next day he set up a big canvas +in the barn that served him as workroom, and summoned Marshby from his +books. He came dressed exactly right, in his every-day clothes that had +comfortable wrinkles in them, and easily took his pose. For all his +concern over the inefficiency of his life, as a life, he was entirely +without self-consciousness in his personal habit. Jerome liked that, and +began to like him better as he knew him more. A strange illuminative +process went on in his mind toward the man as Mary saw him, and more and +more he nursed a fretful sympathy with her desire to see Marshby tuned +up to some pitch that should make him livable to himself. It seemed a +cruelty of nature that any man should so scorn his own company and yet +be forced to keep it through an allotted span. In that sitting Marshby +was at first serious and absent-minded. Though his body was obediently +there, the spirit seemed to be busy somewhere else. + +"Head up!" cried Jerome at last, brutally. "Heavens, man, don't skulk!" + +Marshby straightened under the blow. It hit harder, as Jerome meant it +should, than any verbal rallying. It sent the man back over his own +life to the first stumble in it. + +"I want you to look as if you heard drums and fife," Jerome explained, +with one of his quick smiles, that always wiped out former injury. + +But the flush was not yet out of Marshby's face, and he answered, +bitterly, "I might run." + +"I don't mind your looking as if you'd like to run and knew you +couldn't," said Jerome, dashing in strokes now in a happy certainty. + +"Why couldn't I?" asked Marshby, still from that abiding scorn of his +own ways. + +"Because you can't, that's all. Partly because you get the habit of +facing the music. I should like--" Wilmer had an unconsidered way of +entertaining his sitters, without much expenditure to himself; he +pursued a fantastic habit of talk to keep their blood moving, and did it +with the eye of the mind unswervingly on his work. "If I were you, I'd +do it. I'd write an essay on the muscular habit of courage. Your coward +is born weak-kneed. He shouldn't spill himself all over the place trying +to put on the spiritual make-up of a hero. He must simply strengthen +his knees. When they'll take him anywhere he requests, without buckling, +he wakes up and finds himself a field-marshal. _Voilà!_" + +"It isn't bad," said Marshby, unconsciously straightening. "Go ahead, +Jerome. Turn us all into field-marshals." + +"Not all," objected Wilmer, seeming to dash his brush at the canvas with +the large carelessness that promised his best work. "The jobs wouldn't +go round. But I don't feel the worse for it when I see the recruity +stepping out, promotion in his eye." + +After the sitting, Wilmer went yawning forward, and with a hand on +Marshby's shoulder, took him to the door. + +"Can't let you look at the thing," he said, as Marshby gave one backward +glance. "That's against the code. Till it's done, no eye touches it but +mine and the light of heaven." + +Marshby had no curiosity. He smiled, and thereafter let the picture +alone, even to the extent of interested speculation. Mary had +scrupulously absented herself from that first sitting; but after it was +over and Marshby had gone home, Wilmer found her in the garden, under an +apple-tree, shelling pease. He lay down on the ground, at a little +distance, and watched her. He noted the quick, capable turn of her +wrist and the dexterous motion of the brown hands as they snapped out +the pease, and he thought how eminently sweet and comfortable it would +be to take this bit of his youth back to France with him, or even to +give up France and grow old with her at home. + +"Mary," said he, "I sha'n't paint any picture of you this summer." + +Mary laughed, and brushed back a yellow lock with the back of her hand. +"No," said she, "I suppose not. Aunt Celia spoke of it yesterday. She +told me the reason." + +"What is Aunt Celia's most excellent theory?" + +"She said I'm not so likely as I used to be." + +"No," said Jerome, not answering her smile in the community of mirth +they always had over Aunt Celia's simple speech. He rolled over on the +grass and began to make a dandelion curl. "No, that's not it. You're a +good deal likelier than you used to be. You're all possibilities now. I +could make a Madonna out of you, quick as a wink. No, it's because I've +decided to paint Marshby instead." + +Mary's hands stilled themselves, and she looked at him anxiously. "Why +are you doing that?" she asked. + +"Don't you want the picture?" + +"What are you going to do with it?" + +"Give it to you, I guess. For a wedding-present, Mary." + +"You mustn't say those things," said Mary, gravely. She went on working, +but her face was serious. + +"It's queer, isn't it," remarked Wilmer, after a pause, "this notion +you've got that Marshby's the only one that could possibly do? I began +asking you first." + +"Please!" said Mary. Her eyes were full of tears. That was rare for her, +and Wilmer saw it meant a shaken poise. She was less certain to-day of +her own fate. It made her more responsively tender toward his. He sat up +and looked at her. + +"No," he said. "No. I won't ask you again. I never meant to. Only I have +to speak of it once in a while. We should have such a tremendously good +time together." + +"We have a tremendously good time now," said Mary, the smile coming +while she again put up the back of her hand and brushed her eyes. "When +you're good." + +"When I help all the other little boys at the table, and don't look at +the nice heart-shaped cake I want myself? It's frosted, and got little +pink things all over the top. There! don't drop the corners of your +mouth. If I were asked what kind of a world I'd like to live in, I'd say +one where the corners of Mary's mouth keep quirked up all the time. +Let's talk about Marshby's picture. It's going to be your Marshby." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Not Marshby's Marshby--yours." + +"You're not going to play some dreadful joke on him?" Her eyes were +blazing under knotted brows. + +"Mary!" Wilmer spoke gently, and though the tone recalled her, she could +not forbear at once, in her hurt pride and loyalty. + +"You're not going to put him into any masquerade?--to make him anything +but what he is?" + +"Mary, don't you think that's a little hard on an old chum?" + +"I can't help it." Her cheeks were hot, though now it was with shame. +"Yes, I am mean, jealous, envious. I see you with everything at your +feet--" + +"Not quite everything," said Jerome. "I know it makes you hate me." + +"No! no!" The real woman had awakened in her, and she turned to him in a +whole-hearted honesty. "Only, they say you do such wizard things when +you paint. I never saw any of your pictures, you know, except the ones +you did of me. And they're not _me_. They're lovely--angels with women's +clothes on. Aunt Celia says if I looked like that I'd carry all before +me. But, you see, you've always been--partial to me." + +"And you think I'm not partial to Marshby?" + +"It isn't that. It's only that they say you look inside people and drag +out what is there. And inside him--oh, you'd see his hatred of himself!" +The tears were rolling unregarded down her face. + +"This is dreadful," said Wilmer, chiefly to himself. "Dreadful." + +"There!" said Mary, drearily, emptying the pods from her apron into the +basket at her side. "I suppose I've done it now. I've spoiled the +picture." + +"No," returned Jerome, thoughtfully, "you haven't spoiled the picture. +Really I began it with a very definite conception of what I was going to +do. It will be done in that way or not at all." + +"You're very kind," said Mary, humbly. "I didn't mean to act like +this." + +"No,"--he spoke out of a maze of reflection, not looking at her. "You +have an idea he's under the microscope with me. It makes you nervous." + +She nodded, and then caught herself up. + +"There's nothing you mightn't see," she said, proudly, ignoring her +previous outburst. "You or anybody else, even with a microscope." + +"No, of course not. Only you'd say microscopes aren't fair. Well, +perhaps they're not. And portrait-painting is a very simple matter. It's +not the black art. But if I go on with this, you are to let me do it in +my own way. You're not to look at it." + +"Not even when you're not at work?" + +"Not once, morning, noon, or night, till I invite you to. You were +always a good fellow, Mary. You'll keep your word." + +"No, I won't look at it," said Mary. + +Thereafter she stayed away from the barn, not only when he was painting, +but at other times, and Wilmer missed her. He worked very fast, and made +his plans for sailing, and Aunt Celia loudly bemoaned his stinginess in +cutting short the summer. One day, after breakfast, he sought out Mary +again in the garden. She was snipping Coreopsis for the dinner table, +but she did it absently, and Jerome noted the heaviness of her eyes. + +"What's the trouble?" he asked, abruptly, and she was shaken out of her +late constraint. She looked up at him with a piteous smile. + +"Nothing much," she said. "It doesn't matter. I suppose it's fate. He +has written his letter." + +"Marshby?" + +"You knew he got his appointment?" + +"No; I saw something had him by the heels, but he's been still as a +fish." + +"It came three days ago. He has decided not to take it. And it will +break his heart." + +"It will break your heart," Wilmer opened his lips to say; but he dared +not jostle her mood of unconsidered frankness. + +"I suppose I expected it," she went on. "I did expect it. Yet he's been +so different lately, it gave me a kind of hope." + +Jerome started. "How has he been different?" he asked. + +"More confident, less doubtful of himself. It's not anything he has +said. It's in his speech, his walk. He even carries his head +differently, as if he had a right to. Well, we talked half the night +last night, and he went home to write the letter. He promised me not to +mail it till he'd seen me once more; but nothing will make any +difference." + +"You won't beseech him?" + +"No. He is a man. He must decide." + +"You won't tell him what depends on it!" + +"Nothing depends on it," said Mary, calmly. "Nothing except his own +happiness. I shall find mine in letting him accept his life according to +his own free will." + +There was something majestic in her mental attitude. Wilmer felt how +noble her maturity was to be, and told himself, with a thrill of pride, +that he had done well to love her. + +"Marshby is coming," he said. "I want to show you both the picture." + +Mary shook her head. "Not this morning," she told him, and he could see +how meagre canvas and paint must seem to her after her vision of the +body of life. But he took her hand. + +"Come," he said, gently; "you must." + +Still holding her flowers, she went with him, though her mind abode with +her lost cause. Marshby halted when he saw them coming, and Jerome had +time to look at him. The man held himself wilfully erect, but his face +betrayed him. It was haggard, smitten. He had not only met defeat; he +had accepted it. Jerome nodded to him and went on before them to the +barn. The picture stood there in a favoring light. Mary caught her +breath sharply, and then all three were silent. Jerome stood there +forgetful of them, his eyes on his completed work, and for the moment he +had in it the triumph of one who sees intention, brought to fruitage +under perfect auspices. It meant more to him, that recognition, than any +glowing moment of his youth. The scroll of his life unrolled before him, +and he saw his past, as other men acclaimed it, running into the future +ready for his hand to make. A great illumination touched the days to +come. Brilliant in promise, they were yet barren of hope. For as surely +as he had been able to set this seal on Mary's present, he saw how the +thing itself would separate them. He had painted her ideal of Marshby; +but whenever in the future she should nurse the man through the mental +sickness bound always to delay his march, she would remember this moment +with a pang, as something Jerome had dowered him with, not something he +had attained unaided. Marshby faced them from the canvas, erect, +undaunted, a soldier fronting the dawn, expectant of battle, yet with no +dread of its event. He was not in any sense alien to himself. He +dominated, not by crude force, but through the sustained inward strength +of him. It was not youth Jerome had given him. There was maturity in the +face. It had its lines--the lines that are the scars of battle; but +somehow not one suggested, even to the doubtful mind, a battle lost. +Jerome turned from the picture to the man himself, and had his own +surprise. Marshby was transfigured. He breathed humility and hope. He +stirred at Wilmer's motion. + +"Am I"--he glowed--"could I have looked like that?" Then in the +poignancy of the moment he saw how disloyal to the moment it was even to +hint at what should have been, without snapping the link now into the +welding present. He straightened himself and spoke brusquely, but to +Mary: + +"I'll go back and write that letter. Here is the one I wrote last +night." + +He took it from his pocket, tore it in two, and gave it to her. Then he +turned away and walked with the soldier's step home. Jerome could not +look at her. He began moving back the picture. + +"There!" he said, "it's finished. Better make up your mind where you'll +have it put. I shall be picking up my traps this morning." + +Then Mary gave him his other surprise. Her hands were on his shoulders. +Her eyes, full of the welling gratitude that is one kind of love, spoke +like her lips. + +"Oh!" said she, "do you think I don't know what you've done? I couldn't +take it from anybody else. I couldn't let him take it. It's like +standing beside him in battle; like lending him your horse, your sword. +It's being a comrade. It's helping him fight. And he _will_ fight. +That's the glory of it!" + + + + +The Bitter Cup + +BY CHARLES B. DE CAMP + + +Clara Leeds sat by the open window of her sitting-room with her fancy +work. Her hair was done up in an irreproachable style, and her +finger-nails were carefully manicured and pink like little shells. She +had a slender waist, and looked down at it from time to time with +satisfied eyes. At the back of her collar was a little burst of chiffon; +for chiffon so arranged was the fashion. She cast idle glances at the +prospect from the window. It was not an alluring one--a row of brick +houses with an annoying irregularity of open and closed shutters. + +There was the quiet rumble of a carriage in the street, and Clara Leeds +leaned forward, her eyes following the vehicle until to look further +would have necessitated leaning out of the window. There were two women +in the carriage, both young and soberly dressed. To certain eyes they +might have appeared out of place in a carriage, and yet, somehow, it was +obvious that it was their own. Clara Leeds resumed her work, making +quick, jerky stitches. + +"Clara Leeds," she murmured, as if irritated. She frowned and then +sighed. "If only--if only it was something else; if it only had two +syllables...." She put aside her work and went and stood before the +mirror of her dresser. She looked long at her face. It was fresh and +pretty, and her blue eyes, in spite of their unhappy look, were clear +and shining. She fingered a strand of hair, and then cast critical +sidelong glances at her profile. She smoothed her waist-line with a +movement peculiar to women. Then she tilted the glass and regarded the +reflection from head to foot. + +"Oh, what is it?" she demanded, distressed, of herself in the glass. She +took up her work again. + +"They don't seem to care how they look and ... they do wear shabby +gloves and shoes." So her thoughts ran. "But they are the Rockwoods and +they don't have to care. It must be so easy for them; they only have to +visit the Day Nursery, and the Home for Incurables, and some old, poor, +sick people. They never have to meet them and ask them to dinner. They +just say a few words and leave some money or things in a nice way, and +they can go home and do what they please." Clara Leeds's eyes rested +unseeingly on the house opposite. "It must be nice to have a rector ... +he is such an intellectual-looking man, so quiet and dignified; just the +way a minister should be, instead of like Mr. Copple, who tries to be +jolly and get up sociables and parlor meetings." There were tears in the +girl's eyes. + +A tea-bell rang, and Clara went down-stairs to eat dinner with her +father. He had just come in and was putting on a short linen coat. +Clara's mother was dead. She was the only child at home, and kept house +for her father. + +"I suppose you are all ready for the lawn-tennis match this afternoon?" +said Mr. Leeds to his daughter. "Mr. Copple said you were going to play +with him. My! that young man is up to date. Think of a preacher getting +up a lawn-tennis club! Why, when I was a young man that would have +shocked people out of their boots. But it's broad-minded, it's +broad-minded," with a wave of the hand. "I like to see a man with ideas, +and if lawn-tennis will help to keep our boys out of sin's pathway, +why, then, lawn-tennis is a strong, worthy means of doing the Lord's +work." + +"Yes," said Clara. "Did Mr. Copple say he would call for me? It isn't +necessary." + +"Oh yes, yes," said her father; "he said to tell you he would be around +here at two o'clock. I guess I'll have to go over myself and see part of +the athletics. We older folks ain't quite up to taking a hand in the +game, but we can give Copple our support by looking in on you and +cheering on the good work." + +After dinner Mr. Leeds changed the linen coat for a cutaway and started +back to his business. Clara went up-stairs and put on a short skirt and +tennis shoes. She again surveyed herself in the mirror. The skirt +certainly hung just like the model. She sighed and got out her +tennis-racquet. Then she sat down and read in a book of poems that she +was very fond of. + +At two o'clock the bell jangled, and Clara opened the door for Mr. +Copple herself. The clergyman was of slight build, and had let the hair +in front of his ears grow down a little way on his cheeks. He wore a +blue yachting-cap, and white duck trousers which were rolled up and +displayed a good deal of red and black sock. For a moment Clara imaged a +clear-cut face with grave eyes above a length of clerical waistcoat, on +which gleamed a tiny gold cross suspended from a black cord. + +"I guess we might as well go over," she said. "I'm all ready." + +The clergyman insisted on carrying Clara's racquet. "You are looking +very well," he said, somewhat timidly, but with admiring eyes. "But +perhaps you don't feel as much like playing as you look." + +"Oh yes, I do indeed," replied Clara, inwardly resenting the solicitude +in his tone. + +They set out, and the clergyman appeared to shake his mind free of a +preoccupation. + +"I hope all the boys will be around," he said, with something of +anxiety. "They need the exercise. All young, active fellows ought to +have it. I spoke to Mr. Goodloe and Mr. Sharp and urged them to let Tom +and Fred Martin off this afternoon. I think they will do it. Ralph +Carpenter, I'm afraid, can't get away from the freight-office, but I am +in hopes that Mr. Stiggins can take his place. Did you know that Mrs. +Thompson has promised to donate some lemonade?" + +"That's very nice," said Clara. "It's a lovely day for the match." She +was thinking, "What short steps he takes!" + +After some silent walking the clergyman said: "I don't believe you know, +Miss Leeds, how much I appreciate your taking part in these tennis +matches. Somehow I feel that it is asking a great deal of you, for I +know that you have--er--so many interests of your own--that is, you are +different in many ways from most of our people. I want you to know that +I am grateful for the influence--your cooperation, you know--" + +"Please, Mr. Copple, don't mention it," said Clara, hurriedly. "I +haven't so many interests as you imagine, and I am not any different +from the rest of the people. Not at all." If there was any hardness in +the girl's tone the clergyman did not appear to notice it. They had +reached their destination. + +The tennis-court was on the main street just beyond the end of the +business section. It was laid out on a vacant lot between two brick +houses. A wooden sign to one side of the court announced, "First ---- +Church Tennis Club." When Clara and Mr. Copple arrived at the court +there were a number of young people gathered in the lot. Most of them +had tennis-racquets, those of the girls being decorated with bows of +yellow, black, and lavender ribbon. Mr. Copple shook hands with +everybody, and ran over the court several times, testing the consistency +of the earth. + +"Everything is capital!" he cried. + +Clara Leeds bowed to the others, shaking hands with only one or two. +They appeared to be afraid of her. The finals in the men's singles were +between Mr. Copple and Elbert Dunklethorn, who was called "Ellie." He +wore a very high collar, and as his shoes had heels, he ran about the +court on his toes. + +Clara, watching him, recalled her father's words at dinner. "How will +this save that boy from sin's pathway?" she thought. She regarded the +clergyman; she recognized his zeal. But why, why must she be a part of +this--what was it?--this system of saving people and this kind of +people? If she could only go and be good to poor and unfortunate people +whom she wouldn't have to know. Clara glanced toward the street. "I hope +they won't come past," she said to herself. + +The set in which Clara and the clergyman were partners was the most +exciting of the afternoon. The space on either side of the court was +quite filled with spectators. Some of the older people who had come with +the lengthening shadows sat on chairs brought from the kitchens of the +adjoining houses. Among them was Mr. Leeds, his face animated. Whenever +a ball went very high up or very far down the lot, he cried, "Hooray!" +Clara was at the net facing the street, when the carriage she had +observed in the morning stopped in view, and the two soberly dressed +women leaned forward to watch the play. Clara felt her face burn, and +when they cried "game," she could not remember whether the clergyman and +she had won it or lost it. She was chiefly conscious of her father's +loud "hoorays." With the end of the play the carriage was driven on. + +Shortly before supper-time that evening Clara went to the drug-store to +buy some stamps. One of the Misses Rockwood was standing by the +show-case waiting for the clerk to wrap up a bottle. Clara noted the +scantily trimmed hat and the scuffed gloves. She nodded in response to +Miss Rockwood's bow. They had met but once. + +"That was a glorious game of tennis you were having this afternoon," +said Miss Rockwood, with a warm smile. "My sister and I should like to +have seen more of it. You all seemed to be having such a good time." + +"_You all_--" + +Clara fumbled her change. "It's--it's good exercise," she said. That +night she cried herself to sleep. + + +II + +The rector married the younger Miss Rockwood. To Clara Leeds the match +afforded painfully pleasurable feeling. It was so eminently fitting; and +yet it was hard to believe that any man could see anything in Miss +Rockwood. His courtship had been in keeping with the man, dignified and +yet bold. Clara had met them several times together. She always hurried +past. The rector bowed quietly. He seemed to say to all the world, "I +have chosen me a woman." His manner defied gossip; there was none that +Clara heard. This immunity of theirs distilled the more bitterness in +her heart because gossip was now at the heels of her and Mr. Copple, +following them as chickens do the feed-box. She knew it from such +transmissions as, "But doubtless Mr. Copple has already told you," or, +"You ought to know, if any one does." + +It had been some time apparent to Clara that the minister held her in a +different regard from the other members of his congregation. His talks +with her were more personal; his manner was bashfully eager. He sought +to present the congeniality of their minds. Mr. Copple had a nice taste +in poetry, but somehow Clara, in after-reading, skipped those poems that +he had read aloud to her. On several occasions she knew that a +declaration was imminent. She extricated herself with a feeling of +unspeakable relief. It would not be a simple matter to refuse him. Their +relations had been peculiar, and to tell him that she did not love him +would not suffice in bringing them to an end. Mr. Copple was odious to +her. She could not have explained why clearly, yet she knew. And she +would have blushed in the attempt to explain why; it would have revealed +a detestation of her lot. Clara had lately discovered the meaning of the +word "plebeian"; more, she believed she comprehended its applicableness. +The word was a burr in her thoughts. Mr. Copple was the personification +of the word. Clara had not repulsed him. You do not do that sort of +thing in a small town. She knew intuitively that the clergyman would +not be satisfied with the statement that he was not loved. She also knew +that he would extract part, at least, of the real reason from her. It is +more painful for a lover to learn that he is not liked than that he is +not loved. Clara did not wish to cause him pain. + +She was spared the necessity. The minister fell from a scaffolding on +the new church and was picked up dead. + +Clara's position was pitiful. Sudden death does not grow less shocking +because of its frequency. Clara shared the common shock, but not the +common grief. Fortunately, as hers was supposed to be a peculiar grief, +she could manifest it in a peculiar way. She chose silence. The shock +had bereft her of much thought. Death had laid a hand over the mouth of +her mind. But deep down a feeling of relief swam in her heart. She gave +it no welcome, but it would take no dismissal. + +About a week after the funeral, Clara, who walked out much alone, was +returning home near the outskirts of town. The houses were far apart, +and between them stretched deep lots fringed with flowered weeds +man-high. A level sun shot long golden needles through the blanched +maple-trees, and the street beneath them was filled with lemon-colored +light. The roll of a light vehicle approaching from behind grew distinct +enough to attract Clara's attention. "It is Mrs. Custer coming back from +the Poor Farm," she thought. It was Mrs. Everett Custer, who was +formerly the younger Miss Rockwood, and she was coming from the Poor +Farm. The phaeton came into Clara's sight beside her at the curb. As she +remarked it, Mrs. Custer said, in her thin, sympathetic voice, "Miss +Leeds, won't you drive with me back to town? I wish you would." + +An excuse rose instinctively to Clara's lips. She was walking for +exercise. But suddenly a thought came to her, and after a moment's +hesitation, she said: "You are very kind. I am a little tired." She got +into the phaeton, and the sober horse resumed his trot down the yellow +street. + +Clara's thought was: "Why shouldn't I accept? She is too well bred to +sympathize with me, and perhaps, now that I am free, I can get to know +her and show her that I am not just the same as all the rest, and +perhaps I'll get to going with her sort of people." + +She listened to the rhythm of the horse's hoof-beats, and was not a +little uneasy. Mrs. Custer remarked the beauty of the late afternoon, +the glorious symphonies of color in sky and tree, in response to which +Clara said, "Yes, indeed," and, "Isn't it?" between long breaths. She +was about to essay a question concerning the Poor Farm, when Mrs. Custer +began to speak, at first faltering, in a tone that sent the blood out of +Clara's face and drew a sudden catching pain down her breast. + +"I--really, Miss Leeds, I want to say something to you and I don't quite +know how to say it, and yet it is something I want very much for you to +know." Mrs. Custer's eyes looked the embarrassment of unencouraged +frankness. "I know it is presumptuous for me, almost a stranger, to +speak to you, but I feel so deeply on the matter--Everett--Mr. Custer +feels so deeply--My dear Miss Leeds, I want you to know what a grief his +loss was to us. Oh, believe me, I am not trying to sympathize with you. +I have no right to do that. But if you could know how Mr. Custer always +regarded Mr. Copple! It might mean something to you to know that. I +don't think there was a man for whom he expressed greater +admiration--than what, I mean, he expressed to me. He saw in him all +that he lacked himself. I am telling you a great deal. It is difficult +for my husband to go among men in that way--in the way _he_ did. And +yet he firmly believes that the Kingdom of God can only be brought to +men by the ministers of God going among them and being of them. He +envied Mr. Copple his ability to do that, to know his people as one of +them, to take part in their--their sports and all that. You don't know +how he envied him and admired him. And his admiration was my admiration. +He brought me to see it. I envied you, too--your opportunity to help +your people in an intimate, real way which seemed so much better than +mine. I don't know why it is my way, but I mean going about as I do, as +I did to-day to the Poor Farm. It seems so perfunctory. + +"Don't misunderstand me, Miss Leeds," and Mrs. Custer laid a hand on +Clara's arm. "There is no reason why you should care what Mr. Custer and +I think about your--about our--all our very great loss. But I felt that +it must be some comfort for you to know that we, my husband and I, who +might seem indifferent--not that--say unaffected by what has +happened,--feel it very, very deeply; and to know that his life, which I +can't conceive of as finished, has left a deep, deep print on ours." + +The phaeton was rolling through frequented streets. It turned a corner +as Mrs. Custer ceased speaking. + +"I--I must get out here," said Clara Leeds. "You needn't drive me. It is +only a block to walk." + +"Miss Leeds, forgive me--" Mrs. Custer's lips trembled with compassion. + +"Oh, there isn't anything--it isn't that--good night." Clara backed down +to the street and hurried off through the dusk. And as she went tears +dropped slowly to her cheeks--cold, wretched tears. + + + + +His Sister + +BY MARY APPLEWHITE BACON + + +"But you couldn't see me leave, mother, anyway, unless I was there to +go." + +It was characteristic of the girl adjusting her new travelling-hat +before the dim little looking-glass that, while her heart was beating +with excitement which was strangely like grief, she could give herself +at once to her stepmother's inquietude and turn it aside with a jest. + +Mrs. Morgan, arrested in her anxious movement towards the door, stood +for a moment taking in the reasonableness of Stella's proposition, and +then sank back to the edge of her chair. "The train gets here at two +o'clock," she argued. + +Lindsay Cowart came into the room, his head bent over the satchel he had +been mending. "You had better say good-by to Stella here at the house, +mother," he suggested; "there's no use for you to walk down to the depot +in the hot sun." And then he noticed that his stepmother had on her +bonnet with the veil to it--she had married since his father's death and +was again a widow,--and, in extreme disregard of the September heat, was +dressed in the black worsted of a diagonal weave which she wore only on +occasions which demanded some special tribute to their importance. + +She began smoothing out on her knees the black gloves which, in her +nervous haste to be going, she had been holding squeezed in a tight ball +in her left hand. "I can get there, I reckon," she answered with mild +brevity, and as if the young man's words had barely grazed her +consciousness. + +A moment later she went to the window and, with her back to Lindsay, +poured the contents of a small leather purse into one hand and began to +count them softly. + +He looked up again. "I am going to pay for Stella's ticket, mother. You +must not do it," he said. + +She replaced the money immediately, but without impatience, and as +acquiescing in his assumption of his sister's future. "You have done so +much already," he apologized; but he knew that she was hurt, and chafed +to feel that only the irrational thing on his part would have seemed to +her the kind one. + +Stella turned from the verdict of the dim looking-glass upon her +appearance to that of her brother's face. As she stood there in that +moment of pause, she might have been the type of all innocent and +budding life. The delicacy of floral bloom was in the fine texture of +her skin, the purple of dewy violets in her soft eyes; and this new +access of sadness, which was as yet hardly conscious of itself, had +thrown over the natural gayety of her young girlhood something akin to +the pathetic tenderness which veils the earth in the dawn of a summer +morning. + +He felt it to be so, but dimly; and, young himself and already strained +by the exactions of personal desires, he answered only the look of +inquiry in her face,--"Will the merchants here never learn any taste in +dry-goods?" + +Instantly he was sick with regret. Of what consequence was the too +pronounced blue of her dress in comparison with the light of happiness +in her dear face? How impossible for him to be here for even these few +hours without running counter to some cherished illusion or dear habit +of speech or manner. + +"I tell you it's time we were going," Mrs. Morgan appealed, her anxiety +returning. + +"We have thirty-five minutes yet," Lindsay said, looking at his watch; +but he gathered up the bags and umbrellas and followed as she moved +ponderously to the door. + +Stella waited until they were out in the hall, and then looked around +the room, a poignant tenderness in her eyes. There was nothing congruous +between its shabby walls and cheap worn furniture and her own beautiful +young life; but the heart establishes its own relations, and tears rose +suddenly to her eyes and fell in quick succession. Even so brief a +farewell was broken in upon by her stepmother's call, and pressing her +wet cheek for a moment against the discolored door-facing, she hurried +out to join her. + +Lindsay did not at first connect the unusual crowd in and around the +little station with his sister's departure; but the young people at once +formed a circle around her, into which one and another older person +entered and retired again with about the same expressions of +affectionate regret and good wishes. He had known them all so long! But, +except for the growing up of the younger boys and girls during his five +years of absence, they were to him still what they had been since he was +a child, affecting him still with the old depressing sense of distance +and dislike. The grammarless speech of the men, the black-rimmed nails +of Stella's schoolmaster--a good classical scholar, but heedless as he +was good-hearted,--jarred upon him, indeed, with the discomfort of a new +experience. Upon his own slender, erect figure, clothed in poor but +well-fitting garments, gentleman was written as plainly as in words, +just as idealist was written on his forehead and the other features +which thought had chiselled perhaps too finely for his years. + +The brightness had come back to Stella's face, and he could not but feel +grateful to the men who had left their shops and dingy little stores to +bid her good-by, and to the placid, kindly-faced women ranged along the +settees against the wall and conversing in low tones about how she would +be missed; but the noisy flock of young people, who with their chorus of +expostulations, assurances, and prophecies seemed to make her one of +themselves, filled him with strong displeasure. He knew how foolish it +would be for him to show it, but he could get no further in his effort +at concealment than a cold silence which was itself significant enough. +A tall youth with bold and handsome features and a pretty girl in a +showy red muslin ignored him altogether, with a pride which really quite +overmatched his own; but the rest shrank back a little as he passed +looking after the checks and tickets, either cutting short their +sentences at his approach or missing the point of what they had to say. +The train seemed to him long in coming. + +His stepmother moved to the end of the settee and made a place for him +at her side. "Lindsay," she said, under cover of the talk and laughter, +and speaking with some difficulty, "I hope you will be able to carry out +all your plans for yourself and Stella; but while you're making the +money, she will have to make the friends. Don't you ever interfere with +her doing it. From what little I have seen of the world, it's going to +take both to carry you through." + +His face flushed a little, but he recognized her faithfulness and did it +honor. "That is true, mother, and I will remember what you say. But I +have some friends," he added, in enforced self-vindication, "in Vaucluse +if not here." + +A whistle sounded up the road. She caught his hand with a swift +accession of tenderness towards his youth. "You've done the best you +could, Lindsay," she said. "I wish you well, my son, I wish you well." +There were tears in her eyes. + +George Morrow and the girl in red followed Stella into the car, not at +all disconcerted at having to get off after the train was in motion. +"Don't forget me, Stella," the girl called back. "Don't you ever forget +Ida Brand!" + +There was a waving of hands and handkerchiefs from the little station, +aglare in the early afternoon sun. A few moments later the train had +rounded a curve, shutting the meagre village from sight, and, to Lindsay +Cowart's thought, shutting it into a remote past as well. + +He arose and began rearranging their luggage. "Do you want these?" he +inquired, holding up a bouquet of dahlias, scarlet sage, and purple +petunias, and thinking of only one answer as possible. + +"I will take them," she said, as he stood waiting her formal consent to +drop them from the car window. Her voice was quite as usual, but +something in her face suggested to him that this going away from her +childhood's home might be a different thing to her from what he had +conceived it to be. He caught the touch of tender vindication in her +manner as she untied the cheap red ribbon which held the flowers +together and rearranged them into two bunches so that the jarring colors +might no longer offend, and felt that the really natural thing for her +to do was to weep, and that she only restrained her tears for his sake. +Sixteen was so young! His heart grew warm and brotherly towards her +youth and inexperience; but, after all, how infinitely better that she +should have cause for this passing sorrow. + +He left her alone, but not for long. He was eager to talk with her of +the plans about which he had been writing her the two years since he +himself had been a student at Vaucluse, of the future which they should +achieve together. It seemed to him only necessary for him to show her +his point of view to have her adopt it as her own; and he believed, +building on her buoyancy and responsiveness of disposition, that nothing +he might propose would be beyond the scope of her courage. + +"It may be a little lonely for you at first," he told her. "There are +only a handful of women students at the college, and all of them much +older than you; but it is your studies at last that are the really +important thing, and I will help you with them all I can. Mrs. Bancroft +will have no other lodgers and there will be nothing to interrupt our +work." + +"And the money, Lindsay?" she asked, a little anxiously. + +"What I have will carry us through this year. Next summer we can teach +and make almost enough for the year after. The trustees are planning to +establish a fellowship in Greek, and if they do and I can secure it--and +Professor Wayland thinks I can,--that will make us safe the next two +years until you are through." + +"And then?" + +He straightened up buoyantly. "Then your two years at Vassar and mine at +Harvard, with some teaching thrown in along the way, of course. And then +Europe--Greece--all the great things!" + +She smiled with him in his enthusiasm. "You are used to such bold +thoughts. It is too high a flight for me all at once." + +"It will not be, a year from now," he declared, confidently. + +A silence fell between them, and the noise of the train made a pleasant +accompaniment to his thoughts as he sketched in detail the work of the +coming months. But always as a background to his hopes was that +honorable social position which he meant eventually to achieve, the +passion for which was a part of his Southern inheritance. Little as he +had yet participated in any interests outside his daily tasks, he had +perceived in the old college town its deeply grained traditions of birth +and custom, perceived and respected them, and discounted the more their +absence in the sorry village he had left. Sometime when he should assail +it, the exclusiveness of his new environment might beat him back +cruelly, but thus far it existed for him only as a barrier to what was +ultimately precious and desirable. One day the gates would open at his +touch, and he and the sister of his heart should enter their rightful +heritage. + +The afternoon waned. He pointed outside the car window. "See how +different all this is from the part of the State which we have left," he +said. "The landscape is still rural, but what mellowness it has; because +it has been enriched by a larger, more generous human life. One can +imagine what this whole section must have been in those old days, before +the coming of war and desolation. And Vaucluse was the flower, the +centre of it all!" His eye kindled. "Some day external prosperity will +return, and then Vaucluse and her ideals will be needed more than ever; +it is she who must hold in check the commercial spirit, and dominate, as +she has always done, the material with the intellectual." There was a +noble emotion in his face, reflecting itself in the younger countenance +beside his own. Poor, young, unknown, their hearts thrilled with pride +in their State, with the possibility that they also should give to her +of their best when the opportunity should be theirs. + +"It is a wonderful old town," Lindsay went on again. "Even Wayland says +so,--our Greek professor, you know." His voice thrilled with the +devotion of the hero-worshipper as he spoke the name. "He is a Harvard +man, and has seen the best of everything, and even he has felt the charm +of the place; he told me so. You will feel it, too. It is just as if the +little town and the college together had preserved in amber all that was +finest in our Southern life. And now to think you and I are to share in +all its riches!" + +His early consecration to such a purpose, the toil and sacrifice by +which it had been achieved, came movingly before her; yet, mingled with +her pride in him, something within her pleaded for the things which he +rated so low. "It used to be hard for you at home, Lindsay," she said, +softly. + +"Yes, it was hard." His face flushed. "I never really lived till I left +there. I was like an animal caught in a net, like a man struggling for +air. You can't know what it is to me now to be with people who are +thinking of something else than of how to make a few dollars in a +miserable country store." + +"But they were good people in Bowersville, Lindsay," she urged, with +gentle loyalty. + +"I am sure they were, if you say so," he agreed. "But at any rate we are +done with it all now." He laid his hand over hers. "At last I am going +to take you into our own dear world." + +It was, after all, a very small world as to its actual dimensions, but +to the brother it had the largeness of opportunity, and to Stella it +seemed infinitely complex. She found security at first only in following +minutely the programme which Lindsay had laid out for her. It was his +own as well, and simple enough. Study was the supreme thing; exercise +came in as a necessity, pleasure only as the rarest incident. She took +all things cheerfully, after her nature, but after two or three months +the color began to go from her cheeks, the elasticity from her step; nor +was her class standing, though creditable, quite what her brother had +expected it to be. + +Wayland detained him one day in his class-room. "Do you think your +sister is quite happy here, Cowart?" he asked. + +The boy thrilled, as he always did at any special evidence of interest +from such a source, but he had never put this particular question to +himself and had no reply at hand. + +"I have never thought this absolute surrender to books the wisest thing +for you," Wayland went on; "but for your sister it is impossible. She +was formed for companionship, for happiness, not for the isolation of +the scholar. Why did you not put her into one of the girls' schools of +the State, where she would have had associations more suited to her +years?" he asked, bluntly. + +Lindsay could scarcely believe that he was listening to the young +professor whose scholarly attainments seemed to him the sum of what was +most desirable in life. "Our girls' colleges are very superficial," he +answered; "and even if they were not, she could get no Greek in any of +them." + +"My dear boy," Wayland said, "the amount of Greek which your sister +knows or doesn't know will always be a very unimportant matter; she has +things that are so infinitely more valuable to give to the world. And +deserves so much better things for herself," he added, drawing together +his texts for the next recitation. + +Lindsay returned to Mrs. Bancroft's quiet, old-fashioned house in a sort +of daze. "Stella," he said, "do you think you enter enough into the +social side of our college life?" + +"No," she answered. "But I think neither of us does." + +"Well, leave me out of the count. If I get through my Junior year as I +ought, I am obliged to grind; and when there is any time left, I feel +that I must have it for reading in the library. But it needn't be so +with you. Didn't an invitation come to you for the reception Friday +evening?" + +Her face grew wistful. "I don't care to go to things, Lindsay, unless +you will go with me," she said. + +Nevertheless, he had his way, and when once she made it possible, +opportunities for social pleasures poured in upon her. As Wayland had +said, she was formed for friendship, for joy; and that which was her own +came to her unsought. She was by nature too simple and sweet to be +spoiled by the attention she received; the danger perhaps was the less +because she missed in it all the comradeship of her brother, without +which in her eyes the best things lost something of their charm. It was +not merely personal ambition which kept him at his books; the passion of +the scholar was upon him and made him count all moments lost that were +spent away from them. Sometimes Stella sought him as he pored over them +alone, and putting her arm shyly about him, would beg that he would go +with her for a walk, or a ride on the river; but almost always his +answer was the same: "I am so busy, Stella dear; if you knew how much I +have to do you would not even ask me." + +There was one interruption, indeed, which the young student never +refused. Sometimes their Greek professor dropped in at Mrs. Bancroft's +to bring or to ask for a book; sometimes, with the lovely coming of the +spring, he would join them as they were leaving the college grounds, and +lead them away into some of the woodland walks, rich in wild flowers, +that environed the little town. Such hours seemed to both brother and +sister to have a flavor, a brightness, quite beyond what ordinary life +could give. Wayland, too, must have found in them his own share of +pleasure, for he made them more frequent as the months went by. + + * * * * * + +It was in the early spring of her second year at Vaucluse that the +accident occurred. The poor lad who had taken her out in the boat was +almost beside himself with grief and remorse. + +"We had enjoyed the afternoon so much," he said, trying to tell how it +had happened. "I thought I had never seen her so happy, so gay,--but you +know she was that always. It was nearly sunset, and I remember how she +spoke of the light as we saw it through the open spaces of the woods and +as it slanted across the water. Farther down the river the yellow +jasmine was beginning to open. A beech-tree that leaned out over the +water was hung with it. She wanted some, and I guided the boat under the +branches. I meant to get it for her myself, but she was reaching up +after it almost before I knew it. The bough that had the finest blossoms +on it was just beyond her reach, and while I steadied the boat, she +pulled it towards her by one of the vines hanging from it. She must have +put too much weight on it-- + +"It all happened so quickly. I called to her to be careful, but while I +was saying the words the vine snapped and she fell back with such force +that the boat tipped, and in a second we were both in the water. I knew +I could not swim, but I hoped that the water so near the bank would be +shallow; and it was, but there was a deep hole under the roots of the +tree." + +He could get no further. Poor lad! the wonder was that he had not been +drowned himself. A negro ploughing in the field near by saw the accident +and ran to his help, catching him as he was sinking for the third time. +Stella never rose after she went down; her clothing had been entangled +in the roots of the beech. + +Sorrow for the young life cut off so untimely was deep and universal, +and sought to manifest itself in tender ministrations to the brother so +cruelly bereaved. But Lindsay shrank from all offices of sympathy, and +except for seeking now and then Wayland's silent companionship, bore his +grief alone. + +The college was too poor to establish the fellowship in Greek, but the +adjunct professor in mathematics resigned, and young Cowart was elected +to his place, with the proviso that he give two months further study to +the subject in the summer school of some university. Wayland decided +which by taking him back with him to Cambridge, where he showed the boy +an admirable friendship. + +Lindsay applied himself to his special studies with the utmost +diligence. It was impossible, moreover, that his new surroundings should +not appeal to his tastes in many directions; but in spite of his +response to these larger opportunities, his friend discerned that the +wound which the young man kept so carefully hidden had not, after all +these weeks, begun even slightly to heal. + +Late on an August night, impelled as he often was to share the solitude +which Lindsay affected, he sought him at his lodgings, and not finding +him, followed what he knew was a favorite walk with the boy, and came +upon him half hidden under the shadows of an elm in the woods that +skirted Mount Auburn. "I thought you might be here," he said, taking the +place that Lindsay made for him on the seat. Many words were never +necessary between them. + +The moon was full and the sky cloudless, and for some time they sat in +silence, yielding to the tranquil loveliness of the scene and to that +inner experience of the soul brooding over each, and more inscrutable +than the fathomless vault above them. + +"I suppose we shall never get used to a midnight that is still and at +the same time lustrous, as this is to-night," Wayland said. "The sense +of its uniqueness is as fresh whenever it is spread before us as if we +had never seen it before." + +It was but a part of what he meant. He was thinking how sorrow, the wide +sense of personal loss, was in some way like the pervasiveness, the +voiceless speech, of this shadowed radiance around them. + +He drew a little nearer the relaxed and slender figure beside his own. +"It is of _her_ you are thinking, Lindsay," he said, gently, and +mentioning for the first time the young man's loss. "All that you see +seems saturated with her memory. I think it will always be so--scenes of +exceptional beauty, moments of high emotion, will always bring her +back." + +The boy's response came with difficulty: "Perhaps so. I do not know. I +think the thought of her is always with me." + +"If so, it should be for strength, for comfort," his friend pleaded. +"She herself brought only gladness wherever she came." + +There was something unusual in his voice, something that for a moment +raised a vague questioning in Lindsay's mind; but absorbed as he was in +his own sadness, it eluded his feeble inquiry. To what Wayland had said +he could make no reply. + +"Perhaps it is the apparent waste of a life so beautiful that seems to +you so intolerable--" He felt the strong man's impulse to arrest an +irrational grief, and groped for the assurance he desired. "Yet, +Lindsay, we know things are not wasted; not in the natural world, not in +the world of the spirit." But on the last words his voice lapsed +miserably, and he half rose to go. + +Lindsay caught his arm and drew him back. "Don't go yet," he said, +brokenly. "I know you think it would help me if I would talk +about--Stella; if I should tell it all out to you. I thank you for being +willing to listen. Perhaps it will help me." + +He paused, seeking for some words in which to express the sense of +poverty which scourged him. Of all who had loved his sister, he himself +was left poorest! Others had taken freely of her friendship, had +delighted themselves in her face, her words, her smile, had all these +things for memories. He had been separated from her, in part by the hard +conditions of their youth, and at the last, when they had been together, +by his own will. Oh, what had been her inner life during these last two +years, when it had gone on beside his own, while he was too busy to +attend? + +But the self-reproach was too bitter for utterance to even the kindest +of friends. "I thought I could tell you," he said at last, "but I can't. +Oh, Professor Wayland," he cried, "there is an element in my grief that +is peculiar to itself, that no one else in sorrow ever had!" + +"I think every mourner on earth would say that, Lindsay." Again the +younger man discerned the approach of a mystery, but again he left it +unchallenged. + +The professor rose to his feet. "Good night," he said; "unless you will +go back with me. Even with such moonlight as this, one must sleep." He +had dropped to that kind level of the commonplace by which we spare +ourselves and one another. + + "'Where the love light never, never dies,'" + +The boy's voice ringing out blithely through the drip and dampness of +the winter evening marked his winding route across the college grounds. +Lindsay Cowart, busy at his study table, listened without definite +effort and placed the singer as the lad newly come from the country. He +could have identified any other of the Vaucluse students by connections +as slight--Marchman by his whistling, tender, elusive sounds, flute +notes sublimated, heard only when the night was late and the campus +still; others by tricks of voice, fragments of laughter, by their +footfalls, even, on the narrow brick walk below his study window. Such +the easy proficiency of affection. + +Attention to the lad's singing suddenly was lifted above the +subconscious. The simple melody had entangled itself in some forgotten +association of the professor's boyhood, seeking to marshal which before +him, he received the full force of the single line sung in direct +ear-shot. Like the tune, the words also became a challenge; pricked +through the unregarded heaviness in which he was plying his familiar +task, and demanded that he should name its cause. + +For him the love light of his marriage had been dead so long! No, not +dead; nothing so dignified, so tragic. Burnt down, smoldered; +suffocated by the hateful dust of the commonplace. There was a touch of +contempt in the effort with which he dismissed the matter from his mind +and turned back to his work. And yet, he stopped a moment longer to +think, for him life without the light of love fell so far below its best +achievement! + +The front of his desk was covered with the papers in mathematics over +which he had spent his evenings for more than a week. Most of them had +been corrected and graded, with the somewhat full comment or elucidation +here and there which had made his progress slow. He examined a +half-dozen more, and then in sheer mental revolt against the subject, +slipped them under the rubber bands with others of their kind and +dropped the neat packages out of his sight into one of the drawers of +the desk. Wayland's book on Greece, the fruit of eighteen months' +sojourn there, had come through the mail on the same day when the +calculus papers had been handed in, and he had read it through at once, +not to be teased intolerably by its invitation. He had mastered the +text, avid through the long winter night, but he picked it up again now, +and for a little while studied the sumptuous illustrations. How long +Wayland had been away from Vaucluse, how much of enrichment had come to +him in the years since he had left! He himself might have gone also, to +larger opportunities--he had chosen to remain, held by a sentiment! The +professor closed the book with a little sigh, and taking it to a small +shelf on the opposite side of the room, stood it with a half-dozen +others worthy of such association. + +Returning, he got together before him the few Greek authors habitually +in hand's reach, whether handled or not, and from a compartment of his +desk took out several sheets of manuscript, metrical translations from +favorite passages in the tragedists or the short poems of the Anthology. +Like the rest of the Vaucluse professors--a mere handful they were,--he +was straitened by the hard exactions of class-room work, and the book +which he hoped sometime to publish grew slowly. How far he was in actual +miles from the men who were getting their thoughts into print, how much +farther in environment! Things which to them were the commonplaces of a +scholar's life were to him impossible luxuries; few even of their books +found their way to his shelves. At least the original sources of +inspiration were his, and sometimes he felt that his verses were not +without spirit, flavor. + +He took up a little volume of Theocritus, which opened easily at the +Seventh Idyl, and began to read aloud. Half-way through the poem the +door opened and his wife entered. He did not immediately adjust himself +to the interruption, and she remained standing a few moments in the +centre of the room. + +"Thank you; I believe I will be seated," she said, the sarcasm in her +words carefully excluded from her voice. + +He wondered that she should find interest in so sorry a game. "I thought +you felt enough at home in here to sit down without being asked," he +said, rising, and trying to speak lightly. + +She took the rocking-chair he brought for her and leaned back in it +without speaking. Her maroon-colored evening gown suggested that whoever +planned it had been somewhat straitened by economy, but it did well by +her rich complexion and creditable figure. Her features were creditable +too, the dark hair a little too heavy, perhaps, and the expression, +defined as it is apt to be when one is thirty-five, not wholly +satisfying. In truth, the countenance, like the gown, suffered a little +from economy, a sparseness of the things one loves best in a woman's +face. Half the sensitiveness belonging to her husband's eyes and mouth +would have made her beautiful. + +"It is a pity the Barkers have such a bad night for their party," Cowart +said. + +"The reception is at the Fieldings';" and again he felt himself rebuked. + +"I'm afraid I didn't think much about the matter after you told me the +Dillinghams were coming by for you in their carriage. Fortunately +neither family holds us college people to very strict social account." + +"They have their virtues, even if they are so vulgar as to be rich." + +"Why, I believe I had just been thinking, before you came in, that it is +only the rich who have any virtues at all." He managed to speak +genially, but the consciousness that she was waiting for him to make +conversation, as she had waited for the chair, stiffened upon him like +frost. + +He cast about for something to say, but the one interest which he would +have preferred to keep to himself was all that presented itself to his +grasp. "I have often thought," he suggested, "that if only we were in +sight of the Gulf, our landscape in early summer might not be very +unlike that of ancient Greece." She looked at him a little blankly, and +he drew one of his books nearer and began turning its leaves. + +"I thought you were correcting your mathematics papers." + +"I am, or have been; but I am reading Theocritus, too." + +"Well, I don't see anything in a day like this to make anybody think of +summer. The dampness goes to your very marrow." + +"It isn't the day; it's the poetry. That's the good of there being +poetry." + +She skipped his parenthesis. "And you keep this room as cold as a +vault." Not faultfinding, but a somewhat irritating concern for his +comfort was in the complaint. + +She went to the hearth and in her efficient way shook down the ashes +from the grate and heaped it with coal. A cabinet photograph of a girl +in her early teens, which had the appearance of having just been put +there, was supported against a slender glass vase. Mrs. Cowart took it +up and examined it critically. "I don't think this picture does +Arnoldina justice," she said. "One of the eyes seems to droop a little, +and the mouth looks sad. Arnoldina never did look sad." + +They were on common ground now, and he could speak without constraint. +"I hadn't observed that it looked sad. She seems somehow to have got a +good deal older since September." + +"She is maturing, of course." All a mother's pride and approbation, were +in the reserve of the speech. To have put more definitely her estimate +of the sweet young face would have been a clumsy thing in comparison. + +Lindsay's countenance lighted up. He arose, and standing by his wife, +looked over her shoulder as she held the photograph to the light. "Do +you know, Gertrude," he said, "there is something in her face that +reminds me of Stella?" + +"I don't know that I see it," she answered, indifferently, replacing the +photograph and returning to her chair. The purpose which had brought her +to the room rose to her face. "I stopped at the warehouse this +afternoon," she said, "and had a talk with father. Jamieson really goes +to Mobile--the first of next month. The place is open to you if you want +it." + +"But, Gertrude, how should I possibly want it?" he expostulated. + +"You would be a member of the firm. You might as well be making money as +the rest of them." + +He offered no comment. + +"It is not now like it was when you were made professor. The town has +become a commercial centre and its educational interests have declined. +The professors will always have their social position, of course, but +they cannot hope for anything more." + +"It is not merely Vaucluse, but the South, that is passing into this +phase. But economic independence has become a necessity. When once it is +achieved, our people will turn to higher things." + +"Not soon enough to benefit you and me." + +"Probably not." + +"Then why waste your talents on the college, when the best years of your +life are still before you?" + +"I am not teaching for money, Gertrude." He hated putting into the bald +phrase his consecration to his ideals for the young men of his State; he +hated putting it into words at all; but something in his voice told her +that the argument was finished. + +There was a sound of carriage wheels on the drive. He arose and began to +assist her with her wraps. "It is too bad for you to be dependent on +even such nice escorts as the Dillinghams are," he solaced, recovering +himself. "We college folk are a sorry lot." + +But when she was gone, the mood for composition which an hour before had +seemed so near had escaped him, and he put away his books and +manuscript, standing for a while, a little chilled in mind and body, +before the grate and looking at the photograph on the mantel. While he +did so the haunting likeness he had seen grew more distinct and by +degrees another face overspread that of his young daughter, the face of +the sister he had loved and lost. + +With a sudden impulse he crossed the room to an old-fashioned mahogany +secretary, opened its slanting lid, and unlocking with some difficulty a +small inner drawer, returned with it to his desk. Several packages of +letters tied with faded ribbon filled the small receptacle, but they +struck upon him with the strangeness of something utterly forgotten. The +pieces of ribbon had once held for him each its own association of time +or place; now he could only remember, looking down upon them with tender +gaze, that they had been Stella's, worn in her hair, or at her throat or +waist. Simple and inexpensive he saw they were. Arnoldina would not have +looked at them. + +Overcoming something of reluctance, he took one of the packages from its +place. It contained the letters he had found in her writing-table after +her death, most of them written after she had come to Vaucluse by her +stepmother and the friends she had left in the village. He knew there +was nothing in any of them she would have withheld from him; in reading +them he was merely taking back something from the vanished years which, +if not looked at now, would perish utterly from earth. How affecting +they were--these utterances of true and humble hearts, written to one +equally true and good! His youth and hers in the remote country village +rose before him; not now, as once, pinched and narrow, but as salutary, +even gracious. He could but feel how changed his standards had become +since then, how different his measure of the great and the small of +life. + +Suddenly, as he was thus borne back into the past, the old sorrow sprang +upon him, and he bowed before it. The old bitter cry which he had been +able to utter to no human consoler swept once more to his lips: "Oh, +Stella, Stella, you died before I really knew you; your brother, who +should have known and loved you best! And now it is too late, too +late." + +He sent out as of old his voiceless call to one afar off, in some land +where her whiteness, her budding soul, had found their rightful place; +but even as he did so, his thought of her seemed to be growing clearer. +From that far, reverenced, but unimagined sphere she was coming back to +the range of his apprehension, to comradeship in the life which they +once had shared together. + +He trembled with the hope of a fuller attainment, lifting his bowed head +and taking another package of the letters from their place. Her letters! +He had begged them of her friends in his desperate sense of ignorance, +his longing to make good something of all that he had lost in those last +two years of her life. What an innocent life it was that was spread +before him; and how young,--oh, how young! And it was a happy life. He +was astonished, after all his self-reproach, to realize how happy; to +find himself smiling with her in some girlish drollery such as used to +come so readily to her lips. He could detect, too, how the note of +gladness, how her whole life, indeed, had grown richer in the larger +existence of Vaucluse. At last he could be comforted that, however it +had ended, it was he who had made it hers. + +He had been feeding eagerly, too eagerly, and under the pressure of +emotion was constrained to rise and walk the floor, sinking at last into +his armchair and gazing with unseeing eyes upon the ruddy coals in the +grate. That lovely life, which he had thought could never in its +completeness be his, was rebuilt before his vision from the materials +which she herself had left. What he had believed to be loss, bitter, +unspeakable even to himself, had in these few hours of the night become +wealth. + +His quickened thought moved on from plane to plane. He scanned the +present conditions of his life, and saw with clarified vision how good +they were. What it was given him to do for his students, at least what +he was trying to do for them; the preciousness of their regard; the long +friendship with his colleagues; the associations with the little +community in which his lot was cast, limited in some directions as they +might be; the fair demesne of Greek literature in which his feet were so +much at home; his own literary gift, even if a slender one; his dear, +dear child. + +And Gertrude? Under the invigoration of his mood a situation which had +long seemed unamenable to change resolved itself into new and simpler +proportions. The worthier aspects of his home life, the finer traits of +his wife's character, stood before him as proofs of what might yet be. +His memory had kept no record of the fact that when in the first year of +his youthful sorrow, sick for comfort and believing her all tenderness, +he had married her, to find her impatient of his grief, nor of the many +times since when she had appeared almost wilfully blind to his ideals +and purposes. His judgment held only this, that she had never understood +him. For this he had seldom blamed her; but to-night he blamed himself. +Instead of shrinking away sensitively, keeping the vital part of his +life to himself and making what he could of it alone, he should have set +himself steadily to create a place for it in her understanding and +sympathy. Was not a perfect married love worth the minor sacrifices as +well as the supreme surrender from which he believed that neither of +them would have shrunk? + +He returned to his desk and began to rearrange the contents of the +little drawer. Among them was a small sandalwood box which had been +their mother's, and which Stella had prized with special fondness. He +had never opened it since her death, but as he lifted it now the frail +clasp gave way, the lid fell back, and the contents slipped upon the +desk. They were few: a ring, a thin gold locket containing the +miniatures of their father and mother, a small tintype of himself taken +when he first left home, and two or three notes addressed in a +handwriting which he recognized as Wayland's. He replaced them with +reverent touch, turning away even in thought from what he had never +meant to see. + +By and by he heard in the distance the roll of carriages returning from +the Fieldings' reception. He replenished the fire generously, found a +long cloak in the closet at the end of the hall, and waited the sound of +wheels before his own door. "The rain has grown heavier," he said, +drawing the cloak around his wife as she descended from the carriage. +Something in his manner seemed to envelop her. He brought her into the +study and seated her before the fire. She had expected to find the house +silent; the glow and warmth of the room were grateful after the chill +and darkness outside, her husband's presence after that vague sense of +futility which the evening's gayety had left upon her. + +"I suppose I ought to tell you about the party," she said, a little +wearily; "but if you don't mind, I will wait till breakfast. Everybody +was there, of course, and it was all very fine, as we all knew it would +be. I hope you've enjoyed your Latin poets more." + +"They are Greek, dear," he said. "I have been making translations from +some of them now and then. Some day we will take a day off and then I'll +read them to you. But neither the party nor the poets to-night. See, it +is almost two o'clock." + +"I knew it must be late. But you look as fresh as a child that has just +waked from sleep." + +"Perhaps I have just waked." + +They rose to go up-stairs. "I will go in front and make a light in our +room while you turn off the gas in the hall." + +He paused for a moment after she had gone out and turned to a page in +the Greek Anthology for a single stanza. Shelley's translation was +written in pencil beside it: + + Thou wert the morning star among the living, + Ere thy fair light had fled; + Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus giving + New splendor to the dead. + + + + +The Perfect Year + +BY ELEANOR A. HALLOWELL + + +When Dolly Leonard died, on the night of my _débutante_ party, our +little community was aghast. If I live to be a thousand, I shall never +outgrow the paralyzing shock of that disaster. I think that the girls in +our younger set never fully recovered from it. + +It was six o'clock when we got the news. Things had been jolly and +bustling all the afternoon. The house was filled with florists and +caterers, and I had gone to my room to escape the final responsibilities +of the occasion. There were seven of us girl chums dressing in my room, +and we were lolling round in various stages of lace and ruffles when the +door-bell rang. Partly out of consideration for the tired servants, and +partly out of nervous curiosity incited by the day's influx of presents +and bouquets, I slipped into my pink eider-down wrapper and ran down to +the door. The hall was startlingly sweet with roses. Indeed, the whole +house was a perfect bower of leaf and blossom, and I suppose I did look +elfish as I ran, for a gruff old workman peered up at me and smiled, and +muttered something about "pinky-posy"--and I know it did not seem +impertinent to me at the time. + +At the door, in the chill blast of the night, stood our little old gray +postman with some letters in his hand. "Oh!" I said, disappointed, "just +letters." + +The postman looked at me a trifle queerly--I thought it was my pink +wrapper,--and he said, "Don't worry about 'just letters'; Dolly Leonard +is dead!" + +"Dead?" I gasped. "Dead?" and I remember how I reeled back against the +open door and stared out with horror-stricken eyes across the common to +Dolly Leonard's house, where every window was blazing with calamity. + +"Dead?" I gasped again. "Dead? What happened?" + +The postman eyed me with quizzical fatherliness. "Ask your mother," he +answered, reluctantly, and I turned and groped my way leaden-footed up +the stairs, muttering, "Oh, mother, mother, I don't _need_ to ask you." + +When I got back to my room at last through a tortuous maze of gaping +workmen and sickening flowers, three startled girls jumped up to catch +me as I staggered across the threshold. I did not faint, I did not cry +out. I just sat huddled on the floor rocking myself to and fro, and +mumbling, as through a mouthful of sawdust: "Dolly Leonard is dead. +Dolly Leonard is dead. Dolly Leonard is dead." + +I will not attempt to describe too fully the scene that followed. There +were seven of us, you know, and we were only eighteen, and no young +person of our acquaintance had ever died before. Indeed, only one aged +death had ever disturbed our personal life history, and even that remote +catastrophe had sent us scampering to each other's beds a whole winter +long, for the individual fear of "seeing things at night." + +"Dolly Leonard is dead." I can feel myself yet in that huddled news-heap +on the floor. A girl at the mirror dropped her hand-glass with a +shivering crash. Some one on the sofa screamed. The only one of us who +was dressed began automatically to unfasten her lace collar and strip +off her silken gown, and I can hear yet the soft lush sound of a folded +sash, and the strident click of the little French stays that pressed too +close on a heaving breast. + +Then some one threw wood on the fire with a great bang, and then more +wood and more wood, and we crowded round the hearth and scorched our +faces and hands, but we could not get warm enough. + +Dolly Leonard was not even in our set. She was an older girl by several +years. But she was the belle of the village. Dolly Leonard's gowns, +Dolly Leonard's parties, Dolly Leonard's lovers, were the envy of all +womankind. And Dolly Leonard's courtship and marriage were to us the +fitting culmination of her wonderful career. She was our ideal of +everything that a girl should be. She was good, she was beautiful, she +was irresistibly fascinating. She was, in fact, everything that we +girlishly longed to be in the revel of a ballroom or the white sanctity +of a church. + +And now she, the bright, the joyous, the warm, was colder than we were, +and _would never be warm again_. Never again ... And there were garish +flowers down-stairs, and music and favors and ices--nasty shivery +ices,--and pretty soon a brawling crowd of people would come and +_dance_ because I was eighteen--and still alive. + +Into our hideous brooding broke a husky little voice that had not yet +spoken: + +"Dolly Leonard told my big sister a month ago that she wasn't a bit +frightened,--that she had had one perfect year, and a perfect year was +well worth dying for--if one had to. Of course she hoped she wouldn't +die, but if she did, it was a wonderful thing to die happy. Dolly was +queer about it; I heard my big sister telling mother. Dolly said, 'Life +couldn't always be at high tide--there was only one high tide in any +one's life, and she thought it was beautiful to go in the full flush +before the tide turned.'" + +The speaker ended with a harsh sob. + +Then suddenly into our awed silence broke my mother in full evening +dress. She was a very handsome mother. + +As she looked down on our huddled group there were tears in her eyes, +but there was no shock. I noticed distinctly that there was no shock. +"Why, girls," she exclaimed, with a certain terse brightness, "aren't +you dressed yet? It's eight o'clock and people are beginning to arrive." +She seemed so frivolous to me. I remember that I felt a little ashamed +of her. + +"We don't want any party," I answered, glumly. "The girls are going +home." + +"Nonsense!" said my mother, catching me by the hand and pulling me +almost roughly to my feet. "Go quickly and call one of the maids to come +and help you dress. Angeline, I'll do your hair. Bertha, where are your +shoes? Gertrude, that's a beautiful gown--just your color. Hurry into +it. There goes the bell. Hark! the orchestra is beginning." + +And so, with a word here, a touch there, a searching look everywhere, +mother marshalled us into line. I had never heard her voice raised +before. + +The color came back to our cheeks, the light to our eyes. We bubbled +over with spirits--nervous spirits, to be sure, but none the less +vivacious ones. + +When the last hook was fastened, the last glove buttoned, the last curl +fluffed into place, mother stood for an instant tapping her foot on the +floor. She looked like a little general. + +"Girls," she said, "there are five hundred people coming to-night from +all over the State, and fully two-thirds of them never heard of Dolly +Leonard. We must never spoil other people's pleasures by flaunting our +own personal griefs. I expect my daughter to conduct herself this +evening with perfect cheerfulness and grace. She owes it to her guests; +and"--mother's chin went high up in the air--"I refuse to receive in my +house again any one of you girls who mars my daughter's _débutante_ +party by tears or hysterics. You may go now." + +We went, silently berating the brutal harshness of grown people. We +went, airily, flutteringly, luminously, like a bunch of butterflies. At +the head of the stairs the music caught us up in a maelstrom of +excitement and whirled us down into the throng of pleasure. And when we +reached the drawing-room and found mother we felt as though we were +walking on air. We thought it was self-control. We were not old enough +to know it was mostly "youth." + +My _débutante_ party was the gayest party ever given in our town. We +seven girls were like sprites gone mad. We were like fairy torches that +kindled the whole throng. We flitted among the palms like +will-o'-the-wisps. We danced the toes out of our satin slippers. We led +our old boy-friends a wild chase of young love and laughter, and +because our hearts were like frozen lead within us we sought, as it +were, "to warm both hands at the fires of life." We trifled with older +men. We flirted, as it were, with our fathers. + +My _débutante_ party turned out a revel. I have often wondered if my +mother was frightened. I don't know what went on in the other girls' +brains, but mine were seared with the old-world recklessness--"Eat, +drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." _We_ die! + +I had a lover--a boy lover. His name was Gordon. He was twenty-one years +old, and he had courted me with boyish seriousness for three years. +Mother had always pooh-poohed his love-story and said: "Wait, wait. Why, +my daughter isn't even _out_ yet. Wait till she's out." + +And Gordon had narrowed his near-sighted eyes ominously and shut his +lips tight. "Very well," he had answered, "I will wait till she is +out--but no longer." + +He was rich, he was handsome, he was well-born, he was strong, but more +than all that he held my fancy with a certain thrilling tenacity that +frightened me while it lured me. And I had always looked forward to my +_débutante_ party on my eighteenth birthday with the tingling +realization, half joy, half fear, that on that day I should have to +settle once and forever with--_man_. + +I had often wondered how Gordon would propose. He was a proud, +high-strung boy. If he was humble, and pleaded and pleaded with the hurt +look in his eyes that I knew so well, I thought I would accept him; and +if we could get to mother in the crowd, perhaps we could announce the +engagement at supper-time. It seemed to me that it would be a very +wonderful thing to be engaged on one's eighteenth birthday. So many +girls were not engaged till nineteen or even twenty. But if he was +masterful and high-stepping, as he knew so well how to be, I had decided +to refuse him scornfully with a toss of my head and a laugh. I could +break his heart with the sort of laugh I had practised before my mirror. + +It is a terrible thing to have a long-anticipated event finally overtake +you. It is the most terrible thing of all to have to settle once and +forever with _man_. + +Gordon came for me at eleven o'clock. I was flirting airily at the time +with our village Beau Brummel, who was old enough to be my grandfather. + +Gordon slipped my little hand through his arm and carried me off to a +lonely place in the conservatory. For a second it seemed a beautiful +relief to be out of the noise and the glare--and alone with Gordon. But +instantly my realization of the potential moment rushed over me like a +flood, and I began to tremble violently. All the nervous strain of the +evening reacted suddenly on me. + +"What's the matter with you to-night?" asked Gordon, a little sternly. +"What makes you so wild?" he persisted, with a grim little attempt at a +laugh. + +At his words, my heart seemed to turn over within me and settle heavily. +It was before the days when we discussed life's tragedies with our best +men friends. Indeed, it was so long before that I sickened and grew +faint at the very thought of the sorrowful knowledge which I kept secret +from him. + +Again he repeated, "What's the matter with you?" but I could find no +answer. I just sat shivering, with my lace scarf drawn close across my +bare shoulders. + +Gordon took hold of a white ruffle on my gown and began to fidget with +it. I could see the fine thoughts go flitting through his eyes, but when +he spoke again it was quite commonplacely. + +"Will you do me a favor?" he asked. "Will you do me the favor of +marrying me?" And he laughed. Good God! he _laughed_! + +"A favor" to marry him! And he asked it as he might have asked for a +posie or a dance. So flippantly--with a laugh. "_A favor!_" And Dolly +Leonard lay dead of _her_ favor! + +I jumped to my feet--I was half mad with fear and sex and sorrow and +excitement. Something in my brain snapped. And I struck Gordon--struck +him across the face with my open hand. And he turned as white as the +dead Dolly Leonard, and went away--oh, very far away. + +Then I ran back alone to the hall and stumbled into my father's arms. + +"Are you having a good time?" asked my father, pointing playfully at my +blazing cheeks. + +I went to my answer like an arrow to its mark. "I am having the most +wonderful time in the world," I cried; "_I have settled with man_." + +My father put back his head and shouted. He thought it was a fine joke. +He laughed about it long after my party was over. He thought my head was +turned. He laughed about it long after other people had stopped +wondering why Gordon went away. + +I never told any one why Gordon went away. I might under certain +circumstances have told a girl, but it was not the sort of thing one +could have told one's mother. This is the first time I have ever told +the story of Dolly Leonard's death and my _débutante_ party. + +Dolly Leonard left a little son behind her--a joyous, rollicking little +son. His name is Paul Yardley. We girls were pleased with the +initials--P.Y. They stand to us for "Perfect Year." + +Dolly Leonard's husband has married again, and his wife has borne him +safely three daughters and a son. Each one of my six girl chums is the +mother of a family. Now and again in my experience some woman has +shirked a duty. But I have never yet met a woman who dared to shirk a +happiness. Duties repeat themselves. There is no duplicate of happiness. + +I am fifty-eight years old. I have never married. I do not say whether I +am glad or sorry. I only know that I have never had a Perfect Year. I +only know that I have never been warm since the night that Dolly Leonard +died. + + + + +Editha + +BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS + + +The air was thick with the war I feeling, like the electricity of a +storm which has not yet burst. Editha sat looking out into the hot +spring afternoon, with her lips parted, and panting with the intensity +of the question whether she could let him go. She had decided that she +could not let him stay, when she saw him at the end of the still +leafless avenue, making slowly up toward the house, with his head down, +and his figure relaxed. She ran impatiently out on the veranda, to the +edge of the steps, and imperatively demanded greater haste of him with +her will before she called aloud to him, "George!" + +He had quickened his pace in mystical response to her mystical urgence, +before he could have heard her; now he looked up and answered, "Well?" + +"Oh, how united we are!" she exulted, and then she swooped down the +steps to him. "What is it?" she cried. + +"It's war," he said, and he pulled her up to him, and kissed her. + +She kissed him back intensely, but irrelevantly, as to their passion, +and uttered from deep in her throat, "How glorious!" + +"It's war," he repeated, without consenting to her sense of it; and she +did not know just what to think at first. She never knew what to think +of him; that made his mystery, his charm. All through their courtship, +which was contemporaneous with the growth of the war feeling, she had +been puzzled by his want of seriousness about it. He seemed to despise +it even more than he abhorred it. She could have understood his +abhorring any sort of bloodshed; that would have been a survival of his +old life when he thought he would be a minister, and before he changed +and took up the law. But making light of a cause so high and noble +seemed to show a want of earnestness at the core of his being. Not but +that she felt herself able to cope with a congenital defect of that +sort, and make his love for her save him from himself. Now perhaps the +miracle was already wrought in him, In the presence of the tremendous +fact that he announced, all triviality seemed to have gone out of him; +she began to feel that. He sank down on the top step, and wiped his +forehead with his handkerchief, while she poured out upon him her +question of the origin and authenticity of his news. + +All the while, in her duplex emotioning, she was aware that now at the +very beginning she must put a guard upon herself against urging him, by +any word or act, to take the part that her whole soul willed him to +take, for the completion of her ideal of him. He was very nearly perfect +as he was, and he must be allowed to perfect himself. But he was +peculiar, and he might very well be reasoned out of his peculiarity. +Before her reasoning went her emotioning: her nature pulling upon his +nature, her womanhood upon his manhood, without her knowing the means +she was using to the end she was willing. She had always supposed that +the man who won her would have done something to win her; she did not +know what, but something. George Gearson had simply asked her for her +love, on the way home from a concert, and she gave her love to him, +without, as it were, thinking. But now, it flashed upon her, if he could +do something worthy to _have_ won her--be a hero, _her_ hero--it would +be even better than if he had done it before asking her; it would be +grander. Besides, she had believed in the war from the beginning. + +"But don't you see, dearest," she said, "that it wouldn't have come to +this, if it hadn't been in the order of Providence? And I call any war +glorious that is for the liberation of people who have been struggling +for years against the cruelest oppression. Don't you think so too?" + +"I suppose so," he returned, languidly. "But war! Is it glorious to +break the peace of the world?" + +"That ignoble peace! It was no peace at all, with that crime and shame +at our very gates." She was conscious of parroting the current phrases +of the newspapers, but it was no time to pick and choose her words. She +must sacrifice anything to the high ideal she had for him, and after a +good deal of rapid argument she ended with the climax: "But now it +doesn't matter about the how or why. Since the war has come, all that is +gone. There are no two sides, any more. There is nothing now but our +country." + +He sat with his eyes closed and his head leant back against the veranda, +and he said with a vague smile, as if musing aloud, "Our country--right +or wrong." + +"Yes, right or wrong!" she returned fervidly. "I'll go and get you some +lemonade." She rose rustling, and whisked away; when she came back with +two tall glasses of clouded liquid, on a tray, and the ice clucking in +them, he still sat as she had left him, and she said as if there had +been no interruption: "But there is no question of wrong in this case. I +call it a sacred war. A war for liberty, and humanity, if ever there was +one. And I know you will see it just as I do, yet." + +He took half the lemonade at a gulp, and he answered as he set the glass +down: "I know you always have the highest ideal. When I differ from you, +I ought to doubt myself." + +A generous sob rose in Editha's throat for the humility of a man, so +very nearly perfect, who was willing to put himself below her. + +Besides, she felt that he was never so near slipping through her fingers +as when he took that meek way. + +"You shall not say that! Only, for once I happen to be right." She +seized his hand in her two hands, and poured her soul from her eyes into +his. "Don't you think so?" she entreated him. + +He released his hand and drank the rest of his lemonade, and she added, +"Have mine, too," but he shook his head in answering, "I've no business +to think so, unless I act so, too." + +Her heart stopped a beat before it pulsed on with leaps that she felt in +her neck. She had noticed that strange thing in men; they seemed to feel +bound to do what they believed, and not think a thing was finished when +they said it, as girls did. She knew what was in his mind, but she +pretended not, and she said, "Oh, I am not sure." + +He went on as if to himself without apparently heeding her. "There's +only one way of proving one's faith in a thing like this." + +She could not say that she understood, but she did understand. + +He went on again. "If I believed--if I felt as you do about this war--Do +you wish me to feel as you do?" + +Now she was really not sure; so she said, "George, I don't know what you +mean." + +He seemed to muse away from her as before. "There is a sort of +fascination in it. I suppose that at the bottom of his heart every man +would like at times to have his courage tested; to see how he would +act." + +"How can you talk in that ghastly way!" + +"It _is_ rather morbid. Still, that's what it comes to, unless you're +swept away by ambition, or driven by conviction. I haven't the +conviction or the ambition, and the other thing is what it comes to with +me. I ought to have been a preacher, after all; then I couldn't have +asked it of myself, as I must, now I'm a lawyer. And you believe it's a +holy war, Editha?" he suddenly addressed her. "Or, I know you do! But +you wish me to believe so, too?" + +She hardly knew whether he was mocking or not, in the ironical way he +always had with her plainer mind. But the only thing was to be outspoken +with him. + +"George, I wish you to believe whatever you think is true, at any and +every cost. If I've tried to talk you into anything, I take it all +back." + +"Oh, I know that, Editha. I know how sincere you are, and how--I wish I +had your undoubting spirit! I'll think it over; I'd like to believe as +you do. But I don't, now; I don't, indeed. It isn't this war alone; +though this seems peculiarly wanton and needless; but it's every war--so +stupid; it makes me sick. Why shouldn't this thing have been settled +reasonably?" + +"Because," she said, very throatily again, "God meant it to be war." + +"You think it was God? Yes, I suppose that is what people will say." + +"Do you suppose it would have been war if God hadn't meant it?" + +"I don't know. Sometimes it seems as if God had put this world into +men's keeping to work it as they pleased." + +"Now, George, that is blasphemy." + +"Well, I won't blaspheme. I'll try to believe in your pocket +Providence," he said, and then he rose to go. + +"Why don't you stay to dinner?" Dinner at Balcom's Works was at one +o'clock. + +"I'll come back to supper, if you'll let me. Perhaps I shall bring you a +convert." + +"Well, you may come back, on that condition." + +"All right. If I don't come, you'll understand?" + +He went away without kissing her, and she felt it a suspension of their +engagement. It all interested her intensely; she was undergoing a +tremendous experience, and she was being equal to it. While she stood +looking after him, her mother came out through one of the long windows, +on to the veranda, with a catlike softness and vagueness. + +"Why didn't he stay to dinner?" + +"Because--because--war has been declared," Editha pronounced, without +turning. + +Her mother said, "Oh, my!" and then said nothing more until she had sat +down in one of the large Shaker chairs, and rocked herself for some +time. Then she closed whatever tacit passage of thought there had been +in her mind with the spoken words, "Well, I hope _he_ won't go." + +"And _I_ hope he _will_" the girl said, and confronted her mother with a +stormy exaltation that would have frightened any creature less +unimpressionable than a cat. + +Her mother rocked herself again for an interval of cogitation. What she +arrived at in speech was, "Well, I guess you've done a wicked thing, +Editha Balcom." + +The girl said, as she passed indoors through the same window her mother +had come out by, "I haven't done anything--yet." + + * * * * * + +In her room, she put together all her letters and gifts from Gearson, +down to the withered petals of the first flower he had offered, with +that timidity of his veiled in that irony of his. In the heart of the +packet she enshrined her engagement ring which she had restored to the +pretty box he had brought it her in. Then she sat down, if not calmly +yet strongly, and wrote: + + "GEORGE: I understood--when you left me. But I think we had + better emphasize your meaning that if we cannot be one in + everything we had better be one in nothing. So I am sending + these things for your keeping till you have made up your mind. + + "I shall always love you, and therefore I shall never marry any + one else. But the man I marry must love his country first of + all, and be able to say to me, + + "'I could not love thee, dear, so much, + Loved I not honor more.' + + "There is no honor above America with me. In this great hour + there is no other honor. + + "Your heart will make my words clear to you. I had never + expected to say so much, but it has come upon me that I must + say the utmost. + + "EDITHA." + +She thought she had worded her letter well, worded it in a way that +could not be bettered; all had been implied and nothing expressed. + +She had it ready to send with the packet she had tied with red, white, +and blue ribbon, when it occurred to her that she was not just to him, +that she was not giving him a fair chance. He had said he would go and +think it over, and she was not waiting. She was pushing, threatening, +compelling. That was not a woman's part. She must leave him free, free, +free. She could not accept for her country or herself a forced +sacrifice. + +In writing her letter she had satisfied the impulse from which it +sprang; she could well afford to wait till he had thought it over. She +put the packet and the letter by, and rested serene in the consciousness +of having done what was laid upon her by her love itself to do, and yet +used patience, mercy, justice. + +She had her reward. Gearson did not come to tea, but she had given him +till morning, when, late at night there came up from the village the +sound of a fife and drum with a tumult of voices, in shouting, singing, +and laughing. The noise drew nearer and nearer; it reached the Street +end of the avenue; there it silenced itself, and one voice, the voice +she knew best, rose over the silence. It fell; the air was filled with +cheers; the fife and drum struck up, with the shouting, singing, and +laughing again, but now retreating; and a single figure came hurrying up +the avenue. + +She ran down to meet her lover and clung to him. He was very gay, and he +put his arm round her with a boisterous laugh. "Well, you must call me +Captain, now; or Cap, if you prefer; that's what the boys call me. Yes, +we've had a meeting at the town hall, and everybody has volunteered; and +they selected me for captain, and I'm going to the war, the big war, the +glorious war, the holy war ordained by the pocket Providence that +blesses butchery. Come along; let's tell the whole family about it. Call +them from their downy beds, father, mother, Aunt Hitty, and all the +folks!" + +But when they mounted the veranda steps he did not wait for a larger +audience; he poured the story out upon Editha alone. + +"There was a lot of speaking, and then some of the fools set up a shout +for me. It was all going one way, and I thought it would be a good joke +to sprinkle a little cold water on them. But you can't do that with a +crowd that adores you. The first thing I knew I was sprinkling hell-fire +on them, 'Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.' That was the style. +Now that it had come to the fight, there were no two parties; there was +one country, and the thing was to fight the fight to a finish as quick +as possible. I suggested volunteering then and there, and I wrote my +name first of all on the roster. Then they elected me--that's all. I +wish I had some ice-water!" + +She left him walking up and down the veranda, while she ran for the +ice-pitcher and a goblet, and when she came back he was still walking up +and down, shouting the story he had told her to her father and mother, +who had come out more sketchily dressed than they commonly were by day. +He drank goblet after goblet of the ice-water without noticing who was +giving it, and kept on talking, and laughing through his talk wildly. +"It's astonishing," he said, "how well the worse reason looks when you +try to make it appear the better. Why, I believe I was the first convert +to the war in that crowd to-night! I never thought I should like to kill +a man; but now, I shouldn't care; and the smokeless powder lets you see +the man drop that you kill. It's all for the country! What a thing it is +to have a country that _can't_ be wrong, but if it is, is right anyway!" + +Editha had a great, vital thought, an inspiration. She set down the +ice-pitcher on the veranda floor, and ran up-stairs and got the letter +she had written him. When at last he noisily bade her father and mother, +"Well, good night. I forgot I woke you up; I sha'n't want any sleep +myself," she followed him down the avenue to the gate. There, after the +whirling words that seemed to fly away from her thoughts and refuse to +serve them, she made a last effort to solemnize the moment that seemed +so crazy, and pressed the letter she had written upon him. + +"What's this?" he said. "Want me to mail it?" + +"No, no. It's for you. I wrote it after you went this morning. Keep +it--keep it--and read it sometime--" She thought, and then her +inspiration came: "Read it if ever you doubt what you've done, or fear +that I regret your having done it. Read it after you've started." + +They strained each other in embraces that seemed as ineffective as their +words, and he kissed her face with quick, hot breaths that were so +unlike him, that made her feel as if she had lost her old lover and +found a stranger in his place. The stranger said, "What a gorgeous +flower you are, with your red hair, and your blue eyes that look black +now, and your face with the color painted out by the white moonshine! +Let me hold you under my chin, to see whether I love blood, you +tiger-lily!" Then he laughed Gearson's laugh, and released her, scared +and giddy. Within her wilfulness she had been frightened by a sense of +subtler force in him, and mystically mastered as she had never been +before. + +She ran all the way back to the house, and mounted the steps panting. +Her mother and father were talking of the great affair. Her mother said: +"Wa'n't Mr. Gearson in rather of an excited state of mind? Didn't you +think he acted curious?" + +"Well, not for a man who'd just been elected captain and had to set 'em +up for the whole of Company A," her father chuckled back. + +"What in the world do you mean, Mr. Balcom? Oh! There's Editha!" She +offered to follow the girl indoors. + +"Don't come, mother!" Editha called, vanishing. + +Mrs. Balcom remained to reproach her husband. "I don't see much of +anything to laugh at." + +"Well, it's catching. Caught it from Gearson. I guess it won't be much +of a war, and I guess Gearson don't think so, either. The other fellows +will back down as soon as they see we mean it. I wouldn't lose any sleep +over it. I'm going back to bed, myself." + + * * * * * + +Gearson came again next afternoon, looking pale, and rather sick, but +quite himself, even to his languid irony. "I guess I'd better tell you, +Editha, that I consecrated myself to your god of battles last night by +pouring too many libations to him down my own throat. But I'm all right, +now. One has to carry off the excitement, somehow." + +"Promise me," she commanded, "that you'll never touch it again!" + +"What! Not let the cannikin clink? Not let the soldier drink? Well, I +promise." + +"You don't belong to yourself now; you don't even belong to _me_. You +belong to your country, and you have a sacred charge to keep yourself +strong and well for your country's sake. I have been thinking, thinking +all night and all day long." + +"You look as if you had been crying a little, too," he said with his +queer smile. + +"That's all past. I've been thinking, and worshipping _you_. Don't you +suppose I know all that you've been through, to come to this? I've +followed you every step from your old theories and opinions." + +"Well, you've had a long row to hoe." + +"And I know you've done this from the highest motives--" + +"Oh, there won't be much pettifogging to do till this cruel war is--" + +"And you haven't simply done it for my sake. I couldn't respect you if +you had." + +"Well, then we'll say I haven't. A man that hasn't got his own respect +intact wants the respect of all the other people he can corner. But we +won't go into that. I'm in for the thing now, and we've got to face our +future. My idea is that this isn't going to be a very protracted +struggle; we shall just scare the enemy to death before it conies to a +fight at all. But we must provide for contingencies, Editha. If anything +happens to me--" + +"Oh, George!" She clung to him sobbing. + +"I don't want you to feel foolishly bound to my memory. I should hate +that, wherever I happened to be." + +"I am yours, for time and eternity--time and eternity." She liked the +words; they satisfied her famine for phrases. + +"Well, say eternity; that's all right; but time's another thing; and I'm +talking about time. But there is something! My mother! If anything +happens--" + +She winced, and he laughed. "You're not the bold soldier-girl of +yesterday!" Then he sobered. "If anything happens, I want you to help my +mother out. She won't like my doing this thing. She brought me up to +think war a fool thing as well as a bad thing. My father was in the +civil war; all through it; lost his arm in it." She thrilled with the +sense of the arm round her; what if that should be lost? He laughed as +if divining her: "Oh, it doesn't run in the family, as far as I know!" +Then he added, gravely, "He came home with misgivings about war, and +they grew on him. I guess he and mother agreed between them that I was +to be brought up in his final mind about it; but that was before my +time. I only knew him from my mother's report of him and his opinions; I +don't know whether they were hers first; but they were hers last. This +will be a blow to her. I shall have to write and tell her--" + +He stopped, and she asked, "Would you like me to write too, George?" + +"I don't believe that would do. No, I'll do the writing. She'll +understand a little if I say that I thought the way to minimize it was +to make war on the largest possible scale at once--that I felt I must +have been helping on the war somehow if I hadn't helped keep it from +coming, and I knew I hadn't; when it came, I had no right to stay out of +it." + +Whether his sophistries satisfied him or not, they satisfied her. She +clung to his breast, and whispered, with closed eyes and quivering lips, +"Yes, yes, yes!" + +"But if anything should happen, you might go to her, and see what you +could do for her. You know? It's rather far off; she can't leave her +chair--" + +"Oh, I'll go, if it's the ends of the earth! But nothing will happen! +Nothing _can_! I--" + +She felt herself lifted with his rising, and Gearson was saying, with +his arm still round her, to her father: "Well, we're off at once, Mr. +Balcom. We're to be formally accepted at the capital, and then bunched +up with the rest somehow; and sent into camp somewhere, and got to the +front as soon as possible. We all want to be in the van, of course; +we're the first company to report to the Governor. I came to tell +Editha, but I hadn't got round to it." + + * * * * * + +She saw him again for a moment at the capital, in the station, just +before the train started southward with his regiment. He looked well, in +his uniform, and very soldierly, but somehow girlish, too, with his +clean-shaven face and slim figure. The manly eyes and the strong voice +satisfied her, and his preoccupation with some unexpected details of +duty flattered her. Other girls were weeping, but she felt a sort of +noble distinction in the abstraction with which they parted. Only at the +last moment he said, "Don't forget my mother. It mayn't be such a +walk-over as I supposed," and he laughed at the notion. + +He waved his hand to her, as the train moved off--she knew it among a +score of hands that were waved to other girls from the platform of the +car, for it held a letter which she knew was hers. Then he went inside +the car to read it, doubtless, and she did not see him again. But she +felt safe for him through the strength of what she called her love. What +she called her God, always speaking the name in a deep voice and with +the implication of a mutual understanding, would watch over him and keep +him and bring him back to her. If with an empty sleeve, then he should +have three arms instead of two, for both of hers should be his for life. +She did not see, though, why she should always be thinking of the arm +his father had lost. + +There were not many letters from him, but they were such as she could +have wished, and she put her whole strength into making hers such as she +imagined he could have wished, glorifying and supporting him. She wrote +to his mother, but the brief answer she got was merely to the effect +that Mrs. Gearson was not well enough to write herself, and thanking her +for her letter by the hand of some one who called herself "Yrs truly, +Mrs. W.J. Andrews." + +Editha determined not to be hurt, but to write again quite as if the +answer had been all she expected. But before it seemed as if she could +have written, there came news of the first skirmish, and in the list of +the killed which was telegraphed as a trifling loss on our side, was +Gearson's name. There was a frantic time of trying to make out that it +might be, must be, some other Gearson; but the name, and the company and +the regiment, and the State were too definitely given. + +Then there was a lapse into depths out of which it seemed as if she +never could rise again; then a lift into clouds far above all grief, +black clouds, that blotted out the sun, but where she soared with him, +with George, George! She had the fever that she expected of herself, but +she did not die in it; she was not even delirious, and it did not last +long. When she was well enough to leave her bed, her one thought was of +George's mother, of his strangely worded wish that she should go to her +and see what she could do for her. In the exaltation of the duty laid +upon her--it buoyed her up instead of burdening her--she rapidly +recovered. + +Her father went with her on the long railroad journey from northern New +York to western Iowa; he had business out at Davenport, and he said he +could just as well go then as any other time; and he went with her to +the little country town where George's mother lived in a little house on +the edge of illimitable corn-fields, under trees pushed to a top of the +rolling prairie. George's father had settled there after the civil war, +as so many other old soldiers had done; but they were Eastern people, +and Editha fancied touches of the East in the June rose overhanging the +front door, and the garden with early summer flowers stretching from the +gate of the paling fence. + +It was very low inside the house, and so dim, with the closed blinds, +that they could scarcely see one another: Editha tall and black in her +crapes which filled the air with the smell of their dyes; her father +standing decorously apart with his hat on his forearm, as at funerals; a +woman rested in a deep armchair, and the woman who had let the strangers +in stood behind the chair. + +The seated woman turned her head round and up, and asked the woman +behind her chair, "_Who_ did you say?" + +Editha, if she had done what she expected of herself, would have gone +down on her knees at the feet of the seated figure and said, "I am +George's Editha," for answer. + +But instead of her own voice she heard that other woman's voice, saying, +"Well, I don't know as I _did_ get the name just right. I guess I'll +have to make a little more light in here," and she went and pushed two +of the shutters ajar. + +Then Editha's father said in his public will-now-address-a-few-remarks +tone, "My name is Balcom, ma'am; Junius H. Balcom, of Balcom's Works, +New York; my daughter--" + +"Oh!" The seated woman broke in, with a powerful voice, the voice that +always surprised Editha from Gearson's slender frame. "Let me see you! +Stand round where the light can strike on your face," and Editha dumbly +obeyed. "So, you're Editha Balcom," she sighed. + +"Yes," Editha said, more like a culprit than a comforter. + +"What did you come for?" + +Editha's face quivered, and her knees shook. "I came--because--because +George--" She could go no farther. + +"Yes," the mother said, "he told me he had asked you to come if he got +killed. You didn't expect that, I suppose, when you sent him." + +"I would rather have died myself than done it!" Editha said with more +truth in her deep voice than she ordinarily found in it. "I tried to +leave him free--" + +"Yes, that letter of yours, that came back with his other things, left +him free." + +Editha saw now where George's irony came from. + +"It was not to be read before--unless--until--I told him so," she +faltered. + +"Of course, he wouldn't read a letter of yours, under the circumstances, +till he thought you wanted him to. Been sick?" the woman abruptly +demanded. + +"Very sick," Editha said, with self-pity. + +"Daughter's life," her father interposed, "was almost despaired of, at +one time." + +Mrs. Gearson gave him no heed. "I suppose you would have been glad to +die, such a brave person as you! I don't believe _he_ was glad to die. +He was always a timid boy, that way; he was afraid of a good many +things; but if he was afraid he did what he made up his mind to. I +suppose he made up his mind to go, but I knew what it cost him, by what +it cost me when I heard of it. I had been through _one_ war before. When +you sent him you didn't expect he would get killed." + +The voice seemed to compassionate Editha, and it was time. "No," she +huskily murmured. + +"No, girls don't; women don't, when they give their men up to their +country. They think they'll come marching back, somehow, just as gay as +they went, or if it's an empty sleeve, or even an empty pantaloon, it's +all the more glory, and they're so much the prouder of them, poor +things." + +The tears began to run down Editha's face; she had not wept till then; +but it was now such a relief to be understood that the tears came. + +"No, you didn't expect him to get killed," Mrs. Gearson repeated in a +voice which was startlingly like George's again. "You just expected him +to kill some one else, some of those foreigners, that weren't there +because they had any say about it, but because they had to be there, +poor wretches--conscripts, or whatever they call 'em. You thought it +would be all right for my George, _your_ George, to kill the sons of +those miserable mothers and the husbands of those girls that you would +never see the faces of." The woman lifted her powerful voice in a +psalmlike note. "I thank my God he didn't live to do it! I thank my God +they killed him first, and that he ain't livin' with their blood on his +hands!" She dropped her eyes which she had raised with her voice, and +glared at Editha. "What you got that black on for?" She lifted herself +by her powerful arms so high that her helpless body seemed to hang limp +its full length. "Take it off, take it off, before I tear it from your +back!" + + * * * * * + +The lady who was passing the summer near Balcom's Works was sketching +Editha's beauty, which lent itself wonderfully to the effects of a +colorist. It had come to that confidence which is rather apt to grow +between artist and sitter, and Editha had told her everything. + +"To think of your having such a tragedy in your life!" the lady said. +She added: "I suppose there are people who feel that way about war. But +when you consider how much this war has done for the country! I can't +understand such people, for my part. And when you had come all the way +out there to console her--got up out of a sick bed! Well!" + +"I think," Editha said, magnanimously, "she wasn't quite in her right +mind; and so did papa." + +"Yes," the lady said, looking at Editha's lips in nature and then at her +lips in art, and giving an empirical touch to them in the picture. "But +how dreadful of her! How perfectly--excuse me--how _vulgar_!" + +A light broke upon Editha in the darkness which she felt had been +without a gleam of brightness for weeks and months. The mystery that had +bewildered her was solved by the word; and from that moment she rose +from grovelling in shame and self-pity, and began to live again in the +ideal. + + + + +The Stout Miss Hopkins's Bicycle + +BY OCTAVE THANET + + +There was a skeleton in Mrs. Margaret Ellis's closet; the same skeleton +abode also in the closet of Miss Lorania Hopkins. + +The skeleton--which really does not seem a proper word--was the dread of +growing stout. They were more afraid of flesh than of sin. Yet they were +both good women. Mrs. Ellis regularly attended church, and could always +be depended on to show hospitality to convention delegates, whether +clerical or lay; she was a liberal subscriber to every good work; she +was almost the only woman in the church aid society that never lost her +temper at the soul-vexing time of the church fair; and she had a larger +clientele of regular pensioners than any one in town, unless it were her +friend Miss Hopkins, who was "so good to the poor" that never a tramp +slighted her kitchen. Miss Hopkins was as amiable as Mrs. Ellis, and +always put her name under that of Mrs. Ellis, with exactly the same +amount, on the subscription papers. She could have given more, for she +had the larger income; but she had no desire to outshine her friend, +whom she admired as the most charming of women. + +Mrs. Ellis, indeed, was agreeable as well as good, and a pretty woman to +the bargain, if she did not choose to be weighed before people. Miss +Hopkins often told her that she was not really stout; she merely had a +plump, trig little figure. Miss Hopkins, alas! was really stout. The two +waged a warfare against the flesh equal to the apostle's in vigor, +although so much less deserving of praise. + +Mrs. Ellis drove her cook to distraction with divers dieting systems, +from Banting's and Dr. Salisbury's to the latest exhortations of some +unknown newspaper prophet. She bought elaborate gymnastic appliances, +and swung dumb-bells and rode imaginary horses and propelled imaginary +boats. She ran races with a professional trainer, and she studied the +principles of Delsarte, and solemnly whirled on one foot and swayed her +body and rolled her head and hopped and kicked and genuflected in +company with eleven other stout and earnest matrons and one slim and +giggling girl who almost choked at every lesson. In all these exercises +Miss Hopkins faithfully kept her company, which was the easier as Miss +Hopkins lived in the next house, a conscientious Colonial mansion with +all the modern conveniences hidden beneath the old-fashioned pomp. + +And yet, despite these struggles and self-denials, it must be told that +Margaret Ellis and Lorania Hopkins were little thinner for their +warfare. Still, as Shuey Cardigan, the trainer, told Mrs. Ellis, there +was no knowing what they might have weighed had they not struggled. + +"It ain't only the fat that's _on_ ye, moind ye," says Shuey, with a +confidential sympathy of mien; "it's what ye'd naturally be getting in +addition. And first ye've got to peel off that, and then ye come down to +the other." + +Shuey was so much the most successful of Mrs. Ellis's reducers that his +words were weighty. And when at last Shuey said, "I got what you need," +Mrs. Ellis listened. "You need a bike, no less," says Shuey. + +"But I never could ride one!" said Margaret, opening her pretty brown +eyes and wrinkling her Grecian forehead. + +"You'd ride in six lessons." + +"But how would I _look_, Cardigan?" + +"You'd look noble, ma'am!" + +"What do you consider the best wheel, Cardigan?" + +The advertising rules of magazines prevent my giving Cardigan's answer; +it is enough that the wheel glittered at Mrs. Ellis's door the very next +day, and that a large pasteboard box was delivered by the expressman the +very next week. He went on to Miss Hopkins's, and delivered the twin of +the box, with a similar yellow printed card bearing the impress of the +same great firm on the inside of the box cover. + +For Margaret had hied her to Lorania Hopkins the instant Shuey was gone. +She presented herself breathless, a little to the embarrassment of +Lorania, who was sitting with her niece before a large box of +cracker-jack. + +"It's a new kind of candy; I was just _tasting_ it, Maggie," faltered +she, while the niece, a girl of nineteen, with the inhuman spirits of +her age, laughed aloud. + +"You needn't mind me," said Mrs. Ellis, cheerfully; "I'm eating +potatoes now!" + +"Oh, Maggie!" Miss Hopkins breathed the words between envy and +disapproval. + +Mrs. Ellis tossed her brown head airily, not a whit abashed. "And I had +beer for luncheon, and I'm going to have champagne for dinner." + +"Maggie, how do you dare? Did they--did they taste good?" + +"They tasted _heavenly_, Lorania. Pass me the candy. I am going to try +something new--the thinningest thing there is. I read in the paper of +one woman who lost forty pounds in three months, and is losing still!" + +"If it is obesity pills, I--" + +"It isn't; it's a bicycle. Lorania, you and I must ride! Sibyl Hopkins, +you heartless child, what are you laughing at?" + +Lorania rose; in the glass over the mantel her figure returned her gaze. +There was no mistake (except that, as is often the case with stout +people, _that_ glass always increased her size), she was a stout lady. +She was taller than the average of women, and well proportioned, and +still light on her feet; but she could not blink away the records; she +was heavy on the scales. Did she stand looking at herself squarely, her +form was shapely enough, although larger than she could wish; but the +full force of the revelation fell when she allowed herself a profile +view, she having what is called "a round waist," and being almost as +large one way as another. Yet Lorania was only thirty-three years old, +and was of no mind to retire from society, and have a special phaeton +built for her use, and hear from her mother's friends how much her +mother weighed before her death. + +"How should _I_ look on a wheel?" she asked, even as Mrs. Ellis had +asked before; and Mrs. Ellis stoutly answered, "You'd look _noble_!" + +"Shuey will teach us," she went on, "and we can have a track made in +your pasture, where nobody can see us learning. Lorania, there's nothing +like it. Let me bring you the bicycle edition of _Harper's Bazar_." + +Miss Hopkins capitulated at once, and sat down to order her costume, +while Sibyl, the niece, revelled silently in visions of a new bicycle +which should presently revert to her. "For it's ridiculous, auntie's +thinking of riding!" Miss Sibyl considered. "She would be a figure of +fun on a wheel; besides, she can never learn in this world!" + +Yet Sibyl was attached to her aunt, and enjoyed visiting Hopkins Manor, +as Lorania had named her new house, into which she moved on the same day +that she joined the Colonial Dames, by right of her ancestor the great +and good divine commemorated by Mrs. Stowe. Lorania's friends were all +fond of her, she was so good-natured and tolerant, with a touch of dry +humor in her vision of things, and not the least a Puritan in her frank +enjoyment of ease and luxury. Nevertheless, Lorania had a good, +able-bodied, New England conscience, capable of staying awake nights +without flinching; and perhaps from her stanch old Puritan forefathers +she inherited her simple integrity so that she neither lied nor +cheated--even in the small, whitewashed manner of her sex--and valued +loyalty above most of the virtues. She had an innocent pride in her +godly and martial ancestry, which was quite on the surface, and led +people who did not know her to consider her haughty. + +For fifteen years she had been an orphan, the mistress of a very large +estate. No doubt she had been sought often in marriage, but never until +lately had Lorania seriously thought of marrying. Sibyl said that she +was too unsentimental to marry. Really she was too romantic. She had a +longing to be loved, not in the quiet, matter-of-fact manner of her +suitors, but with the passion of the poets. Therefore the presence of +another skeleton in Mrs. Ellis's closet, because she knew about a +certain handsome Italian marquis who at this period was conducting an +impassioned wooing by mail. Margaret did not fancy the marquis. He was +not an American. He would take Lorania away. She thought his very virtue +florid, and suspected that he had learned his love-making in a bad +school. She dropped dark hints that frightened Lorania, who would +sometimes piteously demand, "Don't you think he _could_ care for +me--for--for myself?" Margaret knew that she had an overweening distrust +of her own appearance. How many tears she had shed first and last over +her unhappy plumpness it would be hard to reckon. She made no account of +her satin skin, or her glossy black hair, or her lustrous violet eyes +with their long, black lashes, or her flashing white teeth; she glanced +dismally at her shape and scornfully at her features, good, honest, +irregular American features, that might not satisfy a Greek critic, but +suited each other and pleased her countrymen. And then she would sigh +heavily over her figure. Her friend had not the heart to impute the +marquis's beautiful, artless compliments to mercenary motives. After +all, the Italian was a good fellow, according to the point of view of +his own race, if he did intend to live on his wife's money, and had a +very varied assortment of memories of women. + +But Margaret dreaded and disliked him all the more for his good +qualities. To-day this secret apprehension flung a cloud over the +bicycle enthusiasm. She could not help wondering whether at this moment +Lorania was not thinking of the marquis, who rode a wheel and a horse +admirably. + +"Aunt Lorania," said Sibyl, "there comes Mr. Winslow. Shall I run out +and ask him about those cloth-of-gold roses? The aphides are eating them +all up." + +"Yes, to be sure, dear; but don't let Ferguson suspect what you are +talking of; he might feel hurt." + +Ferguson was the gardener. Miss Hopkins left her note to go to the +window. Below she saw a mettled horse, with tossing head and silken +skin, restlessly fretting on his bit and pawing the dust in front of +the fence, while his rider, hat in hand, talked with the young girl. He +was a little man, a very little man, in a gray business suit of the best +cut and material. An air of careful and dainty neatness was diffused +about both horse and rider. He bent towards Miss Sibyl's charming person +a thin, alert, fair face. His head was finely shaped, the brown hair +worn away a little on the temples. He smiled gravely at intervals; the +smile told that he had a dimple in his cheek. + +"I wonder," said Mrs. Ellis, "whether Mr. Winslow can have a penchant +for Sibyl?" + +Lorania opened her eyes. At this moment Mr. Winslow had caught sight of +her at the window, and he bowed almost to his saddle-bow; Sibyl was +saying something at which she laughed, and he visibly reddened. It was a +peculiarity of his that his color turned easily. In a second his hat was +on his head and his horse bounded half across the road. + +"Hardly, I think," said Lorania. "How well he rides! I never knew any +one ride better--in this country." + +"I suppose Sibyl would ridicule such a thing," said Mrs. Ellis, +continuing her own train of thought, and yet vaguely disturbed by the +last sentence. + +"Why should she?" + +"Well, he is so little, for one thing, and she is so tall. And then +Sibyl thinks a great deal of social position." + +"He is a Winslow," said Lorania, archin her neck unconsciously--"a +lineal descendant from Kenelm Winslow, who came over in the _May_--" + +"But his mother--" + +"I don't know anything about his mother before she came here. Oh, of +course I know the gossip that she was a niece of the overseer at a +village poor-house, and that her husband quarrelled with all his family +and married her in the poor-house, and I know that when he died here she +would not take a cent from the Winslows, nor let them have the boy. She +is the meekest-looking little woman, but she must have an iron streak in +her somewhere, for she was left without enough money to pay the funeral +expenses, and she educated the boy and accumulated money enough to pay +for this place they have. + +"She used to run a laundry, and made money; but when Cyril got a place +in the bank she sold out the laundry and went into chickens and +vegetables; she told somebody that it wasn't so profitable as the +laundry, but it was more genteel, and Cyril being now in a position of +trust at the bank, she must consider _him_. Cyril swept out the bank. +People laughed about it, but, do you know, I rather liked Mrs. Winslow +for it. She isn't in the least an assertive woman. How long have we been +up here, Maggie? Isn't it four years? And they have been our next-door +neighbors, and she has never been inside the house. Nor he either, for +that matter, except once when it took fire, you know, and he came in +with that funny little chemical engine tucked under his arm, and took +off his hat in the same prim, polite way that he takes it off when he +talks to Sibyl, and said, 'If you'll excuse me offering advice, Miss +Hopkins, it is not necessary to move anything; it mars furniture very +much to move it at a fire. I think, if you will allow me, I can +extinguish this.' And he did, too, didn't he, as neatly and as coolly as +if it were only adding up a column of figures. And offered me the engine +as a souvenir." + +"Lorania, you never told me that!" + +"It seemed like making fun of him, when he had been so kind. I declined +as civilly as I could. I hope I didn't hurt his feelings. I meant to pay +a visit to his mother and ask them to dinner, but you know I went to +England that week, and somehow when I came back it was difficult. It +seems a little odd we never have seen more of the Winslows, but I fancy +they don't want either to intrude or to be intruded on. But he is +certainly very obliging about the garden. Think of all the slips and +flowers he has given us, and the advice--" + +"All passed over the fence. It is funny our neighborly good offices +which we render at arm's-length. How long have you known him?" + +"Oh, a long time. He is cashier of my bank, you know. First he was +teller, then assistant cashier, and now for five years he has been +cashier. The president wants to resign and let him be president, but he +hardly has enough stock for that. But Oliver says" (Oliver was Miss +Hopkins's brother) "that there isn't a shrewder or straighter banker in +the state. Oliver knows him. He says he is a sandy little fellow." + +"Well, he is," assented Mrs. Ellis. "It isn't many cashiers would let +robbers stab them and shoot them and leave them for dead rather than +give up the combination of the safe!" + +"He wouldn't take a cent for it, either, and he saved ever so many +thousand dollars. Yes, he _is_ brave. I went to the same school with him +once, and saw him fight a big boy twice his size--such a nasty boy, who +called me 'Fatty,' and made a kissing noise with his lips just to scare +me--and poor little Cyril Winslow got awfully beaten, and when I saw him +on the ground, with his nose bleeding and that big brute pounding him, I +ran to the water-bucket, and poured the whole bucket on that big, +bullying boy and stopped the fight, just as the teacher got on the +scene. I cried over little Cyril Winslow. He was crying himself. 'I +ain't crying because he hurt me,' he sobbed; 'I'm crying because I'm so +mad I didn't lick him!' I wonder if he remembers that episode?" + +"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ellis. + +"Maggie, what makes you think he is falling in love with Sibyl?" + +Mrs. Ellis laughed. "I dare say he _isn't_ in love with Sibyl," said +she. "I think the main reason was his always riding by here instead of +taking the shorter road down the other street." + +"Does he always ride by here? I hadn't noticed." + +"Always!" said Mrs. Ellis. "_I_ have noticed." + +"I am sorry for him," said Lorania, musingly. "I think Sibyl is very +much taken with that young Captain Carr at the Arsenal. Young girls +always affect the army. He is a nice fellow, but I don't think he is +the man Winslow is. Now, Maggie, advise me about the suit. I don't want +to look like the escaped fat lady of a museum." + +Lorania thought no more of Sibyl's love-affairs. If she thought of the +Winslows, it was to wish that Mrs. Winslow would sell or rent her +pasture, which, in addition to her own and Mrs. Ellis's pastures thrown +into one, would make such a delightful bicycle-track. + +The Winslow house was very different from the two villas that were the +pride of Fairport. A little story-and-a-half cottage peeped out on the +road behind the tall maples that were planted when Winslow was a boy. +But there was a wonderful green velvet lawn, and the tulips and +sweet-peas and pansies that blazed softly nearer the house were as +beautiful as those over which Miss Lorania's gardener toiled and +worried. + +Mrs. Winslow was a little woman who showed the fierce struggle of her +early life only in the deeper lines between her delicate eyebrows and +the expression of melancholy patience in her brown eyes. + +She always wore a widow's cap and a black gown. In the mornings she +donned a blue figured apron of stout and serviceable stuff; in the +afternoon an apron of that sheer white lawn used by bishops and smart +young waitresses. Of an afternoon, in warm weather, she was accustomed +to sit on the eastern piazza, next to the Hopkins place, and rock as she +sewed. She was thus sitting and sewing when she beheld an extraordinary +procession cross the Hopkins lawn. First marched the tall trainer, Shuey +Cardigan, who worked by day in the Lossing furniture-factory, and gave +bicycle lessons at the armory evenings. He was clad in a white sweater +and buff leggings, and was wheeling a lady's bicycle. Behind him walked +Miss Hopkins in a gray suit, the skirt of which only came to her +ankles--she always so dignified in her toilets. + +"Land's sakes!" gasped Mrs. Winslow, "if she ain't going to ride a bike! +Well, what next?" + +What really happened next was the sneaking (for no other word does +justice to the cautious and circuitous movements of her) of Mrs. Winslow +to the stable, which had one window facing the Hopkins pasture. No cows +were grazing in the pasture. All around the grassy plateau twinkled a +broad brownish-yellow track. At one side of this track a bench had been +placed, and a table, pleasing to the eye, with jugs and glasses. Mrs. +Ellis, in a suit of the same undignified brevity and ease as Miss +Hopkins's, sat on the bench supporting her own wheel. Shuey Cardigan was +drawn up to his full six feet of strength, and, one arm in the air, was +explaining the theory of the balance of power. It was an uncanny moment +to Lorania. She eyed the glistening, restless thing that slipped beneath +her hand, and her fingers trembled. If she could have fled in secret she +would. But since flight was not possible, she assumed a firm expression. +Mrs. Ellis wore a smile of studied and sickly cheerfulness. + +"Don't you think it very _high_?" said Lorania. "I can _never_ get up on +it!" + +"It will be by the block at first," said Shuey, in the soothing tones of +a jockey to a nervous horse; "it's easy by the block. And I'll be +steadying it, of course." + +"Don't they have any with larger saddles? It is a _very_ small saddle." + +"They're all of a size. It wouldn't look sporty larger; it would look +like a special make. Yous wouldn't want a special make." + +Lorania thought that she would be thankful for a special make, but she +suppressed the unsportsmanlike thought. "The pedals are very small too, +Cardigan. Are you _sure_ they can hold me?" + +"They would hold two of ye, Miss Hopkins. Now sit aisy and graceful as +ye would on your chair at home, hold the shoulders back, and toe in a +bit on the pedals--ye won't be skinning your ankles so much then--and +hold your foot up ready to get the other pedal. Hold light on the +steering-bar. Push off hard. _Now!_" + +"Will you hold me? I am going--Oh, it's like riding an earthquake!" + +Here Shuey made a run, letting the wheel have its own wild way--to reach +the balance. "Keep the front wheel under you!" he cried, cheerfully. +"Niver mind _where_ you go. Keep a-pedalling; whatever you do, keep +a-pedalling!" + +"But I haven't got but one pedal!" gasped the rider. + +"Ye lost it?" + +"No; I _never had_ but one! Oh, don't let me fall!" + +"Oh, ye lost it in the beginning; now, then, I'll hold it steady, and +you get both feet right. Here we go!" + +Swaying frightfully from side to side, and wrenched from capsizing the +wheel by the full exercise of Shuey's great muscles, Miss Hopkins reeled +over the track. At short intervals she lost her pedals, and her feet, +for some strange reason, instead of seeking the lost, simply curled up +as if afraid of being hit. She gripped the steering-handles with an iron +grasp, and her turns were such as an engine makes. Nevertheless, Shuey +got her up the track for some hundred feet, and then by a herculean +sweep turned her round and rolled her back to the block. It was at this +painful moment, when her whole being was concentrated on the effort to +keep from toppling against Shuey, and even more to keep from toppling +away from him, that Lorania's strained gaze suddenly fell on the +frightened and sympathetic face of Mrs. Winslow. The good woman saw no +fun in the spectacle, but rather an awful risk to life and limb. Their +eyes met. Not a change passed over Miss Hopkins's features; but she +looked up as soon as she was safe on the ground, and smiled. In a +moment, before Mrs. Winslow could decide whether to run or to stand her +ground, she saw the cyclist approaching--on foot. + +"Won't you come in and sit down?" she said, smiling. "We are trying our +new wheels." + +And because she did not know how to refuse, Mrs. Winslow suffered +herself to be handed over the fence. She sat on the bench beside Miss +Hopkins in the prim attitude which had pertained to gentility in her +youth, her hands loosely clasping each other, her feet crossed at the +ankles. + +"It's an awful sight, ain't it?" she breathed, "those little shiny +things; I don't see how you ever git on them." + +"I don't get on them," said Miss Hopkins. "The only way I shall ever +learn to start off is to start without the pedals. Does your son ride, +Mrs. Winslow?" + +"No, ma'am," said Mrs. Winslow; "but he knows how. When he was a boy +nothing would do but he must have a bicycle, one of those things most as +big as a mill wheel, and if you fell off you broke yourself somewhere, +sure. I always expected he'd be brought home in pieces. So I don't think +he'd have any manner of difficulty. Why, look at your friend; she's +'most riding alone!" + +"She could always do everything better than I," cried Lorania, with +ungrudging admiration. "See how she jumps off! Now I can't jump off any +more than I can jump on. It seems so ridiculous to be told to press hard +on the pedal on the side where you want to jump, and swing your further +leg over first, and cut a kind of a figure eight with your legs, and +turn your wheel the way you don't want to go--all at once. While I'm +trying to think of all those directions I always fall off. I got that +wheel only yesterday, and fell before I even got away from the block. +One of my arms looks like a Persian ribbon." + +Mrs. Winslow cried out in unfeigned sympathy. She wished Miss Hopkins +would use her liniment that she used for Cyril when he was hurt by the +burglars at the bank; he was bruised "terrible." + +"That must have been an awful time to you," said Lorania, looking with +more interest than she had ever felt on the meek little woman; and she +noticed the tremble in the decorously clasped hands. + +"Yes, ma'am," was all she said. + +"I've often looked over at you on the piazza, and thought how cosey you +looked. Mr. Winslow always seems to be at home evenings." + +"Yes, ma'am. We sit a great deal on the piazza. Cyril's a good boy; he +wa'n't nine when his father died; and he's been like a man helping me. +There never was a boy had such willing little feet. And he'd set right +there on the steps and pat my slipper and say what he'd git me when he +got to earning money; and he's got me every last thing, foolish and all, +that he said. There's that black satin gown, a sin and a shame for a +plain body like me, but he would git it. Cyril's got a beautiful +disposition too, jest like his pa's, and he's a handy man about the +house, and prompt at his meals. I wonder sometimes if Cyril was to git +married if his wife would mind his running over now and then and setting +with me awhile." + +She was speaking more rapidly, and her eyes strayed wistfully over to +the Hopkins piazza, where Sibyl was sitting with the young soldier. +Lorania looked at her pityingly. + +"Why, surely," said she. + +"Mothers have kinder selfish feelings," said Mrs. Winslow, moistening +her lips and drawing a quick breath, still watching the girl on the +piazza. "It's so sweet and peaceful for them, they forget their sons may +want something more. But it's kinder hard giving all your little +comforts up at once when you've had him right with you so long, and +could cook just what he liked, and go right into his room nights if he +coughed. It's all right, all right, but it's kinder hard. And beautiful +young ladies that have had everything all their lives might--might not +understand that a homespun old mother isn't wanting to force herself on +them at all when they have company, and they have no call to fear it." + +There was no doubt, however obscure the words seemed, that Mrs. Winslow +had a clear purpose in her mind, nor that she was tremendously in +earnest. Little blotches of red dabbled her cheeks, her breath came more +quickly, and she swallowed between her words. Lorania could see the +quiver in the muscles of her throat. She clasped her hands tight lest +they should shake. "He's in love with Sibyl," thought Lorania. "The poor +woman!" She felt sorry for her, and she spoke gently and reassuringly: + +"No girl with a good heart can help feeling tenderly towards her +husband's mother." + +Mrs. Winslow nodded. "You're real comforting," said she. She was silent +a moment, and then said, in a different tone: "You 'ain't got a large +enough track. Wouldn't you like to have our pasture too?" + +Lorania expressed her gratitude, and invited the Winslows to see the +practice. + +"My niece will come out to-morrow," she said, graciously. + +"Yes? She's a real fine-appearing young lady," said Mrs. Winslow. + +Both the cyclists exulted. Neither of them, however, was prepared to +behold the track made and the fence down the very next morning when +they came out, about ten o'clock, to the west side of Miss Hopkins's +boundaries. + +"As sure as you live, Maggie," exclaimed Lorania, eagerly, "he's got it +all done! Now that is something like a lover. I only hope his heart +won't be bruised as black and blue as I am with the wheel!" + +"Shuey says the only harm your falls do you is to take away your +confidence," said Mrs. Ellis. + +"He wouldn't say so if he could see my _knees_!" retorted Miss Hopkins. + +Mrs. Ellis, it will be observed, sheered away from the love-affairs of +Mr. Cyril Winslow. She had not yet made up her mind. And Mrs. Ellis, who +had been married, did not jump at conclusions regarding the heart of man +so rapidly as her spinster friend. She preferred to talk of the bicycle. +Nor did Miss Hopkins refuse the subject. To her at this moment the most +important object on the globe was the shining machine which she would +allow no hand but hers to oil and dust. Both Mrs. Ellis and she were +simply prostrated (as to their mental powers) by this new sport. They +could not think nor talk nor read of anything but _the wheel_. This is a +peculiarity of the bicyclist. No other sport appears to make such havoc +with the mind. + +One can learn to swim without describing his sensations to every casual +acquaintance or hunting up the natatorial columns in the newspapers. One +may enjoy riding a horse and yet go about his ordinary business with an +equal mind. One learns to play golf and still remains a peaceful citizen +who can discuss politics with interest. But the cyclist, man or woman, +is soaked in every pore with the delight and the perils of wheeling. He +talks of it (as he thinks of it) incessantly. For this fatuous passion +there is one excuse. Other sports have the fearful delight of danger and +the pleasure of the consciousness of dexterity and the dogged +Anglo-Saxon joy of combat and victory; but no other sport restores to +middle age the pure, exultant, muscular intoxication of childhood. Only +on the wheel can an elderly woman feel as she felt when she ran and +leaped and frolicked amid the flowers as a child. + +Lorania, of course, no longer jumped or ran; she kicked in the Delsarte +exercises, but it was a measured, calculated, one may say cold-blooded +kick, which limbered her muscles but did not restore her youthful glow +of soul. Her legs and not her spirits pranced. The same thing may be +said for Margaret Ellis. Now, between their accidents, they obtained +glimpses of an exquisite exhilaration. And there was also to be counted +the approval of their consciences, for they felt that no Turkish bath +could wring out moisture from their systems like half an hour's pumping +at the bicycle treadles. Lorania during the month had ridden through one +bottle of liniment and two of witch-hazel, and by the end of the second +bottle could ride a short distance alone. But Lorania could not yet +dismount unassisted, and several times she had felled poor Winslow to +the earth when he rashly adventured to stop her. Captain Carr had a +peculiar, graceful fling of the arm, catching the saddle-bar with one +hand while he steadied the handles with the other. He did not hesitate +in the least to grab Lorania's belt if necessary. But poor modest +Winslow, who fell upon the wheel and dared not touch the hem of a lady's +bicycle skirt, was as one in the path of a cyclone, and appeared daily +in a fresh pair of white trousers. + +"Yous have now," Shuey remarked, impressively, one day--"yous have now +arrived at the most difficult and dangerous period in learning the +wheel. It's similar to a baby when it's first learned to walk but +'ain't yet got sense in walking. When it was little it would stay put +wherever ye put it, and it didn't know enough to go by itself, which is +similar to you. When I was holding ye you couldn't fall, but now you're +off alone depindent on yourself, object-struck by every tree, taking +most of the pasture to turn in, and not able to git off save by +falling--" + +"Oh, couldn't you go with her somehow?" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow, appalled +at the picture. "Wouldn't a rope round her be some help? I used to put +it round Cyril when he was learning to walk." + +"Well, no, ma'am," said Shuey, patiently. "Don't you be scared; the +riding will come; she's getting on grandly. And ye should see Mr. +Winslow. 'Tis a pleasure to teach him. He rode in one lesson. I ain't +learning him nothing but tricks now." + +"But, Mr. Winslow, why don't you ride here--with us?" said Sibyl, with +her coquettish and flattering smile. "We're always hearing of your +beautiful riding. Are we never to see it?" + +"I think Mr. Winslow is waiting for that swell English cycle suit that I +hear about," said the captain, grinning; and Winslow grew red to his +eyelids. + +Lorania gave an indignant side glance at Sibyl. Why need the girl make +game of an honest man who loved her? Sibyl was biting her lips and +darting side glances at the captain. She called the pasture practice +slow, but she seemed, nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on the +bench, the captain on one side and Winslow on the other, rattling off +her girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. Ellis, with the anxious, set +faces of the beginner, were pedalling frantically after Cardigan. +Lorania began to pity Winslow, for it was growing plain to her that +Sibyl and the captain understood each other. She thought that even if +Sibyl did care for the soldier, she need not be so careless of Winslow's +feelings. She talked with the cashier herself, trying to make amends for +Sibyl's absorption in the other man, and she admired the fortitude that +concealed the pain that he must feel. It became quite the expected thing +for the Winslows to be present at the practice; but Winslow had not yet +appeared on his wheel. He used to bring a box of candy with him, or +rather three boxes--one for each lady, he said--and a box of peppermints +for his mother. He was always very attentive to his mother. + +"And fancy, Aunt Margaret," laughed Sibyl, "he has asked both auntie +and me to the theatre. He is not going to compromise himself by singling +one of us out. He's a careful soul. By the way, Aunt Margaret, Mrs. +Winslow was telling me yesterday that I am the image of auntie at my +age. Am I? Do I look like her? Was she as slender as I?" + +"Almost," said Mrs. Ellis, who was not so inflexibly truthful as her +friend. + +"No, Sibyl," said Lorania, with a deep, deep sigh, "I was always plump; +I was a chubby _child_! And oh, what do you think I heard in the crowd +at Manly's once? One woman said to another, 'Miss Hopkins has got a +wheel.' 'Miss Sibyl?' said the other. 'No; the stout Miss Hopkins,' said +the first creature; and the second--" Lorania groaned. + +"What _did_ she say to make you feel that way?" + +"She said--she said, 'Oh my!'" answered Lorania, with a dying look. + +"Well, she was horrid," said Mrs. Ellis; "but you know you have grown +thin. Come on; let's ride!" + +"I _never_ shall be able to ride," said Lorania, gloomily. "I can get +on, but I can't get off. And they've taken off the brake, so I can't +stop. And I'm object-struck by everything I look at. Some day I shall +look down-hill. Well, my will's in the lower drawer of the mahogany +desk." + +Perhaps Lorania had an occult inkling of the future. For this is what +happened: That evening Winslow rode on to the track in his new English +bicycle suit, which had just come. He hoped that he didn't look like a +fool in those queer clothes. But the instant he entered the pasture he +saw something that drove everything else out of his head, and made him +bend over the steering-bar and race madly across the green; Miss +Hopkins's bicycle was running away down-hill! Cardigan, on foot, was +pelting obliquely, in the hopeless thought to intercept her, while Mrs. +Ellis, who was reeling over the ground with her own bicycle, wheeled as +rapidly as she could to the brow of the hill, where she tumbled off, and +abandoning the wheel, rushed on foot to her friend's rescue. + +She was only in time to see a flash of silver and ebony and a streak of +brown dart before her vision and swim down the hill like a bird. Lorania +was still in the saddle, pedalling from sheer force of habit, and +clinging to the handle bars. Below the hill was a stone wall, and +farther was a creek. There was a narrow opening in the wall where the +cattle went down to drink; if she could steer through that she would +have nothing worse than soft water and mud; but there was not one chance +in a thousand that she could pass that narrow space. Mrs. Winslow, +horror-stricken, watched the rescuer, who evidently was cutting across +to catch the bicycle. + +"He's riding out of sight!" thought Shuey, in the rear. He himself did +not slacken his speed, although he could not be in time for the +catastrophe. Suddenly he stiffened; Winslow was close to the runaway +wheel. + +"Grab her!" yelled Shuey. "Grab her by the belt! _Oh, Lord!_" + +The exclamation exploded like the groan of a shell. For while Winslow's +bicycling was all that could be wished, and he flung himself in the path +of the on-coming wheel with marvellous celerity and precision, he had +not the power to withstand the never yet revealed number of pounds +carried by Miss Lorania, impelled by the rapid descent and gathering +momentum at every whirl. They met; he caught her; but instantly he was +rolling down the steep incline and she was doubled up on the grass. He +crashed sickeningly against the stone wall; she lay stunned and still +on the sod; and their friends, with beating hearts, slid down to them. +Mrs. Winslow was on the brow of the hill. She blesses Shuey to this day +for the shout he sent up, "Nobody killed, and I guess no bones broken." + +When Margaret went home that evening, having seen her friend safely in +bed, not much the worse for her fall, she was told that Cardigan wished +to see her. Shuey produced something from his pocket, saying: "I picked +this up on the hill, ma'am, after the accident. It maybe belongs to him, +or it maybe belongs to her; I'm thinking the safest way is to just give +it to you." He handed Mrs. Ellis a tiny gold-framed miniature of Lorania +in a red leather case. + + * * * * * + +The morning was a sparkling June morning, dewy and fragrant, and the +sunlight burnished handle and pedal of the friends' bicycles standing on +the piazza unheeded. It was the hour for morning practice, but Miss +Hopkins slept in her chamber, and Mrs. Ellis sat in the little parlor +adjoining, and thought. + +She did not look surprised at the maid's announcement that Mrs. Winslow +begged to see her for a few moments. Mrs. Winslow was pale. She was a +good sketch of discomfort on the very edge of her chair, clad in the +black silk which she wore Sundays, her head crowned with her bonnet of +state, and her hands stiff in a pair of new gloves. + +"I hope you'll excuse me not sending up a card," she began. "Cyril got +me some going on a year ago, and I _thought_ I could lay my hand right +on 'em, but I'm so nervous this morning I hunted all over, and they +wasn't anywhere. I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask if you picked up +anything--a little red Russia-leather case--" + +"Was it a miniature--a miniature of my friend Miss Hopkins?" + +"I thought it all over, and I came to explain. You no doubt think it +strange; and I can assure you that my son never let any human being look +at that picture. I never knew about it myself till it was lost and he +got out of his bed--he ain't hardly able to walk--and staggered over +here to look for it, and I followed him; and so he _had_ to tell me. He +had it painted from a picture that came out in the papers. He felt it +was an awful liberty. But--you don't know how my boy feels, Mrs. Ellis; +he has worshipped that woman for years. He 'ain't never had a thought +of anybody but her since they was children in school; and yet he's been +so modest and so shy of pushing himself forward that he didn't do a +thing until I put him on to help you with this bicycle." + +Margaret Ellis did not know what to say. She thought of the marquis; and +Mrs. Winslow poured out her story: "He 'ain't never said a word to me +till this morning. But don't I _know_? Don't I know who looked out so +careful for her investments? Don't I know who was always looking out for +her interest, silent, and always keeping himself in the background? Why, +she couldn't even buy a cow that he wa'n't looking round to see that she +got a good one! 'Twas him saw the gardener, and kept him from buying +that cow with tuberculosis, 'cause he knew about the herd. He knew by +finding out. He worshipped the very cows she owned, you may say, and +I've seen him patting and feeding up her dogs; it's to our house that +big mastiff always goes every night. Mrs. Ellis, it ain't often that a +woman gits love such as my son is offering, only he da'sn't offer it, +and it ain't often a woman is loved by such a good man as my son. He +'ain't got any bad habits; he'll die before he wrongs anybody; and he +has got the sweetest temper you ever see; and he's the tidiest man +about the house you could ask, and the promptest about meals." + +Mrs. Ellis looked at her flushed face, and sent another flood of color +into it, for she said, "Mrs. Winslow, I don't know how much good I may +be able to do, but I am on your side." + +Her eyes followed the little black figure when it crossed the lawn. She +wondered whether her advice was good, for she had counselled that +Winslow come over in the evening. + +"Maggie," said a voice. Lorania was in the doorway. "Maggie," she said, +"I ought to tell you that I heard every word." + +"Then _I_ can tell _you_," cried Mrs. Ellis, "that he is fifty times +more of a man than the marquis, and loves you fifty thousand times +better!" + +Lorania made no answer, not even by a look. What she felt, Mrs. Ellis +could not guess. Nor was she any wiser when Winslow appeared at her +gate, just as the sun was setting. + +"I didn't think I would better intrude on Miss Hopkins," said he, "but +perhaps you could tell me how she is this evening. My mother told me how +kind you were, and perhaps you--you would advise if I might venture to +send Miss Hopkins some flowers." + +Out of the kindness of her heart Mrs. Ellis averted her eyes from his +face; thus she was able to perceive Lorania saunter out of the Hopkins +gate. So changed was she by the bicycle practice that, wrapped in her +niece's shawl, she made Margaret think of the girl. An inspiration +flashed to her; she knew the cashier's dependence on his eye-glasses, +and he was not wearing them. + +"If you want to know how Miss Hopkins is, why not speak to her niece +now?" said she. + +He started. He saw Miss Sibyl, as he supposed, and he went swiftly down +the street. "Miss Sibyl!" he began, "may I ask how is your aunt?"--and +then she turned. + +She blushed, then she laughed aloud. "Has the bicycle done so much for +me?" said she. + +"The bicycle didn't need to do _anything_ for you!" he cried, warmly. + +Mrs. Ellis, a little distance in the rear, heard, turned, and walked +thoughtfully away. "They're off," said she--she had acquired a sporting +tinge of thought from Shuey Cardigan. "If with that start he can't make +the running, it's a wonder." + +"I have invited Mr. Winslow and his mother to dinner," said Miss +Hopkins, in the morning. "Will you come too, Maggie?" + +"I'll back him against the marquis," thought Margaret, gleefully. + +A week later Lorania said: "I really think I must be getting thinner. +Fancy Mr. Winslow, who is so clear-sighted, mistaking me for Sibyl! He +says--I told him how I had suffered from my figure--he says it can't be +what he has suffered from his. Do you think him so very short, Maggie? +Of course he isn't tall, but he has an elegant figure, I think, and I +never saw anywhere such a rider!" + +Mrs. Ellis answered, heartily, "He isn't very small, and he is a +beautiful figure on the wheel!" And added to herself, "I know what was +in that letter she sent yesterday to the marquis! But to think of its +all being due to the bicycle!" + + + + +The Marrying of Esther + +BY MARY M. MEARS + + +"Set there and cry; it's so sensible; and I 'ain't said that a June +weddin' wouldn't be a little nicer. But what you goin' to live on? Joe +can't git his money that soon." + +"He--said he thought he could manage. But I won't be married at all if I +can't have it--right." + +"Well, you can have it right. All is, there are some folks in this town +that if they don't calculate doin' real well by you, I don't feel called +upon to invite." + +"I don't know what you mean," sobbed the girl. She sat by the kitchen +table, her face hidden in her arms. Her mother stood looking at her +tenderly, and yet with a certain anger. + +"I mean about the presents. You've worked in the church, you've sung in +the choir for years, and now it's a chance for folks to show that they +appreciate it, and without they're goin' to--Boxes of cake would be +plenty if they wa'n't goin' to serve you any better than they did Ella +Plummet." + +Esther Robinson lifted her head. She was quite large, in a soft young +way, and her skin was as pure as a baby's. "But you can't know +beforehand how they're going to treat me!" + +"Yes, I can know beforehand, too, and if you're set on next month, it's +none too soon to be seein' about it. I've a good mind to step over to +Mis' Lawrence's and Mis' Stetson's this afternoon." + +"Mother! You--wouldn't ask 'em anything?" + +Mrs. Robinson hung away her dishtowel; then she faced Esther. "Of course +I wouldn't _ask_ 'em; there's other ways of findin' out besides +_asking_. I'd bring the subject round by saying I hoped there wouldn't +be many duplicates, and I'd git out of 'em what they intended givin' +without seemin' to." Esther looked at her mother with a sort of +fascination. "Then we could give some idea about the refreshments; for I +ain't a-goin' to have no elaborate layout without I _do_ know; and it +ain't because I grudge the money, either," she added, in swift +self-defence. + +Mrs. Robinson was a good manager of the moderate means her husband had +left her, but she was not parsimonious or inhospitable. Now she was +actuated by a fierce maternal jealousy. Esther, despite her pleasant +ways and her helpfulness, was often overlooked in a social way. This was +due to her mother. The more pretentious laughed about Mrs. Robinson, and +though the thrifty, contented housewife never missed the amenities which +might have been extended to her, she was keenly alive to any slights put +upon her daughter. And so it was now. + +Mrs. Lawrence, a rich, childless old lady, lived next door, and about +four o'clock she went over there. The girl watched her departure +doubtfully, but the possibility of not having a large wedding kept her +from giving a full expression to her feelings. + +Esther had always dreamed of her wedding; she had looked forward to it +just as definitely before she met Joe Elsworth as after her engagement +to him. There would be flowers and guests and feasting, and she would be +the centre of it all in a white dress and veil. + +She had never thought about there being any presents. Now for the first +time she thought of them as an added glory, but her imagination did not +extend to the separate articles or to their givers. Esther never +pictured her uncle Jonas at the wedding, yet he would surely be in +attendance in his rough farmer clothes, his grizzled, keen old face +towering above the other guests. She did not picture her friends as she +really knew them; the young men would be fine gentlemen, and the girls +ladies in wonderful toilets. As for herself and Joe, hidden away in a +bureau drawer Esther had a poster of one of Frohman's plays. It +represented a bride and groom standing together in a drift of orange +blossoms. + +Mrs. Robinson did not return at supper-time, and Esther ate alone. At +eight o'clock Joe Elsworth came. She met him at the door, and they +kissed in the entry. Then Joe preceded her in, and hung up his cap on a +projecting knob of the what-not--that was where he always put it. He +glanced into the dining-room and took in the waiting table. + +"Haven't you had supper yet!" + +"Mother isn't home." + +He came towards her swiftly; his eyes shone with a sudden elated +tenderness. She raised her arms and turned away her face, but he swept +aside the ineffectual barrier. When he let her go she seated herself on +the farther side of the room. Her glance was full of a soft rebuke. He +met it, then looked down smilingly and awkwardly at his shoes. + +"Where did you say your ma had gone?" + +"She's gone to Mis' Lawrence's, and a few other places." + +"Oh, calling. Old Mis' Norton goes about twice a year, and I ask her +what it amounts to." + +"I guess you'll find ma's calls'll amount to something." + +"How's that?" he demanded. + +"She's--going to try and find out what they intend giving." + +"What they intend giving?" + +"Yes. And without they intend giving something worth while, she says she +won't invite 'em, and maybe we won't have a big wedding at all," she +finished, pathetically. + +Joe did not answer. Esther stole an appealing glance at him. + +"Does it seem a queer thing to do?" + +"Well, yes, rather." + +Her face quivered. "She said I'd done so much for Mis' Lawrence--" + +"Well, you have, and I've wished a good many times that you wouldn't. +I'm sure I never knuckled to her, though she is my great-aunt." + +"I never knuckled to her, either," protested Esther. + +"You've done a sight more for her than I would have done, fixin' her +dresses and things, and she with more money than anybody else in town. +But your mother ain't going to call on everybody, is she?" he asked, +anxiously. + +"Of course she ain't. Only she said, if it was going to be in June--but +I don't want it to be ever," she added, covering her face. + +"Oh, it's all right," said Joe, penitently. He went over and put his arm +around her. Nevertheless, his eyes held a worried look. + +Joe's father had bound him out to a farmer by the name of Norton until +his majority, when the sum of seven hundred dollars, all the little +fortune the father had left, together with three hundred more from +Norton, was to be turned over to him. But Joe would not be twenty-one +until October. It was going to be difficult for him to arrange for the +June wedding Esther desired. He was very much in love, however, and +presently he lifted his boyish cheek from her hair. + +"I think I'll take that cottage of Lanham's; it's the only vacant house +in the village, and he's promised to wait for the rent, so that +confounded old Norton needn't advance me a cent." + +Esther flushed. "What do you suppose makes him act so?" she questioned, +though she knew. + +Joe blushed too. "He don't like it because I'm going to work in the +factory when it opens. But Mis' Norton and Sarah have done everything +for me," he added, decidedly. + +Up to the time of his engagement Joe had been in the habit of showing +Sarah Norton an occasional brotherly attention, and he would have +continued to do so had not Esther and Mrs. Robinson interfered--Esther +from girlish jealousy, and her mother because she did not approve of the +family, she said. She could not say she did not approve of Sarah, for +there was not a more upright, self-respecting girl in the village. But +Sarah, because of her father's miserliness, often went out for extra +work when the neighbors needed help, and this was the real cause of Mrs. +Robinson's feeling. Unconsciously she made the same distinction between +Sarah Norton and Esther that some of the more ambitious of the village +mothers made between their girls and her own daughter. Then it was +common talk that old Jim Norton, for obvious reasons, was displeased +with Joe's matrimonial plans, but Mrs. Robinson professed to believe +that the wife and daughter were really the ones disappointed. Now Esther +began twisting a button of Joe's coat. + +"I don't believe mother'll ask either of 'em to the wedding," said she. + +When Mrs. Robinson entered, Esther stood expectant and fearful by the +table. Her mother drew up a chair and reached for the bread. + +"I didn't stop anywhere for supper. You've had yours, 'ain't you?" + +The girl nodded. + +"Joe come?" + +"He just left." + +But Mrs. Robinson was not to be hurried into divulging the result of her +calls. She remained massively mysterious. Esther began to wish she had +not hurried Joe off so unceremoniously. After her first cup of tea, +however, her mother asked for a slip of paper and a pencil. "I want that +pencil in my machine drawer, that writes black, and any kind of paper'll +do," she said. + +Esther brought them; then she took up her sewing. She was not without a +certain self-restraint. Mrs. Robinson, between her sips of tea, wrote. +The soft gurgle of her drinking annoyed Esther, and she had a tingling +desire to snatch the paper. After a last misdirected placing of her cup +in her plate, however, her mother looked up and smiled triumphantly. + +"I guess we'll have to plan something different than boxes of cake. +Listen to this; Mis' Lawrence--No, I won't read that yet. Mis' +Manning--I went in there because I thought about her not inviting you +when she gave that library party--one salt and pepper with rose-buds +painted on 'em." + +Esther leaned forward; her face was crimson. + +"You needn't look so," remonstrated her mother. "It was all I could do +to keep from laughing at the way she acted. I just mentioned that we +were only goin' to invite those you were indebted to, and she went and +fetched out that salt and pepper. I believe she said they was intended +in the first place for some relative that didn't git married in the +end." + +The girl made an inarticulate noise in her throat. Her mother continued, +in a loud, impressive tone: + +"Mis' Stetson--something worked. She hasn't quite decided what, but +she's goin' to let me know about it. Jane Watson--" + +"You didn't go _there_, mother!" + +Mrs. Robinson treated her daughter to a contemptuous look. "I guess I've +got sense. Jane was at Mis' Stetson's, and when I came away she went +along with me, and insisted that I should stop and see some +lamp-lighters she'd got to copy from--those paper balls. She seemed +afraid a string of those wouldn't be enough, but I told her how pretty +they was, and how much you'd be pleased." + +"I guess I'll think a good deal more of 'em than I will of Mis' +Manning's salt and pepper." Esther was very near tears. + +"Next I went to the Rogerses, and they've about concluded to give you a +lamp; and they can afford to. Then that's all the places I've been, +except to Mis' Lawrence's, and she"--Mrs. Robinson paused for +emphasis--"she's goin' to give you a silver _tea-set_!" + +Esther looked at her mother, her red lips apart. + +"That was the first place I called, and I said pretty plain what I was +gittin' at; but after I knew about the water-set, that settled what kind +of weddin' we'd have." + + * * * * * + +But the next morning the world looked different. Her rheumatic foot +ached, and that always affected her temper; but when they sat down to +sew, the real cause of her irascibleness came out. + +"Mis' Lawrence wa'n't any more civil than she need be," she remarked. "I +guess she'd decided she'd got to do something, being related to Joe. She +said she supposed you were expecting a good many presents; and I said +no, you didn't look for many, and there were some that you'd done a good +deal for that you knew better than to expect anything from. I was mad. +Then she turned kind of red, and mentioned about the water-set." + +And in the afternoon a young girl acquaintance added to Esther's +perturbation. "I just met Susan Rogers," she confided to the other, "and +she said they hated to give that lamp, but they supposed they were in +for it." + +Esther was not herself for some days. All her pretty dreams were blotted +out, and a morbid embarrassment took hold of her; but she was roused to +something like her old interest when the presents began to come in and +she saw her mother's active preparations for the wedding--the more so as +over the village seemed to have spread a pleasant excitement concerning +the event. Presents arrived from unexpected sources, so that +invitations had to be sent afterwards to the givers. Women who had +never crossed the Robinson threshold came now like Hindoo gift-bearers +before some deity whom they wished to propitiate. Meeting there, they +exchanged droll, half-deprecating glances. Mrs. Robinson's calls had +formed the subject of much laughing comment; but weddings were not +common in Marshfield, and the desire to be bidden to this one was +universal; it spread like an epidemic. + +Mrs. Robinson was at first elated. She overlooked the matter of +duplicates, and accepted graciously every article that was +tendered--from a patch-work quilt to a hem-stitched handkerchief. "You +can't have too many of some things," she remarked to Esther. But later +she reversed this statement. Match-safes, photograph-frames, and pretty +nothings accumulated to an alarming extent. + +"Now that's the last pin-cushion you're goin' to take," she declared, as +she returned from answering a call at the door one evening. "There's +fourteen in the parlor now. Some folks seem to have gone crazy on +pin-cushions." + +She grew confused, and the next day she went into the parlor, which, +owing to the nature of the display, resembled a booth at a church fair, +and made an accurate list of the articles received. When she emerged, +her large, handsome face was quite flushed. + +"Little wabbly, fall-down things, most of 'em. It'll take you a week to +dust your house if you have all those things standin' round." + +"Well, I ain't goin' to put none of 'em away," declared Esther. "I like +ornaments." + +"Glad you do; you've got enough of 'em, land knows. _Ornaments!_" The +very word seemed to incense her. "I guess you'll find there's something +needed besides _ornaments_ when you come right down to livin'. For one +thing, you're awful short of dishes and bedding, and you can't ever have +no company--unless," she added, with withering sarcasm, "you give 'em +little vases to drink out of, and put 'em to bed under a picture-drape, +with a pin-cushion or a scent-bag for a piller." + +And from that time Mrs. Robinson accepted no gift without first +consulting her list. It became known that she looked upon useful +articles with favor, and brooms and flat-irons and bright tinware +arrived constantly. Then it was that the heterogeneous collection began +to pall upon Esther. The water-set had not yet been presented, but its +magnificence grew upon her, and she persuaded Joe to get a +spindle-legged stand on which to place it, although he could not furnish +the cottage until October, and had gone in debt for the few necessary +things. She pictured the combination first in one corner of the little +parlor, then another, finally in a window where it could be seen, from +the road. + +Esther's standards did not vary greatly from her mother's, but she had a +bewildered sense that they were somehow stepping from the beaten track +of custom. On one or two points, however, she was firm. The few novels +that had come within her reach she had conned faithfully. Thus, even +before she had a lover, she had decided that the most impressive hour +for a wedding was sunrise, and had arranged the procession which was to +wend its way towards the church. And in these matters her mother, +respecting her superior judgment, stood stanchly by her. + +Nevertheless, when the eventful morning arrived she was bitterly +disappointed. She had set her heart on having the church bell rung, and +overlooked the fact that the meeting-house bell was cracked, till Joe +reminded her. Then the weather was unexpectedly chilly. A damp fog, not +yet dispersed by the sun, hung over the barely awakened village, and the +little flower-girl shivered. She had a shawl pinned about her, and when +the procession was fairly started she tripped over it, and there was a +halt while she gathered up the roses and geraniums in her little +trembling hands and thrust them back into the basket. Celia Smith +tittered. Celia was the bridesmaid, and was accompanied by Joe's friend, +red-headed Harry Baker; and Mrs. Robinson and Uncle Jonas, who were far +behind, made the most of the delay. Mrs. Robinson often explained that +she was not a "good walker," and her brother-in-law tried jocularly to +help her along, although he used a cane himself. His weather-beaten old +face was beaming, but it was as though the smiles were set between the +wrinkles, for he kept his mouth sober. He had a flower in his +button-hole, which gave him a festive air, despite the fact that his +clothes were distinctly untidy. Several buttons were off: he had no wife +to keep them sewed on. + +Esther had given but one glance at him. Her head under its lace veil +bent lower and lower. The flounces of her skirt stood out about her +like the delicate bell of a hollyhock; she followed the way falteringly. +Joe, his young eyes radiant, inclined his curly head towards her, but +she did not heed him. The little procession was as an awkward garment +which hampered and abashed her; but just as they reached the church the +sun crept above the tree-tops, and from the bleakness of dawn the whole +scene warmed into the glorious beauty of a June day. The guests lost +their aspect of chilled waiting; Esther caught their admiring glances. +For one brief moment her triumph was complete; the next she had +overstepped its bounds. She went forward scarcely touching Joe's arm. +Her great desire became a definite purpose. She whispered to a member of +her Sunday-school class, a little fellow. He looked at her wonderingly +at first, then darted forward and grasped the rope which dangled down in +a corner of the vestibule. He pulled with a will, but even as the old +bell responded with a hoarse clank, his arms jerked upward, and with +curls flying and fat legs extended he ascended straight to the ceiling. + +"Oh, suz, the Lord's taking him right up!" shrieked an old woman, the +sepulchral explanation of the broken bell but serving to intensify her +terror; and there were others who refused to understand, even when his +sister caught him by the heels. She was very white, and she shook him +before she set him down. Too scared to realize where he was, he fought +her, his little face quite red, and his blouse strained up so that it +revealed the girth of his round little body in its knitted undershirt. + +"Le' me go," he whimpered; "she telled me to do it." + +His words broke through the general amazement like a stone through the +icy surface of a stream. The guests gave way to mirth. Some of the young +girls averted their faces; they could not look at Esther. The matrons +tilted their bonneted heads towards one another and shook softly. "I +thought at first it might be a part of the show," whispered one, "but I +guess it wasn't planned." + +Esther was conscious of every whisper and every glance; shame seemed to +engulf her, but she entered the church holding her head high. When they +emerged into the sunshine again, she would have been glad to run away, +but she was forced to pause while her mother made an announcement. + +"The refreshments will be ready by ten," she said, "and as we calculate +to keep the tables runnin' all day, those that can't come one time can +come another." + +After which there was a little rice-throwing, and the young couple +departed. The frolic partly revived Esther's spirits; but her mother, +toiling heavily along with a hard day's work before her, was inclined to +speak her mind. Her brother-in-law, however, restrained her. + +"Seems to me I never seen anything quite so cute as that little feller +a-ringin' that bell for the weddin'. Who put him up to it, anyhow?" + +"Why, Esther. She was so set on havin' a 'chime,' as she called it." + +"Well, it was a real good idee! A _real_ good idee!" and he kept +repeating the phrase as though in a perfect ecstasy of appreciation. + +When Esther reached home, she and Joe arranged the tables in the side +yard, but when the first guest turned in at the gate her mother sent her +to the house. "Now you go into the parlor and rest. You can just as well +sit under that dove as stand under it," she said. + +The girl started listlessly to obey, but the next words revived her like +wine: + +"I declare it's Mis' Lawrence, and she's bringing that water-set; she +hung on to it till the last minit." + +Esther flew to her chamber and donned her veil, which she had laid +aside, then sped down-stairs; but when she passed through the parlor she +put her hands over her eyes: she wanted to look at the water-set first +with Joe. He was no longer helping her mother, and she fluttered about +looking for him. The rooms would soon be crowded, and then there would +be no opportunity to examine the wonderful gift. + +She darted down a foot-path that crossed the yard diagonally. It led to +a gap in the stone-wall which opened on a lane. Esther and Joe had been +in the habit of walking here of an evening. It was scarcely more than a +grassy way overhung by leaning branches of old fruit trees, but it was a +short-cut to the cottage Joe had rented. Now Esther's feet, of their own +volition, carried her here. She slid through the opening. "Joe!" she +called, and her voice had the tremulous cadence of a bird summoning its +mate; but it died away in a little smothered cry, for not a rod away was +Joe, and sitting on a large stone was Sarah Norton. They had their backs +towards her, and were engaged in such an earnest conversation that they +did not hear her. Sarah's shoulders moved with her quick breathing; she +had a hand on Joe's arm. Esther stood staring, her thin draperies +circling about her, and her childish face pale. Then she turned, with a +swift impulse to escape, but again she paused, her eyes riveted in the +opposite direction. From where she stood the back door of her future +home was visible, and two men were carrying out furniture. Involuntarily +she opened her lips to call Joe, but no sound came. Yes, they had the +bureau; they would probably take the spindle-legged stand next. A strong +protective instinct is part of possession, and to Esther that sight was +as a magnet to steel. Down the grassy lane she sped, but so lightly that +the couple by the wall were as unobservant of her as they were of the +wind stirring the long grass. + +Sarah Norton rose. "I run every step of the way to get here in time. +Please, Joe!" she panted. + +He shook his head. "It's real kind of you and your mother, Sarah, but I +guess I ain't going to touch any of the money you worked for and earned, +and I can't help but think, when I talk to Lanham--" + +"I tell you, you can't reason with him in his state!" + +"Well, I'll raise it somehow." + +"You'll have to be quick about it, then," she returned, concisely. +"He'll be here in a few minutes, and it's cash down for the first three +months, or he'll let the other party have it." + +"But he promised--" + +"That don't make any difference. He's drunk, and he thought father'd +offer to make you an advance; but father just told him to come down +here, that you were being married, and say he'd poke all your things out +in the road without you paid." + +The young man turned. Sarah blocked his way. She was a tall, +good-looking girl, somewhat older than Joe, and she looked straight up +into his face. + +"See here, Joe; you know what makes father act so, and so do I, and so +does mother, and mother and I want you should take this money; it'll +make us feel better." Sarah flushed, but she looked at him as directly +as if she had been his sister. + +Joe felt an admiration for her that was almost reverence. It carried him +for the moment beyond the consideration of his own predicament. + +"No, I don't know what makes him act so either," he cried, hotly. "Oh +Lord, Sarah, you sha'n't say such a thing!" + +She interrupted him. "Won't you take it?" + +He turned again: "You're just as good as you can be, but I can manage +some way." + +"I'll watch for Lanham," she answered, quietly, "and keep him talking as +long as I can. He's just drunk enough to make a scene." + +Half-way to the house, Joe met Harry Barker. + +"What did she want?" he inquired, curiously. + +When Joe told him he plunged into his pocket and drew out two dollars, +then offered to go among the young fellows and collect the balance of +the amount, but Joe caught hold of him. + +"Think of something else." + +"I could explain to the boys--" + +"You go and ask Mrs. Lawrence if she won't step out on the porch," the +other commanded; "she's my great-aunt, and I never asked anything of her +before." + +But Mrs. Lawrence was not sympathetic. She told Joe flatly that she +never lent money, and that the water-set was as much as she could afford +to give. "It ain't paid for, though," she added; "and if you'd rather +have the money, I suppose I can send it back. But seems to me I +shouldn't have been in such an awful hurry to git married; I should 'a' +waited a month or so, till I had something to git married on. But you're +just like your father--never had no calculation. Do you want I should +return that silver?" + +Joe hesitated. It was an easy way out of the difficulty. Then a vision +of Esther rose before him, and the innocent preparations she had been +making for the display of the gift; "No," he answered, shortly. And Mrs. +Lawrence, with a shake of the shoulders as though she threw off all +responsibility in her young relative's affairs, bustled away. "I'm going +to keep that water-set if everything else has to go," he declared to the +astonished Harry. "Let 'em set me out in the road; I guess I'll git +along." He had a humorous vision of himself and Esther trudging forth, +with the water-set between them, to seek their fortune. + +He flung himself from the porch, and was confronted by Jonas Ingram. The +old fellow emerged from behind a lilac-bush with a guilty yet excited +air. + +"Young man, I ain't given to eaves-dropping, but I was strollin' along +here and I heered it all; and as I was calculatin' to give my niece a +present--" He broke off and laid a hand on Joe's arm. "Where is that +dod-blasted fool of a Lanham? I'll pay him; then I'll break every bone +in his dum body!" he exclaimed, waxing profane. "Come here disturbin' +decent folks' weddin's! Where is he?" + +He started off down the path, striking out savagely with his stick. Joe +watched him a moment, then put after him, and Harry Barker followed. + +"If this ain't the liveliest weddin'!" + +Nevertheless, he was disappointed in his expectations of an encounter. +When the trio emerged through the gap in the wall they found only Sarah +Norton awaiting them. + +"Lanham's come and gone," she announced. "No, I didn't give him a thing, +except a piece of my mind," she answered, in response to a look from +Joe. "I told him that he was acting like a fool; that father was in for +a thousand dollars to you in the fall, and that you would pay then, as +you promised, and that he'd better clear out." + +"Oh, if I could jest git a holt of him!" muttered Jonas Ingram. + +"That seemed to sober him," continued the girl; "but he said he wasn't +the only one that had got scared; that Merrill was going for his tables +and chairs; but Lanham said he'd run up to the cottage, and if he was +there, he'd send him off. You see, father threw out as if he wasn't +owing you anything," she added, in a lower voice, "and that's what +stirred 'em up." + +Joe turned white, in a sudden heat of anger--the first he had shown, +"I'll stir him--" he began; then his eyes met hers. He reddened. "Oh, +Sarah, I'm ever so much obliged to you!" + +"It was nothing. I guess it was lucky I wasn't invited to the wedding, +though." She laughed, and started away, leaving Joe abashed. She glanced +back. "I hope none of this foolishness'll reach Mis' Elsworth's ears," +she called, in a friendly voice. + +"I hope it won't," muttered Joe, fervently, and stood watching her till +the old man pulled his sleeve. + +"Lanham may not keep his word to the girl. Best go down there, hadn't +we?" + +The young man made no answer, but turned and ran. He longed for some one +to wreak vengeance on. The other two had difficulty in keeping up with +him. The first object that attracted their attention was the bureau. It +was standing beside the back steps. Joe tried the door; it was +fastened. He drew forth the key and fitted it into the lock, but still +the door did not yield. He turned and faced the others. "_Some one's in +there!_" + +Jonas Ingram broke forth into an oath. He shook his cane at the house. + +"Some one's in there, and they've got the door bolted on the inside," +continued Joe. His voice had a strange sound even to himself. He seemed +to be looking on at his own wrath. He strode around to a window, but the +blinds were closed; the blinds were closed all over the house; every +door was barred. Whoever was inside was in utter darkness. Joe came back +and gave the door a violent shake; then they all listened, but only the +pecking of a hen along the walk broke the silence. + +"I'll get a crowbar," suggested Harry, scowling in the fierce sunlight. +Jonas Ingram stood with his hair blowing out from under his hat and his +stick grasped firmly in his gnarled old hand. He was all ready to +strike. His chin was thrust out rigidly. They both pressed close to Joe, +but he did not heed them. He put one shoulder against a panel; every +muscle was set. + +"Whoever you are, if I have to break this door down--" + +There was a soft commotion on the inside and the bolt was drawn. Joe, +with the other two at his heels, fairly burst into the darkened place, +just in time to see a white figure dart across the room and cast itself +in a corner. For an instant they could only blink. The figure wrapped +its white arms about some object. + +"You can have everything but this table; you can't have--this." The +words ended in a frightened sob. + +"_Esther!_" + +"_Oh, Joe!_" She struggled to her feet, then shrank back against the +wall. "Oh, I didn't know it was you. Go 'way! go 'way!" + +"Why, Esther, what do you mean?" He started towards her, but she turned +on him. + +"Where is she?" + +"Where's who?" + +She did not reply, but standing against the wall, she stared at him with +a passionate scorn. + +"You don't mean Sarah Norton?" asked Joe, slowly. Esther quivered. "Why, +she came to tell me of the trouble her father was trying to get me into. +But how did you come here, Esther? How did you know anything about it?" + +She did not answer. Her head sank. + +"How did you, Esther?" + +"I saw--you in the lane," she faltered, then caught up her veil as +though it had been a pinafore. Joe went up to her, and Jonas Ingram took +hold of Harry Barker, and the two stepped outside, but not out of +ear-shot; they were still curious. They could hear Esther's sobbing +voice at intervals. "I tried to make 'em stop, but they wouldn't, and I +slipped in past 'em and bolted the door; and when you came, I thought it +was them--and, oh! ain't they our things, Joe?" + +The old man thrust his head in at the door. "Yes," he roared, then +withdrew. + +"And won't they take the table away?" + +"No," he roared again. "I'd just like to see 'em!" + +Esther wept harder. "Oh, I wish they would; I ought to give 'em up. I +didn't care for them after I thought--that. It was just that I had to +have something I wouldn't let go, and I tried to think only of saving +the table for the water-set." + +"Come mighty near bein' no water-set," muttered Jonas to himself; then +he turned to his companion. "Young man, I guess they don't need us no +more," he said. + +When he regained his sister-in-law's, he encountered that lady carrying +a steaming dish. Guests stood about under the trees or sat at the long +tables. + +"For mercy sakes, Jonas, have you seen Esther? She made fuss enough +about havin' that dove fixed up in the parlor, and she and Joe ain't +stood under it a minit yet." + +"That's a fact," chuckled the old fellow. "They ain't stood under no +dove of peace yet; they're just about ready to now, I reckon." + + * * * * * + +And up through the lane, all oblivious, the lovers were walking slowly. +Just before they reached the gap in the wall, they paused by common +consent. Cherry and apple trees drooped over the wall; these had ceased +blossoming, but a tangle of wild-rose bushes was all ablush. It dropped +a thick harvest of petals on the ground. Joe bent his head; and Esther, +resting against his shoulder, lifted her eyes to his face. All +unconsciously she took the pose of the woman in the Frohman poster. They +kissed, and then went on slowly. + + + + +Cordelia's Night of Romance + +BY JULIAN RALPH + + +Cordelia Angeline Mahoney was dressing, as she would say, "to keep a +date" with a beau, who would soon be waiting on the corner nearest her +home in the Big Barracks tenement-house. She smiled as she heard the +shrill catcall of a lad in Forsyth Street. She knew it was Dutch +Johnny's signal to Chrissie Bergen to come down and meet him at the +street doorway. Presently she heard another call--a birdlike +whistle--and she knew which boy's note it was, and which girl it called +out of her home for a sidewalk stroll. She smiled, a trifle sadly, and +yet triumphantly. She had enjoyed herself when she was no wiser and +looked no higher than the younger Barracks girls, who took up the boys +of the neighborhood as if there were no others. + +She was in her own little dark inner room, which she shared with only +two others of the family, arranging a careful toilet by kerosene-light. +The photograph of herself in trunks and tights, of which we heard in the +story of Elsa Muller's hopeless love, was before her, among several +portraits of actresses and salaried beauties. She had taken them out +from under the paper in the top drawer of the bureau. She always kept +them there, and always took them out and spread them in the lamp-light +when she was alone in her room. She glanced approvingly at the portrait +of herself as a picture of which she had said to more than one girlish +confidante that it showed as neat a figure and as perfectly shaped limbs +as any actress's she had ever seen. But the suggestion of a frown +flitted across her brow as she thought how silly she was to have once +been "stage-struck"--how foolish to have thought that mere beauty could +quickly raise a poor girl to a high place on the stage. Julia Fogarty's +case proved that. Julia and she were stage-struck together, and where +was Julia--or Corynne Belvedere, as she now called herself? She started +well as a figurante in a comic opera company up-town, but from that she +dropped to a female minstrel troupe in the Bowery, and now, Lewy Tusch +told Cordelia, she was "tooing ter skirt-tance in ter pickernic parks +for ter sick-baby fund, ant passin' ter hat arount afterwarts." And evil +was being whispered of her--a pretty high price to pay for such small +success; and it must be true, because she sometimes came home late at +night in cabs, which are devilish, except when used at funerals. + +It was Cordelia who attracted Elsa Muller's sweetheart, Yank Hurst, to +her side, and left Elsa to die yearning for his return. And it was +Cordelia who threw Hurst aside when he took to drink and stabbed the +young man who, during a mere walk from church, took his place beside +Cordelia. And yet Cordelia was only ambitious, not wicked. Few men live +who would not look twice at her. She was not of the stunted tenement +type, like her friends Rosie Mulvey and Minnie Bechman and Julia +Moriarty. She was tall and large and stately, and yet plump in every +outline. Moreover, she had the "style" of an American girl, and looked +as well in five dollars' worth of clothes--all home-made, except her +shoes and stockings--as almost any girl in richer circles. It was too +bad that she was called a flirt by the young men, and a stuck-up thing +by the girls, when in fact she was merely more shrewd and calculating +than the others, who were content to drift out of the primary schools +into the shops, and out of the shops into haphazard matrimony. Cordelia +was not lovable, but not all of us are who may be better than she. She +was monopolized by the hope of getting a man; but a mere alliance with +trousers was not the sum of her hope; they must jingle with coin. + +It was strange, then, that she should be dressing to meet Jerry Donahue, +who was no better than gilly to the Commissioner of Public Works, +drawing a small salary from a clerkship he never filled, while he served +the Commissioner as a second left hand. But if we could see into +Cordelia's mind we would be surprised to discover that she did not +regard herself as flesh-and-blood Mahoney, but as romantic Clarice +Delamour, and she only thought of Jerry as James the butler. The +voracious reader of the novels of to-day will recall the story of +_Clarice, or Only a Lady's-Maid,_ which many consider the best of the +several absorbing tales that Lulu Jane Tilley has written. Cordelia had +read it twenty times, and almost knew it by heart. Her constant dream +was that she could be another Clarice, and shape her life like hers. +The plot of the novel needs to be briefly told, since it guided +Cordelia's course. + +Clarice was maid to a wealthy society dowager. James the butler fell in +love with Clarice when she first entered the household, and she, hearing +the servants' gossip about James's savings and salary, had encouraged +his attentions. He pressed her to marry him. But young Nicholas +Stuyvesant came home from abroad to find his mother ill and Clarice +nursing her. Every day he noticed the modest rosy maid moving +noiselessly about like a sunbeam. Her physical perfection profoundly +impressed him. In her presence he constantly talked to his mother about +his admiration for healthy women. Each evening Clarice reported to him +the condition of the mother, and on one occasion mentioned that she had +never known ache, pain, or malady in her life. The young man often +chatted with her in the drawing-room, and James the butler got his +_congé_. Mr. Stuyvesant induced his mother to make Clarice her companion, +and then he met her at picture exhibitions, and in Central Park by +chance, and next--every one will recall the exciting scene--he paid +passionate court to her "in the pink sewing-room, where she had +reclined on soft silken sofa pillows, with her tiny slippers upon the +head of a lion whose skin formed a rug before her." Clarice thought him +unprincipled, and repulsed him. When the widow recovered her health and +went to Newport, the former maid met all society there. A gifted lawyer +fell a victim to Clarice's charms, and, on a moonlit porch overlooking +the sea, warned her against young Stuyvesant. On learning that the +_roué_ had already attempted to weaken the girl's high principles, to +rescue her he made her his wife. He was soon afterward elected Mayor of +New York, but remained a suitor for his beautiful wife's approbation, +waiting upon her in gilded halls with the fidelity of a knight of old. + +Cordelia adored Clarice and fancied herself just like her--beautiful, +ambitious, poor, with a future of her own carving. Of course such a case +is phenomenal. No other young woman was ever so ridiculous. + +"You have on your besht dresh, Cordalia," said her mother. "It'll soon +be wore out, an' ye'll git no other, wid your father oidle, an' no wan +airnin' a pinny but you an' Johnny an' Sarah Rosabel. Fwhere are ye +goin'?" + +"I won't be gone long," said Cordelia, half out of the hall door. + +"Cordalia Angeline, darlin'," said her mother, "mind, now, doan't let +them be talkin' about ye, fwherever ye go--shakin' yer shkirts an' +rollin' yer eyes. It doan't luk well for a gyurl to be makin' hersel' +attractive." + +"Oh, mother, I'm not attractive, and you know it." + +With her head full of meeting Jerry Donahue, Cordelia tripped down the +four flights of stairs to the street door. As Clarice, she thought of +Jerry as James the butler; in fact, all the beaux she had had of late +were so many repetitions of the unfortunate James in her mind. All the +other characters in her acquaintance were made to fit more or less +loosely into her romance life, and she thought of everything she did as +if it all happened in Lulu Jane Tilley's beautiful novel. Let the reader +fancy, if possible, what a feat that must have been for a tenement girl +who had never known what it was to have a parlor, in our sense of the +word, who had never known courtship to be carried on indoors, except in +a tenement hallway, and who had to imagine that the sidewalk flirtations +of actual life were meetings in private parks, that the wharves and +public squares and tenement roofs where she had seen all the young men +and women making love were heavily carpeted drawing-rooms, broad manor, +house verandas, and the fragrant conservatories of luxurious mansions! +But Cordelia managed all this mental necromancy easily, to her own +satisfaction. And now she was tripping down the bare wooden stairs +beside the dark greasy wall, and thinking of her future husband, the +rich Mayor, who must be either the bachelor police captain of the +precinct, or George Fletcher, the wealthy and unmarried factory-owner +near by, or, perhaps, Senator Eisenstone, the district leader, who, she +was forced to reflect, was an unlikely hero for a Catholic girl, since +he was a Hebrew. But just as she reached the street door and decided +that Jerry would do well enough as a mere temporary James the butler, +and while Jerry was waiting for her on the corner, she stepped from the +stoop directly in front of George Fletcher. + +"Good evening," said the wealthy, young employer. + +"Good evening, Mr. Fletcher." + +"It's very embarrassing," said Mr. Fletcher: "I know your given +name--Cordelia, isn't it?--but your last na--Oh, thank you--Miss +Mahoney, of course. You know we met at that very queer wedding in the +home of my little apprentice, Joe--the line-man's wedding, you know." + +"Te he!" Cordelia giggled. "Wasn't that a terrible strange wedding? I +think it was just terrible." + +"Were you going somewhere?" + +"Oh, not at all, Mr. Fletcher," with another nervous giggle or two. "I +have no plans on me mind, only to get out of doors. It's terrible hot, +ain't it?" + +"May I take a walk with you, Miss Mahoney?" + +It seemed to her that if he had called her Clarice the whole novel would +have come true then and there. + +"I can't be out very late, Mr. Fletcher," said she, with a giggle of +delight. + +"Are you sure I am not disarranging your plans? Had you no engagements?" + +"Oh no," said she; "I was only going out with me lonely." + +"Let us take just a short walk, then," said Fletcher; "only you must be +the man and take me in charge, Miss Mahoney, for I never walked with a +young lady in my life." + +"Oh, certainly not; you never did--I _don't_ think." + +"Upon my honor, Miss Mahoney, I know only one woman in this city--Miss +Whitfield, the doctor's daughter, who lives in the same house with you; +and only one other in the world--my aunt, who brought me up, in +Vermont." + +Well indeed did Cordelia know this. All the neighborhood knew it, and +most of the other girls were conscious of a little flutter in their +breasts when his eyes fell upon them in the streets, for it was the +gossip of all who knew his workmen that the prosperous ladder-builder +lived in his factory, where his had spent the life of a monk, without +any society except of his canaries, his books, and his workmen. + +"Well, I declare!" sighed Cordelia. "How terrible cunning you men are, +to get up such a story to make all the girls think you're romantic!" + +But, oh, how happy Cordelia was! At last she had met her prince--the +future Mayor--her Sultan of the gilded halls. In that humid, sticky, +midsummer heat among the tenements, every other woman dragged along as +if she weighed a thousand pounds, but Cordelia felt like a feather +floating among clouds. + +The babel--did the reader ever walk up Forsyth Street on a hot night, +into Second Avenue, and across to Avenue A, and up to Tompkins Park? +The noise of the tens of thousands on the pavements makes a babel that +drowns the racket of the carts and cars. The talking of so many persons, +the squalling of so many babies, the mothers scolding and slapping every +third child, the yelling of the children at play, the shouts and loud +repartee of the men and women--all these noises rolled together in the +air makes a steady hum and roar that not even the breakers on a hard +sea-beach can equal. You might say that the tenements were empty, as +only the very sick, who could not move, were in them. For miles and +miles they were bare of humanity, each flat unguarded and unlocked, with +the women on the sidewalks, with the youngest children in arms or in +perambulators, while those of the next sizes romped in the streets; with +the girls and boys of fourteen giggling in groups in the doorways (the +age and places where sex first asserts itself), and only the young men +and women missing; for they were in the parks, on the wharves, and on +the roofs, all frolicking and love-making. + +And every house front was like a Russian stove, expending the heat it +had sucked from the all-day sun. And every door and window breathed bad +air--air without oxygen, rich and rank and stifling. + +But Cordelia was Clarice, the future Mayoress. She did not know she was +picking a tiresome way around the boys at leap-frog, and the mothers and +babies and baby-carriages. She did not notice the smells, or feel the +bumps she got from those who ran against her. She thought she was in the +blue drawing-room at Newport, where a famous Hungarian count was +trilling the soft prelude to a _csárdás_ on the piano, and Mr. +Stuyvesant had just introduced her to the future Mayor, who was +spellbound by her charms, and was by her side, a captive. She reached +out her hand, and it touched Mr. Fletcher's arm (just as a ragamuffin +propelled himself head first against her), and Mr. Fletcher bent his +elbow, and her wrist rested in the crook of his arm. Oh, her dream was +true; her dream was true! + +Mr. Fletcher, on the other hand, was hardly in a more natural relation. +He was trying to think how the men talked to women in all the literature +he had read. The myriad jokes about the fondness of girls for ice-cream +recurred to him, and he risked everything on their fidelity to fact. + +"Are you fond of ice-cream?" he inquired. + +"Oh no; I _don't_ think," said Cordelia. "What'll you ask next? What +girl ain't crushed on ice-cream, I'd like to know?" + +"Do you know of a nice place to get some?" + +"Do I? The Dutchman's, on the av'noo, another block up, is the finest in +the city. You get mo--that is, you get everything 'way up in G there, +with cakes on the side, and it don't cost no more than anywhere else." + +So to the German's they went, and Clarice fancied herself at the Casino +in Newport. All the girls around her, who seemed to be trying to swallow +the spoons, took on the guise of blue-blooded belles, while the noisy +boys and young men (calling out, "Hully gee, fellers! look at Nifty +gittin' out der winder widout payin'!" and, "Say, Tilly, what kind er +cream is dat you're feedin' your face wid?") seemed to her so many +millionaires and the exquisite sons thereof. To Mr. Fletcher the +German's back-yard saloon, with its green lattice walls, and its rusty +dead Christmas trees in painted butter-kegs, appeared uncommonly +brilliant and fine. The fact that whenever he took a swallow of water +the ice-cream turned to cold candle-grease in his mouth made no +difference. He was happy, and Cordelia was in an ecstasy by the time he +had paid a shock-headed, bare-armed German waiter, and they were again +on the avenue side by side. She put out her hand and rested it on his +arm again--to make sure she was Clarice. + +One would like to know whether, in the breasts of such as these, +familiar environment exerts any remarkable influence. If so, it could +have been in but one direction. For that part of town was one vast +nursery. Everywhere, on every side, were the swarming babies--a baby for +every flag-stone in the pavements. Babies and babies, and little besides +babies, except larger children and the mothers. Perambulators with two, +even three, baby passengers; mothers with as many as five children +trailing after them; babies in broad baggy laps, babies at the breast, +babies creeping, toppling, screaming, overflowing into the gutters. Such +was the unbroken scene from the Big Barracks to Tompkins Square; ay, to +Harlem and to the East River, and almost to Broadway. In the park, as if +the street scenes had been merely preliminary, the paths were alive, +wriggling, with babies of every age, from the new-born to the children +in pigtails and knickerbockers--and, lo! these were already paired and +practising at courtship. The walk that Cordelia was taking was amid a +fever, a delirium, of maternity--a rhapsody, a baby's opera, if one +considered its noise. In that vast region no one inquired whether +marriage was a failure. Nothing that is old and long-beloved and human +is a failure there. + +In Tompkins Park, while they dodged babies and stepped around babies and +over them, they saw many happy couples on the settees, and they noticed +that often the men held their arms around the waists of their +sweethearts. Girls, too, in other instances, leaned loving heads against +the young men's breasts, blissfully regardless of publicity. They passed +a young man and a woman kissing passionately, as kissing is described by +unmarried girl novelists. Cordelia thought it no harm to nudge Mr. +Fletcher and whisper: + +"Sakes alive! They're right in it, ain't they. 'It's funny when you feel +that way,' ain't it?" + +As many another man who does not know the frankness and simplicity of +the plain people might have done, Mr. Fletcher misjudged the girl. He +thought her the sort of girl he was far from seeking. He grew instantly +cold and reserved, and she knew, vaguely, that she had displeased him. + +"I think people who make love in public should be locked up," said he. + +"Some folks wants everybody put away that enjoys themselves," said +Cordelia. Then, lest she had spoken too strongly, she added, "Present +company not intended, Mr. Fletcher, but you said that like them mission +folks that come around praising themselves and tellin' us all we're +wicked." + +"And do you think a girl can be good who behaves so in public?" + +"I know plenty that's done it," said she; "and I don't know any girls +but what's good. They 'ain't got wings, maybe, but you don't want to +monkey with 'em, neither." + +He recollected her words for many a year afterward and pondered them, +and perhaps they enlarged his understanding. She also often thought of +his condemnation of love-making out-of-doors. Kissing in public, +especially promiscuous kissing, she knew to be a debatable pastime, but +she also knew that there was not a flat in the Big Barracks in which a +girl could carry on a courtship. Fancy her attempting it in her front +room, with the room choked with people, with the baby squalling, and her +little brothers and sisters quarrelling, with her mother entertaining +half a dozen women visitors with tea or beer, and with a man or two +dropping in to smoke with her father! Parlor courtship was to her, like +precise English, a thing only known in novels. The thought of novels +floated her soul back into the dream state. + +"I think Cordelia's a pretty name," said Fletcher, cold at heart but +struggling to be companionable. + +"I don't," said Cordelia. "I'm not at all crushed on it. Your name's +terrible pretty. I think my three names looks like a map of Ireland when +they're written down. I know a killin' name for a girl. It's Clarice. +Maybe some day I'll give you a dare. I'll double dare you, maybe, to +call me Clarice." + +Oh, if he only would, she thought--if he would only call her so now! But +she forgot how unelastic his strange routine of life must have left him, +and she did not dream how her behavior in the park had displeased him. + +"Cordelia is a pretty name," he repeated. "At any rate, I think we +should try to make the most and best of whatever name has come to us. I +wouldn't sail under false colors for a minute." + +"Oh!" said she, with a giggle to hide her disappointment; "you're so +terrible wise! When you talk them big words you can pass me in a walk." + +Anxious to display her great conquest to the other girls of the Barracks +neighborhood, Cordelia persuaded Mr. Fletcher to go to what she called +"the dock," to enjoy the cool breath of the river. All the piers and +wharves are called "docks" by the people. Those which are semi-public +and are rented to miscellaneous excursion and river steamers are crowded +nightly. + +The wharf to which our couple strolled was a mere flooring above the +water, edged with a stout string-piece, which formed a bench for the +mothers. They were there in groups, some seated on the string-piece with +babes in arms or with perambulators before them, and others, facing +these, standing and joining in the gossip, and swaying to and fro to +soothe their little ones. Those who gave their offspring the breast did +so publicly, unembarrassed by a modesty they would have considered +false. A few youthful couples, boy by girl and girl by boy, sat on the +string-piece and whispered, or bandied fun with those other lovers who +patrolled the flooring of the wharf. A "gang" of rude young +men--toughs--walked up and down, teasing the girls, wrestling, +scuffling, and roaring out bad language. Troops of children played at +leap-frog, high-spy, jack-stones, bean-bag, hop-scotch, and tag. At the +far end of the pier some young men and women waltzed, while a lad on the +string-piece played for them on his mouth-organ. A steady, cool, +vivifying breeze from the bay swept across the wharf and fanned all the +idlers, and blew out of their heads almost all recollection of the +furnacelike heat of the town. + +Cordelia forgot her desire to display her conquest. She forgot her true +self. She likened the wharf to that "lordly veranda overlooking the +sea," where the future Mayor begged Clarice to be his bride. She knew +just what she would say when her prince spoke his lines. She and Mr. +Fletcher were just about to seat themselves on the great rim of the +wharf, when an uproar of the harsh, froglike voices of half-grown men +caused them to turn around. They saw Jerry Donahue striding towards +them, but with difficulty, because half a dozen lads and youths were +endeavoring to hold him back. + +"Dat's Mr. Fletcher," they said. "It ain't his fault, Jerry. He's dead +square; he's a gent, Jerry." + +The politician's gilly tore himself away from his friends. The gang of +toughs gathered behind the others. Jerry planted himself in front of +Cordelia. Evidently he did not know the submissive part he should have +played in Cordelia's romance. James the butler made no out-break, but +here was Jerry angry through and through. + +"You didn't keep de date wid me," he began. + +"Oh, Jerry, I did--I tried to, but you--" Cordelia was red with shame. + +"The hell you did! Wasn't I--" + +"Here!" said Mr. Fletcher; "you can't swear at this lady." + +"Why wouldn't I?" Jerry asked. "What would you do?" + +"He's right, Jerry. Leave him be--see?" said the chorus of Jerry's +friends. + +"A-a-a-h!" snarled Jerry. "Let him leave me be, then. Cordelia, I heard +you was a dead fraud, an' now I know it, and I'm a-tellin' you so, +straight--see? I was a-waitin' 'cross der street, an' I seen you come +out an' meet dis mug, an' you never turned yer head to see was I on me +post. I seen dat, an' I'm a-tellin' yer friend just der kind of a racket +you give me, der same's you've give a hundred other fellers. Den, if he +likes it he knows what he's gittin'." + +Jerry was so angry that he all but pushed his distorted face against +that of the humiliated girl as he denounced her. Mr. Fletcher gently +moved her backward a step or two, and advanced to where she had stood. + +"That will do," he said to Jerry. "I want no trouble, but you've said +enough. If there's more, say it to me." + +"A-a-a-h!" exclaimed the gilly, expectorating theatrically over his +shoulder. "Me friends is on your side, an' I ain't pickin' no muss wid +you. But she's got der front of der City Hall to do me like she done. +And say, fellers, den she was goin' ter give me a song an' dance 'bout +lookin' fer me. Ba-a-a! She knows my 'pinion of her--see?" + +The crowd parted to let Mr. Fletcher finish his first evening's +gallantry to a lady by escorting Cordelia to her home. It was a chilly +and mainly a silent journey. Cordelia falteringly apologized for Jerry's +misbehavior, but she inferred from what Mr. Fletcher said that he did +not fully join her in blaming the angry youth. Mr. Fletcher touched her +fingertips in bidding her good-night, and nothing was said of a meeting +in the future. Clarice was forgotten, and Cordelia was not only herself +again, but quite a miserable self, for her sobs awoke the little brother +and sister who shared her bed. + + + + +The Prize-Fund Beneficiary + +BY E.A. ALEXANDER + + +Miss Snell began to apologize for interrupting the work almost before +she came in. The Painter, who grudgingly opened one half of the +folding-door wide enough to let her pass into the studio, was annoyed to +observe that, in spite of her apologies, she was loosening the furs +about her throat as if in preparation for a lengthy visit. Then for the +first time, behind her tall, black-draped figure, he caught sight of her +companion, who was shorter, and whose draperies were of a less ample +character--for Miss Snell, being tall and thin, resorted to voluminous +garments to conceal her slimness of person. A large plumed hat +accentuated, her sallowness and sharpness of feature, and her dark eyes, +set under heavy black brows, intensified her look of unhealthy pallor. + +She was perfectly at her ease, and introduced her companion, Miss +Price, in a few words, explaining that the latter had come over for a +year or so to study, and was anxious to have the best advice about it. + +"So I brought her straight here," Miss Snell announced, triumphantly. + +Miss Price seemed a trifle overcome by the novelty of her surroundings, +but managed to say, in a high nasal voice, that she had already begun to +work at Julian's, but did not find it altogether satisfactory. + +The Painter, looking at her indifferently, was roused to a sudden +interest by her face. Her features and complexion were certainly +pleasing, but the untidy mass of straggling hair topped by a battered +straw sailor hat diverted the attention of a casual observer from her +really unusual delicacy of feature and coloring. She was tall and slim, +although now she was dwarfed by Miss Snell's gaunt figure. A worn dress +and shabby green cape fastened at the neck by a button hanging +precariously on its last thread completed her very unsuitable winter +attire. Outside the great studio window a cold December twilight was +settling down over roofs covered with snow and icicles, and the Painter +shivered involuntarily as he noticed the insufficiency of her wraps for +such weather, and got up to stir the fire which glowed in the big stove. + +In one corner his model waited patiently for the guests to depart, and +he now dismissed her for the day, eliciting faint protestations from +Miss Snell, who, however, was settling down comfortably in an easy-chair +by the fire, with an evident intention of staying indefinitely. Miss +Price's large, somewhat expressionless blue eyes were taking in the +whole studio, and the Painter could feel that she was distinctly +disappointed by her inspection. She had evidently anticipated something +much grander, and this bare room was not the ideal place she had fancied +the studio of a world-renowned painter would prove to be. + +Bare painted walls, a peaked roof with a window reaching far overhead, a +polished floor, one or two chairs and a divan, the few necessary +implements of his profession, and many canvases faced to the wall, but +little or no bric-à-brac or delightful studio properties. The Painter +was also conscious that her inspection included him personally, and was +painfully aware that she was regarding him with the same feeling of +disappointment; she quite evidently thought him too young and +insignificant looking for a person of his reputation. + +Miss Snell had not given him time to reply to Miss Price's remark about +her study at Julian's, but prattled on about her own work and the +unsurmountable difficulties that lay in the way of a woman's successful +career as a painter. + +"I have been studying for years under ----," said Miss Snell, "and +really I have no time to lose. It will end by my simply going to him and +saying, quite frankly: 'Now, Monsieur ----, I have been in your atelier +for four years, and I can't afford to waste another minute. There are no +two ways about it. You positively must tell me how to do it. You really +must not keep me waiting any longer. I insist upon it.' How discouraging +it is!" she sighed. "It seems quite impossible to find any one who is +willing to give the necessary information." + +Miss Price's wandering eyes had at last found a resting-place on a +large, half-finished canvas standing on an easel. Something attractive +in the pose and turn of her head made the Painter watch her as he lent a +feeble attention to Miss Snell's conversation. + +Miss Price's lips were very red, and the clear freshness of extreme +youth bloomed in her cheeks; she was certainly charming. During one of +Miss Snell's rare pauses she spoke, and her thin high voice came with +rather a shock from between her full lips. + +"May I look?" was her unnecessary question, for her eyes had never left +the canvas on the easel since they had first rested there. She rose as +she spoke, and went over to the painting. + +The Painter pulled himself out of the cushions on the divan where he had +been lounging, and went over to push the big canvas into a better light. +Then he stood, while the girl gazed at it, saying nothing, and +apparently oblivious to everything but the work before him. + +He was roused, not by Miss Price, who remained admiringly silent, but by +the enraptured Miss Snell, who had also risen, gathering furs and wraps +about her, and was now ecstatically voluble in her admiration. English +being insufficient for the occasion, she had to resort to French for the +expression of her enthusiasm. + +The Painter said nothing, but watched the younger girl, who turned away +at last with a sigh of approbation. He was standing under the window, +leaning against a table littered with paints and brushes. + +"Stay where you are!" exclaimed Miss Snell, excitedly. "Is he not +charming, Cora, in that half-light? You must let me paint you just so +some day--you must indeed." She clutched Miss Price and turned her +forcibly in his direction. + +The Painter, confused by this unexpected onslaught, moved hastily away +and busied himself with a pretence of clearing the table. + +"I--I should be delighted," he stammered, in his embarrassment, and he +caught Miss Price's eye, in which he fancied a smile was lurking. + +"But you have not given Miss Price a word of advice about her work," +said Miss Snell, as she fastened her wraps preparatory to departure. She +seemed quite oblivious to the fact that she had monopolized all the +conversation herself. + +He turned politely to Miss Price, who murmured something about Julian's +being so badly ventilated, but gave him no clew as to her particular +branch of the profession. Miss Snell, however, supplied all details. It +seemed Miss Price was sharing Miss Snell's studio, having been sent over +by the Lynxville, Massachusetts, Sumner Prize Fund, for which she had +successfully competed, and which provided a meagre allowance for two +years' study abroad. + +"She wants to paint heads," said Miss Snell; and in reply to a remark +about the great amount of study required to accomplish this desire, +surprised him by saying, "Oh, she only wants to paint them well enough +to teach, not well enough to sell." + +"I'll drop in and see your work some afternoon," promised the Painter, +warmed by their evident intention of leaving; and he escorted them to +the landing, warning them against the dangerous steepness of his +stairway, which wound down in almost murky darkness. + +Ten minutes later the centre panel of his door displayed a card bearing +these words: "At home only after six o'clock." + +"I wonder I never thought of doing this before," he reflected, as he lit +a cigarette and strolled off to a neighboring restaurant; "I am always +out by that hour." + + * * * * * + +Several weeks elapsed before he saw Miss Price again, for he promptly +forgot his promise to visit her studio and inspect her work. His own +work was very absorbing just then, and the short winter days all too +brief for its accomplishment. He was struggling to complete the large +canvas that Miss Snell had so volubly admired during her visit, and it +really seemed to be progressing. But the weather changed suddenly from +frost to thaw, and he woke one morning to find little runnels of dirty +water coursing down his window and dismally dripping into the muddy +street below. It made him feel blue, and his big picture, which had +seemed so promising the day before, looked hopelessly bad in this new +mood. So he determined to take a day off, and, after his coffee, +strolled out into the Luxembourg Gardens. There the statues were green +with mouldy dampness, and the paths had somewhat the consistency of very +thin oatmeal porridge. Suddenly the sun came out brightly, and he found +a partially dry bench, where he sat down to brood upon the utter +worthlessness of things in general and the Luxembourg statuary in +particular. The sunny façade of the palace glittered in the brightness. +One of his own pictures hung in its gallery. "It is bad," he said to +himself, "hopelessly bad," and he gloomily felt the strongest proof of +its worthlessness was its popularity with the public. He would probably +go on thinking this until the weather or his mood changed. + +As his eyes strayed from the palace, he glanced up a long vista between +leafless trees and muddy grass-plats. A familiar figure in a battered +straw hat and scanty green cloak was advancing in his direction; the +wind, blowing back the fringe of disfiguring short hair, disclosed a +pure unbroken line of delicate profile, strangely simple, and recalling +the profiles in Botticelli's lovely fresco in the Louvre. Miss Price, +for it was she, carried a painting-box, and under one arm a stretcher +that gave her infinite trouble whenever the wind caught it. As she +passed, the Painter half started up to join her, but she gave him such a +cold nod that his intention was nipped in the bud. He felt snubbed, and +sank back on his bench, taking a malicious pleasure in observing that, +womanlike, she ploughed through all the deepest puddles in her path, +making great splashes about the hem of her skirt, that fluttered out +behind her as she walked, for her hands were filled, and she had no +means of holding it up. + +The Painter resented his snubbing. He was used to the most humble +deference from the art students of the quarter, who hung upon his +slightest word, and were grateful for every stray crumb of his +attention. + +He now lost what little interest he had previously taken in his +surroundings. Just before him in a large open space reserved for the +boys to play handball was a broken sheet of glistening water reflecting +the blue sky, the trees rattled their branches about in the wind, and +now and then a tardy leaf fluttered down from where it had clung +desperately late into the winter. The gardens were almost deserted. It +was too early for the throng of beribboned nurses and howling infants +who usually haunt its benches. One or two pedestrians hurried across the +garden, evidently taking the route to make shortcuts to their +destinations, and not for the pleasure of lounging among its blustery +attractions. + +After idling an hour on his bench, he went to breakfast with a friend +who chanced to live conveniently near, and where he made himself very +disagreeable by commenting unfavorably on the work in progress and +painting in particular. Then he brushed himself up and started off for +the rue Notre Dame des Champs, where Miss Snell's studio was situated. +It was one of a number huddled together in an old and rather dilapidated +building, and the porter at the entrance gave him minute directions as +to its exact location, but after stumbling up three flights of dark +stairs he had no trouble in finding it, for Miss Snell's name, preceded +by a number of initials, shone out from a door directly in front of him +as he reached the landing. + +He knocked, and for several minutes there was a wild scurrying within +and a rattle and clash of crockery. Then Miss Snell appeared at the +door, and exclaimed, in delighted surprise: + +"How _do_ you do? We had quite given you up." + +She looked taller and longer than ever swathed in a blue painting-apron +and grasping her palette and brushes. She had to apologize for not +shaking hands with him, because her fingers were covered with paint that +had been hastily but ineffectually wiped off on a rag before she +answered his knock. + +He murmured something about not coming before because of his work, but +she would not let him finish, saying, intensely, + +"We know how precious every minute is to you." + +Miss Price came reluctantly forward and shook hands; she had evidently +not been painting, for her fingers were quite clean. Short ragged hair +once more fell over her forehead, and the Painter felt a shock of +disappointment, and wondered why he had thought her so fine when she +passed him in the morning. + +"I was just going to paint Cora," announced Miss Snell. "She is taking a +holiday this afternoon, and we were hunting for a pose when you +knocked." + +"Don't let me interrupt you," he said, smiling. "Perhaps I can help." + +Miss Snell was in a flutter at once, and protested that she should be +almost afraid to work while he was there. + +"In that case I shall leave at once," he said; but his chair was +comfortable, and he made no motion to go. + +"What a queer little place it is!" he reflected, as he looked about. +"All sorts of odds and ends stuck about helter-skelter, and the +house-keeping things trying to masquerade as bric-à-brac." + +Cora Price looked decidedly sulky when she realized that the Painter +intended to stay, and seeing this he became rooted in his intention. He +wondered why she took this particular attitude towards him, and +concluded she was piqued because of his delay in calling. She acted like +a spoiled child, and caused Miss Snell, who was overcome by his +condescension in staying, no little embarrassment. + +It was quite evident from her behavior that Miss Price was impressed +with her own importance as the beneficiary of the Lynxville Prize Fund, +and would require the greatest deference from her acquaintances in +consequence. + +"Here, Cora, try this," said Miss Snell, planting a small three-legged +stool on a rickety model-stand. + +"Might I make a suggestion?" said the Painter, coolly. "I should push +back all the hair on her forehead; it gives a finer line." + +"Why, of course!" said Miss Snell. "I wonder we never thought of that +before. Cora dear, you are much better with your hair back." + +Cora said nothing, but the Botticelli profile glowered ominously against +a background of sage-green which Miss Snell was elaborately draping +behind it. + +"If I might advise again," the Painter said, "I would take that down and +paint her quite simply against the gray wall." + +Miss Snell was quite willing to adopt every suggestion. She produced her +materials and a fresh canvas, and began making a careful drawing, which, +as it progressed, filled the Painter's soul with awe. + +"I feel awfully like trying it myself," he said, after watching her for +a few moments. "Can I have a bit of canvas?" + +"Take anything," exclaimed Miss Snell; and he helped himself, refusing +the easel which she wanted to force upon him, and propping his little +stretcher up on a chair. Miss Snell stopped her drawing to watch him +commence. It made her rather nervous to see how much paint he squeezed +out on the palette; it seemed to her a reckless prodigality. + +He eyed her assortment of brushes dubiously, selecting three from the +draggled limp collection. + +Cora was certainly a fine subject, in spite of her sulkiness, and he +grew absorbed in his work, and painted away, with Miss Snell at his +elbow making little staccato remarks of admiration as the sketch +progressed. Suddenly he jumped up, realizing how long he had kept the +young model. + +"Dear me," he cried, "you must be exhausted!" and he ran to help her +down from the model-stand. + +She did look tired, and Miss Snell suggested tea, which he stayed to +share. Cora became less and less sulky, and when at last he remembered +that he had come to see her work, she produced it with less +unwillingness than he had expected. + +He was rather floored by her productions. As far as he could judge from +what she showed him, she was hopelessly without talent, and he could +only wonder which of these remarkably bad studies had won for her the +Lynxville Sumner Prize Fund. + +He tried to give her some advice, and was thanked when she put her +things away. + +Then they all looked at his sketch, which Miss Snell pronounced "too +charming," and Cora plainly thought did not do her justice. + +"I wish you would pose a few times for me, Miss Price," he said, before +leaving. "I should like very much to paint you, and it would be doing me +a great favor." + +The girl did not respond to this request with any eagerness. He fancied +he could see she was feeling huffy again at his meagre praise of her +work. + +Miss Snell, however, did not allow her to answer, but rapturously +promised that Cora should sit as often as he liked, and paid no +attention to the girl's protest that she had no time to spare. + +"This has been simply in-spiring!" said Miss Snell, as she bade him +good-bye, and he left very enthusiastic about Cora's profile, and with +his hand covered with paint from Miss Snell's door-knob. + + * * * * * + +In spite of Miss Snell's assurance that Cora would pose, the Painter was +convinced that she would not, if a suitable excuse could be invented. +Feeling this, he wrote her a most civil note about it. The answer came +promptly, and did not surprise him. + +She was very sorry indeed, but she had no leisure hours at her disposal, +and although she felt honored, she really could not do it. This was +written on flimsy paper, in a big unformed handwriting, and it caused +him to betake himself once more to Miss Snell's studio, where he found +her alone--Cora was at Julian's. + +She promised to beg Cora to pose, and accepted an invitation for them to +breakfast with him in his studio on the following Sunday morning. + +He carefully explained to her that his whole winter's work depended upon +Cora's posing for him. He half meant it, having been seized with the +notion that her type was what he needed to realize a cherished ideal, +and he told this to Miss Snell, and enlarged upon it until he left her +rooted in the conviction that he was hopelessly in love with Cora--a +fact she imparted to that young woman on her return from Julian's. + +Cora listened very placidly, and expressed no astonishment. He was not +the first by any means; other people had been in love with her in +Lynxville, Massachusetts, and she confided the details of several of +these love-affairs to Miss Snell's sympathetic ears during the evening. + +Meanwhile, the Painter did nothing, and a fresh canvas stood on his +easel when the girls arrived for breakfast on Sunday morning. The big +unfinished painting was turned to the wall; he had lost all interest in +it. + +"When I fancy doing a thing I am good for nothing else," he explained to +Cora, after she had promised him a few sittings. "So you are really +saving me from idleness by posing." + +Cora laughed, and was silent. The Painter blessed her for not being +talkative; her nasal voice irritated him, although her beautiful +features were a constant delight. + +Miss Snell had succeeded in permanently eliminating the disfiguring +bang, and her charming profile was left unmarred. + +"I want to paint you just as you are," he said, and noticing that she +looked rather disdainfully at her shabby black cashmere, added, "The +black of your dress could not be better." + +"We thought," said Miss Snell, deprecatingly, "that you might like a +costume. We could easily arrange one." + +"Not in the least necessary," said the Painter. "I have set my heart on +painting her just as she is." + +The girls were disappointed in his want of taste. They had had visions +of a creation in which two Liberty scarfs and a velveteen table cover +were combined in a felicitous harmony of color. + +"When can I have the first sitting?" he asked. + +"Tuesday, I think," said Miss Snell, reflectively. + +"Heavens!" thought the Painter. "Is Miss Snell coming with her?" And the +possibility kept him in a state of nervousness until Tuesday afternoon, +when Cora appeared, accompanied by the inevitable Miss Snell. + +It turned out, however, that the latter could not stay. She would call +for Cora later; just now her afternoons were occupied. She was doing a +pastel portrait in the Champs Elysées quarter, so she reluctantly left, +to the Painter's great relief. + +He did not make himself very agreeable during the sittings which +followed. He was apt to get absorbed in his work and to forget to say +anything. Then Miss Snell would appear to fetch her friend, and he would +apologize for being so dull, and Cora would remark that she enjoyed +sitting quietly, it rested her after the noise and confusion at +Julian's. + +"If she talked much I could not paint her, her voice is so irritating," +he confided to a friend who was curious and asked all sorts of questions +about his new sitter. + +The work went well but slowly, for Cora sat only twice a week. She felt +obliged to devote the rest of her time to study, as she was living on +the prize fund, and she even had qualms of conscience about the two +afternoons she gave up to the sittings. + +During all this time Miss Snell continued to weave chapters of romance +about Cora and the Painter, and the girls talked things over after each +sitting when they were alone together. + +Spring had appeared very early in the year, and the public gardens and +boulevards were richly green. Chestnut-trees blossomed and gaudy +flower-beds bloomed in every square. The Salons opened, and were +thronged with an enthusiastic public, although the papers as usual +denounced them as being the poorest exhibitions ever given. + +The Painter had sent nothing, being completely absorbed in finishing +Cora's portrait, to the utter exclusion of everything else. + +Cora did the exhibitions faithfully. It was one of the duties she owed +to the Lynxville fund, and which she diligently carried out. The Painter +bothered and confused her by many things; he persistently admired all +the pictures she liked least, and praised all those she did not care +for. She turned pale with suppressed indignation when he differed from +her opinion, and resented his sweeping contempt of her criticisms. + +On the strength of a remittance from the prize fund, and in honor of the +season, she discarded the sailor hat for a vivid ready-made creation +smacking strongly of the Bon Marché. The weather was warm, and Cora wore +mitts, which the Painter thought unpardonable in a city where gloves are +particularly cheap. The mitts were probably fashionable in Lynxville, +Massachusetts. Miss Snell, who rustled about in stiff black silk and +bugles, seemed quite oblivious to her friend's want of taste; she was +all excitement, for her pastel portrait--by some hideous mistake--had +been accepted and hung in one of the exhibitions, and the girls went +together on varnishing-day to see it. There they met the Painter +prowling aimlessly about, and Miss Snell was delighted to note his +devotion to Cora. It was a strong proof of his attachment to her, she +thought. The truth was he felt obliged to be civil after her kindness in +posing. He wished he could repay her in some fashion, but since his +first visit to Miss Snell's she had never offered to show him her work +again, or asked his advice in any way, and he felt a delicacy about +offering his services as a teacher when she gave him so little +encouragement. He fancied, too, that she did not take much interest in +his work, and knew she did not appreciate his portrait of her, which was +by far the best thing he had ever done. + +Her lack of judgment vexed him, for he knew the value of his work, and +every day his fellow-painters trooped in to see it, and were loud in +their praises. It would certainly be the _clou_ of any exhibition in +which it might be placed. + +During one sitting Cora ventured to remark that she thought it a pity he +did not intend to make the portrait more complete, and suggested the +addition of various accessories which in her opinion would very much +improve it. + +"It's by far the most complete thing I have ever done," he said. "I +sha'n't touch it again," and he flung down his brushes in a fit of +temper. + +She looked at him contemptuously, and putting on her hat, left the +studio without another word; and for several weeks he did not see her +again. + +Then he met her in the street, and begged her to come and pose for a +head in his big picture, which he had taken up once more. His apologies +were so abject that she consented, but she ceased to be punctual, and he +never could feel quite sure that she would keep her appointments. + +Sometimes he would wait a whole afternoon in vain, and one day when she +failed to appear at the promised hour he shut up his office and strolled +down to the Seine. There he caught sight of her with a gay party who +were about to embark on one of the little steamers that ply up and down +the river. + +He shook his fist at her from the quay where he stood, and watched her +and her party step into the boat from the pier. + +"She thinks little enough of the Lynxville Prize Fund when she wants an +outing," he said to himself, scornfully. + +After fretting a little over his wasted afternoon, he forgot all about +her, and set to work with other models. Then he left Paris for the +summer. + + * * * * * + +A few hours after his return, early in the fall, there came a knock at +his door. He had been admiring Cora's portrait, which to his fresh eye +looked exceptionally good. + +Miss Snell, with eyes red and tearful, stood on his door-mat when he +answered the tap. + +"Poor dear Cora," she said, had received a notice from the Lynxville +committee that they did not consider her work sufficiently promising to +continue the fund another year. + +"She will have to go home," sobbed Miss Snell, but said: "I am forced to +admit that Cora has wasted a good deal of time this summer. She is so +young, and needs a little distraction, now and then," and she appealed +to the Painter for confirmation of this undoubted fact. + +He was absent-minded, but assented to all she said. In his heart he +thought it a fortunate thing that the prize fund should be withdrawn. +One female art student the less: he grew pleased with the idea. Cora had +ceased to interest him as an individual, and he considered her only as +one of an obnoxious class. + +"I thought you ought to be the first to know about it," said Miss Snell, +confidentially, "because you might have some plan for keeping her over +here." Miss Snell looked unutterable things that she did not dare to put +into words. + +She made the Painter feel uncomfortable, she looked so knowing, and he +became loud in his advice to send Cora home at once. + +"Pack her off," he cried. "She is wasting time and money by staying. She +never had a particle of talent, and the sooner she goes back to +Lynxville the better." + +Miss Snell shrank from his vehemence, and wished she had not insisted +upon coming to consult him. She had assured Cora that the merest hint +would bring matters to a crisis. Cora would imagine that she had bungled +matters terribly, and she was mortified at the thought of returning with +the news of a repulse. + +As soon as she had gone, the Painter felt sorry he had been so hasty. He +had bundled her unceremoniously out of the studio, pleading important +work. + +He called twice in the rue Notre Dame des Champs, but the porter would +never let him pass her lodge, and he at last realized that she had been +given orders to that effect. A judicious tip extracted from her the fact +that Miss Price expected to leave for America the following Saturday, +and, armed with an immense bouquet, he betook himself to the St. Lazare +station at the hour for the departure of the Havre express. + +He arrived with only a minute to spare before the guard's whistle was +answered by the mosquitolike pipe that sets the train in motion. + +The Botticelli profile was very haughty and cold. Miss Snell was there, +of course, bathed in tears. He had just time enough to hand in his huge +bouquet through the open window before the train started. He caught one +glimpse of an angry face within, when suddenly his great nosegay came +flying out of the compartment, and striking him full in the face, spread +its shattered paper and loosened flowers all over the platform at his +feet. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIFFERENT GIRLS*** + + +******* This file should be named 14744-8.txt or 14744-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/4/14744 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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 <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Different Girls</p> +<p>Author: Various</p> +<p>Release Date: January 20, 2005 [eBook #14744]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIFFERENT GIRLS***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by David Garcia, Jeannie Howse,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (https://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>Different Girls<a name="Page_i"></a></h1> + +<h2>Harper's Novelettes</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>Edited By</h3> +<h2>William Dean Howells</h2> +<h3>and</h3> +<h2>Henry Mills Alden</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h6>Harper & Brothers Publishers<br /> +New York and London</h6> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>1895, 1896, 1897, 1904, 1905, 1906<a name="Page_ii"></a></h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h2>Contents<a name="Page_iii"></a></h2> +<br /> + +<div class="cen"> + <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" width="70%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Elizabeth Jordan</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Little_Joys"> + <span class="sc">The Little Joys of Margaret</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Richard Le Gallienne</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Kitties_Sister"> + <span class="sc">Kittie's Sister Josephine</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Alice Brown</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Wizards"> + <span class="sc">The Wizard's Touch</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Charles B. De Camp</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Bitter_Cup"> + <span class="sc">The Bitter Cup</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Mary Applewhite Bacon</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#His_Sister"> + <span class="sc">His Sister</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Eleanor A. Hallowell</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Perfect_Year"> + <span class="sc">The Perfect Year</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">William Dean Howells</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Editha"> + <span class="sc">Editha</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Octave Thanet</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Stout_Miss"> + <span class="sc">The Stout Miss Hopkins's Bicycle</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Mary M. Mears</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Esther"> + <span class="sc">The Marrying of Esther</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">Julian Ralph</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Romance"> + <span class="sc">Cordelia's Night of Romance</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="left"><span class="sc">E.A. Alexander</span></td> + <td align="left"><a href="#Prize_Fund"> + <span class="sc">The Prize-Fund Beneficiary</span></a></td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="Page_iv"></a> + +<hr /> +<br /> + +<a name="Introduction"></a><h2>Introduction<a name="Page_v"></a></h2> +<br /> + +<p>It is many years now since the American Girl began to engage the +consciousness of the American novelist. Before the expansive period +following the Civil War, in the later eighteen-sixties and the earlier +eighteen-seventies, she had of course been his heroine, unless he went +abroad for one in court circles, or back for one in the feudal ages. +Until the time noted, she had been a heroine and then an American girl. +After that she was an American girl, and then a heroine; and she was +often studied against foreign backgrounds, in contrast with other +international figures, and her value ascertained in comparison with +their valuelessness, though sometimes she was portrayed in those poses +of flirtation of which she was born mistress. Even in these her +superiority to all other kinds of girls was insinuated if not asserted.</p> + +<p>The young ladies in the present collection are all American girls but<a name="Page_vi"></a> +one, if we are to suppose Mr. Le Gallienne's winning type to be of the +same English origin as himself. We can be surer of him than of her, +however; but there is no question of the native Americanness of Mrs. +Alexander's girl, who is done so strikingly to the life, with courage to +grapple a character and a temperament as uncommon as it is true, which +we have rarely found among our fictionists. Having said this, we must +hedge in favor of Miss Jordan's most autochthonic Miss Kittie, so young +a girl as to be still almost a little girl, and with a head full of the +ideals of little-girlhood concerning young-girlhood. The pendant to her +pretty picture is the study of elderly girlhood by Octave Thanet, or +that by Miss Alice Brown, the one with its ideality, and the other with +its humor. The pathos of "The Perfect Year" is as true as either in its +truth to the girlhood which "never knew an earthly close," and yet had +its fill of rapture. Julian Ralph's strong and free sketch contributes a +fresh East Side flower, hollyhock-like in its gaudiness, to the garden +of American girls, Irish-American in this case, but destined to be +companioned hereafter by blossoms <a name="Page_vii"></a>of our Italian-American, +Yiddish-American, and Russian-American civilization, as soon as our +nascent novelists shall have the eye to see and the art to show them. +Meantime, here are some of our Different Girls as far as they or their +photographers have got, and their acquaintance is worth having.</p> + +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">W.D.H.</span><br /> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<a name="Little_Joys"></a><hr /> + +<br /> + +<h2><a name="Page_1"></a>The Little Joys of Margaret</h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Richard Le Gallienne</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Margaret had seen her five sisters one by one leave the family nest, to +set up little nests of their own. Her brother, the eldest child of a +family of seven, had left the old home almost beyond memory, and settled +in London. Now and again he made a flying visit to the small provincial +town of his birth, and sometimes he sent two little daughters to +represent him—for he was already a widowed man, and relied occasionally +on the old roof-tree to replace the lost mother. Margaret had seen what +sympathetic spectators called her "fate" slowly approaching for some +time—particularly when, five years ago, she had broken off her +engagement with a worthless boy. She had loved him deeply, and, had she +loved him less, a refined girl in the provinces does not find it easy to +replace a discarded suitor—for the choice of young men is not +<a name="Page_2"></a>excessive. Her sisters had been more fortunate, and so, as I have said, +one by one they left their father's door in bridal veils. But Margaret +stayed on, and at length, as had been foreseen, became the sole nurse of +a beautiful old invalid mother, a kind of lay sister in the nunnery of +home.</p> + +<p>She came of a beautiful family. In all the big family of seven there was +not one without some kind of good looks. Two of her sisters were +acknowledged beauties, and there were those who considered Margaret the +most beautiful of all. It was all the harder, such sympathizers said, +that her youth should thus fade over an invalid's couch, the bloom of +her complexion be rubbed out by arduous vigils, and the lines +prematurely etched in her skin by the strain of a self-denial proper, no +doubt, to homely girls and professional nurses, but peculiarly wanton +and wasteful in the case of a girl so beautiful as Margaret.</p> + +<p>There are, alas! a considerable number of women predestined by their +lack of personal attractiveness for the humbler tasks of life. +Instinctively we associate them with household work, nursing, and the +general drudgery of existence. One never dreams of their <a name="Page_3"></a>having a life +of their own. They have no accomplishments, nor any of the feminine +charms. Women to whom an offer of marriage would seem as terrifying as a +comet, they belong to the neutrals of the human hive, and are, +practically speaking, only a little higher than the paid domestic. +Indeed, perhaps their one distinction is that they receive no wages.</p> + +<p>Now for so attractive a girl as Margaret to be merged in so dreary, +undistinguished a class was manifestly preposterous. It was a stupid +misapplication of human material. A plainer face and a more homespun +fibre would have served the purpose equally well.</p> + +<p>Margaret was by no means so much a saint of self-sacrifice as not to +have realized her situation with natural human pangs. Youth only comes +once—especially to a woman; and</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>No hand can gather up the withered fallen petals of the Rose of youth.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Petal by petal, Margaret had watched the rose of her youth fading and +falling. More than all her sisters, she was endowed with a zest for +existence. Her superb physical constitution cried out for the joy of +life. She was made to <a name="Page_4"></a>be a great lover, a great mother; and to her, +more than most, the sunshine falling in muffled beams through the +lattices of her mother's sick-room came with a maddening summons +to—live. She was so supremely fitted to play a triumphant part in the +world outside there, so gay of heart, so victoriously vital.</p> + +<p>At first, therefore, the renunciation, accepted on the surface with so +kind a face, was a source of secret bitterness and hidden tears. But +time, with its mercy of compensation, had worked for her one of its many +mysterious transmutations, and shown her of what fine gold her +apparently leaden days were made. She was now thirty-three; though, for +all her nursing vigils, she did not look more than twenty-nine, and was +now more than resigned to the loss of the peculiar opportunities of +youth—if, indeed, they could be said to be lost already. "An old maid," +she would say, "who has cheerfully made up her mind to be an old maid, +is one of the happiest, and, indeed, most enviable, people in all the +world."</p> + +<p>Resent the law as we may, it is none the less true that renunciation +brings with it a mysterious initiation, a finer insight. Its discipline +would seem to refine and temper our organs of spiritual <a name="Page_5"></a>perception, and +thus make up for the commoner experience lost by a rarer experience +gained. By dedicating herself to her sick mother, Margaret undoubtedly +lost much of the average experience of her sex and age, but almost +imperceptibly it had been borne in upon her that she made some important +gains of a finer kind. She had been brought very close to the mystery of +human life, closer than those who have nothing to do beyond being +thoughtlessly happy can ever come. The nurse and the priest are +initiates of the same knowledge. Each alike is a sentinel on the +mysterious frontier between this world and the next. The nearer we +approach that frontier, the more we understand not only of that world on +the other side, but of the world on this. It is only when death throws +its shadow over the page of life that we realize the full significance +of what we are reading. Thus, by her mother's bedside, Margaret was +learning to read the page of life under the illuminating shadow of +death.</p> + +<p>But, apart from any such mystical compensation, Margaret's great reward +was that she knew her beautiful old mother better than any one else in +the world knew her. As a rule, and <a name="Page_6"></a>particularly in a large family, +parents remain half mythical to their children, awe-inspiring presences +in the home, colossal figures of antiquity, about whose knees the +younger generation crawls and gropes, but whose heads are hidden in the +mists of prehistoric legend. They are like personages in the Bible. They +impress our imagination, but we cannot think of them as being quite +real. Their histories smack of legend. And this, of course, is natural, +for they had been in the world, had loved and suffered, so long before +us that they seem a part of that antenatal mystery out of which we +sprang. When they speak of their old love-stories, it is as though we +were reading Homer. It sounds so long ago. We are surprised at the +vividness with which they recall happenings and personalities, past and +gone before, as they tell us, we were born. Before we were born! Yes! +They belong to that mysterious epoch of time—"before we were born"; and +unless we have a taste for history, or are drawn close to them by some +sympathetic human exigency, as Margaret had been drawn to her mother, we +are too apt, in the stress of making our own, to regard the history of +our parents as dry-as-dust.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_7"></a>As the old mother sits there so quiet in her corner, her body worn to a +silver thread, and hardly anything left of her but her indomitable eyes, +it is hard, at least for a young thing of nineteen, all aflush and +aflurry with her new party gown, to realize that that old mother is +infinitely more romantic than herself. She has sat there so long, +perhaps, as to have come to seem part of the inanimate furniture of home +rather than a living being. Well! the young thing goes to her party, and +dances with some callow youth who pays her clumsy compliments, and +Margaret remains at home with the old mother in her corner. It is hard +on Margaret! Yes; and yet, as I have said, it is thus she comes to know +her old mother better than any one else knows her—society perhaps not +so poor an exchange for that of smart, immature young men of one's own +age.</p> + +<p>As the door closes behind the important rustle of youthful laces, and +Margaret and her mother are left alone, the mother's old eyes light up +with an almost mischievous smile. If age seems humorous to youth, youth +is even more humorous to age.</p> + +<p>"It is evidently a great occasion, Peg," the old voice says, with the +suspicion of <a name="Page_8"></a>a gentle mockery. "Don't you wish you were going?"</p> + +<p>"You naughty old mother!" answers Margaret, going over and kissing her.</p> + +<p>The two understand each other.</p> + +<p>"Well, shall we go on with our book?" says the mother, after a while.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, in a moment. I have first to get you your diet, and then we +can begin."</p> + +<p>"Bother the diet!" says the courageous old lady; "for two pins I'd go to +the ball myself. That old taffeta silk of mine is old enough to be in +fashion again. What do you say, Peg, if you and I go to the ball +together ..."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's too much trouble dressing, mother. What do you think?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose it is," answers the mother. "Besides, I want to hear +what happens next to those two beautiful young people in our book. So be +quick with my old diet, and come and read ..."</p> + +<p>There is perhaps nothing so lovely or so well worth having as the +gratitude of the old towards the young that care to give them more than +the perfunctory ministrations to which they have long since grown sadly +accustomed. There was no reward in the world that Margaret would have +exchanged for the sweet <a name="Page_9"></a>looks of her old mother, who, being no merely +selfish invalid, knew the value and the cost of the devotion her +daughter was giving her.</p> + +<p>"I can give you so little, my child, for all you are giving me," her +mother would sometimes say; and the tears would spring to Margaret's +eyes.</p> + +<p>Yes! Margaret had her reward in this alone—that she had cared to +decipher the lined old document of her mother's face. Her other sisters +had passed it by more or less impatiently. It was like some ancient +manuscript in a museum, which only a loving and patient scholar takes +the trouble to read. But the moment you begin to pick out the words, how +its crabbed text blossoms with beautiful meanings and fascinating +messages! It is as though you threw a dried rose into some magic water, +and saw it unfold and take on bloom, and fill with perfume, and bring +back the nightingale that sang to it so many years ago. So Margaret +loved her mother's old face, and learned to know the meaning of every +line on it. Privileged to see that old face in all its private moments +of feeling, under the transient revivification of deathless memories, +she was able, so to say, to reconstruct its perished beauty, <a name="Page_10"></a>and +realize the romance of which it was once the alluring candle. For her +mother had been a very great beauty, and if, like Margaret, you are able +to see it, there is no history so fascinating as the bygone love-affairs +of old people. How much more fascinating to read one's mother's +love-letters than one's own!</p> + +<p>Even in the history of the heart recent events have a certain crudity, +and love itself seems the more romantic for having lain in lavender for +fifty years. A certain style, a certain distinction, beyond question, go +with antiquity, and to spend your days with a refined old mother is no +less an education in style and distinction than to spend them in the air +of old cities, under the shadow of august architecture and in the sunset +of classic paintings.</p> + +<p>The longer Margaret lived with her old mother, the less she valued the +so-called "opportunities" she had missed. Coming out of her mother's +world of memories, there seemed something small, even common, about the +younger generation to which she belonged,—something lacking in +significance and dignity.</p> + +<p>For example, it had been her dream, as it is the dream of every true +woman, to be a mother herself: and yet, somehow—<a name="Page_11"></a>though she would not +admit it in so many words—when her young married sisters came with +their babies, there was something about their bustling and complacent +domesticity that seemed to make maternity bourgeois. She had not dreamed +of being a mother like that. She was convinced that her old mother had +never been a mother like that. "They seem more like wet-nurses than +mothers," she said to herself, with her wicked wit.</p> + +<p>Was there, she asked herself, something in realization that inevitably +lost you the dream? Was to incarnate an ideal to materialize it? Did the +finer spirit of love necessarily evaporate like some volatile essence +with marriage? Was it better to remain on idealistic spectator such as +she—than to run the risks of realization?</p> + +<p>She was far too beautiful, and had declined too many offers of +commonplace marriage, for such questioning to seem the philosophy of +disappointment. Indeed, the more she realized her own situation, the +more she came to regard what others considered her sacrifice to her +mother as a safeguard against the risk of a mediocre domesticity. +Indeed, she began to feel a certain pride, as of a priestess, in the +conservation of the dig<a name="Page_12"></a>nity of her nature. It is better to be a vestal +virgin than—some mothers.</p> + +<p>And, after all, the maternal instinct of her nature found an ideal +outlet in her brother's children—the two little motherless girls who +came every year to spend their holidays with their grandmother and their +aunt Margaret.</p> + +<p>Margaret had seen but little of their mother, but her occasional +glimpses of her had left her with a haloed image of a delicate, +spiritual face that grew more and more Madonna-like with memory. The +nimbus of the Divine Mother, as she herself had dreamed of her, had +seemed indeed to illumine that grave young face.</p> + +<p>It pleased her imagination to take the place of that phantom mother, +herself—a phantom mother. And who knows but that such dream-children, +as she called those two little girls, were more satisfactory in the end +than real children? They represented, so to say, the poetry of children. +Had Margaret been a real mother, there would have been the prose of +children as well. But here, as in so much else, Margaret's seclusion +from the responsible activities of the outside world enabled her to +gather the fine flower of existence without losing the sense<a name="Page_13"></a> of it in +the cares of its cultivation. I think that she comprehended the wonder +and joy of children more than if she had been a real mother.</p> + +<p>Seclusion and renunciation are great sharpeners and refiners of the +sense of joy, chiefly because they encourage the habit of attentiveness.</p> + +<p>"Our excitements are very tiny," once said the old mother to Margaret, +"therefore we make the most of them."</p> + +<p>"I don't agree with you, mother," Margaret had answered. "I think it is +theirs that are tiny—trivial indeed, and ours that are great. People in +the world lose the values of life by having too much choice; too much +choice—of things not worth having. This makes them miss the real +things—just as any one living in a city cannot see the stars for the +electric lights. But we, sitting quiet in our corner, have time to watch +and listen, when the others must hurry by. We have time, for instance, +to watch that sunset yonder, whereas some of our worldly friends would +be busy dressing to go out to a bad play. We can sit here and listen to +that bird singing his vespers, as long as he will sing—and personally I +wouldn't exchange him for a prima donna. Far from being poor in<a name="Page_14"></a> +excitements, I think we have quite as many as are good for us, and those +we have are very beautiful and real."</p> + +<p>"You are a brave child," answered her mother. "Come and kiss me," and +she took the beautiful gold head into her hands and kissed her daughter +with her sweet old mouth, so lost among wrinkles that it was sometimes +hard to find it.</p> + +<p>"But am I not right, mother?" said Margaret.</p> + +<p>"Yes! you are right, dear, but you seem too young to know such wisdom."</p> + +<p>"I have to thank you for it, darling," answered Margaret, bending down +and kissing her mother's beautiful gray hair.</p> + +<p>"Ah! little one," replied the mother, "it is well to be wise, but it is +good to be foolish when we are young—and I fear I have robbed you of +your foolishness."</p> + +<p>"I shall believe you have if you talk like that," retorted Margaret, +laughingly taking her mother into her arms and gently shaking her, as +she sometimes did When the old lady was supposed to have been "naughty."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>So for Margaret and her mother the days pass, and at first, as we have +said, it may seem a dull life, and even a hard<a name="Page_15"></a> one, for Margaret. But +she herself has long ceased to think so, and she dreads the inevitable +moment when the divine friendship between her and her old mother must +come to an end. She knows, of course, that it must come, and that the +day cannot be far off when the weary old limbs will refuse to make the +tiny journeys from bedroom to rocking-chair, which have long been all +that has been demanded of them; when the brave, humorous old eyes will +be so weary that they cannot keep open any more in this world. The +thought is one that is insupportably lonely, and sometimes she looks at +the invalid-chair, at the cup and saucer in which she serves her +mother's simple food, at the medicine-bottle and the measuring-glass, at +the knitted shawl which protects the frail old form against draughts, +and at all such sad furniture of an invalid's life, and pictures the day +when the homely, affectionate use of all these things will be gone +forever; for so poignant is humanity that it sanctifies with endearing +associations even objects in themselves so painful and prosaic. And it +seems to Margaret that when that day comes it would be most natural for +her to go on the same journey with her mother.</p><a name="Page_16"></a> + +<p>For who shall fill for her her mother's place on earth—and what +occupation will be left for Margaret when her "beautiful old <i>raison +d'être</i>," as she sometimes calls her mother, has entered into the sleep +of the blessed? She seldom thinks of that, for the thought is too +lonely, and, meanwhile, she uses all her love and care to make this +earth so attractive and cozy that the beautiful mother-spirit who has +been so long prepared for her short journey to heaven may be tempted to +linger here yet a little while longer. These ministrations, which began +as a kind of renunciation, have now turned into an unselfish +selfishness. Margaret began by feeling herself necessary to her mother; +now her mother becomes more and more necessary to Margaret. Sometimes +when she leaves her alone for a few moments in her chair, she laughingly +bends over and says, "Promise me that you won't run away to heaven while +my back is turned."</p> + +<p>And the old mother smiles one of those transfigured smiles which seem +only to light up the faces of those that are already half over the +border of the spiritual world.</p> + +<p>Winter is, of course, Margaret's time of chief anxiety, and then her +loving ef<a name="Page_17"></a>forts are redoubled to detain her beloved spirit in an +inclement world. Each winter passed in safety seems a personal victory +over death. How anxiously she watches for the first sign of the +returning spring, how eagerly she brings the news of early blade and +bud, and with the first violet she feels that the danger is over for +another year. When the spring is so afire that she is able to fill her +mother's lap with a fragrant heap of crocus and daffodil, she dares at +last to laugh and say,</p> + +<p>"Now confess, mother, that you won't find sweeter flowers even in +heaven."</p> + +<p>And when the thrush is on the apple bough outside the window, Margaret +will sometimes employ the same gentle raillery.</p> + +<p>"Do you think, mother," she will say, "that an angel could sing sweeter +than that thrush?"</p> + +<p>"You seem very sure, Margaret, that I am going to heaven," the old +mother will sometimes say, with one of her arch old smiles; "but do you +know that I stole two peppermints yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"You did!" says Margaret.</p> + +<p>"I did indeed! and they have been on my conscience ever since."</p><a name="Page_18"></a> + +<p>"Really, mother! I don't know what to say," answers Margaret. "I had no +idea that you are so wicked."</p> + +<p>Many such little games the two play together, as the days go by; and +often at bedtime, as Margaret tucks her mother into bed, she asks her:</p> + +<p>"Are you comfortable, dear? Do you really think you would be much more +comfortable in heaven?"</p> + +<p>Or sometimes she will draw aside the window-curtains and say:</p> + +<p>"Look at the stars, mother.... Don't you think we get the best view of +them down here?"</p> + +<p>So it is that Margaret persuades her mother to delay her journey a +little while.</p> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Kitties_Sister"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>Kittie's Sister Josephine<a name="Page_19"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Elizabeth Jordan</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Kittie James told me this story about her sister Josephine, and when she +saw my eye light up the way the true artist's does when he hears a good +plot, she said I might use it, if I liked, the next time I "practised +literature."</p> + +<p>I don't think that was a very nice way to say it, especially when one +remembers that Sister Irmingarde read three of my stories to the class +in four months; and as I only write one every week, you can see yourself +what a good average that was. But it takes noble souls to be humble in +the presence of the gifted, and enthusiastic over their success, so only +two of my classmates seemed really happy when Sister Irmingarde read my +third story aloud. It is hardly necessary to mention the names of these +beautiful natures, already so well known to my readers, but I will do +it. They were Maudie Joyce<a name="Page_20"></a> and Mabel Blossom, and they are my dearest +friends at St. Catharine's. And some day, when I am a real writer and +the name of May Iverson shines in gold letters on the tablets of fame, +I'll write a book and dedicate it to them. Then, indeed, they will be +glad they knew me in my schoolgirl days, and recognized real merit when +they saw it, and did not mind the queer things my artistic temperament +often makes me do. Oh, what a slave is one to this artistic, emotional +nature, and how unhappy, how misunderstood! I don't mean that I am +unhappy all the time, of course, but I have Moods. And when I have them +life seems so hollow, so empty, so terrible! At such times natures that +do not understand me are apt to make mistakes, the way Sister Irmingarde +did when she thought I had nervous dyspepsia and made me walk three +miles every day, when it was just Soul that was the matter with me. +Still, I must admit the exercise helped me. It is so soothing, so +restful, so calming to walk on dear nature's breast. Maudie Joyce and +Mabel Blossom always know the minute an attack of artistic temperament +begins in me. Then they go away quietly and reverently, and I write a +story and feel better.</p><a name="Page_21"></a> + +<p>So this time I am going to tell about Kittie James's sister Josephine. +In the very beginning I must explain that Josephine James used to be a +pupil at St. Catharine's herself, ages and ages ago, and finally she +graduated and left, and began to go into society and look around and +decide what her life-work should be. That was long, long before our +time—as much as ten years, I should think, and poor Josephine must be +twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old now. But Kittie says she is just +as nice as she can be, and not a bit poky, and so active and interested +in life you'd think she was young. Of course I know such things can be, +for my own sister Grace, Mrs. George E. Verbeck, is perfectly lovely and +the most popular woman in the society of our city. But Grace is married, +and perhaps that makes a difference. It is said that love keeps the +spirit young. However, perhaps I'd better go on about Josephine and not +dwell on that. Experienced as we girls are, and drinking of life in deep +draughts though we do, we still admit—Maudie, Mabel, and I—that we do +not yet know much about love. But one cannot know everything at fifteen, +and, as Mabel Blossom always says, "there is<a name="Page_22"></a> yet time." We all know +just the kind of men they're going to be, though. Mine will be a brave +young officer, of course, for a general's daughter should not marry out +of the army, and he will die for his country, leaving me with a broken +heart. Maudie Joyce says hers must be a man who will rule her with a rod +of iron and break her will and win her respect, and then be gentle and +loving and tender. And Mabel Blossom says she's perfectly sure hers will +be fat and have a blond mustache and laugh a great deal. Once she said +maybe none of us would ever get <i>any</i>; but the look Maudie Joyce and I +turned upon her checked her thoughtless words. Life is bitter enough as +it is without thinking of dreadful things in the future. I sometimes +fear that underneath her girlish gayety Mabel Blossom conceals a morbid +nature. But I am forgetting Josephine James. This story will tell why, +with all her advantages of wealth and education and beauty, she remained +a maiden lady till she was twenty-eight; and she might have kept on, +too, if Kittie had not taken matters in hand and settled them for her.</p> + +<p>Kittie says Josephine was always romantic and spent long hours of her +young life in girlish reveries and dreams.<a name="Page_23"></a> Of course that isn't the way +Kittie said it, but if I should tell this story in her crude, unformed +fashion, you wouldn't read very far. What Kittie really said was that +Josephine used to "moon around the grounds a lot and bawl, and even try +to write poetry." I understand Josephine's nature, so I will go on and +tell this story in my own way, but you must remember that some of the +credit belongs to Kittie and Mabel Blossom; and if Sister Irmingarde +reads it in class, they can stand right up with me when the author is +called for.</p> + +<p>Well, when Josephine James graduated she got a lot of prizes and things, +for she was a clever girl, and had not spent all her time writing poetry +and thinking deep thoughts about life. She realized the priceless +advantages of a broad and thorough education and of association with the +most cultivated minds. That sentence comes out of our prospectus. Then +she went home and went out a good deal, and was very popular and stopped +writing poetry, and her dear parents began to feel happy and hopeful +about her, and think she would marry and have a nice family, which is +indeed woman's highest, noblest mission in life. But Josephine cherished +an ideal.</p><a name="Page_24"></a> + +<p>A great many young men came to see her, and Kittie liked one of them +very much indeed—better than all the others. He was handsome, and he +laughed and joked a good deal, and always brought Kittie big boxes of +candy and called her his little sister. He said she was going to be that +in the end, anyhow, and there was no use waiting to give her the title +that his heart dictated. He said it just that way. When he took +Josephine out in his automobile he'd say, "Let's take the kid, too," and +they would, and it did not take Kittie long to understand how things +were between George Morgan—for that was indeed his name—and her +sister. Little do grown-up people realize how intelligent are the minds +of the young, and how keen and penetrating their youthful gaze! Clearly +do I recall some things that happened at home, and it would startle papa +and mamma to know I know them, but I will not reveal them here. Once I +would have done so, in the beginning of my art; but now I have learned +to finish one story before I begin another.</p> + +<p>Little did Mr. Morgan and Josephine wot that every time she refused him +Kittie's young heart burned beneath its sense of wrong, for she did +refuse him<a name="Page_25"></a> almost every time they went out together, and yet she kept +right on going. You would think she wouldn't, but women's natures are +indeed inscrutable. Some authors would stop here and tell what was in +Josephine's heart, but this is not that kind of a story. Kittie was only +twelve then, and they used big words and talked in a queer way they +thought she would not understand; but she did, every time, and she never +missed a single word they said. Of course she wasn't <i>listening</i> +exactly, you see, because they knew she was there. That makes it +different and quite proper. For if Kittie was more intelligent than her +elders it was not the poor child's fault.</p> + +<p>Things went on like that and got worse and worse, and they had been +going on that way for five years. One day Kittie was playing tennis with +George at the Country Club, and he had been very kind to her, and all of +a sudden Kittie told him she knew all, and how sorry she was for him, +and that if he would wait till she grew up she would marry him herself. +The poor child was so young, you see, that she did not know how +unmaidenly this was. And of course at St. Catharine's when they taught +us how to enter and leave rooms and how to<a name="Page_26"></a> act in society and at the +table, they didn't think to tell us not to ask young men to marry us. I +can add with confidence that Kittie James was the only girl who ever +did. I asked the rest afterwards, and they were deeply shocked at the +idea.</p> + +<p>Well, anyhow, Kittie did it, and she said George was just as nice as he +could be. He told her he had "never listened to a more alluring +proposition" (she remembered just the words he used), and that she was +"a little trump"; and then he said he feared, alas! it was impossible, +as even his strong manhood could not face the prospect of the long and +dragging years that lay between. Besides, he said, his heart was already +given, and he guessed he'd better stick to Josephine, and would his +little sister help him to get her? Kittie wiped her eyes and said she +would. She had been crying. It must indeed be a bitter experience to +have one's young heart spurned! But George took her into the club-house +and gave her tea and lots of English muffins and jam, and somehow Kittie +cheered up, for she couldn't help feeling there were still some things +in life that were nice.</p> + +<p>Of course after that she wanted dreadfully to help George, but there +didn't<a name="Page_27"></a> seem to be much she could do. Besides, she had to go right back +to school in September, and being a studious child, I need hardly add +that her entire mind was then given to her studies. When she went home +for the Christmas holidays she took Mabel Blossom with her. Mabel was +more than a year older, but Kittie looked up to her, as it is well the +young should do to us older girls. Besides, Kittie had had her +thirteenth birthday in November, and she was letting down her skirts a +little and beginning to think of putting up her hair. She said when she +remembered that she asked George to wait till she grew up it made her +blush, so you see she was developing very fast.</p> + +<p>As I said before, she took Mabel Blossom home for Christmas, and Mr. and +Mrs. James were lovely to her, and she had a beautiful time. But +Josephine was the best of all. She was just fine. Mabel told me with her +own lips that if she hadn't seen Josephine James's name on the catalogue +as a graduate in '93, she never would have believed she was so old. +Josephine took the two girls to matinées and gave a little tea for them, +and George Morgan was as nice as she was. He was always bringing them +candy and violets, exactly as<a name="Page_28"></a> if they were young ladies, and he treated +them both with the greatest respect, and stopped calling them the kids +when he found they didn't like it. Mabel got as fond of him as Kittie +was, and they were both wild to help him to get Josephine to marry him; +but she wouldn't, though Kittie finally talked to her long and +seriously. I asked Kittie what Josephine said when she did that, and she +confessed that Josephine had laughed so she couldn't say anything. That +hurt the sensitive child, of course, but grown-ups are all too +frequently thoughtless of such things. Had Josephine but listened to +Kittie's words on that occasion, it would have saved Kittie a lot of +trouble.</p> + +<p>Now I am getting to the exciting part of the story. I am always so glad +when I get to that. I asked Sister Irmingarde why one couldn't just make +the story out of the exciting part, and she took a good deal of time to +explain why, but she did not convince me; for besides having the +artistic temperament I am strangely logical for one so young. Some day I +shall write a story that is all climax from beginning to end. That will +show her! But at present I must write according to the severe and +cramping rules which she and literature have laid down.</p><a name="Page_29"></a> + +<p>One night Mrs. James gave a large party for Josephine, and of course +Mabel and Kittie, being thirteen and fourteen, had to go to bed. It is +such things as this that embitter the lives of schoolgirls. But they +were allowed to go down and see all the lights and flowers and +decorations before people began to come, and they went into the +conservatory because that was fixed up with little nooks and things. +They got away in and off in a kind of wing of it, and they talked and +pretended they were <i>débutantes</i> at the ball, so they stayed longer than +they knew. Then they heard voices, and they looked and saw Josephine and +Mr. Morgan sitting by the fountain. Before they could move or say they +were there, they heard him say this—Kittie remembers just what it was:</p> + +<p>"I have spent six years following you, and you've treated me as if I +were a dog at the end of a string. This thing must end. I must have you, +or I must learn to live without you, and I must know now which it is to +be. Josephine, you must give me my final answer to-night."</p> + +<p>Wasn't it embarrassing for Kittie and Mabel? They did not want to +listen, but some instinct told them Josephine<a name="Page_30"></a> and George might not be +glad to see them then, so they crept behind a lot of tall palms, and +Mabel put her fingers in her ears so she wouldn't hear. Kittie didn't. +She explained to me afterwards that she thought it being her sister made +things kind of different. It was all in the family, anyhow. So Kittie +heard Josephine tell Mr. Morgan that the reason she did not marry him +was because he was an idler and without an ambition or a purpose in +life. And she said she must respect the man she married as well as love +him. Then George jumped up quickly and asked if she loved him, and she +cried and said she did, but that she would never, never marry him until +he did something to win her admiration and prove he was a man. You can +imagine how exciting it was for Kittie to see with her own innocent eyes +how grown-up people manage such things. She said she was so afraid she'd +miss something that she opened them so wide they hurt her afterwards. +But she didn't miss anything. She saw him kiss Josephine, too, and then +Josephine got up, and he argued and tried to make her change her mind, +and she wouldn't, and finally they left the conservatory. After that +Kittie and Mabel crept out and rushed up-stairs.</p><a name="Page_31"></a> + +<p>The next morning Kittie turned to Mabel with a look on her face which +Mabel had never seen there before. It was grim and determined. She said +she had a plan and wanted Mabel to help her, and not ask any questions, +but get her skates and come out. Mabel did, and they went straight to +George Morgan's house, which was only a few blocks away. He was very +rich and had a beautiful house. An English butler came to the door. +Mabel said she was so frightened her teeth chattered, but he smiled when +he saw Kittie, and said yes, Mr. Morgan was home and at breakfast, and +invited them in. When George came in he had a smoking-jacket on, and +looked very pale and sad and romantic, Mabel thought, but he smiled, +too, when he saw them, and shook hands and asked them if they had +breakfasted.</p> + +<p>Kittie said yes, but they had come to ask him to take them skating, and +they were all ready and had brought their skates. His face fell, as real +writers say, and he hesitated a little, but at last he said he'd go, and +he excused himself, just as if they had been grown up, and went off to +get ready.</p> + +<p>When they were left alone a terrible doubt assailed Mabel, and she asked +Kit<a name="Page_32"></a>tie if she was going to ask George again to marry her. Kittie +blushed and said she was not, of course, and that she knew better now. +For it is indeed true that the human heart is not so easily turned from +its dear object. We know that if once one truly loves it lasts forever +and ever and ever, and then one dies and is buried with things the loved +one wore.</p> + +<p>Kittie said she had a plan to help George, and all Mabel had to do was +to watch and keep on breathing. Mabel felt better then, and said she +guessed she could do that. George came back all ready, and they started +off. Kittie acted rather dark and mysterious, but Mabel conversed with +George in the easy and pleasant fashion young men love. She told him all +about school and how bad she was in mathematics; and he said he had been +a duffer at it too, but that he had learned to shun it while there was +yet time. And he advised her very earnestly to have nothing to do with +it. Mabel didn't, either, after she came back to St. Catharine's; and +when Sister Irmingarde reproached her, Mabel said she was leaning on the +judgment of a strong man, as woman should do. But Sister Irmingarde made +her go on with the arithmetic just the same.</p><a name="Page_33"></a> + +<p>By and by they came to the river, and it was so early not many people +were skating there. When George had fastened on their skates—he did it +in the nicest way, exactly as if they were grown up—Kittie looked more +mysterious than ever, and she started off as fast as she could skate +toward a little inlet where there was no one at all. George and Mabel +followed her. George said he didn't know whether the ice was smooth in +there, but Kittie kept right on, and George did not say any more. I +guess he did not care much where he went. I suppose it disappoints a man +when he wants to marry a woman and she won't. Now that I am beginning to +study deeply this question of love, many things are clear to me.</p> + +<p>Kittie kept far ahead, and all of a sudden Mabel saw that a little +distance further on, and just ahead, there was a big black hole in the +ice, and Kittie was skating straight toward it. Mabel tried to scream, +but she says the sound froze on her pallid lips. Then George saw the +hole, too, and rushed toward Kittie, and quicker than I can write it +Kittie went in that hole and down.</p> + +<p>Mabel says George was there almost as soon, calling to Mabel to keep +back out<a name="Page_34"></a> of danger. Usually when people have to rescue others, +especially in stories, they call to some one to bring a board, and some +one does, and it is easy. But very often in real life there isn't any +board or any one to bring it, and this was indeed the desperate +situation that confronted my hero. There was nothing to do but plunge in +after Kittie, and he plunged, skates and all. Then Mabel heard him gasp +and laugh a little, and he called out: "It's all right, by Jove! The +water isn't much above my knees." And even as he spoke Mabel saw Kittie +rise in the water and sort of hurl herself at him and pull him down into +the water, head and all. When they came up they were both half +strangled, and Mabel was terribly frightened; for she thought George was +mistaken about the depth, and they would both drown before her eyes; and +then she would see that picture all her life, as they do in stories, and +her hair would turn gray. She began to run up and down on the ice and +scream; but even as she did so she heard these extraordinary words come +from between Kittie James's chattering teeth:</p> + +<p>"<i>Now you are good and wet</i>!"</p> + +<p>George did not say a word. He confessed to Mabel afterwards that he<a name="Page_35"></a> +thought poor Kittie had lost her mind through fear. But he tried the ice +till he found a place that would hold him, and he got out and pulled +Kittie out. As soon as Kittie was out she opened her mouth and uttered +more remarkable words.</p> + +<p>"Now," she said, "I'll skate till we get near the club-house. Then you +must pick me up and carry me, and I'll shut my eyes and let my head hang +down. And Mabel must cry—good and hard. Then you must send for +Josephine and let her see how you've saved the life of her precious +little sister."</p> + +<p>Mabel said she was sure that Kittie was crazy, and next she thought +George was crazy, too. For he bent and stared hard into Kittie's eyes +for a minute, and then he began to laugh, and he laughed till he cried. +He tried to speak, but he couldn't at first; and when he did the words +came out between his shouts of boyish glee.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say, you young monkey," he said, "that this is a put-up +job?"</p> + +<p>Kittie nodded as solemnly as a fair young girl can nod when her clothes +are dripping and her nose is blue with cold. When she did that, George +roared again; then, as if he had remembered<a name="Page_36"></a> something, he caught her +hands and began to skate very fast toward the club-house. He was a +thoughtful young man, you see, and he wanted her to get warm. Perhaps he +wanted to get warm, too. Anyhow, they started off, and as they went, +Kittie opened still further the closed flower of her girlish heart. I +heard that expression once, and I've always wanted to get it into one of +my stories. I think this is a good place.</p> + +<p>She told George she knew the hole in the ice, and that it wasn't deep; +and she said she had done it all to make Josephine admire him and marry +him.</p> + +<p>"She will, too," she said. "Her dear little sister—the only one she's +got." And Kittie went on to say what a terrible thing it would have been +if she had died in the promise of her young life, till Mabel said she +almost felt sure herself that George had saved her. But George +hesitated. He said it wasn't "a square deal," whatever that means, but +Kittie said no one need tell any lies. She had gone into the hole and +George had pulled her out. She thought they needn't explain how deep it +was, and George admitted thoughtfully that "no truly loving family +should hunger for statistics at such a moment." Finally he said:<a name="Page_37"></a> "By +Jove! I'll do it. All's fair in love and war." Then he asked Mabel if +she thought she could "lend intelligent support to the star performers," +and she said she could. So George picked Kittie up in his arms, and +Mabel cried—she was so excited it was easy, and she wanted to do it all +the time—and the sad little procession "homeward wended its weary way," +as the poet says.</p> + +<p>Mabel told me Kittie did her part like a real actress. She shut her eyes +and her head hung over George's arm, and her long, wet braid dripped as +it trailed behind them. George laughed to himself every few minutes till +they got near the club-house. Then he looked very sober, and Mabel +Blossom knew her cue had come, the way it does to actresses, and she let +out a wail that almost made Kittie sit up. It was 'most too much of a +one, and Mr. Morgan advised her to "tone it down a little," because, he +said, if she didn't they'd probably have Kittie buried before she could +explain. But of course Mabel had not been prepared and had not had any +practice. She muffled her sobs after that, and they sounded lots better. +People began to rush from the club-house, and get blankets and whiskey, +and telephone for doctors and for Kit<a name="Page_38"></a>tie's family, and things got so +exciting that nobody paid any attention to Mabel. All she had to do was +to mop her eyes occasionally and keep a sharp lookout for Josephine; for +of course, being an ardent student of life, like Maudie and me, she did +not want to miss what came next.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon a horse galloped up, all foaming at the mouth, and he was +pulled back on his haunches, and Josephine and Mr. James jumped out of +the buggy and rushed in, and there was more excitement. When George saw +them coming he turned pale, Mabel said, and hurried off to change his +clothes. One woman looked after him and said, "As modest as he is +brave," and cried over it. When Josephine and Mr. James came in there +was more excitement, and Kittie opened one eye and shut it again right +off, and the doctor said she was all right except for the shock, and her +father and Josephine cried, so Mabel didn't have to any more. She was +glad, too, I can tell you.</p> + +<p>They put Kittie to bed in a room at the club, for the doctor said she +was such a high-strung child it would be wise to keep her perfectly +quiet for a few hours and take precautions against pneumonia. Then +Josephine went around asking for Mr. Morgan.</p><a name="Page_39"></a> + +<p>By and by he came down, in dry clothes but looking dreadfully +uncomfortable. Mabel said she could imagine how he felt. Josephine was +standing by the open fire when he entered the room, and no one else was +there but Mabel. Josephine went right to him and put her arms around his +neck.</p> + +<p>"Dearest, dearest!" she said. "How can I ever thank you?" Her voice was +very low, but Mabel heard it. George said right off, "There is a way." +That shows how quick and clever he is, for some men might not think of +it. Then Mabel Blossom left the room, with slow, reluctant feet, and +went up-stairs to Kittie.</p> + +<p>That's why Mabel has just gone to Kittie's home for a few days. She and +Kittie are to be flower-maids at Josephine's wedding. I hope it is not +necessary for me to explain to my intelligent readers that her husband +will be George Morgan. Kittie says he confessed the whole thing to +Josephine, and she forgave him, and said she would marry him anyhow; but +she explained that she only did it on Kittie's account. She said she did +not know to what lengths the child might go next.</p> + +<p>So my young friends have gone to<a name="Page_40"></a> mingle in scenes of worldly gayety, +and I sit here in the twilight looking at the evening star and writing +about love. How true it is that the pen is mightier than the sword! +Gayety is well in its place, but the soul of the artist finds its +happiness in work and solitude. I hope Josephine will realize, though, +why I cannot describe her wedding. Of course no artist of delicate +sensibilities could describe a wedding when she hadn't been asked to it.</p> + +<p>Poor Josephine! It seems very, very sad to me that she is marrying thus +late in life and only on Kittie's account. Why, oh, why could she not +have wed when she was young and love was in her heart!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Wizards"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Wizard's Touch<a name="Page_41"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Alice Brown</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Jerome Wilmer sat in the garden, painting in a background, with the +carelessness of ease. He seemed to be dabbing little touches at the +canvas, as a spontaneous kind of fun not likely to result in anything +serious, save, perhaps, the necessity of scrubbing them off afterwards, +like a too adventurous child. Mary Brinsley, in her lilac print, stood a +few paces away, the sun on her hair, and watched him.</p> + +<p>"Paris is very becoming to you," she said at last.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked Wilmer, glancing up, and then beginning to +consider her so particularly that she stepped aside, her brows knitted, +with an admonishing,</p> + +<p>"Look out! you'll get me into the landscape."</p> + +<p>"You're always in the landscape. What do you mean about Paris?"</p><a name="Page_42"></a> + +<p>"You look so—so travelled, so equal to any place, and Paris in +particular because it's the finest."</p> + +<p>Other people also had said that, in their various ways. He had the +distinction set by nature upon a muscular body and a rather small head, +well poised. His hair, now turning gray, grew delightfully about the +temples, and though it was brushed back in the style of a man who never +looks at himself twice when once will do, it had a way of seeming +entirely right. His brows were firm, his mouth determined, and the close +pointed beard brought his face to a delicate finish. Even his clothes, +of the kind that never look new, had fallen into lines of easy use.</p> + +<p>"You needn't guy me," he said, and went on painting. But he flashed his +sudden smile at her. "Isn't New England becoming to me, too?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, for the summer. It's over-powered. In the winter Aunt Celia calls +you 'Jerry Wilmer.' She's quite topping then. But the minute you appear +with European labels on your trunks and that air of speaking foreign +lingo, she gives out completely. Every time she sees your name in the +paper she forgets you went to school at the Academy and built the fires. +She calls you 'our boarder'<a name="Page_43"></a> then, for as much as a week and a half."</p> + +<p>"Quit it, Mary," said he, smiling at her again.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mary, yet without turning, "I must go and weed a while."</p> + +<p>"No," put in Wilmer, innocently; "he won't be over yet. He had a big +mail. I brought it to him."</p> + +<p>Mary blushed, and made as if to go. She was a woman of thirty-five, well +poised, and sweet through wholesomeness. Her face had been cut on a +regular pattern, and then some natural influence had touched it up +beguilingly with contradictions. She swung back, after her one tentative +step, and sobered.</p> + +<p>"How do you think he is looking?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Prime."</p> + +<p>"Not so—"</p> + +<p>"Not so morbid as when I was here last summer," he helped her out. "Not +by any means. Are you going to marry him, Mary?" The question had only a +civil emphasis, but a warmer tone informed it. Mary grew pink under the +morning light, and Jerome went on: "Yes, I have a perfect right to talk +about it, I don't travel three thousand miles every summer to ask you to +marry me without earning some claim to frank<a name="Page_44"></a>ness. I mentioned that to +Marshby himself. We met at the station, you remember, the day I came. We +walked down together. He spoke about my sketching, and I told him I had +come on my annual pilgrimage, to ask Mary Brinsley to marry me."</p> + +<p>"Jerome!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I did. This is my tenth pilgrimage. Mary, will you marry me?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Mary, softly, but as if she liked him very much. "No, +Jerome."</p> + +<p>Wilmer squeezed a tube on his palette and regarded the color frowningly. +"Might as well, Mary," said he. "You'd have an awfully good time in +Paris."</p> + +<p>She was perfectly still, watching him, and he went on:</p> + +<p>"Now you're thinking if Marshby gets the consulate you'll be across the +water anyway, and you could run down to Paris and see the sights. But it +wouldn't be the same thing. It's Marshby you like, but you'd have a +better time with me."</p> + +<p>"It's a foregone conclusion that the consulship will be offered him," +said Mary. Her eyes were now on the path leading through the garden and +over the wall to the neighboring house where Marshby lived.</p> + +<p>"Then you will marry and go with him.<a name="Page_45"></a> Ah, well, that's finished. I +needn't come another summer. When you are in Paris, I can show you the +boulevards and cafés."</p> + +<p>"It is more than probable he won't accept the consulship."</p> + +<p>"Why?" He held his palette arrested in mid-air and stared at her.</p> + +<p>"He is doubtful of himself—doubtful whether he is equal to so +responsible a place."</p> + +<p>"Bah! it's not an embassy."</p> + +<p>"No; but he fancies he has not the address, the social gifts—in fact, +he shrinks from it." Her face had taken on a soft distress; her eyes +appealed to him. She seemed to be confessing, for the other man, +something that might well be misunderstood. Jerome, ignoring the flag of +her discomfort, went on painting, to give her room for confidence.</p> + +<p>"Is it that old plague-spot?" he asked. "Just what aspect does it bear +to him? Why not talk freely about it?"</p> + +<p>"It is the old remorse. He misunderstood his brother when they two were +left alone in the world. He forced the boy out of evil associations when +he ought to have led him. You know the rest of it. The boy was +desperate. He killed himself."</p> + +<p>"When he was drunk. Marshby wasn't responsible."</p><a name="Page_46"></a> + +<p>"No, not directly. But you know that kind of mind. It follows hidden +causes. That's why his essays are so good. Anyway, it has crippled him. +It came when he was too young, and it marked him for life. He has an +inveterate self-distrust."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well," said Winner, including the summer landscape in a wave of his +brush, "give up the consulship. Let him give it up. It isn't as if he +hadn't a roof. Settle down in his house there, you two, and let him +write his essays, and you—just be happy."</p> + +<p>She ignored her own part in the prophecy completely and finally. "It +isn't the consulship as the consulship," she responded. "It is the life +abroad I want for him. It would give him—well, it would give him what +it has given you. His work would show it." She spoke hotly, and at once +Jerome saw himself envied for his brilliant cosmopolitan life, the +bounty of his success fairly coveted for the other man. It gave him a +curious pang. He felt, somehow, impoverished, and drew his breath more +meagrely. But the actual thought in his mind grew too big to be +suppressed, and he stayed his hand to look at her.</p> + +<p>"That's not all," he said.</p> + +<p>"All what?"</p><a name="Page_47"></a> + +<p>"That's not the main reason why you want him to go. You think if he +really asserted himself, really knocked down the spectre of his old +distrust and stamped on it, he would be a different man. If he had once +proved himself, as we say of younger chaps, he could go on proving."</p> + +<p>"No," she declared, in nervous loyalty. She was like a bird fluttering +to save her nest. "No! You are wrong. I ought not to have talked about +him at all. I shouldn't to anybody else. Only, you are so kind."</p> + +<p>"It's easy to be kind," said Jerome, gently, "when there's nothing else +left us."</p> + +<p>She stood wilfully swaying a branch of the tendrilled arbor, and, he +subtly felt, so dissatisfied with herself for her temporary disloyalty +that she felt alien to them both: Marshby because she had wronged him by +admitting another man to this intimate knowledge of him, and the other +man for being her accomplice.</p> + +<p>"Don't be sorry," he said, softly. "You haven't been naughty."</p> + +<p>But she had swung round to some comprehension of what he had a right to +feel.</p> + +<p>"It makes one selfish," she said, "to want—to want things to come out +right."</p><a name="Page_48"></a> + +<p>"I know. Well, can't we make them come out right? He is sure of the +consulship?"</p> + +<p>"Practically."</p> + +<p>"You want to be assured of his taking it."</p> + +<p>She did not answer; but her face lighted, as if to a new appeal. Jerome +followed her look along the path. Marshby himself was coming. He was no +weakling. He swung along easily with the stride of a man accustomed to +using his body well. He had not, perhaps, the urban air, and yet there +was nothing about him which would not have responded at once to a more +exacting civilization. Jerome knew his face,—knew it from their college +days together and through these annual visits of his own; but now, as +Marshby approached, the artist rated him not so much by the friendly as +the professional eye. He saw a man who looked the scholar and the +gentleman, keen though not imperious of glance. His visage, mature even +for its years, had suffered more from emotion than from deeds or the +assaults of fortune. Marshby had lived the life of thought, and, +exaggerating action, had failed to fit himself to any form of it. Wilmer +glanced at his hands, too, as they<a name="Page_49"></a> swung with his walk, and then +remembered that the professional eye had already noted them and laid +their lines away for some suggestive use. As he looked, Marshby stopped +in his approach, caught by the singularity of a gnarled tree limb. It +awoke in him a cognizance of nature's processes, and his face lighted +with the pleasure of it.</p> + +<p>"So you won't marry me?" asked Wilmer, softly, in that pause.</p> + +<p>"Don't!" said Mary.</p> + +<p>"Why not, when you won't tell whether you're engaged to him or not? Why +not, anyway? If I were sure you'd be happier with me, I'd snatch you out +of his very maw. Yes, I would. Are you sure you like him, Mary?"</p> + +<p>The girl did not answer, for Marshby had started again. Jerome got the +look in her face, and smiled a little, sadly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "you're sure."</p> + +<p>Mary immediately felt unable to encounter them together. She gave +Marshby a good-morning, and, to his bewilderment, made some excuse about +her weeding and flitted past him on the path. His eyes followed her, and +when they came back to Wilmer the artist nodded brightly.</p> + +<p>"I've just asked her," he said.</p><a name="Page_50"></a> + +<p>"Asked her?" Marshby was about to pass him, pulling out his glasses and +at the same time peering at the picture with the impatience of his +near-sighted look.</p> + +<p>"There, don't you do that!" cried Jerome, stopping, with his brush in +air. "Don't you come round and stare over my shoulder. It makes me +nervous ad the devil. Step back there—there by that mullein. So! I've +got to face my protagonist. Yes, I've been asking her to marry me."</p> + +<p>Marshby stiffened. His head went up, his jaw tightened. He looked the +jealous ire of the male.</p> + +<p>"What do you want me to stand here for?" he asked, irritably.</p> + +<p>"But she refused me," said Wilmer, cheerfully. "Stand still, that's a +good fellow. I'm using you."</p> + +<p>Marshby had by an effort pulled himself together. He dismissed Mary from +his mind, as he wished to drive her from the other man's speech.</p> + +<p>"I've been reading the morning paper on your exhibition," he said, +bringing out the journal from his pocket. "They can't say enough about +you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, can't they! Well, the better for me. What are they pleased to +discover?"</p><a name="Page_51"></a> + +<p>"They say you see round corners and through deal boards. Listen." He +struck open the paper and read: "'A man with a hidden crime upon his +soul will do well to elude this greatest of modern magicians. The man +with a secret tells it the instant he sits down before Jerome Wilmer. +Wilmer does not paint faces, brows, hands. He paints hopes, fears, and +longings. If we could, in our turn, get to the heart of his mystery! If +we could learn whether he says to himself: "I see hate in that face, +hypocrisy, greed. I will paint them. That man is not man, but cur. He +shall fawn on my canvas." Or does he paint through a kind of inspired +carelessness, and as the line obeys the eye and hand, so does the +emotion live in the line?'"</p> + +<p>"Oh, gammon!" snapped Wilmer.</p> + +<p>"Well, do you?" said Marshby, tossing the paper to the little table +where Mary's work-box stood.</p> + +<p>"Do I what? Spy and then paint, or paint and find I've spied? Oh, I +guess I plug along like any other decent workman. When it comes to that, +how do you write your essays?"</p> + +<p>"I! Oh! That's another pair of sleeves. Your work is colossal. I'm still +on cherry-stones."</p><a name="Page_52"></a> + +<p>"Well," said Wilmer, with slow incisiveness, "you've accomplished one +thing I'd sell my name for. You've got Mary Brinsley bound to you so +fast that neither lure nor lash can stir her. I've tried it—tried Paris +even, the crudest bribe there is. No good! She won't have me."</p> + +<p>At her name, Marshby straightened again, and there was fire in his eye. +Wilmer, sketching him in, seemed to gain distinct impulse from the pose, +and worked the faster.</p> + +<p>"Don't move," he ordered. "There, that's right. So, you see, you're the +successful chap. I'm the failure. She won't have me." There was such +feeling in his tone that Marshby's expression softened comprehendingly. +He understood a pain that prompted even such a man to rash avowal.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe we'd better speak of her," he said, in awkward +kindliness.</p> + +<p>"I want to," returned Wilmer. "I want to tell you how lucky you are."</p> + +<p>Again that shade of introspective bitterness clouded Marshby's face. +"Yes," said he, involuntarily. "But how about her? Is <i>she</i> lucky?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," replied Jerome, steadily. "She's got what she wants. She won't +worship you any the less because you don't wor<a name="Page_53"></a>ship yourself. That's the +mad way they have—women. It's an awful challenge. You've got a fight +before you, if you don't refuse it.".</p> + +<p>"God!" groaned Marshby to himself, "it is a fight. I can't refuse it."</p> + +<p>Wilmer put his question without mercy. "Do you want to?"</p> + +<p>"I want her to be happy," said Marshby, with a simple humility afar from +cowardice. "I want her to be safe. I don't see how anybody could be +safe—with me."</p> + +<p>"Well," pursued Wilmer, recklessly, "would she be safe with me?"</p> + +<p>"I think so," said Marshby, keeping an unblemished dignity. "I have +thought that for a good many years."</p> + +<p>"But not happy?"</p> + +<p>"No, not happy. She would—We have been together so long."</p> + +<p>"Yes, she'd miss you. She'd die of homesickness. Well!" He sat +contemplating Marshby with his professional stare; but really his mind +was opened for the first time to the full reason for Mary's unchanging +love. Marshby stood there so quiet, so oblivious of himself in +comparison with unseen things, so much a man from head to foot, that he +justified the woman's loyal passion as<a name="Page_54"></a> nothing had before. "Shall you +accept the consulate?" Wilmer asked, abruptly.</p> + +<p>Brought face to face with fact, Marshby's pose slackened. He drooped +perceptibly. "Probably not," he said. "No, decidedly not."</p> + +<p>Wilmer swore under his breath, and sat, brows bent, marvelling at the +change in him. The man's infirmity of will had blighted him. He was so +truly another creature that not even a woman's unreasoning championship +could pull him into shape again.</p> + +<p>Mary Brinsley came swiftly down the path, trowel in one hand and her +basket of weeds in the other. Wilmer wondered if she had been glancing +up from some flowery screen and read the story of that altered posture. +She looked sharply anxious, like a mother whose child is threatened. +Jerome shrewdly knew that Marshby's telltale attitude was no unfamiliar +one.</p> + +<p>"What have you been saying?" she asked, in laughing challenge, yet with +a note of anxiety underneath.</p> + +<p>"I'm painting him in," said Wilmer; but as she came toward him he turned +the canvas dexterously. "No," said he, "no. I've got my idea from this. +To-morrow Marshby's going to sit."</p><a name="Page_55"></a> + +<p>That was all he would say, and Mary put it aside as one of his +pleasantries made to fit the hour. But next day he set up a big canvas +in the barn that served him as workroom, and summoned Marshby from his +books. He came dressed exactly right, in his every-day clothes that had +comfortable wrinkles in them, and easily took his pose. For all his +concern over the inefficiency of his life, as a life, he was entirely +without self-consciousness in his personal habit. Jerome liked that, and +began to like him better as he knew him more. A strange illuminative +process went on in his mind toward the man as Mary saw him, and more and +more he nursed a fretful sympathy with her desire to see Marshby tuned +up to some pitch that should make him livable to himself. It seemed a +cruelty of nature that any man should so scorn his own company and yet +be forced to keep it through an allotted span. In that sitting Marshby +was at first serious and absent-minded. Though his body was obediently +there, the spirit seemed to be busy somewhere else.</p> + +<p>"Head up!" cried Jerome at last, brutally. "Heavens, man, don't skulk!"</p> + +<p>Marshby straightened under the blow. It hit harder, as Jerome meant it +should,<a name="Page_56"></a> than any verbal rallying. It sent the man back over his own +life to the first stumble in it.</p> + +<p>"I want you to look as if you heard drums and fife," Jerome explained, +with one of his quick smiles, that always wiped out former injury.</p> + +<p>But the flush was not yet out of Marshby's face, and he answered, +bitterly, "I might run."</p> + +<p>"I don't mind your looking as if you'd like to run and knew you +couldn't," said Jerome, dashing in strokes now in a happy certainty.</p> + +<p>"Why couldn't I?" asked Marshby, still from that abiding scorn of his +own ways.</p> + +<p>"Because you can't, that's all. Partly because you get the habit of +facing the music. I should like—" Wilmer had an unconsidered way of +entertaining his sitters, without much expenditure to himself; he +pursued a fantastic habit of talk to keep their blood moving, and did it +with the eye of the mind unswervingly on his work. "If I were you, I'd +do it. I'd write an essay on the muscular habit of courage. Your coward +is born weak-kneed. He shouldn't spill himself all over the place trying +to put on the spiritual make-up of a hero. He must<a name="Page_57"></a> simply strengthen +his knees. When they'll take him anywhere he requests, without buckling, +he wakes up and finds himself a field-marshal. <i>Voilà!</i>"</p> + +<p>"It isn't bad," said Marshby, unconsciously straightening. "Go ahead, +Jerome. Turn us all into field-marshals."</p> + +<p>"Not all," objected Wilmer, seeming to dash his brush at the canvas with +the large carelessness that promised his best work. "The jobs wouldn't +go round. But I don't feel the worse for it when I see the recruity +stepping out, promotion in his eye."</p> + +<p>After the sitting, Wilmer went yawning forward, and with a hand on +Marshby's shoulder, took him to the door.</p> + +<p>"Can't let you look at the thing," he said, as Marshby gave one backward +glance. "That's against the code. Till it's done, no eye touches it but +mine and the light of heaven."</p> + +<p>Marshby had no curiosity. He smiled, and thereafter let the picture +alone, even to the extent of interested speculation. Mary had +scrupulously absented herself from that first sitting; but after it was +over and Marshby had gone home, Wilmer found her in the garden, under an +apple-tree, shelling pease. He lay down on the ground, at a little +distance, and<a name="Page_58"></a> watched her. He noted the quick, capable turn of her +wrist and the dexterous motion of the brown hands as they snapped out +the pease, and he thought how eminently sweet and comfortable it would +be to take this bit of his youth back to France with him, or even to +give up France and grow old with her at home.</p> + +<p>"Mary," said he, "I sha'n't paint any picture of you this summer."</p> + +<p>Mary laughed, and brushed back a yellow lock with the back of her hand. +"No," said she, "I suppose not. Aunt Celia spoke of it yesterday. She +told me the reason."</p> + +<p>"What is Aunt Celia's most excellent theory?"</p> + +<p>"She said I'm not so likely as I used to be."</p> + +<p>"No," said Jerome, not answering her smile in the community of mirth +they always had over Aunt Celia's simple speech. He rolled over on the +grass and began to make a dandelion curl. "No, that's not it. You're a +good deal likelier than you used to be. You're all possibilities now. I +could make a Madonna out of you, quick as a wink. No, it's because I've +decided to paint Marshby instead."</p> + +<p>Mary's hands stilled themselves, and<a name="Page_59"></a> she looked at him anxiously. "Why +are you doing that?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Don't you want the picture?"</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Give it to you, I guess. For a wedding-present, Mary."</p> + +<p>"You mustn't say those things," said Mary, gravely. She went on working, +but her face was serious.</p> + +<p>"It's queer, isn't it," remarked Wilmer, after a pause, "this notion +you've got that Marshby's the only one that could possibly do? I began +asking you first."</p> + +<p>"Please!" said Mary. Her eyes were full of tears. That was rare for her, +and Wilmer saw it meant a shaken poise. She was less certain to-day of +her own fate. It made her more responsively tender toward his. He sat up +and looked at her.</p> + +<p>"No," he said. "No. I won't ask you again. I never meant to. Only I have +to speak of it once in a while. We should have such a tremendously good +time together."</p> + +<p>"We have a tremendously good time now," said Mary, the smile coming +while she again put up the back of her hand and brushed her eyes. "When +you're good."</p><a name="Page_60"></a> + +<p>"When I help all the other little boys at the table, and don't look at +the nice heart-shaped cake I want myself? It's frosted, and got little +pink things all over the top. There! don't drop the corners of your +mouth. If I were asked what kind of a world I'd like to live in, I'd say +one where the corners of Mary's mouth keep quirked up all the time. +Let's talk about Marshby's picture. It's going to be your Marshby."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Not Marshby's Marshby—yours."</p> + +<p>"You're not going to play some dreadful joke on him?" Her eyes were +blazing under knotted brows.</p> + +<p>"Mary!" Wilmer spoke gently, and though the tone recalled her, she could +not forbear at once, in her hurt pride and loyalty.</p> + +<p>"You're not going to put him into any masquerade?—to make him anything +but what he is?"</p> + +<p>"Mary, don't you think that's a little hard on an old chum?"</p> + +<p>"I can't help it." Her cheeks were hot, though now it was with shame. +"Yes, I am mean, jealous, envious. I see you with everything at your +feet—"</p> + +<p>"Not quite everything," said Jerome. "I know it makes you hate me."</p><a name="Page_61"></a> + +<p>"No! no!" The real woman had awakened in her, and she turned to him in a +whole-hearted honesty. "Only, they say you do such wizard things when +you paint. I never saw any of your pictures, you know, except the ones +you did of me. And they're not <i>me</i>. They're lovely—angels with women's +clothes on. Aunt Celia says if I looked like that I'd carry all before +me. But, you see, you've always been—partial to me."</p> + +<p>"And you think I'm not partial to Marshby?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't that. It's only that they say you look inside people and drag +out what is there. And inside him—oh, you'd see his hatred of himself!" +The tears were rolling unregarded down her face.</p> + +<p>"This is dreadful," said Wilmer, chiefly to himself. "Dreadful."</p> + +<p>"There!" said Mary, drearily, emptying the pods from her apron into the +basket at her side. "I suppose I've done it now. I've spoiled the +picture."</p> + +<p>"No," returned Jerome, thoughtfully, "you haven't spoiled the picture. +Really I began it with a very definite conception of what I was going to +do. It will be done in that way or not at all."</p> + +<p>"You're very kind," said Mary, humbly. "I didn't mean to act like +this."</p><a name="Page_62"></a> + +<p>"No,"—he spoke out of a maze of reflection, not looking at her. "You +have an idea he's under the microscope with me. It makes you nervous."</p> + +<p>She nodded, and then caught herself up.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing you mightn't see," she said, proudly, ignoring her +previous outburst. "You or anybody else, even with a microscope."</p> + +<p>"No, of course not. Only you'd say microscopes aren't fair. Well, +perhaps they're not. And portrait-painting is a very simple matter. It's +not the black art. But if I go on with this, you are to let me do it in +my own way. You're not to look at it."</p> + +<p>"Not even when you're not at work?"</p> + +<p>"Not once, morning, noon, or night, till I invite you to. You were +always a good fellow, Mary. You'll keep your word."</p> + +<p>"No, I won't look at it," said Mary.</p> + +<p>Thereafter she stayed away from the barn, not only when he was painting, +but at other times, and Wilmer missed her. He worked very fast, and made +his plans for sailing, and Aunt Celia loudly bemoaned his stinginess in +cutting short the summer. One day, after breakfast, he sought out Mary +again in the garden.<a name="Page_63"></a> She was snipping Coreopsis for the dinner table, +but she did it absently, and Jerome noted the heaviness of her eyes.</p> + +<p>"What's the trouble?" he asked, abruptly, and she was shaken out of her +late constraint. She looked up at him with a piteous smile.</p> + +<p>"Nothing much," she said. "It doesn't matter. I suppose it's fate. He +has written his letter."</p> + +<p>"Marshby?"</p> + +<p>"You knew he got his appointment?"</p> + +<p>"No; I saw something had him by the heels, but he's been still as a +fish."</p> + +<p>"It came three days ago. He has decided not to take it. And it will +break his heart."</p> + +<p>"It will break your heart," Wilmer opened his lips to say; but he dared +not jostle her mood of unconsidered frankness.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I expected it," she went on. "I did expect it. Yet he's been +so different lately, it gave me a kind of hope."</p> + +<p>Jerome started. "How has he been different?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"More confident, less doubtful of himself. It's not anything he has +said. It's in his speech, his walk. He even carries his head +differently, as if he had a right to. Well, we talked half the night +last<a name="Page_64"></a> night, and he went home to write the letter. He promised me not to +mail it till he'd seen me once more; but nothing will make any +difference."</p> + +<p>"You won't beseech him?"</p> + +<p>"No. He is a man. He must decide."</p> + +<p>"You won't tell him what depends on it!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing depends on it," said Mary, calmly. "Nothing except his own +happiness. I shall find mine in letting him accept his life according to +his own free will."</p> + +<p>There was something majestic in her mental attitude. Wilmer felt how +noble her maturity was to be, and told himself, with a thrill of pride, +that he had done well to love her.</p> + +<p>"Marshby is coming," he said. "I want to show you both the picture."</p> + +<p>Mary shook her head. "Not this morning," she told him, and he could see +how meagre canvas and paint must seem to her after her vision of the +body of life. But he took her hand.</p> + +<p>"Come," he said, gently; "you must."</p> + +<p>Still holding her flowers, she went with him, though her mind abode with +her lost cause. Marshby halted when he saw them coming, and Jerome had +time to look at him. The man held himself<a name="Page_65"></a> wilfully erect, but his face +betrayed him. It was haggard, smitten. He had not only met defeat; he +had accepted it. Jerome nodded to him and went on before them to the +barn. The picture stood there in a favoring light. Mary caught her +breath sharply, and then all three were silent. Jerome stood there +forgetful of them, his eyes on his completed work, and for the moment he +had in it the triumph of one who sees intention, brought to fruitage +under perfect auspices. It meant more to him, that recognition, than any +glowing moment of his youth. The scroll of his life unrolled before him, +and he saw his past, as other men acclaimed it, running into the future +ready for his hand to make. A great illumination touched the days to +come. Brilliant in promise, they were yet barren of hope. For as surely +as he had been able to set this seal on Mary's present, he saw how the +thing itself would separate them. He had painted her ideal of Marshby; +but whenever in the future she should nurse the man through the mental +sickness bound always to delay his march, she would remember this moment +with a pang, as something Jerome had dowered him with, not something he +had attained unaided. Marshby faced<a name="Page_66"></a> them from the canvas, erect, +undaunted, a soldier fronting the dawn, expectant of battle, yet with no +dread of its event. He was not in any sense alien to himself. He +dominated, not by crude force, but through the sustained inward strength +of him. It was not youth Jerome had given him. There was maturity in the +face. It had its lines—the lines that are the scars of battle; but +somehow not one suggested, even to the doubtful mind, a battle lost. +Jerome turned from the picture to the man himself, and had his own +surprise. Marshby was transfigured. He breathed humility and hope. He +stirred at Wilmer's motion.</p> + +<p>"Am I"—he glowed—"could I have looked like that?" Then in the +poignancy of the moment he saw how disloyal to the moment it was even to +hint at what should have been, without snapping the link now into the +welding present. He straightened himself and spoke brusquely, but to +Mary:</p> + +<p>"I'll go back and write that letter. Here is the one I wrote last +night."</p> + +<p>He took it from his pocket, tore it in two, and gave it to her. Then he +turned away and walked with the soldier's step home. Jerome could not +look at her. He began moving back the picture.</p><a name="Page_67"></a> + +<p>"There!" he said, "it's finished. Better make up your mind where you'll +have it put. I shall be picking up my traps this morning."</p> + +<p>Then Mary gave him his other surprise. Her hands were on his shoulders. +Her eyes, full of the welling gratitude that is one kind of love, spoke +like her lips.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said she, "do you think I don't know what you've done? I couldn't +take it from anybody else. I couldn't let him take it. It's like +standing beside him in battle; like lending him your horse, your sword. +It's being a comrade. It's helping him fight. And he <i>will</i> fight. +That's the glory of it!"</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<a name="Bitter_Cup"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Bitter Cup<a name="Page_68"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Charles B. De Camp</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Clara Leeds sat by the open window of her sitting-room with her fancy +work. Her hair was done up in an irreproachable style, and her +finger-nails were carefully manicured and pink like little shells. She +had a slender waist, and looked down at it from time to time with +satisfied eyes. At the back of her collar was a little burst of chiffon; +for chiffon so arranged was the fashion. She cast idle glances at the +prospect from the window. It was not an alluring one—a row of brick +houses with an annoying irregularity of open and closed shutters.</p> + +<p>There was the quiet rumble of a carriage in the street, and Clara Leeds +leaned forward, her eyes following the vehicle until to look further +would have necessitated leaning out of the window. There were two women +in the carriage, both young and soberly dressed. To cer<a name="Page_69"></a>tain eyes they +might have appeared out of place in a carriage, and yet, somehow, it was +obvious that it was their own. Clara Leeds resumed her work, making +quick, jerky stitches.</p> + +<p>"Clara Leeds," she murmured, as if irritated. She frowned and then +sighed. "If only—if only it was something else; if it only had two +syllables...." She put aside her work and went and stood before the +mirror of her dresser. She looked long at her face. It was fresh and +pretty, and her blue eyes, in spite of their unhappy look, were clear +and shining. She fingered a strand of hair, and then cast critical +sidelong glances at her profile. She smoothed her waist-line with a +movement peculiar to women. Then she tilted the glass and regarded the +reflection from head to foot.</p> + +<p>"Oh, what is it?" she demanded, distressed, of herself in the glass. She +took up her work again.</p> + +<p>"They don't seem to care how they look and ... they do wear shabby +gloves and shoes." So her thoughts ran. "But they are the Rockwoods and +they don't have to care. It must be so easy for them; they only have to +visit the Day Nursery, and the Home for Incurables, and some old, poor, +sick people. They<a name="Page_70"></a> never have to meet them and ask them to dinner. They +just say a few words and leave some money or things in a nice way, and +they can go home and do what they please." Clara Leeds's eyes rested +unseeingly on the house opposite. "It must be nice to have a rector ... +he is such an intellectual-looking man, so quiet and dignified; just the +way a minister should be, instead of like Mr. Copple, who tries to be +jolly and get up sociables and parlor meetings." There were tears in the +girl's eyes.</p> + +<p>A tea-bell rang, and Clara went down-stairs to eat dinner with her +father. He had just come in and was putting on a short linen coat. +Clara's mother was dead. She was the only child at home, and kept house +for her father.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you are all ready for the lawn-tennis match this afternoon?" +said Mr. Leeds to his daughter. "Mr. Copple said you were going to play +with him. My! that young man is up to date. Think of a preacher getting +up a lawn-tennis club! Why, when I was a young man that would have +shocked people out of their boots. But it's broad-minded, it's +broad-minded," with a wave of the hand. "I like to see a man with ideas, +and if lawn-tennis will help to keep our<a name="Page_71"></a> boys out of sin's pathway, +why, then, lawn-tennis is a strong, worthy means of doing the Lord's +work."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Clara. "Did Mr. Copple say he would call for me? It isn't +necessary."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, yes," said her father; "he said to tell you he would be around +here at two o'clock. I guess I'll have to go over myself and see part of +the athletics. We older folks ain't quite up to taking a hand in the +game, but we can give Copple our support by looking in on you and +cheering on the good work."</p> + +<p>After dinner Mr. Leeds changed the linen coat for a cutaway and started +back to his business. Clara went up-stairs and put on a short skirt and +tennis shoes. She again surveyed herself in the mirror. The skirt +certainly hung just like the model. She sighed and got out her +tennis-racquet. Then she sat down and read in a book of poems that she +was very fond of.</p> + +<p>At two o'clock the bell jangled, and Clara opened the door for Mr. +Copple herself. The clergyman was of slight build, and had let the hair +in front of his ears grow down a little way on his cheeks. He wore a +blue yachting-cap, and white duck trousers which were rolled up and<a name="Page_72"></a> +displayed a good deal of red and black sock. For a moment Clara imaged a +clear-cut face with grave eyes above a length of clerical waistcoat, on +which gleamed a tiny gold cross suspended from a black cord.</p> + +<p>"I guess we might as well go over," she said. "I'm all ready."</p> + +<p>The clergyman insisted on carrying Clara's racquet. "You are looking +very well," he said, somewhat timidly, but with admiring eyes. "But +perhaps you don't feel as much like playing as you look."</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, I do indeed," replied Clara, inwardly resenting the solicitude +in his tone.</p> + +<p>They set out, and the clergyman appeared to shake his mind free of a +preoccupation.</p> + +<p>"I hope all the boys will be around," he said, with something of +anxiety. "They need the exercise. All young, active fellows ought to +have it. I spoke to Mr. Goodloe and Mr. Sharp and urged them to let Tom +and Fred Martin off this afternoon. I think they will do it. Ralph +Carpenter, I'm afraid, can't get away from the freight-office, but I am +in hopes that Mr. Stiggins can take his place. Did you know that Mrs. +Thompson has promised to donate some lemonade?"</p><a name="Page_73"></a> + +<p>"That's very nice," said Clara. "It's a lovely day for the match." She +was thinking, "What short steps he takes!"</p> + +<p>After some silent walking the clergyman said: "I don't believe you know, +Miss Leeds, how much I appreciate your taking part in these tennis +matches. Somehow I feel that it is asking a great deal of you, for I +know that you have—er—so many interests of your own—that is, you are +different in many ways from most of our people. I want you to know that +I am grateful for the influence—your cooperation, you know—"</p> + +<p>"Please, Mr. Copple, don't mention it," said Clara, hurriedly. "I +haven't so many interests as you imagine, and I am not any different +from the rest of the people. Not at all." If there was any hardness in +the girl's tone the clergyman did not appear to notice it. They had +reached their destination.</p> + +<p>The tennis-court was on the main street just beyond the end of the +business section. It was laid out on a vacant lot between two brick +houses. A wooden sign to one side of the court announced, "First —— +Church Tennis Club." When Clara and Mr. Copple arrived at the court +there were a number of young people gathered in the lot. Most of them<a name="Page_74"></a> +had tennis-racquets, those of the girls being decorated with bows of +yellow, black, and lavender ribbon. Mr. Copple shook hands with +everybody, and ran over the court several times, testing the consistency +of the earth.</p> + +<p>"Everything is capital!" he cried.</p> + +<p>Clara Leeds bowed to the others, shaking hands with only one or two. +They appeared to be afraid of her. The finals in the men's singles were +between Mr. Copple and Elbert Dunklethorn, who was called "Ellie." He +wore a very high collar, and as his shoes had heels, he ran about the +court on his toes.</p> + +<p>Clara, watching him, recalled her father's words at dinner. "How will +this save that boy from sin's pathway?" she thought. She regarded the +clergyman; she recognized his zeal. But why, why must she be a part of +this—what was it?—this system of saving people and this kind of +people? If she could only go and be good to poor and unfortunate people +whom she wouldn't have to know. Clara glanced toward the street. "I hope +they won't come past," she said to herself.</p> + +<p>The set in which Clara and the clergyman were partners was the most +exciting of the afternoon. The space on either<a name="Page_75"></a> side of the court was +quite filled with spectators. Some of the older people who had come with +the lengthening shadows sat on chairs brought from the kitchens of the +adjoining houses. Among them was Mr. Leeds, his face animated. Whenever +a ball went very high up or very far down the lot, he cried, "Hooray!" +Clara was at the net facing the street, when the carriage she had +observed in the morning stopped in view, and the two soberly dressed +women leaned forward to watch the play. Clara felt her face burn, and +when they cried "game," she could not remember whether the clergyman and +she had won it or lost it. She was chiefly conscious of her father's +loud "hoorays." With the end of the play the carriage was driven on.</p> + +<p>Shortly before supper-time that evening Clara went to the drug-store to +buy some stamps. One of the Misses Rockwood was standing by the +show-case waiting for the clerk to wrap up a bottle. Clara noted the +scantily trimmed hat and the scuffed gloves. She nodded in response to +Miss Rockwood's bow. They had met but once.</p> + +<p>"That was a glorious game of tennis you were having this afternoon," +said Miss Rockwood, with a warm smile. "My<a name="Page_76"></a> sister and I should like to +have seen more of it. You all seemed to be having such a good time."</p> + +<p>"<i>You all</i>—"</p> + +<p>Clara fumbled her change. "It's—it's good exercise," she said. That +night she cried herself to sleep.</p> +<br /> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>The rector married the younger Miss Rockwood. To Clara Leeds the match +afforded painfully pleasurable feeling. It was so eminently fitting; and +yet it was hard to believe that any man could see anything in Miss +Rockwood. His courtship had been in keeping with the man, dignified and +yet bold. Clara had met them several times together. She always hurried +past. The rector bowed quietly. He seemed to say to all the world, "I +have chosen me a woman." His manner defied gossip; there was none that +Clara heard. This immunity of theirs distilled the more bitterness in +her heart because gossip was now at the heels of her and Mr. Copple, +following them as chickens do the feed-box. She knew it from such +transmissions as, "But doubtless Mr. Copple has already told you," or, +"You ought to know, if any one does."</p> + +<p>It had been some time apparent to Clara<a name="Page_77"></a> that the minister held her in a +different regard from the other members of his congregation. His talks +with her were more personal; his manner was bashfully eager. He sought +to present the congeniality of their minds. Mr. Copple had a nice taste +in poetry, but somehow Clara, in after-reading, skipped those poems that +he had read aloud to her. On several occasions she knew that a +declaration was imminent. She extricated herself with a feeling of +unspeakable relief. It would not be a simple matter to refuse him. Their +relations had been peculiar, and to tell him that she did not love him +would not suffice in bringing them to an end. Mr. Copple was odious to +her. She could not have explained why clearly, yet she knew. And she +would have blushed in the attempt to explain why; it would have revealed +a detestation of her lot. Clara had lately discovered the meaning of the +word "plebeian"; more, she believed she comprehended its applicableness. +The word was a burr in her thoughts. Mr. Copple was the personification +of the word. Clara had not repulsed him. You do not do that sort of +thing in a small town. She knew intuitively that the clergyman<a name="Page_78"></a> would +not be satisfied with the statement that he was not loved. She also knew +that he would extract part, at least, of the real reason from her. It is +more painful for a lover to learn that he is not liked than that he is +not loved. Clara did not wish to cause him pain.</p> + +<p>She was spared the necessity. The minister fell from a scaffolding on +the new church and was picked up dead.</p> + +<p>Clara's position was pitiful. Sudden death does not grow less shocking +because of its frequency. Clara shared the common shock, but not the +common grief. Fortunately, as hers was supposed to be a peculiar grief, +she could manifest it in a peculiar way. She chose silence. The shock +had bereft her of much thought. Death had laid a hand over the mouth of +her mind. But deep down a feeling of relief swam in her heart. She gave +it no welcome, but it would take no dismissal.</p> + +<p>About a week after the funeral, Clara, who walked out much alone, was +returning home near the outskirts of town. The houses were far apart, +and between them stretched deep lots fringed with flowered weeds +man-high. A level sun shot long golden needles through the blanched +maple-trees, and the street beneath them was filled with lemon-colored<a name="Page_79"></a> +light. The roll of a light vehicle approaching from behind grew distinct +enough to attract Clara's attention. "It is Mrs. Custer coming back from +the Poor Farm," she thought. It was Mrs. Everett Custer, who was +formerly the younger Miss Rockwood, and she was coming from the Poor +Farm. The phaeton came into Clara's sight beside her at the curb. As she +remarked it, Mrs. Custer said, in her thin, sympathetic voice, "Miss +Leeds, won't you drive with me back to town? I wish you would."</p> + +<p>An excuse rose instinctively to Clara's lips. She was walking for +exercise. But suddenly a thought came to her, and after a moment's +hesitation, she said: "You are very kind. I am a little tired." She got +into the phaeton, and the sober horse resumed his trot down the yellow +street.</p> + +<p>Clara's thought was: "Why shouldn't I accept? She is too well bred to +sympathize with me, and perhaps, now that I am free, I can get to know +her and show her that I am not just the same as all the rest, and +perhaps I'll get to going with her sort of people."</p> + +<p>She listened to the rhythm of the horse's hoof-beats, and was not a +little uneasy. Mrs. Custer remarked the beauty of the late afternoon, +the glorious sym<a name="Page_80"></a>phonies of color in sky and tree, in response to which +Clara said, "Yes, indeed," and, "Isn't it?" between long breaths. She +was about to essay a question concerning the Poor Farm, when Mrs. Custer +began to speak, at first faltering, in a tone that sent the blood out of +Clara's face and drew a sudden catching pain down her breast.</p> + +<p>"I—really, Miss Leeds, I want to say something to you and I don't quite +know how to say it, and yet it is something I want very much for you to +know." Mrs. Custer's eyes looked the embarrassment of unencouraged +frankness. "I know it is presumptuous for me, almost a stranger, to +speak to you, but I feel so deeply on the matter—Everett—Mr. Custer +feels so deeply—My dear Miss Leeds, I want you to know what a grief his +loss was to us. Oh, believe me, I am not trying to sympathize with you. +I have no right to do that. But if you could know how Mr. Custer always +regarded Mr. Copple! It might mean something to you to know that. I +don't think there was a man for whom he expressed greater +admiration—than what, I mean, he expressed to me. He saw in him all +that he lacked himself. I am telling you a great deal. It is difficult +for my husband to go among men in<a name="Page_81"></a> that way—in the way <i>he</i> did. And +yet he firmly believes that the Kingdom of God can only be brought to +men by the ministers of God going among them and being of them. He +envied Mr. Copple his ability to do that, to know his people as one of +them, to take part in their—their sports and all that. You don't know +how he envied him and admired him. And his admiration was my admiration. +He brought me to see it. I envied you, too—your opportunity to help +your people in an intimate, real way which seemed so much better than +mine. I don't know why it is my way, but I mean going about as I do, as +I did to-day to the Poor Farm. It seems so perfunctory.</p> + +<p>"Don't misunderstand me, Miss Leeds," and Mrs. Custer laid a hand on +Clara's arm. "There is no reason why you should care what Mr. Custer and +I think about your—about our—all our very great loss. But I felt that +it must be some comfort for you to know that we, my husband and I, who +might seem indifferent—not that—say unaffected by what has +happened,—feel it very, very deeply; and to know that his life, which I +can't conceive of as finished, has left a deep, deep print on ours."</p> + +<p>The phaeton was rolling through fre<a name="Page_82"></a>quented streets. It turned a corner +as Mrs. Custer ceased speaking.</p> + +<p>"I—I must get out here," said Clara Leeds. "You needn't drive me. It is +only a block to walk."</p> + +<p>"Miss Leeds, forgive me—" Mrs. Custer's lips trembled with compassion.</p> + +<p>"Oh, there isn't anything—it isn't that—good night." Clara backed down +to the street and hurried off through the dusk. And as she went tears +dropped slowly to her cheeks—cold, wretched tears.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<a name="His_Sister"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>His Sister<a name="Page_83"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Mary Applewhite Bacon</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"But you couldn't see me leave, mother, anyway, unless I was there to +go."</p> + +<p>It was characteristic of the girl adjusting her new travelling-hat +before the dim little looking-glass that, while her heart was beating +with excitement which was strangely like grief, she could give herself +at once to her stepmother's inquietude and turn it aside with a jest.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Morgan, arrested in her anxious movement towards the door, stood +for a moment taking in the reasonableness of Stella's proposition, and +then sank back to the edge of her chair. "The train gets here at two +o'clock," she argued.</p> + +<p>Lindsay Cowart came into the room, his head bent over the satchel he had +been mending. "You had better say good-by to Stella here at the house, +mother," he suggested; "there's no use for you to walk down to the depot +in the hot sun."<a name="Page_84"></a> And then he noticed that his stepmother had on her +bonnet with the veil to it—she had married since his father's death and +was again a widow,—and, in extreme disregard of the September heat, was +dressed in the black worsted of a diagonal weave which she wore only on +occasions which demanded some special tribute to their importance.</p> + +<p>She began smoothing out on her knees the black gloves which, in her +nervous haste to be going, she had been holding squeezed in a tight ball +in her left hand. "I can get there, I reckon," she answered with mild +brevity, and as if the young man's words had barely grazed her +consciousness.</p> + +<p>A moment later she went to the window and, with her back to Lindsay, +poured the contents of a small leather purse into one hand and began to +count them softly.</p> + +<p>He looked up again. "I am going to pay for Stella's ticket, mother. You +must not do it," he said.</p> + +<p>She replaced the money immediately, but without impatience, and as +acquiescing in his assumption of his sister's future. "You have done so +much already," he apologized; but he knew that she was hurt, and chafed +to feel that only<a name="Page_85"></a> the irrational thing on his part would have seemed to +her the kind one.</p> + +<p>Stella turned from the verdict of the dim looking-glass upon her +appearance to that of her brother's face. As she stood there in that +moment of pause, she might have been the type of all innocent and +budding life. The delicacy of floral bloom was in the fine texture of +her skin, the purple of dewy violets in her soft eyes; and this new +access of sadness, which was as yet hardly conscious of itself, had +thrown over the natural gayety of her young girlhood something akin to +the pathetic tenderness which veils the earth in the dawn of a summer +morning.</p> + +<p>He felt it to be so, but dimly; and, young himself and already strained +by the exactions of personal desires, he answered only the look of +inquiry in her face,—"Will the merchants here never learn any taste in +dry-goods?"</p> + +<p>Instantly he was sick with regret. Of what consequence was the too +pronounced blue of her dress in comparison with the light of happiness +in her dear face? How impossible for him to be here for even these few +hours without running counter to some cherished illusion or dear habit +of speech or manner.</p><a name="Page_86"></a> + +<p>"I tell you it's time we were going," Mrs. Morgan appealed, her anxiety +returning.</p> + +<p>"We have thirty-five minutes yet," Lindsay said, looking at his watch; +but he gathered up the bags and umbrellas and followed as she moved +ponderously to the door.</p> + +<p>Stella waited until they were out in the hall, and then looked around +the room, a poignant tenderness in her eyes. There was nothing congruous +between its shabby walls and cheap worn furniture and her own beautiful +young life; but the heart establishes its own relations, and tears rose +suddenly to her eyes and fell in quick succession. Even so brief a +farewell was broken in upon by her stepmother's call, and pressing her +wet cheek for a moment against the discolored door-facing, she hurried +out to join her.</p> + +<p>Lindsay did not at first connect the unusual crowd in and around the +little station with his sister's departure; but the young people at once +formed a circle around her, into which one and another older person +entered and retired again with about the same expressions of +affectionate regret and good wishes. He had known them all so long! But, +except for the growing up of the younger<a name="Page_87"></a> boys and girls during his five +years of absence, they were to him still what they had been since he was +a child, affecting him still with the old depressing sense of distance +and dislike. The grammarless speech of the men, the black-rimmed nails +of Stella's schoolmaster—a good classical scholar, but heedless as he +was good-hearted,—jarred upon him, indeed, with the discomfort of a new +experience. Upon his own slender, erect figure, clothed in poor but +well-fitting garments, gentleman was written as plainly as in words, +just as idealist was written on his forehead and the other features +which thought had chiselled perhaps too finely for his years.</p> + +<p>The brightness had come back to Stella's face, and he could not but feel +grateful to the men who had left their shops and dingy little stores to +bid her good-by, and to the placid, kindly-faced women ranged along the +settees against the wall and conversing in low tones about how she would +be missed; but the noisy flock of young people, who with their chorus of +expostulations, assurances, and prophecies seemed to make her one of +themselves, filled him with strong displeasure. He knew how foolish it +would be for him to show it, but he could<a name="Page_88"></a> get no further in his effort +at concealment than a cold silence which was itself significant enough. +A tall youth with bold and handsome features and a pretty girl in a +showy red muslin ignored him altogether, with a pride which really quite +overmatched his own; but the rest shrank back a little as he passed +looking after the checks and tickets, either cutting short their +sentences at his approach or missing the point of what they had to say. +The train seemed to him long in coming.</p> + +<p>His stepmother moved to the end of the settee and made a place for him +at her side. "Lindsay," she said, under cover of the talk and laughter, +and speaking with some difficulty, "I hope you will be able to carry out +all your plans for yourself and Stella; but while you're making the +money, she will have to make the friends. Don't you ever interfere with +her doing it. From what little I have seen of the world, it's going to +take both to carry you through."</p> + +<p>His face flushed a little, but he recognized her faithfulness and did it +honor. "That is true, mother, and I will remember what you say. But I +have some friends," he added, in enforced self-vindication, "in Vaucluse +if not here."</p><a name="Page_89"></a> + +<p>A whistle sounded up the road. She caught his hand with a swift +accession of tenderness towards his youth. "You've done the best you +could, Lindsay," she said. "I wish you well, my son, I wish you well." +There were tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p>George Morrow and the girl in red followed Stella into the car, not at +all disconcerted at having to get off after the train was in motion. +"Don't forget me, Stella," the girl called back. "Don't you ever forget +Ida Brand!"</p> + +<p>There was a waving of hands and handkerchiefs from the little station, +aglare in the early afternoon sun. A few moments later the train had +rounded a curve, shutting the meagre village from sight, and, to Lindsay +Cowart's thought, shutting it into a remote past as well.</p> + +<p>He arose and began rearranging their luggage. "Do you want these?" he +inquired, holding up a bouquet of dahlias, scarlet sage, and purple +petunias, and thinking of only one answer as possible.</p> + +<p>"I will take them," she said, as he stood waiting her formal consent to +drop them from the car window. Her voice was quite as usual, but +something in her face suggested to him that this going away from her +childhood's home might be a different thing to her from what he had<a name="Page_90"></a> +conceived it to be. He caught the touch of tender vindication in her +manner as she untied the cheap red ribbon which held the flowers +together and rearranged them into two bunches so that the jarring colors +might no longer offend, and felt that the really natural thing for her +to do was to weep, and that she only restrained her tears for his sake. +Sixteen was so young! His heart grew warm and brotherly towards her +youth and inexperience; but, after all, how infinitely better that she +should have cause for this passing sorrow.</p> + +<p>He left her alone, but not for long. He was eager to talk with her of +the plans about which he had been writing her the two years since he +himself had been a student at Vaucluse, of the future which they should +achieve together. It seemed to him only necessary for him to show her +his point of view to have her adopt it as her own; and he believed, +building on her buoyancy and responsiveness of disposition, that nothing +he might propose would be beyond the scope of her courage.</p> + +<p>"It may be a little lonely for you at first," he told her. "There are +only a handful of women students at the college, and all of them much +older than<a name="Page_91"></a> you; but it is your studies at last that are the really +important thing, and I will help you with them all I can. Mrs. Bancroft +will have no other lodgers and there will be nothing to interrupt our +work."</p> + +<p>"And the money, Lindsay?" she asked, a little anxiously.</p> + +<p>"What I have will carry us through this year. Next summer we can teach +and make almost enough for the year after. The trustees are planning to +establish a fellowship in Greek, and if they do and I can secure it—and +Professor Wayland thinks I can,—that will make us safe the next two +years until you are through."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>He straightened up buoyantly. "Then your two years at Vassar and mine at +Harvard, with some teaching thrown in along the way, of course. And then +Europe—Greece—all the great things!"</p> + +<p>She smiled with him in his enthusiasm. "You are used to such bold +thoughts. It is too high a flight for me all at once."</p> + +<p>"It will not be, a year from now," he declared, confidently.</p> + +<p>A silence fell between them, and the noise of the train made a pleasant +accompaniment to his thoughts as he<a name="Page_92"></a> sketched in detail the work of the +coming months. But always as a background to his hopes was that +honorable social position which he meant eventually to achieve, the +passion for which was a part of his Southern inheritance. Little as he +had yet participated in any interests outside his daily tasks, he had +perceived in the old college town its deeply grained traditions of birth +and custom, perceived and respected them, and discounted the more their +absence in the sorry village he had left. Sometime when he should assail +it, the exclusiveness of his new environment might beat him back +cruelly, but thus far it existed for him only as a barrier to what was +ultimately precious and desirable. One day the gates would open at his +touch, and he and the sister of his heart should enter their rightful +heritage.</p> + +<p>The afternoon waned. He pointed outside the car window. "See how +different all this is from the part of the State which we have left," he +said. "The landscape is still rural, but what mellowness it has; because +it has been enriched by a larger, more generous human life. One can +imagine what this whole section must have been in those old days, before +the coming of war and desolation. And Vau<a name="Page_93"></a>cluse was the flower, the +centre of it all!" His eye kindled. "Some day external prosperity will +return, and then Vaucluse and her ideals will be needed more than ever; +it is she who must hold in check the commercial spirit, and dominate, as +she has always done, the material with the intellectual." There was a +noble emotion in his face, reflecting itself in the younger countenance +beside his own. Poor, young, unknown, their hearts thrilled with pride +in their State, with the possibility that they also should give to her +of their best when the opportunity should be theirs.</p> + +<p>"It is a wonderful old town," Lindsay went on again. "Even Wayland says +so,—our Greek professor, you know." His voice thrilled with the +devotion of the hero-worshipper as he spoke the name. "He is a Harvard +man, and has seen the best of everything, and even he has felt the charm +of the place; he told me so. You will feel it, too. It is just as if the +little town and the college together had preserved in amber all that was +finest in our Southern life. And now to think you and I are to share in +all its riches!"</p> + +<p>His early consecration to such a purpose, the toil and sacrifice by +which it had been achieved, came movingly before her;<a name="Page_94"></a> yet, mingled with +her pride in him, something within her pleaded for the things which he +rated so low. "It used to be hard for you at home, Lindsay," she said, +softly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was hard." His face flushed. "I never really lived till I left +there. I was like an animal caught in a net, like a man struggling for +air. You can't know what it is to me now to be with people who are +thinking of something else than of how to make a few dollars in a +miserable country store."</p> + +<p>"But they were good people in Bowersville, Lindsay," she urged, with +gentle loyalty.</p> + +<p>"I am sure they were, if you say so," he agreed. "But at any rate we are +done with it all now." He laid his hand over hers. "At last I am going +to take you into our own dear world."</p> + +<p>It was, after all, a very small world as to its actual dimensions, but +to the brother it had the largeness of opportunity, and to Stella it +seemed infinitely complex. She found security at first only in following +minutely the programme which Lindsay had laid out for her. It was his +own as well, and simple enough. Study was the supreme thing; exercise +came in as a necessity, pleasure only as the rarest<a name="Page_95"></a> incident. She took +all things cheerfully, after her nature, but after two or three months +the color began to go from her cheeks, the elasticity from her step; nor +was her class standing, though creditable, quite what her brother had +expected it to be.</p> + +<p>Wayland detained him one day in his class-room. "Do you think your +sister is quite happy here, Cowart?" he asked.</p> + +<p>The boy thrilled, as he always did at any special evidence of interest +from such a source, but he had never put this particular question to +himself and had no reply at hand.</p> + +<p>"I have never thought this absolute surrender to books the wisest thing +for you," Wayland went on; "but for your sister it is impossible. She +was formed for companionship, for happiness, not for the isolation of +the scholar. Why did you not put her into one of the girls' schools of +the State, where she would have had associations more suited to her +years?" he asked, bluntly.</p> + +<p>Lindsay could scarcely believe that he was listening to the young +professor whose scholarly attainments seemed to him the sum of what was +most desirable in life. "Our girls' colleges are very superficial," he +answered; "and even if<a name="Page_96"></a> they were not, she could get no Greek in any of +them."</p> + +<p>"My dear boy," Wayland said, "the amount of Greek which your sister +knows or doesn't know will always be a very unimportant matter; she has +things that are so infinitely more valuable to give to the world. And +deserves so much better things for herself," he added, drawing together +his texts for the next recitation.</p> + +<p>Lindsay returned to Mrs. Bancroft's quiet, old-fashioned house in a sort +of daze. "Stella," he said, "do you think you enter enough into the +social side of our college life?"</p> + +<p>"No," she answered. "But I think neither of us does."</p> + +<p>"Well, leave me out of the count. If I get through my Junior year as I +ought, I am obliged to grind; and when there is any time left, I feel +that I must have it for reading in the library. But it needn't be so +with you. Didn't an invitation come to you for the reception Friday +evening?"</p> + +<p>Her face grew wistful. "I don't care to go to things, Lindsay, unless +you will go with me," she said.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he had his way, and when once she made it possible, +opportunities for social pleasures poured in upon her.<a name="Page_97"></a> As Wayland had +said, she was formed for friendship, for joy; and that which was her own +came to her unsought. She was by nature too simple and sweet to be +spoiled by the attention she received; the danger perhaps was the less +because she missed in it all the comradeship of her brother, without +which in her eyes the best things lost something of their charm. It was +not merely personal ambition which kept him at his books; the passion of +the scholar was upon him and made him count all moments lost that were +spent away from them. Sometimes Stella sought him as he pored over them +alone, and putting her arm shyly about him, would beg that he would go +with her for a walk, or a ride on the river; but almost always his +answer was the same: "I am so busy, Stella dear; if you knew how much I +have to do you would not even ask me."</p> + +<p>There was one interruption, indeed, which the young student never +refused. Sometimes their Greek professor dropped in at Mrs. Bancroft's +to bring or to ask for a book; sometimes, with the lovely coming of the +spring, he would join them as they were leaving the college grounds, and +lead them away into some of the woodland walks, rich in wild<a name="Page_98"></a> flowers, +that environed the little town. Such hours seemed to both brother and +sister to have a flavor, a brightness, quite beyond what ordinary life +could give. Wayland, too, must have found in them his own share of +pleasure, for he made them more frequent as the months went by.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>It was in the early spring of her second year at Vaucluse that the +accident occurred. The poor lad who had taken her out in the boat was +almost beside himself with grief and remorse.</p> + +<p>"We had enjoyed the afternoon so much," he said, trying to tell how it +had happened. "I thought I had never seen her so happy, so gay,—but you +know she was that always. It was nearly sunset, and I remember how she +spoke of the light as we saw it through the open spaces of the woods and +as it slanted across the water. Farther down the river the yellow +jasmine was beginning to open. A beech-tree that leaned out over the +water was hung with it. She wanted some, and I guided the boat under the +branches. I meant to get it for her myself, but she was reaching up +after it almost before I knew it. The bough that had the finest blossoms +on it was just beyond her reach,<a name="Page_99"></a> and while I steadied the boat, she +pulled it towards her by one of the vines hanging from it. She must have +put too much weight on it—</p> + +<p>"It all happened so quickly. I called to her to be careful, but while I +was saying the words the vine snapped and she fell back with such force +that the boat tipped, and in a second we were both in the water. I knew +I could not swim, but I hoped that the water so near the bank would be +shallow; and it was, but there was a deep hole under the roots of the +tree."</p> + +<p>He could get no further. Poor lad! the wonder was that he had not been +drowned himself. A negro ploughing in the field near by saw the accident +and ran to his help, catching him as he was sinking for the third time. +Stella never rose after she went down; her clothing had been entangled +in the roots of the beech.</p> + +<p>Sorrow for the young life cut off so untimely was deep and universal, +and sought to manifest itself in tender ministrations to the brother so +cruelly bereaved. But Lindsay shrank from all offices of sympathy, and +except for seeking now and then Wayland's silent companionship, bore his +grief alone.</p> + +<p>The college was too poor to establish<a name="Page_100"></a> the fellowship in Greek, but the +adjunct professor in mathematics resigned, and young Cowart was elected +to his place, with the proviso that he give two months further study to +the subject in the summer school of some university. Wayland decided +which by taking him back with him to Cambridge, where he showed the boy +an admirable friendship.</p> + +<p>Lindsay applied himself to his special studies with the utmost +diligence. It was impossible, moreover, that his new surroundings should +not appeal to his tastes in many directions; but in spite of his +response to these larger opportunities, his friend discerned that the +wound which the young man kept so carefully hidden had not, after all +these weeks, begun even slightly to heal.</p> + +<p>Late on an August night, impelled as he often was to share the solitude +which Lindsay affected, he sought him at his lodgings, and not finding +him, followed what he knew was a favorite walk with the boy, and came +upon him half hidden under the shadows of an elm in the woods that +skirted Mount Auburn. "I thought you might be here," he said, taking the +place that Lindsay made for him on the seat. Many words were never +necessary between them.</p><a name="Page_101"></a> + +<p>The moon was full and the sky cloudless, and for some time they sat in +silence, yielding to the tranquil loveliness of the scene and to that +inner experience of the soul brooding over each, and more inscrutable +than the fathomless vault above them.</p> + +<p>"I suppose we shall never get used to a midnight that is still and at +the same time lustrous, as this is to-night," Wayland said. "The sense +of its uniqueness is as fresh whenever it is spread before us as if we +had never seen it before."</p> + +<p>It was but a part of what he meant. He was thinking how sorrow, the wide +sense of personal loss, was in some way like the pervasiveness, the +voiceless speech, of this shadowed radiance around them.</p> + +<p>He drew a little nearer the relaxed and slender figure beside his own. +"It is of <i>her</i> you are thinking, Lindsay," he said, gently, and +mentioning for the first time the young man's loss. "All that you see +seems saturated with her memory. I think it will always be so—scenes of +exceptional beauty, moments of high emotion, will always bring her +back."</p> + +<p>The boy's response came with difficulty: "Perhaps so. I do not know. I +think the thought of her is always with me."</p><a name="Page_102"></a> + +<p>"If so, it should be for strength, for comfort," his friend pleaded. +"She herself brought only gladness wherever she came."</p> + +<p>There was something unusual in his voice, something that for a moment +raised a vague questioning in Lindsay's mind; but absorbed as he was in +his own sadness, it eluded his feeble inquiry. To what Wayland had said +he could make no reply.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is the apparent waste of a life so beautiful that seems to +you so intolerable—" He felt the strong man's impulse to arrest an +irrational grief, and groped for the assurance he desired. "Yet, +Lindsay, we know things are not wasted; not in the natural world, not in +the world of the spirit." But on the last words his voice lapsed +miserably, and he half rose to go.</p> + +<p>Lindsay caught his arm and drew him back. "Don't go yet," he said, +brokenly. "I know you think it would help me if I would talk +about—Stella; if I should tell it all out to you. I thank you for being +willing to listen. Perhaps it will help me."</p> + +<p>He paused, seeking for some words in which to express the sense of +poverty which scourged him. Of all who had loved his sister, he himself +was left poor<a name="Page_103"></a>est! Others had taken freely of her friendship, had +delighted themselves in her face, her words, her smile, had all these +things for memories. He had been separated from her, in part by the hard +conditions of their youth, and at the last, when they had been together, +by his own will. Oh, what had been her inner life during these last two +years, when it had gone on beside his own, while he was too busy to +attend?</p> + +<p>But the self-reproach was too bitter for utterance to even the kindest +of friends. "I thought I could tell you," he said at last, "but I can't. +Oh, Professor Wayland," he cried, "there is an element in my grief that +is peculiar to itself, that no one else in sorrow ever had!"</p> + +<p>"I think every mourner on earth would say that, Lindsay." Again the +younger man discerned the approach of a mystery, but again he left it +unchallenged.</p> + +<p>The professor rose to his feet. "Good night," he said; "unless you will +go back with me. Even with such moonlight as this, one must sleep." He +had dropped to that kind level of the commonplace by which we spare +ourselves and one another.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>"'Where the love light never, never dies,'"<br /></span> +</div></div><a name="Page_104"></a> + +<p>The boy's voice ringing out blithely through the drip and dampness of +the winter evening marked his winding route across the college grounds. +Lindsay Cowart, busy at his study table, listened without definite +effort and placed the singer as the lad newly come from the country. He +could have identified any other of the Vaucluse students by connections +as slight—Marchman by his whistling, tender, elusive sounds, flute +notes sublimated, heard only when the night was late and the campus +still; others by tricks of voice, fragments of laughter, by their +footfalls, even, on the narrow brick walk below his study window. Such +the easy proficiency of affection.</p> + +<p>Attention to the lad's singing suddenly was lifted above the +subconscious. The simple melody had entangled itself in some forgotten +association of the professor's boyhood, seeking to marshal which before +him, he received the full force of the single line sung in direct +ear-shot. Like the tune, the words also became a challenge; pricked +through the unregarded heaviness in which he was plying his familiar +task, and demanded that he should name its cause.</p> + +<p>For him the love light of his marriage had been dead so long! No, not +dead;<a name="Page_105"></a> nothing so dignified, so tragic. Burnt down, smoldered; +suffocated by the hateful dust of the commonplace. There was a touch of +contempt in the effort with which he dismissed the matter from his mind +and turned back to his work. And yet, he stopped a moment longer to +think, for him life without the light of love fell so far below its best +achievement!</p> + +<p>The front of his desk was covered with the papers in mathematics over +which he had spent his evenings for more than a week. Most of them had +been corrected and graded, with the somewhat full comment or elucidation +here and there which had made his progress slow. He examined a +half-dozen more, and then in sheer mental revolt against the subject, +slipped them under the rubber bands with others of their kind and +dropped the neat packages out of his sight into one of the drawers of +the desk. Wayland's book on Greece, the fruit of eighteen months' +sojourn there, had come through the mail on the same day when the +calculus papers had been handed in, and he had read it through at once, +not to be teased intolerably by its invitation. He had mastered the +text, avid through the long winter night, but he picked it up again now, +and for a little while studied the<a name="Page_106"></a> sumptuous illustrations. How long +Wayland had been away from Vaucluse, how much of enrichment had come to +him in the years since he had left! He himself might have gone also, to +larger opportunities—he had chosen to remain, held by a sentiment! The +professor closed the book with a little sigh, and taking it to a small +shelf on the opposite side of the room, stood it with a half-dozen +others worthy of such association.</p> + +<p>Returning, he got together before him the few Greek authors habitually +in hand's reach, whether handled or not, and from a compartment of his +desk took out several sheets of manuscript, metrical translations from +favorite passages in the tragedists or the short poems of the Anthology. +Like the rest of the Vaucluse professors—a mere handful they were,—he +was straitened by the hard exactions of class-room work, and the book +which he hoped sometime to publish grew slowly. How far he was in actual +miles from the men who were getting their thoughts into print, how much +farther in environment! Things which to them were the commonplaces of a +scholar's life were to him impossible luxuries; few even of their books +found their way to his shelves. At least the original sources of +inspiration<a name="Page_107"></a> were his, and sometimes he felt that his verses were not +without spirit, flavor.</p> + +<p>He took up a little volume of Theocritus, which opened easily at the +Seventh Idyl, and began to read aloud. Half-way through the poem the +door opened and his wife entered. He did not immediately adjust himself +to the interruption, and she remained standing a few moments in the +centre of the room.</p> + +<p>"Thank you; I believe I will be seated," she said, the sarcasm in her +words carefully excluded from her voice.</p> + +<p>He wondered that she should find interest in so sorry a game. "I thought +you felt enough at home in here to sit down without being asked," he +said, rising, and trying to speak lightly.</p> + +<p>She took the rocking-chair he brought for her and leaned back in it +without speaking. Her maroon-colored evening gown suggested that whoever +planned it had been somewhat straitened by economy, but it did well by +her rich complexion and creditable figure. Her features were creditable +too, the dark hair a little too heavy, perhaps, and the expression, +defined as it is apt to be when one is thirty-five, not wholly +satisfying. In truth, the countenance, like the gown, suffered a little +from economy, a sparse<a name="Page_108"></a>ness of the things one loves best in a woman's +face. Half the sensitiveness belonging to her husband's eyes and mouth +would have made her beautiful.</p> + +<p>"It is a pity the Barkers have such a bad night for their party," Cowart +said.</p> + +<p>"The reception is at the Fieldings';" and again he felt himself rebuked.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I didn't think much about the matter after you told me the +Dillinghams were coming by for you in their carriage. Fortunately +neither family holds us college people to very strict social account."</p> + +<p>"They have their virtues, even if they are so vulgar as to be rich."</p> + +<p>"Why, I believe I had just been thinking, before you came in, that it is +only the rich who have any virtues at all." He managed to speak +genially, but the consciousness that she was waiting for him to make +conversation, as she had waited for the chair, stiffened upon him like +frost.</p> + +<p>He cast about for something to say, but the one interest which he would +have preferred to keep to himself was all that presented itself to his +grasp. "I have often thought," he suggested, "that if only we were in +sight of the Gulf, our landscape in early summer might not be very +unlike that of ancient Greece." She<a name="Page_109"></a> looked at him a little blankly, and +he drew one of his books nearer and began turning its leaves.</p> + +<p>"I thought you were correcting your mathematics papers."</p> + +<p>"I am, or have been; but I am reading Theocritus, too."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't see anything in a day like this to make anybody think of +summer. The dampness goes to your very marrow."</p> + +<p>"It isn't the day; it's the poetry. That's the good of there being +poetry."</p> + +<p>She skipped his parenthesis. "And you keep this room as cold as a +vault." Not faultfinding, but a somewhat irritating concern for his +comfort was in the complaint.</p> + +<p>She went to the hearth and in her efficient way shook down the ashes +from the grate and heaped it with coal. A cabinet photograph of a girl +in her early teens, which had the appearance of having just been put +there, was supported against a slender glass vase. Mrs. Cowart took it +up and examined it critically. "I don't think this picture does +Arnoldina justice," she said. "One of the eyes seems to droop a little, +and the mouth looks sad. Arnoldina never did look sad."</p><a name="Page_110"></a> + +<p>They were on common ground now, and he could speak without constraint. +"I hadn't observed that it looked sad. She seems somehow to have got a +good deal older since September."</p> + +<p>"She is maturing, of course." All a mother's pride and approbation, were +in the reserve of the speech. To have put more definitely her estimate +of the sweet young face would have been a clumsy thing in comparison.</p> + +<p>Lindsay's countenance lighted up. He arose, and standing by his wife, +looked over her shoulder as she held the photograph to the light. "Do +you know, Gertrude," he said, "there is something in her face that +reminds me of Stella?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know that I see it," she answered, indifferently, replacing the +photograph and returning to her chair. The purpose which had brought her +to the room rose to her face. "I stopped at the warehouse this +afternoon," she said, "and had a talk with father. Jamieson really goes +to Mobile—the first of next month. The place is open to you if you want +it."</p> + +<p>"But, Gertrude, how should I possibly want it?" he expostulated.</p> + +<p>"You would be a member of the firm. You might as well be making money as +the rest of them."</p><a name="Page_111"></a> + +<p>He offered no comment.</p> + +<p>"It is not now like it was when you were made professor. The town has +become a commercial centre and its educational interests have declined. +The professors will always have their social position, of course, but +they cannot hope for anything more."</p> + +<p>"It is not merely Vaucluse, but the South, that is passing into this +phase. But economic independence has become a necessity. When once it is +achieved, our people will turn to higher things."</p> + +<p>"Not soon enough to benefit you and me."</p> + +<p>"Probably not."</p> + +<p>"Then why waste your talents on the college, when the best years of your +life are still before you?"</p> + +<p>"I am not teaching for money, Gertrude." He hated putting into the bald +phrase his consecration to his ideals for the young men of his State; he +hated putting it into words at all; but something in his voice told her +that the argument was finished.</p> + +<p>There was a sound of carriage wheels on the drive. He arose and began to +assist her with her wraps. "It is too bad for you to be dependent on +even such nice escorts as the Dillinghams are," he<a name="Page_112"></a> solaced, recovering +himself. "We college folk are a sorry lot."</p> + +<p>But when she was gone, the mood for composition which an hour before had +seemed so near had escaped him, and he put away his books and +manuscript, standing for a while, a little chilled in mind and body, +before the grate and looking at the photograph on the mantel. While he +did so the haunting likeness he had seen grew more distinct and by +degrees another face overspread that of his young daughter, the face of +the sister he had loved and lost.</p> + +<p>With a sudden impulse he crossed the room to an old-fashioned mahogany +secretary, opened its slanting lid, and unlocking with some difficulty a +small inner drawer, returned with it to his desk. Several packages of +letters tied with faded ribbon filled the small receptacle, but they +struck upon him with the strangeness of something utterly forgotten. The +pieces of ribbon had once held for him each its own association of time +or place; now he could only remember, looking down upon them with tender +gaze, that they had been Stella's, worn in her hair, or at her throat or +waist. Simple and inexpensive he saw they were. Arnoldina would not have +looked at them.</p><a name="Page_113"></a> + +<p>Overcoming something of reluctance, he took one of the packages from its +place. It contained the letters he had found in her writing-table after +her death, most of them written after she had come to Vaucluse by her +stepmother and the friends she had left in the village. He knew there +was nothing in any of them she would have withheld from him; in reading +them he was merely taking back something from the vanished years which, +if not looked at now, would perish utterly from earth. How affecting +they were—these utterances of true and humble hearts, written to one +equally true and good! His youth and hers in the remote country village +rose before him; not now, as once, pinched and narrow, but as salutary, +even gracious. He could but feel how changed his standards had become +since then, how different his measure of the great and the small of +life.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, as he was thus borne back into the past, the old sorrow sprang +upon him, and he bowed before it. The old bitter cry which he had been +able to utter to no human consoler swept once more to his lips: "Oh, +Stella, Stella, you died before I really knew you; your brother, who +should have known and loved you best! And now it is too late, too +late."</p><a name="Page_114"></a> + +<p>He sent out as of old his voiceless call to one afar off, in some land +where her whiteness, her budding soul, had found their rightful place; +but even as he did so, his thought of her seemed to be growing clearer. +From that far, reverenced, but unimagined sphere she was coming back to +the range of his apprehension, to comradeship in the life which they +once had shared together.</p> + +<p>He trembled with the hope of a fuller attainment, lifting his bowed head +and taking another package of the letters from their place. Her letters! +He had begged them of her friends in his desperate sense of ignorance, +his longing to make good something of all that he had lost in those last +two years of her life. What an innocent life it was that was spread +before him; and how young,—oh, how young! And it was a happy life. He +was astonished, after all his self-reproach, to realize how happy; to +find himself smiling with her in some girlish drollery such as used to +come so readily to her lips. He could detect, too, how the note of +gladness, how her whole life, indeed, had grown richer in the larger +existence of Vaucluse. At last he could be comforted that, however it +had ended, it was he who had made it hers.</p><a name="Page_115"></a> + +<p>He had been feeding eagerly, too eagerly, and under the pressure of +emotion was constrained to rise and walk the floor, sinking at last into +his armchair and gazing with unseeing eyes upon the ruddy coals in the +grate. That lovely life, which he had thought could never in its +completeness be his, was rebuilt before his vision from the materials +which she herself had left. What he had believed to be loss, bitter, +unspeakable even to himself, had in these few hours of the night become +wealth.</p> + +<p>His quickened thought moved on from plane to plane. He scanned the +present conditions of his life, and saw with clarified vision how good +they were. What it was given him to do for his students, at least what +he was trying to do for them; the preciousness of their regard; the long +friendship with his colleagues; the associations with the little +community in which his lot was cast, limited in some directions as they +might be; the fair demesne of Greek literature in which his feet were so +much at home; his own literary gift, even if a slender one; his dear, +dear child.</p> + +<p>And Gertrude? Under the invigoration of his mood a situation which had +long seemed unamenable to change re<a name="Page_116"></a>solved itself into new and simpler +proportions. The worthier aspects of his home life, the finer traits of +his wife's character, stood before him as proofs of what might yet be. +His memory had kept no record of the fact that when in the first year of +his youthful sorrow, sick for comfort and believing her all tenderness, +he had married her, to find her impatient of his grief, nor of the many +times since when she had appeared almost wilfully blind to his ideals +and purposes. His judgment held only this, that she had never understood +him. For this he had seldom blamed her; but to-night he blamed himself. +Instead of shrinking away sensitively, keeping the vital part of his +life to himself and making what he could of it alone, he should have set +himself steadily to create a place for it in her understanding and +sympathy. Was not a perfect married love worth the minor sacrifices as +well as the supreme surrender from which he believed that neither of +them would have shrunk?</p> + +<p>He returned to his desk and began to rearrange the contents of the +little drawer. Among them was a small sandalwood box which had been +their mother's, and which Stella had prized with special fondness. He +had never opened it since<a name="Page_117"></a> her death, but as he lifted it now the frail +clasp gave way, the lid fell back, and the contents slipped upon the +desk. They were few: a ring, a thin gold locket containing the +miniatures of their father and mother, a small tintype of himself taken +when he first left home, and two or three notes addressed in a +handwriting which he recognized as Wayland's. He replaced them with +reverent touch, turning away even in thought from what he had never +meant to see.</p> + +<p>By and by he heard in the distance the roll of carriages returning from +the Fieldings' reception. He replenished the fire generously, found a +long cloak in the closet at the end of the hall, and waited the sound of +wheels before his own door. "The rain has grown heavier," he said, +drawing the cloak around his wife as she descended from the carriage. +Something in his manner seemed to envelop her. He brought her into the +study and seated her before the fire. She had expected to find the house +silent; the glow and warmth of the room were grateful after the chill +and darkness outside, her husband's presence after that vague sense of +futility which the evening's gayety had left upon her.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I ought to tell you about<a name="Page_118"></a> the party," she said, a little +wearily; "but if you don't mind, I will wait till breakfast. Everybody +was there, of course, and it was all very fine, as we all knew it would +be. I hope you've enjoyed your Latin poets more."</p> + +<p>"They are Greek, dear," he said. "I have been making translations from +some of them now and then. Some day we will take a day off and then I'll +read them to you. But neither the party nor the poets to-night. See, it +is almost two o'clock."</p> + +<p>"I knew it must be late. But you look as fresh as a child that has just +waked from sleep."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I have just waked."</p> + +<p>They rose to go up-stairs. "I will go in front and make a light in our +room while you turn off the gas in the hall."</p> + +<p>He paused for a moment after she had gone out and turned to a page in +the Greek Anthology for a single stanza. Shelley's translation was +written in pencil beside it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span>Thou wert the morning star among the living,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Ere thy fair light had fled;<br /></span> +<span>Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus giving<br /></span> +<span class="i2">New splendor to the dead.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Perfect_Year"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Perfect Year<a name="Page_119"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Eleanor A. Hallowell</h3> +<br /> + +<p>When Dolly Leonard died, on the night of my <i>débutante</i> party, our +little community was aghast. If I live to be a thousand, I shall never +outgrow the paralyzing shock of that disaster. I think that the girls in +our younger set never fully recovered from it.</p> + +<p>It was six o'clock when we got the news. Things had been jolly and +bustling all the afternoon. The house was filled with florists and +caterers, and I had gone to my room to escape the final responsibilities +of the occasion. There were seven of us girl chums dressing in my room, +and we were lolling round in various stages of lace and ruffles when the +door-bell rang. Partly out of consideration for the tired servants, and +partly out of nervous curiosity incited by the day's influx of presents +and bouquets, I slipped into my pink eider-down wrapper<a name="Page_120"></a> and ran down to +the door. The hall was startlingly sweet with roses. Indeed, the whole +house was a perfect bower of leaf and blossom, and I suppose I did look +elfish as I ran, for a gruff old workman peered up at me and smiled, and +muttered something about "pinky-posy"—and I know it did not seem +impertinent to me at the time.</p> + +<p>At the door, in the chill blast of the night, stood our little old gray +postman with some letters in his hand. "Oh!" I said, disappointed, "just +letters."</p> + +<p>The postman looked at me a trifle queerly—I thought it was my pink +wrapper,—and he said, "Don't worry about 'just letters'; Dolly Leonard +is dead!"</p> + +<p>"Dead?" I gasped. "Dead?" and I remember how I reeled back against the +open door and stared out with horror-stricken eyes across the common to +Dolly Leonard's house, where every window was blazing with calamity.</p> + +<p>"Dead?" I gasped again. "Dead? What happened?"</p> + +<p>The postman eyed me with quizzical fatherliness. "Ask your mother," he +answered, reluctantly, and I turned and groped my way leaden-footed up +the stairs, muttering, "Oh, mother, mother, I don't <i>need</i> to ask you."</p><a name="Page_121"></a> + +<p>When I got back to my room at last through a tortuous maze of gaping +workmen and sickening flowers, three startled girls jumped up to catch +me as I staggered across the threshold. I did not faint, I did not cry +out. I just sat huddled on the floor rocking myself to and fro, and +mumbling, as through a mouthful of sawdust: "Dolly Leonard is dead. +Dolly Leonard is dead. Dolly Leonard is dead."</p> + +<p>I will not attempt to describe too fully the scene that followed. There +were seven of us, you know, and we were only eighteen, and no young +person of our acquaintance had ever died before. Indeed, only one aged +death had ever disturbed our personal life history, and even that remote +catastrophe had sent us scampering to each other's beds a whole winter +long, for the individual fear of "seeing things at night."</p> + +<p>"Dolly Leonard is dead." I can feel myself yet in that huddled news-heap +on the floor. A girl at the mirror dropped her hand-glass with a +shivering crash. Some one on the sofa screamed. The only one of us who +was dressed began automatically to unfasten her lace collar and strip +off her silken gown, and I can hear yet the soft lush sound of a<a name="Page_122"></a> folded +sash, and the strident click of the little French stays that pressed too +close on a heaving breast.</p> + +<p>Then some one threw wood on the fire with a great bang, and then more +wood and more wood, and we crowded round the hearth and scorched our +faces and hands, but we could not get warm enough.</p> + +<p>Dolly Leonard was not even in our set. She was an older girl by several +years. But she was the belle of the village. Dolly Leonard's gowns, +Dolly Leonard's parties, Dolly Leonard's lovers, were the envy of all +womankind. And Dolly Leonard's courtship and marriage were to us the +fitting culmination of her wonderful career. She was our ideal of +everything that a girl should be. She was good, she was beautiful, she +was irresistibly fascinating. She was, in fact, everything that we +girlishly longed to be in the revel of a ballroom or the white sanctity +of a church.</p> + +<p>And now she, the bright, the joyous, the warm, was colder than we were, +and <i>would never be warm again</i>. Never again ... And there were garish +flowers down-stairs, and music and favors and ices—nasty shivery +ices,—and pretty soon a brawling crowd of people would come<a name="Page_123"></a> and +<i>dance</i> because I was eighteen—and still alive.</p> + +<p>Into our hideous brooding broke a husky little voice that had not yet +spoken:</p> + +<p>"Dolly Leonard told my big sister a month ago that she wasn't a bit +frightened,—that she had had one perfect year, and a perfect year was +well worth dying for—if one had to. Of course she hoped she wouldn't +die, but if she did, it was a wonderful thing to die happy. Dolly was +queer about it; I heard my big sister telling mother. Dolly said, 'Life +couldn't always be at high tide—there was only one high tide in any +one's life, and she thought it was beautiful to go in the full flush +before the tide turned.'"</p> + +<p>The speaker ended with a harsh sob.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly into our awed silence broke my mother in full evening +dress. She was a very handsome mother.</p> + +<p>As she looked down on our huddled group there were tears in her eyes, +but there was no shock. I noticed distinctly that there was no shock. +"Why, girls," she exclaimed, with a certain terse brightness, "aren't +you dressed yet? It's eight o'clock and people are beginning to arrive." +She seemed so frivolous to me.<a name="Page_124"></a> I remember that I felt a little ashamed +of her.</p> + +<p>"We don't want any party," I answered, glumly. "The girls are going +home."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" said my mother, catching me by the hand and pulling me +almost roughly to my feet. "Go quickly and call one of the maids to come +and help you dress. Angeline, I'll do your hair. Bertha, where are your +shoes? Gertrude, that's a beautiful gown—just your color. Hurry into +it. There goes the bell. Hark! the orchestra is beginning."</p> + +<p>And so, with a word here, a touch there, a searching look everywhere, +mother marshalled us into line. I had never heard her voice raised +before.</p> + +<p>The color came back to our cheeks, the light to our eyes. We bubbled +over with spirits—nervous spirits, to be sure, but none the less +vivacious ones.</p> + +<p>When the last hook was fastened, the last glove buttoned, the last curl +fluffed into place, mother stood for an instant tapping her foot on the +floor. She looked like a little general.</p> + +<p>"Girls," she said, "there are five hundred people coming to-night from +all over the State, and fully two-thirds of them never heard of Dolly +Leonard. We<a name="Page_125"></a> must never spoil other people's pleasures by flaunting our +own personal griefs. I expect my daughter to conduct herself this +evening with perfect cheerfulness and grace. She owes it to her guests; +and"—mother's chin went high up in the air—"I refuse to receive in my +house again any one of you girls who mars my daughter's <i>débutante</i> +party by tears or hysterics. You may go now."</p> + +<p>We went, silently berating the brutal harshness of grown people. We +went, airily, flutteringly, luminously, like a bunch of butterflies. At +the head of the stairs the music caught us up in a maelstrom of +excitement and whirled us down into the throng of pleasure. And when we +reached the drawing-room and found mother we felt as though we were +walking on air. We thought it was self-control. We were not old enough +to know it was mostly "youth."</p> + +<p>My <i>débutante</i> party was the gayest party ever given in our town. We +seven girls were like sprites gone mad. We were like fairy torches that +kindled the whole throng. We flitted among the palms like +will-o'-the-wisps. We danced the toes out of our satin slippers. We led +our old boy-friends a wild chase of young love and laughter, and +because<a name="Page_126"></a> our hearts were like frozen lead within us we sought, as it +were, "to warm both hands at the fires of life." We trifled with older +men. We flirted, as it were, with our fathers.</p> + +<p>My <i>débutante</i> party turned out a revel. I have often wondered if my +mother was frightened. I don't know what went on in the other girls' +brains, but mine were seared with the old-world recklessness—"Eat, +drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." <i>We</i> die!</p> + +<p>I had a lover—a boy lover. His name was Gordon. He was twenty-one years +old, and he had courted me with boyish seriousness for three years. +Mother had always pooh-poohed his love-story and said: "Wait, wait. Why, +my daughter isn't even <i>out</i> yet. Wait till she's out."</p> + +<p>And Gordon had narrowed his near-sighted eyes ominously and shut his +lips tight. "Very well," he had answered, "I will wait till she is +out—but no longer."</p> + +<p>He was rich, he was handsome, he was well-born, he was strong, but more +than all that he held my fancy with a certain thrilling tenacity that +frightened me while it lured me. And I had always looked forward to my +<i>débutante</i> party on my eighteenth birthday with the tingling +realization, half joy, half fear,<a name="Page_127"></a> that on that day I should have to +settle once and forever with—<i>man</i>.</p> + +<p>I had often wondered how Gordon would propose. He was a proud, +high-strung boy. If he was humble, and pleaded and pleaded with the hurt +look in his eyes that I knew so well, I thought I would accept him; and +if we could get to mother in the crowd, perhaps we could announce the +engagement at supper-time. It seemed to me that it would be a very +wonderful thing to be engaged on one's eighteenth birthday. So many +girls were not engaged till nineteen or even twenty. But if he was +masterful and high-stepping, as he knew so well how to be, I had decided +to refuse him scornfully with a toss of my head and a laugh. I could +break his heart with the sort of laugh I had practised before my mirror.</p> + +<p>It is a terrible thing to have a long-anticipated event finally overtake +you. It is the most terrible thing of all to have to settle once and +forever with <i>man</i>.</p> + +<p>Gordon came for me at eleven o'clock. I was flirting airily at the time +with our village Beau Brummel, who was old enough to be my grandfather.</p> + +<p>Gordon slipped my little hand through his arm and carried me off to a +lonely place in the conservatory. For a second<a name="Page_128"></a> it seemed a beautiful +relief to be out of the noise and the glare—and alone with Gordon. But +instantly my realization of the potential moment rushed over me like a +flood, and I began to tremble violently. All the nervous strain of the +evening reacted suddenly on me.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you to-night?" asked Gordon, a little sternly. +"What makes you so wild?" he persisted, with a grim little attempt at a +laugh.</p> + +<p>At his words, my heart seemed to turn over within me and settle heavily. +It was before the days when we discussed life's tragedies with our best +men friends. Indeed, it was so long before that I sickened and grew +faint at the very thought of the sorrowful knowledge which I kept secret +from him.</p> + +<p>Again he repeated, "What's the matter with you?" but I could find no +answer. I just sat shivering, with my lace scarf drawn close across my +bare shoulders.</p> + +<p>Gordon took hold of a white ruffle on my gown and began to fidget with +it. I could see the fine thoughts go flitting through his eyes, but when +he spoke again it was quite commonplacely.</p> + +<p>"Will you do me a favor?" he asked. "Will you do me the favor of +marry<a name="Page_129"></a>ing me?" And he laughed. Good God! he <i>laughed</i>!</p> + +<p>"A favor" to marry him! And he asked it as he might have asked for a +posie or a dance. So flippantly—with a laugh. "<i>A favor!</i>" And Dolly +Leonard lay dead of <i>her</i> favor!</p> + +<p>I jumped to my feet—I was half mad with fear and sex and sorrow and +excitement. Something in my brain snapped. And I struck Gordon—struck +him across the face with my open hand. And he turned as white as the +dead Dolly Leonard, and went away—oh, very far away.</p> + +<p>Then I ran back alone to the hall and stumbled into my father's arms.</p> + +<p>"Are you having a good time?" asked my father, pointing playfully at my +blazing cheeks.</p> + +<p>I went to my answer like an arrow to its mark. "I am having the most +wonderful time in the world," I cried; "<i>I have settled with man</i>."</p> + +<p>My father put back his head and shouted. He thought it was a fine joke. +He laughed about it long after my party was over. He thought my head was +turned. He laughed about it long after other people had stopped +wondering why Gordon went away.</p> + +<p>I never told any one why Gordon<a name="Page_130"></a> went away. I might under certain +circumstances have told a girl, but it was not the sort of thing one +could have told one's mother. This is the first time I have ever told +the story of Dolly Leonard's death and my <i>débutante</i> party.</p> + +<p>Dolly Leonard left a little son behind her—a joyous, rollicking little +son. His name is Paul Yardley. We girls were pleased with the +initials—P.Y. They stand to us for "Perfect Year."</p> + +<p>Dolly Leonard's husband has married again, and his wife has borne him +safely three daughters and a son. Each one of my six girl chums is the +mother of a family. Now and again in my experience some woman has +shirked a duty. But I have never yet met a woman who dared to shirk a +happiness. Duties repeat themselves. There is no duplicate of happiness.</p> + +<p>I am fifty-eight years old. I have never married. I do not say whether I +am glad or sorry. I only know that I have never had a Perfect Year. I +only know that I have never been warm since the night that Dolly Leonard +died.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Editha"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>Editha<a name="Page_131"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by William Dean Howells</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The air was thick with the war I feeling, like the electricity of a +storm which has not yet burst. Editha sat looking out into the hot +spring afternoon, with her lips parted, and panting with the intensity +of the question whether she could let him go. She had decided that she +could not let him stay, when she saw him at the end of the still +leafless avenue, making slowly up toward the house, with his head down, +and his figure relaxed. She ran impatiently out on the veranda, to the +edge of the steps, and imperatively demanded greater haste of him with +her will before she called aloud to him, "George!"</p> + +<p>He had quickened his pace in mystical response to her mystical urgence, +before he could have heard her; now he looked up and answered, "Well?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, how united we are!" she exulted,<a name="Page_132"></a> and then she swooped down the +steps to him. "What is it?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"It's war," he said, and he pulled her up to him, and kissed her.</p> + +<p>She kissed him back intensely, but irrelevantly, as to their passion, +and uttered from deep in her throat, "How glorious!"</p> + +<p>"It's war," he repeated, without consenting to her sense of it; and she +did not know just what to think at first. She never knew what to think +of him; that made his mystery, his charm. All through their courtship, +which was contemporaneous with the growth of the war feeling, she had +been puzzled by his want of seriousness about it. He seemed to despise +it even more than he abhorred it. She could have understood his +abhorring any sort of bloodshed; that would have been a survival of his +old life when he thought he would be a minister, and before he changed +and took up the law. But making light of a cause so high and noble +seemed to show a want of earnestness at the core of his being. Not but +that she felt herself able to cope with a congenital defect of that +sort, and make his love for her save him from himself. Now perhaps the +miracle<a name="Page_133"></a> was already wrought in him, In the presence of the tremendous +fact that he announced, all triviality seemed to have gone out of him; +she began to feel that. He sank down on the top step, and wiped his +forehead with his handkerchief, while she poured out upon him her +question of the origin and authenticity of his news.</p> + +<p>All the while, in her duplex emotioning, she was aware that now at the +very beginning she must put a guard upon herself against urging him, by +any word or act, to take the part that her whole soul willed him to +take, for the completion of her ideal of him. He was very nearly perfect +as he was, and he must be allowed to perfect himself. But he was +peculiar, and he might very well be reasoned out of his peculiarity. +Before her reasoning went her emotioning: her nature pulling upon his +nature, her womanhood upon his manhood, without her knowing the means +she was using to the end she was willing. She had always supposed that +the man who won her would have done something to win her; she did not +know what, but something. George Gearson had simply asked her for her +love, on the way home from a concert, and she gave her<a name="Page_134"></a> love to him, +without, as it were, thinking. But now, it flashed upon her, if he could +do something worthy to <i>have</i> won her—be a hero, <i>her</i> hero—it would +be even better than if he had done it before asking her; it would be +grander. Besides, she had believed in the war from the beginning.</p> + +<p>"But don't you see, dearest," she said, "that it wouldn't have come to +this, if it hadn't been in the order of Providence? And I call any war +glorious that is for the liberation of people who have been struggling +for years against the cruelest oppression. Don't you think so too?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose so," he returned, languidly. "But war! Is it glorious to +break the peace of the world?"</p> + +<p>"That ignoble peace! It was no peace at all, with that crime and shame +at our very gates." She was conscious of parroting the current phrases +of the newspapers, but it was no time to pick and choose her words. She +must sacrifice anything to the high ideal she had for him, and after a +good deal of rapid argument she ended with the climax: "But now it +doesn't matter about the how or why. Since the war has come, all that is +gone. There are no two sides,<a name="Page_135"></a> any more. There is nothing now but our +country."</p> + +<p>He sat with his eyes closed and his head leant back against the veranda, +and he said with a vague smile, as if musing aloud, "Our country—right +or wrong."</p> + +<p>"Yes, right or wrong!" she returned fervidly. "I'll go and get you some +lemonade." She rose rustling, and whisked away; when she came back with +two tall glasses of clouded liquid, on a tray, and the ice clucking in +them, he still sat as she had left him, and she said as if there had +been no interruption: "But there is no question of wrong in this case. I +call it a sacred war. A war for liberty, and humanity, if ever there was +one. And I know you will see it just as I do, yet."</p> + +<p>He took half the lemonade at a gulp, and he answered as he set the glass +down: "I know you always have the highest ideal. When I differ from you, +I ought to doubt myself."</p> + +<p>A generous sob rose in Editha's throat for the humility of a man, so +very nearly perfect, who was willing to put himself below her.</p> + +<p>Besides, she felt that he was never so near slipping through her fingers +as when he took that meek way.</p><a name="Page_136"></a> + +<p>"You shall not say that! Only, for once I happen to be right." She +seized his hand in her two hands, and poured her soul from her eyes into +his. "Don't you think so?" she entreated him.</p> + +<p>He released his hand and drank the rest of his lemonade, and she added, +"Have mine, too," but he shook his head in answering, "I've no business +to think so, unless I act so, too."</p> + +<p>Her heart stopped a beat before it pulsed on with leaps that she felt in +her neck. She had noticed that strange thing in men; they seemed to feel +bound to do what they believed, and not think a thing was finished when +they said it, as girls did. She knew what was in his mind, but she +pretended not, and she said, "Oh, I am not sure."</p> + +<p>He went on as if to himself without apparently heeding her. "There's +only one way of proving one's faith in a thing like this."</p> + +<p>She could not say that she understood, but she did understand.</p> + +<p>He went on again. "If I believed—if I felt as you do about this war—Do +you wish me to feel as you do?"</p> + +<p>Now she was really not sure; so she said, "George, I don't know what you +mean."</p><a name="Page_137"></a> + +<p>He seemed to muse away from her as before. "There is a sort of +fascination in it. I suppose that at the bottom of his heart every man +would like at times to have his courage tested; to see how he would +act."</p> + +<p>"How can you talk in that ghastly way!"</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> rather morbid. Still, that's what it comes to, unless you're +swept away by ambition, or driven by conviction. I haven't the +conviction or the ambition, and the other thing is what it comes to with +me. I ought to have been a preacher, after all; then I couldn't have +asked it of myself, as I must, now I'm a lawyer. And you believe it's a +holy war, Editha?" he suddenly addressed her. "Or, I know you do! But +you wish me to believe so, too?"</p> + +<p>She hardly knew whether he was mocking or not, in the ironical way he +always had with her plainer mind. But the only thing was to be outspoken +with him.</p> + +<p>"George, I wish you to believe whatever you think is true, at any and +every cost. If I've tried to talk you into anything, I take it all +back."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I know that, Editha. I know how sincere you are, and how—I wish<a name="Page_138"></a> I +had your undoubting spirit! I'll think it over; I'd like to believe as +you do. But I don't, now; I don't, indeed. It isn't this war alone; +though this seems peculiarly wanton and needless; but it's every war—so +stupid; it makes me sick. Why shouldn't this thing have been settled +reasonably?"</p> + +<p>"Because," she said, very throatily again, "God meant it to be war."</p> + +<p>"You think it was God? Yes, I suppose that is what people will say."</p> + +<p>"Do you suppose it would have been war if God hadn't meant it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Sometimes it seems as if God had put this world into +men's keeping to work it as they pleased."</p> + +<p>"Now, George, that is blasphemy."</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't blaspheme. I'll try to believe in your pocket +Providence," he said, and then he rose to go.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you stay to dinner?" Dinner at Balcom's Works was at one +o'clock.</p> + +<p>"I'll come back to supper, if you'll let me. Perhaps I shall bring you a +convert."</p> + +<p>"Well, you may come back, on that condition."</p> + +<p>"All right. If I don't come, you'll understand?"</p><a name="Page_139"></a> + +<p>He went away without kissing her, and she felt it a suspension of their +engagement. It all interested her intensely; she was undergoing a +tremendous experience, and she was being equal to it. While she stood +looking after him, her mother came out through one of the long windows, +on to the veranda, with a catlike softness and vagueness.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't he stay to dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Because—because—war has been declared," Editha pronounced, without +turning.</p> + +<p>Her mother said, "Oh, my!" and then said nothing more until she had sat +down in one of the large Shaker chairs, and rocked herself for some +time. Then she closed whatever tacit passage of thought there had been +in her mind with the spoken words, "Well, I hope <i>he</i> won't go."</p> + +<p>"And <i>I</i> hope he <i>will</i>" the girl said, and confronted her mother with a +stormy exaltation that would have frightened any creature less +unimpressionable than a cat.</p> + +<p>Her mother rocked herself again for an interval of cogitation. What she +arrived at in speech was, "Well, I guess you've done a wicked thing, +Editha Balcom."</p><a name="Page_140"></a> + +<p>The girl said, as she passed indoors through the same window her mother +had come out by, "I haven't done anything—yet."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>In her room, she put together all her letters and gifts from Gearson, +down to the withered petals of the first flower he had offered, with +that timidity of his veiled in that irony of his. In the heart of the +packet she enshrined her engagement ring which she had restored to the +pretty box he had brought it her in. Then she sat down, if not calmly +yet strongly, and wrote:</p> +<br /> + +<div style="margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;"> +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"<span class="sc">George</span>: I + understood—when you left me. But I think we had + better emphasize your meaning that if we cannot be one in + everything we had better be one in nothing. So I am sending + these things for your keeping till you have made up your mind.</p> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"I shall always love you, and therefore I shall never marry any + one else. But the man I marry must love his country first of + all, and be able to say to me,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"'I could not love thee, dear, so much,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Loved I not honor more.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"There is no honor above America<a name="Page_141"></a> with me. In this great hour + there is no other honor.</p> + +<p style="text-indent: 0em;">"Your heart will make my words clear to you. I had never + expected to say so much, but it has come upon me that I must + say the utmost.</p> + +<p class="sc" style="text-indent: 15em;">"Editha."</p> +</div> + +<br /> + +<p>She thought she had worded her letter well, worded it in a way that +could not be bettered; all had been implied and nothing expressed.</p> + +<p>She had it ready to send with the packet she had tied with red, white, +and blue ribbon, when it occurred to her that she was not just to him, +that she was not giving him a fair chance. He had said he would go and +think it over, and she was not waiting. She was pushing, threatening, +compelling. That was not a woman's part. She must leave him free, free, +free. She could not accept for her country or herself a forced +sacrifice.</p> + +<p>In writing her letter she had satisfied the impulse from which it +sprang; she could well afford to wait till he had thought it over. She +put the packet and the letter by, and rested serene in the consciousness +of having done what was laid upon her by her love itself to do, and yet +used patience, mercy, justice.</p><a name="Page_142"></a> + +<p>She had her reward. Gearson did not come to tea, but she had given him +till morning, when, late at night there came up from the village the +sound of a fife and drum with a tumult of voices, in shouting, singing, +and laughing. The noise drew nearer and nearer; it reached the Street +end of the avenue; there it silenced itself, and one voice, the voice +she knew best, rose over the silence. It fell; the air was filled with +cheers; the fife and drum struck up, with the shouting, singing, and +laughing again, but now retreating; and a single figure came hurrying up +the avenue.</p> + +<p>She ran down to meet her lover and clung to him. He was very gay, and he +put his arm round her with a boisterous laugh. "Well, you must call me +Captain, now; or Cap, if you prefer; that's what the boys call me. Yes, +we've had a meeting at the town hall, and everybody has volunteered; and +they selected me for captain, and I'm going to the war, the big war, the +glorious war, the holy war ordained by the pocket Providence that +blesses butchery. Come along; let's tell the whole family about it. Call +them from their downy beds, father, mother, Aunt Hitty, and all the +folks!"</p> + +<p>But when they mounted the veranda<a name="Page_143"></a> steps he did not wait for a larger +audience; he poured the story out upon Editha alone.</p> + +<p>"There was a lot of speaking, and then some of the fools set up a shout +for me. It was all going one way, and I thought it would be a good joke +to sprinkle a little cold water on them. But you can't do that with a +crowd that adores you. The first thing I knew I was sprinkling hell-fire +on them, 'Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.' That was the style. +Now that it had come to the fight, there were no two parties; there was +one country, and the thing was to fight the fight to a finish as quick +as possible. I suggested volunteering then and there, and I wrote my +name first of all on the roster. Then they elected me—that's all. I +wish I had some ice-water!"</p> + +<p>She left him walking up and down the veranda, while she ran for the +ice-pitcher and a goblet, and when she came back he was still walking up +and down, shouting the story he had told her to her father and mother, +who had come out more sketchily dressed than they commonly were by day. +He drank goblet after goblet of the ice-water without noticing who was +giving it, and kept on talking, and<a name="Page_144"></a> laughing through his talk wildly. +"It's astonishing," he said, "how well the worse reason looks when you +try to make it appear the better. Why, I believe I was the first convert +to the war in that crowd to-night! I never thought I should like to kill +a man; but now, I shouldn't care; and the smokeless powder lets you see +the man drop that you kill. It's all for the country! What a thing it is +to have a country that <i>can't</i> be wrong, but if it is, is right anyway!"</p> + +<p>Editha had a great, vital thought, an inspiration. She set down the +ice-pitcher on the veranda floor, and ran up-stairs and got the letter +she had written him. When at last he noisily bade her father and mother, +"Well, good night. I forgot I woke you up; I sha'n't want any sleep +myself," she followed him down the avenue to the gate. There, after the +whirling words that seemed to fly away from her thoughts and refuse to +serve them, she made a last effort to solemnize the moment that seemed +so crazy, and pressed the letter she had written upon him.</p> + +<p>"What's this?" he said. "Want me to mail it?"</p> + +<p>"No, no. It's for you. I wrote it after you went this morning. Keep +it—<a name="Page_145"></a>keep it—and read it sometime—" She thought, and then her +inspiration came: "Read it if ever you doubt what you've done, or fear +that I regret your having done it. Read it after you've started."</p> + +<p>They strained each other in embraces that seemed as ineffective as their +words, and he kissed her face with quick, hot breaths that were so +unlike him, that made her feel as if she had lost her old lover and +found a stranger in his place. The stranger said, "What a gorgeous +flower you are, with your red hair, and your blue eyes that look black +now, and your face with the color painted out by the white moonshine! +Let me hold you under my chin, to see whether I love blood, you +tiger-lily!" Then he laughed Gearson's laugh, and released her, scared +and giddy. Within her wilfulness she had been frightened by a sense of +subtler force in him, and mystically mastered as she had never been +before.</p> + +<p>She ran all the way back to the house, and mounted the steps panting. +Her mother and father were talking of the great affair. Her mother said: +"Wa'n't Mr. Gearson in rather of an excited state of mind? Didn't you +think he acted curious?"</p><a name="Page_146"></a> + +<p>"Well, not for a man who'd just been elected captain and had to set 'em +up for the whole of Company A," her father chuckled back.</p> + +<p>"What in the world do you mean, Mr. Balcom? Oh! There's Editha!" She +offered to follow the girl indoors.</p> + +<p>"Don't come, mother!" Editha called, vanishing.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Balcom remained to reproach her husband. "I don't see much of +anything to laugh at."</p> + +<p>"Well, it's catching. Caught it from Gearson. I guess it won't be much +of a war, and I guess Gearson don't think so, either. The other fellows +will back down as soon as they see we mean it. I wouldn't lose any sleep +over it. I'm going back to bed, myself."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>Gearson came again next afternoon, looking pale, and rather sick, but +quite himself, even to his languid irony. "I guess I'd better tell you, +Editha, that I consecrated myself to your god of battles last night by +pouring too many libations to him down my own throat. But I'm all right, +now. One has to carry off the excitement, somehow."</p> + +<p>"Promise me," she commanded, "that you'll never touch it again!"</p><a name="Page_147"></a> + +<p>"What! Not let the cannikin clink? Not let the soldier drink? Well, I +promise."</p> + +<p>"You don't belong to yourself now; you don't even belong to <i>me</i>. You +belong to your country, and you have a sacred charge to keep yourself +strong and well for your country's sake. I have been thinking, thinking +all night and all day long."</p> + +<p>"You look as if you had been crying a little, too," he said with his +queer smile.</p> + +<p>"That's all past. I've been thinking, and worshipping <i>you</i>. Don't you +suppose I know all that you've been through, to come to this? I've +followed you every step from your old theories and opinions."</p> + +<p>"Well, you've had a long row to hoe."</p> + +<p>"And I know you've done this from the highest motives—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, there won't be much pettifogging to do till this cruel war is—"</p> + +<p>"And you haven't simply done it for my sake. I couldn't respect you if +you had."</p> + +<p>"Well, then we'll say I haven't. A man that hasn't got his own respect +intact wants the respect of all the other people he can corner. But we +won't go into that. I'm in for the thing now, and we've got to face our +future. My idea<a name="Page_148"></a> is that this isn't going to be a very protracted +struggle; we shall just scare the enemy to death before it conies to a +fight at all. But we must provide for contingencies, Editha. If anything +happens to me—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, George!" She clung to him sobbing.</p> + +<p>"I don't want you to feel foolishly bound to my memory. I should hate +that, wherever I happened to be."</p> + +<p>"I am yours, for time and eternity—time and eternity." She liked the +words; they satisfied her famine for phrases.</p> + +<p>"Well, say eternity; that's all right; but time's another thing; and I'm +talking about time. But there is something! My mother! If anything +happens—"</p> + +<p>She winced, and he laughed. "You're not the bold soldier-girl of +yesterday!" Then he sobered. "If anything happens, I want you to help my +mother out. She won't like my doing this thing. She brought me up to +think war a fool thing as well as a bad thing. My father was in the +civil war; all through it; lost his arm in it." She thrilled with the +sense of the arm round her; what if that should be lost? He laughed as +if divining her: "Oh, it doesn't run in the family, as far as I know!" +Then he added, gravely,<a name="Page_149"></a> "He came home with misgivings about war, and +they grew on him. I guess he and mother agreed between them that I was +to be brought up in his final mind about it; but that was before my +time. I only knew him from my mother's report of him and his opinions; I +don't know whether they were hers first; but they were hers last. This +will be a blow to her. I shall have to write and tell her—"</p> + +<p>He stopped, and she asked, "Would you like me to write too, George?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe that would do. No, I'll do the writing. She'll +understand a little if I say that I thought the way to minimize it was +to make war on the largest possible scale at once—that I felt I must +have been helping on the war somehow if I hadn't helped keep it from +coming, and I knew I hadn't; when it came, I had no right to stay out of +it."</p> + +<p>Whether his sophistries satisfied him or not, they satisfied her. She +clung to his breast, and whispered, with closed eyes and quivering lips, +"Yes, yes, yes!"</p> + +<p>"But if anything should happen, you might go to her, and see what you +could do for her. You know? It's rather far off; she can't leave her +chair—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll go, if it's the ends of the<a name="Page_150"></a> earth! But nothing will happen! +Nothing <i>can</i>! I—"</p> + +<p>She felt herself lifted with his rising, and Gearson was saying, with +his arm still round her, to her father: "Well, we're off at once, Mr. +Balcom. We're to be formally accepted at the capital, and then bunched +up with the rest somehow; and sent into camp somewhere, and got to the +front as soon as possible. We all want to be in the van, of course; +we're the first company to report to the Governor. I came to tell +Editha, but I hadn't got round to it."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>She saw him again for a moment at the capital, in the station, just +before the train started southward with his regiment. He looked well, in +his uniform, and very soldierly, but somehow girlish, too, with his +clean-shaven face and slim figure. The manly eyes and the strong voice +satisfied her, and his preoccupation with some unexpected details of +duty flattered her. Other girls were weeping, but she felt a sort of +noble distinction in the abstraction with which they parted. Only at the +last moment he said, "Don't forget my mother. It mayn't be such a +walk-over as I supposed," and he laughed at the notion.</p><a name="Page_151"></a> + +<p>He waved his hand to her, as the train moved off—she knew it among a +score of hands that were waved to other girls from the platform of the +car, for it held a letter which she knew was hers. Then he went inside +the car to read it, doubtless, and she did not see him again. But she +felt safe for him through the strength of what she called her love. What +she called her God, always speaking the name in a deep voice and with +the implication of a mutual understanding, would watch over him and keep +him and bring him back to her. If with an empty sleeve, then he should +have three arms instead of two, for both of hers should be his for life. +She did not see, though, why she should always be thinking of the arm +his father had lost.</p> + +<p>There were not many letters from him, but they were such as she could +have wished, and she put her whole strength into making hers such as she +imagined he could have wished, glorifying and supporting him. She wrote +to his mother, but the brief answer she got was merely to the effect +that Mrs. Gearson was not well enough to write herself, and thanking her +for her letter by the hand of some one who called herself "Yrs truly, +Mrs. W.J. Andrews."</p><a name="Page_152"></a> + +<p>Editha determined not to be hurt, but to write again quite as if the +answer had been all she expected. But before it seemed as if she could +have written, there came news of the first skirmish, and in the list of +the killed which was telegraphed as a trifling loss on our side, was +Gearson's name. There was a frantic time of trying to make out that it +might be, must be, some other Gearson; but the name, and the company and +the regiment, and the State were too definitely given.</p> + +<p>Then there was a lapse into depths out of which it seemed as if she +never could rise again; then a lift into clouds far above all grief, +black clouds, that blotted out the sun, but where she soared with him, +with George, George! She had the fever that she expected of herself, but +she did not die in it; she was not even delirious, and it did not last +long. When she was well enough to leave her bed, her one thought was of +George's mother, of his strangely worded wish that she should go to her +and see what she could do for her. In the exaltation of the duty laid +upon her—it buoyed her up instead of burdening her—she rapidly +recovered.</p> + +<p>Her father went with her on the long<a name="Page_153"></a> railroad journey from northern New +York to western Iowa; he had business out at Davenport, and he said he +could just as well go then as any other time; and he went with her to +the little country town where George's mother lived in a little house on +the edge of illimitable corn-fields, under trees pushed to a top of the +rolling prairie. George's father had settled there after the civil war, +as so many other old soldiers had done; but they were Eastern people, +and Editha fancied touches of the East in the June rose overhanging the +front door, and the garden with early summer flowers stretching from the +gate of the paling fence.</p> + +<p>It was very low inside the house, and so dim, with the closed blinds, +that they could scarcely see one another: Editha tall and black in her +crapes which filled the air with the smell of their dyes; her father +standing decorously apart with his hat on his forearm, as at funerals; a +woman rested in a deep armchair, and the woman who had let the strangers +in stood behind the chair.</p> + +<p>The seated woman turned her head round and up, and asked the woman +behind her chair, "<i>Who</i> did you say?"</p> + +<p>Editha, if she had done what she expected of herself, would have gone +down<a name="Page_154"></a> on her knees at the feet of the seated figure and said, "I am +George's Editha," for answer.</p> + +<p>But instead of her own voice she heard that other woman's voice, saying, +"Well, I don't know as I <i>did</i> get the name just right. I guess I'll +have to make a little more light in here," and she went and pushed two +of the shutters ajar.</p> + +<p>Then Editha's father said in his public will-now-address-a-few-remarks +tone, "My name is Balcom, ma'am; Junius H. Balcom, of Balcom's Works, +New York; my daughter—"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" The seated woman broke in, with a powerful voice, the voice that +always surprised Editha from Gearson's slender frame. "Let me see you! +Stand round where the light can strike on your face," and Editha dumbly +obeyed. "So, you're Editha Balcom," she sighed.</p> + +<p>"Yes," Editha said, more like a culprit than a comforter.</p> + +<p>"What did you come for?"</p> + +<p>Editha's face quivered, and her knees shook. "I came—because—because +George—" She could go no farther.</p> + +<p>"Yes," the mother said, "he told me he had asked you to come if he got +killed. You didn't expect that, I suppose, when you sent him."</p><a name="Page_155"></a> + +<p>"I would rather have died myself than done it!" Editha said with more +truth in her deep voice than she ordinarily found in it. "I tried to +leave him free—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that letter of yours, that came back with his other things, left +him free."</p> + +<p>Editha saw now where George's irony came from.</p> + +<p>"It was not to be read before—unless—until—I told him so," she +faltered.</p> + +<p>"Of course, he wouldn't read a letter of yours, under the circumstances, +till he thought you wanted him to. Been sick?" the woman abruptly +demanded.</p> + +<p>"Very sick," Editha said, with self-pity.</p> + +<p>"Daughter's life," her father interposed, "was almost despaired of, at +one time."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gearson gave him no heed. "I suppose you would have been glad to +die, such a brave person as you! I don't believe <i>he</i> was glad to die. +He was always a timid boy, that way; he was afraid of a good many +things; but if he was afraid he did what he made up his mind to. I +suppose he made up his mind to go, but I knew what it cost him, by what +it cost me when I heard of it. I had been through <i>one</i> war before. When +you sent him you didn't expect he would get killed."</p><a name="Page_156"></a> + +<p>The voice seemed to compassionate Editha, and it was time. "No," she +huskily murmured.</p> + +<p>"No, girls don't; women don't, when they give their men up to their +country. They think they'll come marching back, somehow, just as gay as +they went, or if it's an empty sleeve, or even an empty pantaloon, it's +all the more glory, and they're so much the prouder of them, poor +things."</p> + +<p>The tears began to run down Editha's face; she had not wept till then; +but it was now such a relief to be understood that the tears came.</p> + +<p>"No, you didn't expect him to get killed," Mrs. Gearson repeated in a +voice which was startlingly like George's again. "You just expected him +to kill some one else, some of those foreigners, that weren't there +because they had any say about it, but because they had to be there, +poor wretches—conscripts, or whatever they call 'em. You thought it +would be all right for my George, <i>your</i> George, to kill the sons of +those miserable mothers and the husbands of those girls that you would +never see the faces of." The woman lifted her powerful voice in a +psalmlike note. "I thank my God he didn't live to do it! I thank my God<a name="Page_157"></a> +they killed him first, and that he ain't livin' with their blood on his +hands!" She dropped her eyes which she had raised with her voice, and +glared at Editha. "What you got that black on for?" She lifted herself +by her powerful arms so high that her helpless body seemed to hang limp +its full length. "Take it off, take it off, before I tear it from your +back!"</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>The lady who was passing the summer near Balcom's Works was sketching +Editha's beauty, which lent itself wonderfully to the effects of a +colorist. It had come to that confidence which is rather apt to grow +between artist and sitter, and Editha had told her everything.</p> + +<p>"To think of your having such a tragedy in your life!" the lady said. +She added: "I suppose there are people who feel that way about war. But +when you consider how much this war has done for the country! I can't +understand such people, for my part. And when you had come all the way +out there to console her—got up out of a sick bed! Well!"</p> + +<p>"I think," Editha said, magnanimously, "she wasn't quite in her right +mind; and so did papa."</p><a name="Page_158"></a> + +<p>"Yes," the lady said, looking at Editha's lips in nature and then at her +lips in art, and giving an empirical touch to them in the picture. "But +how dreadful of her! How perfectly—excuse me—how <i>vulgar</i>!"</p> + +<p>A light broke upon Editha in the darkness which she felt had been +without a gleam of brightness for weeks and months. The mystery that had +bewildered her was solved by the word; and from that moment she rose +from grovelling in shame and self-pity, and began to live again in the +ideal.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Stout_Miss"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Stout Miss Hopkins's Bicycle<a name="Page_159"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Octave Thanet</h3> +<br /> + +<p>There was a skeleton in Mrs. Margaret Ellis's closet; the same skeleton +abode also in the closet of Miss Lorania Hopkins.</p> + +<p>The skeleton—which really does not seem a proper word—was the dread of +growing stout. They were more afraid of flesh than of sin. Yet they were +both good women. Mrs. Ellis regularly attended church, and could always +be depended on to show hospitality to convention delegates, whether +clerical or lay; she was a liberal subscriber to every good work; she +was almost the only woman in the church aid society that never lost her +temper at the soul-vexing time of the church fair; and she had a larger +clientele of regular pensioners than any one in town, unless it were her +friend Miss Hopkins, who was "so good to the poor" that never a tramp +slighted her kitchen. Miss Hopkins was as amia<a name="Page_160"></a>ble as Mrs. Ellis, and +always put her name under that of Mrs. Ellis, with exactly the same +amount, on the subscription papers. She could have given more, for she +had the larger income; but she had no desire to outshine her friend, +whom she admired as the most charming of women.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis, indeed, was agreeable as well as good, and a pretty woman to +the bargain, if she did not choose to be weighed before people. Miss +Hopkins often told her that she was not really stout; she merely had a +plump, trig little figure. Miss Hopkins, alas! was really stout. The two +waged a warfare against the flesh equal to the apostle's in vigor, +although so much less deserving of praise.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis drove her cook to distraction with divers dieting systems, +from Banting's and Dr. Salisbury's to the latest exhortations of some +unknown newspaper prophet. She bought elaborate gymnastic appliances, +and swung dumb-bells and rode imaginary horses and propelled imaginary +boats. She ran races with a professional trainer, and she studied the +principles of Delsarte, and solemnly whirled on one foot and swayed her +body and rolled her head and<a name="Page_161"></a> hopped and kicked and genuflected in +company with eleven other stout and earnest matrons and one slim and +giggling girl who almost choked at every lesson. In all these exercises +Miss Hopkins faithfully kept her company, which was the easier as Miss +Hopkins lived in the next house, a conscientious Colonial mansion with +all the modern conveniences hidden beneath the old-fashioned pomp.</p> + +<p>And yet, despite these struggles and self-denials, it must be told that +Margaret Ellis and Lorania Hopkins were little thinner for their +warfare. Still, as Shuey Cardigan, the trainer, told Mrs. Ellis, there +was no knowing what they might have weighed had they not struggled.</p> + +<p>"It ain't only the fat that's <i>on</i> ye, moind ye," says Shuey, with a +confidential sympathy of mien; "it's what ye'd naturally be getting in +addition. And first ye've got to peel off that, and then ye come down to +the other."</p> + +<p>Shuey was so much the most successful of Mrs. Ellis's reducers that his +words were weighty. And when at last Shuey said, "I got what you need," +Mrs. Ellis listened. "You need a bike, no less," says Shuey.</p><a name="Page_162"></a> + +<p>"But I never could ride one!" said Margaret, opening her pretty brown +eyes and wrinkling her Grecian forehead.</p> + +<p>"You'd ride in six lessons."</p> + +<p>"But how would I <i>look</i>, Cardigan?"</p> + +<p>"You'd look noble, ma'am!"</p> + +<p>"What do you consider the best wheel, Cardigan?"</p> + +<p>The advertising rules of magazines prevent my giving Cardigan's answer; +it is enough that the wheel glittered at Mrs. Ellis's door the very next +day, and that a large pasteboard box was delivered by the expressman the +very next week. He went on to Miss Hopkins's, and delivered the twin of +the box, with a similar yellow printed card bearing the impress of the +same great firm on the inside of the box cover.</p> + +<p>For Margaret had hied her to Lorania Hopkins the instant Shuey was gone. +She presented herself breathless, a little to the embarrassment of +Lorania, who was sitting with her niece before a large box of +cracker-jack.</p> + +<p>"It's a new kind of candy; I was just <i>tasting</i> it, Maggie," faltered +she, while the niece, a girl of nineteen, with the inhuman spirits of +her age, laughed aloud.</p> + +<p>"You needn't mind me," said Mrs.<a name="Page_163"></a> Ellis, cheerfully; "I'm eating +potatoes now!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Maggie!" Miss Hopkins breathed the words between envy and +disapproval.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis tossed her brown head airily, not a whit abashed. "And I had +beer for luncheon, and I'm going to have champagne for dinner."</p> + +<p>"Maggie, how do you dare? Did they—did they taste good?"</p> + +<p>"They tasted <i>heavenly</i>, Lorania. Pass me the candy. I am going to try +something new—the thinningest thing there is. I read in the paper of +one woman who lost forty pounds in three months, and is losing still!"</p> + +<p>"If it is obesity pills, I—"</p> + +<p>"It isn't; it's a bicycle. Lorania, you and I must ride! Sibyl Hopkins, +you heartless child, what are you laughing at?"</p> + +<p>Lorania rose; in the glass over the mantel her figure returned her gaze. +There was no mistake (except that, as is often the case with stout +people, <i>that</i> glass always increased her size), she was a stout lady. +She was taller than the average of women, and well proportioned, and +still light on her feet; but she could not blink away the records; she +was heavy on the scales. Did she stand looking at<a name="Page_164"></a> herself squarely, her +form was shapely enough, although larger than she could wish; but the +full force of the revelation fell when she allowed herself a profile +view, she having what is called "a round waist," and being almost as +large one way as another. Yet Lorania was only thirty-three years old, +and was of no mind to retire from society, and have a special phaeton +built for her use, and hear from her mother's friends how much her +mother weighed before her death.</p> + +<p>"How should <i>I</i> look on a wheel?" she asked, even as Mrs. Ellis had +asked before; and Mrs. Ellis stoutly answered, "You'd look <i>noble</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Shuey will teach us," she went on, "and we can have a track made in +your pasture, where nobody can see us learning. Lorania, there's nothing +like it. Let me bring you the bicycle edition of <i>Harper's Bazar</i>."</p> + +<p>Miss Hopkins capitulated at once, and sat down to order her costume, +while Sibyl, the niece, revelled silently in visions of a new bicycle +which should presently revert to her. "For it's ridiculous, auntie's +thinking of riding!" Miss Sibyl considered. "She would be a figure of +fun on a wheel; besides, she can never learn in this world!"</p><a name="Page_165"></a> + +<p>Yet Sibyl was attached to her aunt, and enjoyed visiting Hopkins Manor, +as Lorania had named her new house, into which she moved on the same day +that she joined the Colonial Dames, by right of her ancestor the great +and good divine commemorated by Mrs. Stowe. Lorania's friends were all +fond of her, she was so good-natured and tolerant, with a touch of dry +humor in her vision of things, and not the least a Puritan in her frank +enjoyment of ease and luxury. Nevertheless, Lorania had a good, +able-bodied, New England conscience, capable of staying awake nights +without flinching; and perhaps from her stanch old Puritan forefathers +she inherited her simple integrity so that she neither lied nor +cheated—even in the small, whitewashed manner of her sex—and valued +loyalty above most of the virtues. She had an innocent pride in her +godly and martial ancestry, which was quite on the surface, and led +people who did not know her to consider her haughty.</p> + +<p>For fifteen years she had been an orphan, the mistress of a very large +estate. No doubt she had been sought often in marriage, but never until +lately had Lorania seriously thought of marrying. Sibyl said that she +was too unsentimental to<a name="Page_166"></a> marry. Really she was too romantic. She had a +longing to be loved, not in the quiet, matter-of-fact manner of her +suitors, but with the passion of the poets. Therefore the presence of +another skeleton in Mrs. Ellis's closet, because she knew about a +certain handsome Italian marquis who at this period was conducting an +impassioned wooing by mail. Margaret did not fancy the marquis. He was +not an American. He would take Lorania away. She thought his very virtue +florid, and suspected that he had learned his love-making in a bad +school. She dropped dark hints that frightened Lorania, who would +sometimes piteously demand, "Don't you think he <i>could</i> care for +me—for—for myself?" Margaret knew that she had an overweening distrust +of her own appearance. How many tears she had shed first and last over +her unhappy plumpness it would be hard to reckon. She made no account of +her satin skin, or her glossy black hair, or her lustrous violet eyes +with their long, black lashes, or her flashing white teeth; she glanced +dismally at her shape and scornfully at her features, good, honest, +irregular American features, that might not satisfy a Greek critic, but +suited each other and pleased her countrymen. And then<a name="Page_167"></a> she would sigh +heavily over her figure. Her friend had not the heart to impute the +marquis's beautiful, artless compliments to mercenary motives. After +all, the Italian was a good fellow, according to the point of view of +his own race, if he did intend to live on his wife's money, and had a +very varied assortment of memories of women.</p> + +<p>But Margaret dreaded and disliked him all the more for his good +qualities. To-day this secret apprehension flung a cloud over the +bicycle enthusiasm. She could not help wondering whether at this moment +Lorania was not thinking of the marquis, who rode a wheel and a horse +admirably.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Lorania," said Sibyl, "there comes Mr. Winslow. Shall I run out +and ask him about those cloth-of-gold roses? The aphides are eating them +all up."</p> + +<p>"Yes, to be sure, dear; but don't let Ferguson suspect what you are +talking of; he might feel hurt."</p> + +<p>Ferguson was the gardener. Miss Hopkins left her note to go to the +window. Below she saw a mettled horse, with tossing head and silken +skin, restlessly fretting on his bit and pawing the dust in front of +the fence, while his rider, hat in hand, talked with the young girl. He<a name="Page_168"></a> +was a little man, a very little man, in a gray business suit of the best +cut and material. An air of careful and dainty neatness was diffused +about both horse and rider. He bent towards Miss Sibyl's charming person +a thin, alert, fair face. His head was finely shaped, the brown hair +worn away a little on the temples. He smiled gravely at intervals; the +smile told that he had a dimple in his cheek.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Mrs. Ellis, "whether Mr. Winslow can have a penchant +for Sibyl?"</p> + +<p>Lorania opened her eyes. At this moment Mr. Winslow had caught sight of +her at the window, and he bowed almost to his saddle-bow; Sibyl was +saying something at which she laughed, and he visibly reddened. It was a +peculiarity of his that his color turned easily. In a second his hat was +on his head and his horse bounded half across the road.</p> + +<p>"Hardly, I think," said Lorania. "How well he rides! I never knew any +one ride better—in this country."</p> + +<p>"I suppose Sibyl would ridicule such a thing," said Mrs. Ellis, +continuing her own train of thought, and yet vaguely disturbed by the +last sentence.</p> + +<p>"Why should she?"</p> + +<p>"Well, he is so little, for one thing,<a name="Page_169"></a> and she is so tall. And then +Sibyl thinks a great deal of social position."</p> + +<p>"He is a Winslow," said Lorania, archin her neck unconsciously—"a +lineal descendant from Kenelm Winslow, who came over in the <i>May</i>—"</p> + +<p>"But his mother—"</p> + +<p>"I don't know anything about his mother before she came here. Oh, of +course I know the gossip that she was a niece of the overseer at a +village poor-house, and that her husband quarrelled with all his family +and married her in the poor-house, and I know that when he died here she +would not take a cent from the Winslows, nor let them have the boy. She +is the meekest-looking little woman, but she must have an iron streak in +her somewhere, for she was left without enough money to pay the funeral +expenses, and she educated the boy and accumulated money enough to pay +for this place they have.</p> + +<p>"She used to run a laundry, and made money; but when Cyril got a place +in the bank she sold out the laundry and went into chickens and +vegetables; she told somebody that it wasn't so profitable as the +laundry, but it was more genteel, and Cyril being now in a position of +trust at the bank, she must consider <i>him</i>. Cyril<a name="Page_170"></a> swept out the bank. +People laughed about it, but, do you know, I rather liked Mrs. Winslow +for it. She isn't in the least an assertive woman. How long have we been +up here, Maggie? Isn't it four years? And they have been our next-door +neighbors, and she has never been inside the house. Nor he either, for +that matter, except once when it took fire, you know, and he came in +with that funny little chemical engine tucked under his arm, and took +off his hat in the same prim, polite way that he takes it off when he +talks to Sibyl, and said, 'If you'll excuse me offering advice, Miss +Hopkins, it is not necessary to move anything; it mars furniture very +much to move it at a fire. I think, if you will allow me, I can +extinguish this.' And he did, too, didn't he, as neatly and as coolly as +if it were only adding up a column of figures. And offered me the engine +as a souvenir."</p> + +<p>"Lorania, you never told me that!"</p> + +<p>"It seemed like making fun of him, when he had been so kind. I declined +as civilly as I could. I hope I didn't hurt his feelings. I meant to pay +a visit to his mother and ask them to dinner, but you know I went to +England that week, and somehow when I came back it was difficult. It +seems a little odd we<a name="Page_171"></a> never have seen more of the Winslows, but I fancy +they don't want either to intrude or to be intruded on. But he is +certainly very obliging about the garden. Think of all the slips and +flowers he has given us, and the advice—"</p> + +<p>"All passed over the fence. It is funny our neighborly good offices +which we render at arm's-length. How long have you known him?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a long time. He is cashier of my bank, you know. First he was +teller, then assistant cashier, and now for five years he has been +cashier. The president wants to resign and let him be president, but he +hardly has enough stock for that. But Oliver says" (Oliver was Miss +Hopkins's brother) "that there isn't a shrewder or straighter banker in +the state. Oliver knows him. He says he is a sandy little fellow."</p> + +<p>"Well, he is," assented Mrs. Ellis. "It isn't many cashiers would let +robbers stab them and shoot them and leave them for dead rather than +give up the combination of the safe!"</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't take a cent for it, either, and he saved ever so many +thousand dollars. Yes, he <i>is</i> brave. I went to the same school with him +once, and saw him fight a big boy twice his size—such a nas<a name="Page_172"></a>ty boy, who +called me 'Fatty,' and made a kissing noise with his lips just to scare +me—and poor little Cyril Winslow got awfully beaten, and when I saw him +on the ground, with his nose bleeding and that big brute pounding him, I +ran to the water-bucket, and poured the whole bucket on that big, +bullying boy and stopped the fight, just as the teacher got on the +scene. I cried over little Cyril Winslow. He was crying himself. 'I +ain't crying because he hurt me,' he sobbed; 'I'm crying because I'm so +mad I didn't lick him!' I wonder if he remembers that episode?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ellis.</p> + +<p>"Maggie, what makes you think he is falling in love with Sibyl?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis laughed. "I dare say he <i>isn't</i> in love with Sibyl," said +she. "I think the main reason was his always riding by here instead of +taking the shorter road down the other street."</p> + +<p>"Does he always ride by here? I hadn't noticed."</p> + +<p>"Always!" said Mrs. Ellis. "<i>I</i> have noticed."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry for him," said Lorania, musingly. "I think Sibyl is very +much taken with that young Captain Carr at the Arsenal. Young girls +always affect the army. He is a nice fellow, but I<a name="Page_173"></a> don't think he is +the man Winslow is. Now, Maggie, advise me about the suit. I don't want +to look like the escaped fat lady of a museum."</p> + +<p>Lorania thought no more of Sibyl's love-affairs. If she thought of the +Winslows, it was to wish that Mrs. Winslow would sell or rent her +pasture, which, in addition to her own and Mrs. Ellis's pastures thrown +into one, would make such a delightful bicycle-track.</p> + +<p>The Winslow house was very different from the two villas that were the +pride of Fairport. A little story-and-a-half cottage peeped out on the +road behind the tall maples that were planted when Winslow was a boy. +But there was a wonderful green velvet lawn, and the tulips and +sweet-peas and pansies that blazed softly nearer the house were as +beautiful as those over which Miss Lorania's gardener toiled and +worried.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winslow was a little woman who showed the fierce struggle of her +early life only in the deeper lines between her delicate eyebrows and +the expression of melancholy patience in her brown eyes.</p> + +<p>She always wore a widow's cap and a black gown. In the mornings she +donned a blue figured apron of stout and serviceable stuff; in the +afternoon an apron of<a name="Page_174"></a> that sheer white lawn used by bishops and smart +young waitresses. Of an afternoon, in warm weather, she was accustomed +to sit on the eastern piazza, next to the Hopkins place, and rock as she +sewed. She was thus sitting and sewing when she beheld an extraordinary +procession cross the Hopkins lawn. First marched the tall trainer, Shuey +Cardigan, who worked by day in the Lossing furniture-factory, and gave +bicycle lessons at the armory evenings. He was clad in a white sweater +and buff leggings, and was wheeling a lady's bicycle. Behind him walked +Miss Hopkins in a gray suit, the skirt of which only came to her +ankles—she always so dignified in her toilets.</p> + +<p>"Land's sakes!" gasped Mrs. Winslow, "if she ain't going to ride a bike! +Well, what next?"</p> + +<p>What really happened next was the sneaking (for no other word does +justice to the cautious and circuitous movements of her) of Mrs. Winslow +to the stable, which had one window facing the Hopkins pasture. No cows +were grazing in the pasture. All around the grassy plateau twinkled a +broad brownish-yellow track. At one side of this track a bench had been +placed, and a table, pleasing to the eye, with jugs and glasses. Mrs.<a name="Page_175"></a> +Ellis, in a suit of the same undignified brevity and ease as Miss +Hopkins's, sat on the bench supporting her own wheel. Shuey Cardigan was +drawn up to his full six feet of strength, and, one arm in the air, was +explaining the theory of the balance of power. It was an uncanny moment +to Lorania. She eyed the glistening, restless thing that slipped beneath +her hand, and her fingers trembled. If she could have fled in secret she +would. But since flight was not possible, she assumed a firm expression. +Mrs. Ellis wore a smile of studied and sickly cheerfulness.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think it very <i>high</i>?" said Lorania. "I can <i>never</i> get up on +it!"</p> + +<p>"It will be by the block at first," said Shuey, in the soothing tones of +a jockey to a nervous horse; "it's easy by the block. And I'll be +steadying it, of course."</p> + +<p>"Don't they have any with larger saddles? It is a <i>very</i> small saddle."</p> + +<p>"They're all of a size. It wouldn't look sporty larger; it would look +like a special make. Yous wouldn't want a special make."</p> + +<p>Lorania thought that she would be thankful for a special make, but she +suppressed the unsportsmanlike thought. "The pedals are very small too, +Cardigan. Are you <i>sure</i> they can hold me?"</p><a name="Page_176"></a> + +<p>"They would hold two of ye, Miss Hopkins. Now sit aisy and graceful as +ye would on your chair at home, hold the shoulders back, and toe in a +bit on the pedals—ye won't be skinning your ankles so much then—and +hold your foot up ready to get the other pedal. Hold light on the +steering-bar. Push off hard. <i>Now!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Will you hold me? I am going—Oh, it's like riding an earthquake!"</p> + +<p>Here Shuey made a run, letting the wheel have its own wild way—to reach +the balance. "Keep the front wheel under you!" he cried, cheerfully. +"Niver mind <i>where</i> you go. Keep a-pedalling; whatever you do, keep +a-pedalling!"</p> + +<p>"But I haven't got but one pedal!" gasped the rider.</p> + +<p>"Ye lost it?"</p> + +<p>"No; I <i>never had</i> but one! Oh, don't let me fall!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, ye lost it in the beginning; now, then, I'll hold it steady, and +you get both feet right. Here we go!"</p> + +<p>Swaying frightfully from side to side, and wrenched from capsizing the +wheel by the full exercise of Shuey's great muscles, Miss Hopkins reeled +over the track. At short intervals she lost her pedals, and her feet, +for some strange reason, instead<a name="Page_177"></a> of seeking the lost, simply curled up +as if afraid of being hit. She gripped the steering-handles with an iron +grasp, and her turns were such as an engine makes. Nevertheless, Shuey +got her up the track for some hundred feet, and then by a herculean +sweep turned her round and rolled her back to the block. It was at this +painful moment, when her whole being was concentrated on the effort to +keep from toppling against Shuey, and even more to keep from toppling +away from him, that Lorania's strained gaze suddenly fell on the +frightened and sympathetic face of Mrs. Winslow. The good woman saw no +fun in the spectacle, but rather an awful risk to life and limb. Their +eyes met. Not a change passed over Miss Hopkins's features; but she +looked up as soon as she was safe on the ground, and smiled. In a +moment, before Mrs. Winslow could decide whether to run or to stand her +ground, she saw the cyclist approaching—on foot.</p> + +<p>"Won't you come in and sit down?" she said, smiling. "We are trying our +new wheels."</p> + +<p>And because she did not know how to refuse, Mrs. Winslow suffered +herself to be handed over the fence. She sat on the bench beside Miss +Hopkins in the prim attitude which had pertained to<a name="Page_178"></a> gentility in her +youth, her hands loosely clasping each other, her feet crossed at the +ankles.</p> + +<p>"It's an awful sight, ain't it?" she breathed, "those little shiny +things; I don't see how you ever git on them."</p> + +<p>"I don't get on them," said Miss Hopkins. "The only way I shall ever +learn to start off is to start without the pedals. Does your son ride, +Mrs. Winslow?"</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am," said Mrs. Winslow; "but he knows how. When he was a boy +nothing would do but he must have a bicycle, one of those things most as +big as a mill wheel, and if you fell off you broke yourself somewhere, +sure. I always expected he'd be brought home in pieces. So I don't think +he'd have any manner of difficulty. Why, look at your friend; she's +'most riding alone!"</p> + +<p>"She could always do everything better than I," cried Lorania, with +ungrudging admiration. "See how she jumps off! Now I can't jump off any +more than I can jump on. It seems so ridiculous to be told to press hard +on the pedal on the side where you want to jump, and swing your further +leg over first, and cut a kind of a figure eight with your legs, and +turn your wheel the way you don't want to go—all at once. While I'm +trying to think<a name="Page_179"></a> of all those directions I always fall off. I got that +wheel only yesterday, and fell before I even got away from the block. +One of my arms looks like a Persian ribbon."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winslow cried out in unfeigned sympathy. She wished Miss Hopkins +would use her liniment that she used for Cyril when he was hurt by the +burglars at the bank; he was bruised "terrible."</p> + +<p>"That must have been an awful time to you," said Lorania, looking with +more interest than she had ever felt on the meek little woman; and she +noticed the tremble in the decorously clasped hands.</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am," was all she said.</p> + +<p>"I've often looked over at you on the piazza, and thought how cosey you +looked. Mr. Winslow always seems to be at home evenings."</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am. We sit a great deal on the piazza. Cyril's a good boy; he +wa'n't nine when his father died; and he's been like a man helping me. +There never was a boy had such willing little feet. And he'd set right +there on the steps and pat my slipper and say what he'd git me when he +got to earning money; and he's got me every last thing, foolish and all, +that he said. There's that black satin gown, a sin and a shame for a +plain body like me,<a name="Page_180"></a> but he would git it. Cyril's got a beautiful +disposition too, jest like his pa's, and he's a handy man about the +house, and prompt at his meals. I wonder sometimes if Cyril was to git +married if his wife would mind his running over now and then and setting +with me awhile."</p> + +<p>She was speaking more rapidly, and her eyes strayed wistfully over to +the Hopkins piazza, where Sibyl was sitting with the young soldier. +Lorania looked at her pityingly.</p> + +<p>"Why, surely," said she.</p> + +<p>"Mothers have kinder selfish feelings," said Mrs. Winslow, moistening +her lips and drawing a quick breath, still watching the girl on the +piazza. "It's so sweet and peaceful for them, they forget their sons may +want something more. But it's kinder hard giving all your little +comforts up at once when you've had him right with you so long, and +could cook just what he liked, and go right into his room nights if he +coughed. It's all right, all right, but it's kinder hard. And beautiful +young ladies that have had everything all their lives might—might not +understand that a homespun old mother isn't wanting to force herself on +them at all when they have company, and they have no call to fear it."</p><a name="Page_181"></a> + +<p>There was no doubt, however obscure the words seemed, that Mrs. Winslow +had a clear purpose in her mind, nor that she was tremendously in +earnest. Little blotches of red dabbled her cheeks, her breath came more +quickly, and she swallowed between her words. Lorania could see the +quiver in the muscles of her throat. She clasped her hands tight lest +they should shake. "He's in love with Sibyl," thought Lorania. "The poor +woman!" She felt sorry for her, and she spoke gently and reassuringly:</p> + +<p>"No girl with a good heart can help feeling tenderly towards her +husband's mother."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Winslow nodded. "You're real comforting," said she. She was silent +a moment, and then said, in a different tone: "You 'ain't got a large +enough track. Wouldn't you like to have our pasture too?"</p> + +<p>Lorania expressed her gratitude, and invited the Winslows to see the +practice.</p> + +<p>"My niece will come out to-morrow," she said, graciously.</p> + +<p>"Yes? She's a real fine-appearing young lady," said Mrs. Winslow.</p> + +<p>Both the cyclists exulted. Neither of them, however, was prepared to +behold the track made and the fence down the<a name="Page_182"></a> very next morning when +they came out, about ten o'clock, to the west side of Miss Hopkins's +boundaries.</p> + +<p>"As sure as you live, Maggie," exclaimed Lorania, eagerly, "he's got it +all done! Now that is something like a lover. I only hope his heart +won't be bruised as black and blue as I am with the wheel!"</p> + +<p>"Shuey says the only harm your falls do you is to take away your +confidence," said Mrs. Ellis.</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't say so if he could see my <i>knees</i>!" retorted Miss Hopkins.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis, it will be observed, sheered away from the love-affairs of +Mr. Cyril Winslow. She had not yet made up her mind. And Mrs. Ellis, who +had been married, did not jump at conclusions regarding the heart of man +so rapidly as her spinster friend. She preferred to talk of the bicycle. +Nor did Miss Hopkins refuse the subject. To her at this moment the most +important object on the globe was the shining machine which she would +allow no hand but hers to oil and dust. Both Mrs. Ellis and she were +simply prostrated (as to their mental powers) by this new sport. They +could not think nor talk nor read of anything but <i>the wheel</i>. This is a +peculiarity of the bicyclist. No<a name="Page_183"></a> other sport appears to make such havoc +with the mind.</p> + +<p>One can learn to swim without describing his sensations to every casual +acquaintance or hunting up the natatorial columns in the newspapers. One +may enjoy riding a horse and yet go about his ordinary business with an +equal mind. One learns to play golf and still remains a peaceful citizen +who can discuss politics with interest. But the cyclist, man or woman, +is soaked in every pore with the delight and the perils of wheeling. He +talks of it (as he thinks of it) incessantly. For this fatuous passion +there is one excuse. Other sports have the fearful delight of danger and +the pleasure of the consciousness of dexterity and the dogged +Anglo-Saxon joy of combat and victory; but no other sport restores to +middle age the pure, exultant, muscular intoxication of childhood. Only +on the wheel can an elderly woman feel as she felt when she ran and +leaped and frolicked amid the flowers as a child.</p> + +<p>Lorania, of course, no longer jumped or ran; she kicked in the Delsarte +exercises, but it was a measured, calculated, one may say cold-blooded +kick, which limbered her muscles but did not restore her youthful glow +of soul. Her legs and not<a name="Page_184"></a> her spirits pranced. The same thing may be +said for Margaret Ellis. Now, between their accidents, they obtained +glimpses of an exquisite exhilaration. And there was also to be counted +the approval of their consciences, for they felt that no Turkish bath +could wring out moisture from their systems like half an hour's pumping +at the bicycle treadles. Lorania during the month had ridden through one +bottle of liniment and two of witch-hazel, and by the end of the second +bottle could ride a short distance alone. But Lorania could not yet +dismount unassisted, and several times she had felled poor Winslow to +the earth when he rashly adventured to stop her. Captain Carr had a +peculiar, graceful fling of the arm, catching the saddle-bar with one +hand while he steadied the handles with the other. He did not hesitate +in the least to grab Lorania's belt if necessary. But poor modest +Winslow, who fell upon the wheel and dared not touch the hem of a lady's +bicycle skirt, was as one in the path of a cyclone, and appeared daily +in a fresh pair of white trousers.</p> + +<p>"Yous have now," Shuey remarked, impressively, one day—"yous have now +arrived at the most difficult and dangerous period in learning the +wheel. It's<a name="Page_185"></a> similar to a baby when it's first learned to walk but +'ain't yet got sense in walking. When it was little it would stay put +wherever ye put it, and it didn't know enough to go by itself, which is +similar to you. When I was holding ye you couldn't fall, but now you're +off alone depindent on yourself, object-struck by every tree, taking +most of the pasture to turn in, and not able to git off save by +falling—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, couldn't you go with her somehow?" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow, appalled +at the picture. "Wouldn't a rope round her be some help? I used to put +it round Cyril when he was learning to walk."</p> + +<p>"Well, no, ma'am," said Shuey, patiently. "Don't you be scared; the +riding will come; she's getting on grandly. And ye should see Mr. +Winslow. 'Tis a pleasure to teach him. He rode in one lesson. I ain't +learning him nothing but tricks now."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Winslow, why don't you ride here—with us?" said Sibyl, with +her coquettish and flattering smile. "We're always hearing of your +beautiful riding. Are we never to see it?"</p> + +<p>"I think Mr. Winslow is waiting for that swell English cycle suit that I +hear about," said the captain, grinning; and Winslow grew red to his +eyelids.</p><a name="Page_186"></a> + +<p>Lorania gave an indignant side glance at Sibyl. Why need the girl make +game of an honest man who loved her? Sibyl was biting her lips and +darting side glances at the captain. She called the pasture practice +slow, but she seemed, nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on the +bench, the captain on one side and Winslow on the other, rattling off +her girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. Ellis, with the anxious, set +faces of the beginner, were pedalling frantically after Cardigan. +Lorania began to pity Winslow, for it was growing plain to her that +Sibyl and the captain understood each other. She thought that even if +Sibyl did care for the soldier, she need not be so careless of Winslow's +feelings. She talked with the cashier herself, trying to make amends for +Sibyl's absorption in the other man, and she admired the fortitude that +concealed the pain that he must feel. It became quite the expected thing +for the Winslows to be present at the practice; but Winslow had not yet +appeared on his wheel. He used to bring a box of candy with him, or +rather three boxes—one for each lady, he said—and a box of peppermints +for his mother. He was always very attentive to his mother.</p> + +<p>"And fancy, Aunt Margaret," laughed<a name="Page_187"></a> Sibyl, "he has asked both auntie +and me to the theatre. He is not going to compromise himself by singling +one of us out. He's a careful soul. By the way, Aunt Margaret, Mrs. +Winslow was telling me yesterday that I am the image of auntie at my +age. Am I? Do I look like her? Was she as slender as I?"</p> + +<p>"Almost," said Mrs. Ellis, who was not so inflexibly truthful as her +friend.</p> + +<p>"No, Sibyl," said Lorania, with a deep, deep sigh, "I was always plump; +I was a chubby <i>child</i>! And oh, what do you think I heard in the crowd +at Manly's once? One woman said to another, 'Miss Hopkins has got a +wheel.' 'Miss Sibyl?' said the other. 'No; the stout Miss Hopkins,' said +the first creature; and the second—" Lorania groaned.</p> + +<p>"What <i>did</i> she say to make you feel that way?"</p> + +<p>"She said—she said, 'Oh my!'" answered Lorania, with a dying look.</p> + +<p>"Well, she was horrid," said Mrs. Ellis; "but you know you have grown +thin. Come on; let's ride!"</p> + +<p>"I <i>never</i> shall be able to ride," said Lorania, gloomily. "I can get +on, but I can't get off. And they've taken off the brake, so I can't +stop. And I'm object-struck by everything I look at. Some<a name="Page_188"></a> day I shall +look down-hill. Well, my will's in the lower drawer of the mahogany +desk."</p> + +<p>Perhaps Lorania had an occult inkling of the future. For this is what +happened: That evening Winslow rode on to the track in his new English +bicycle suit, which had just come. He hoped that he didn't look like a +fool in those queer clothes. But the instant he entered the pasture he +saw something that drove everything else out of his head, and made him +bend over the steering-bar and race madly across the green; Miss +Hopkins's bicycle was running away down-hill! Cardigan, on foot, was +pelting obliquely, in the hopeless thought to intercept her, while Mrs. +Ellis, who was reeling over the ground with her own bicycle, wheeled as +rapidly as she could to the brow of the hill, where she tumbled off, and +abandoning the wheel, rushed on foot to her friend's rescue.</p> + +<p>She was only in time to see a flash of silver and ebony and a streak of +brown dart before her vision and swim down the hill like a bird. Lorania +was still in the saddle, pedalling from sheer force of habit, and +clinging to the handle bars. Below the hill was a stone wall, and +farther was a creek. There was a narrow<a name="Page_189"></a> opening in the wall where the +cattle went down to drink; if she could steer through that she would +have nothing worse than soft water and mud; but there was not one chance +in a thousand that she could pass that narrow space. Mrs. Winslow, +horror-stricken, watched the rescuer, who evidently was cutting across +to catch the bicycle.</p> + +<p>"He's riding out of sight!" thought Shuey, in the rear. He himself did +not slacken his speed, although he could not be in time for the +catastrophe. Suddenly he stiffened; Winslow was close to the runaway +wheel.</p> + +<p>"Grab her!" yelled Shuey. "Grab her by the belt! <i>Oh, Lord!</i>"</p> + +<p>The exclamation exploded like the groan of a shell. For while Winslow's +bicycling was all that could be wished, and he flung himself in the path +of the on-coming wheel with marvellous celerity and precision, he had +not the power to withstand the never yet revealed number of pounds +carried by Miss Lorania, impelled by the rapid descent and gathering +momentum at every whirl. They met; he caught her; but instantly he was +rolling down the steep incline and she was doubled up on the grass. He +crashed sickeningly against the stone wall; she<a name="Page_190"></a> lay stunned and still +on the sod; and their friends, with beating hearts, slid down to them. +Mrs. Winslow was on the brow of the hill. She blesses Shuey to this day +for the shout he sent up, "Nobody killed, and I guess no bones broken."</p> + +<p>When Margaret went home that evening, having seen her friend safely in +bed, not much the worse for her fall, she was told that Cardigan wished +to see her. Shuey produced something from his pocket, saying: "I picked +this up on the hill, ma'am, after the accident. It maybe belongs to him, +or it maybe belongs to her; I'm thinking the safest way is to just give +it to you." He handed Mrs. Ellis a tiny gold-framed miniature of Lorania +in a red leather case.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>The morning was a sparkling June morning, dewy and fragrant, and the +sunlight burnished handle and pedal of the friends' bicycles standing on +the piazza unheeded. It was the hour for morning practice, but Miss +Hopkins slept in her chamber, and Mrs. Ellis sat in the little parlor +adjoining, and thought.</p> + +<p>She did not look surprised at the maid's announcement that Mrs. Winslow +begged to see her for a few moments. Mrs.<a name="Page_191"></a> Winslow was pale. She was a +good sketch of discomfort on the very edge of her chair, clad in the +black silk which she wore Sundays, her head crowned with her bonnet of +state, and her hands stiff in a pair of new gloves.</p> + +<p>"I hope you'll excuse me not sending up a card," she began. "Cyril got +me some going on a year ago, and I <i>thought</i> I could lay my hand right +on 'em, but I'm so nervous this morning I hunted all over, and they +wasn't anywhere. I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask if you picked up +anything—a little red Russia-leather case—"</p> + +<p>"Was it a miniature—a miniature of my friend Miss Hopkins?"</p> + +<p>"I thought it all over, and I came to explain. You no doubt think it +strange; and I can assure you that my son never let any human being look +at that picture. I never knew about it myself till it was lost and he +got out of his bed—he ain't hardly able to walk—and staggered over +here to look for it, and I followed him; and so he <i>had</i> to tell me. He +had it painted from a picture that came out in the papers. He felt it +was an awful liberty. But—you don't know how my boy feels, Mrs. Ellis; +he has worshipped that woman for years. He 'ain't never<a name="Page_192"></a> had a thought +of anybody but her since they was children in school; and yet he's been +so modest and so shy of pushing himself forward that he didn't do a +thing until I put him on to help you with this bicycle."</p> + +<p>Margaret Ellis did not know what to say. She thought of the marquis; and +Mrs. Winslow poured out her story: "He 'ain't never said a word to me +till this morning. But don't I <i>know</i>? Don't I know who looked out so +careful for her investments? Don't I know who was always looking out for +her interest, silent, and always keeping himself in the background? Why, +she couldn't even buy a cow that he wa'n't looking round to see that she +got a good one! 'Twas him saw the gardener, and kept him from buying +that cow with tuberculosis, 'cause he knew about the herd. He knew by +finding out. He worshipped the very cows she owned, you may say, and +I've seen him patting and feeding up her dogs; it's to our house that +big mastiff always goes every night. Mrs. Ellis, it ain't often that a +woman gits love such as my son is offering, only he da'sn't offer it, +and it ain't often a woman is loved by such a good man as my son. He +'ain't got any bad habits; he'll die before he wrongs anybody; and he +has<a name="Page_193"></a> got the sweetest temper you ever see; and he's the tidiest man +about the house you could ask, and the promptest about meals."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis looked at her flushed face, and sent another flood of color +into it, for she said, "Mrs. Winslow, I don't know how much good I may +be able to do, but I am on your side."</p> + +<p>Her eyes followed the little black figure when it crossed the lawn. She +wondered whether her advice was good, for she had counselled that +Winslow come over in the evening.</p> + +<p>"Maggie," said a voice. Lorania was in the doorway. "Maggie," she said, +"I ought to tell you that I heard every word."</p> + +<p>"Then <i>I</i> can tell <i>you</i>," cried Mrs. Ellis, "that he is fifty times +more of a man than the marquis, and loves you fifty thousand times +better!"</p> + +<p>Lorania made no answer, not even by a look. What she felt, Mrs. Ellis +could not guess. Nor was she any wiser when Winslow appeared at her +gate, just as the sun was setting.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think I would better intrude on Miss Hopkins," said he, "but +perhaps you could tell me how she is this evening. My mother told me how +kind you were, and perhaps you—you would ad<a name="Page_194"></a>vise if I might venture to +send Miss Hopkins some flowers."</p> + +<p>Out of the kindness of her heart Mrs. Ellis averted her eyes from his +face; thus she was able to perceive Lorania saunter out of the Hopkins +gate. So changed was she by the bicycle practice that, wrapped in her +niece's shawl, she made Margaret think of the girl. An inspiration +flashed to her; she knew the cashier's dependence on his eye-glasses, +and he was not wearing them.</p> + +<p>"If you want to know how Miss Hopkins is, why not speak to her niece +now?" said she.</p> + +<p>He started. He saw Miss Sibyl, as he supposed, and he went swiftly down +the street. "Miss Sibyl!" he began, "may I ask how is your aunt?"—and +then she turned.</p> + +<p>She blushed, then she laughed aloud. "Has the bicycle done so much for +me?" said she.</p> + +<p>"The bicycle didn't need to do <i>anything</i> for you!" he cried, warmly.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis, a little distance in the rear, heard, turned, and walked +thoughtfully away. "They're off," said she—she had acquired a sporting +tinge of thought from Shuey Cardigan. "If with that start he can't make +the running, it's a wonder."</p><a name="Page_195"></a> + +<p>"I have invited Mr. Winslow and his mother to dinner," said Miss +Hopkins, in the morning. "Will you come too, Maggie?"</p> + +<p>"I'll back him against the marquis," thought Margaret, gleefully.</p> + +<p>A week later Lorania said: "I really think I must be getting thinner. +Fancy Mr. Winslow, who is so clear-sighted, mistaking me for Sibyl! He +says—I told him how I had suffered from my figure—he says it can't be +what he has suffered from his. Do you think him so very short, Maggie? +Of course he isn't tall, but he has an elegant figure, I think, and I +never saw anywhere such a rider!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ellis answered, heartily, "He isn't very small, and he is a +beautiful figure on the wheel!" And added to herself, "I know what was +in that letter she sent yesterday to the marquis! But to think of its +all being due to the bicycle!"</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<a name="Esther"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Marrying of Esther<a name="Page_196"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Mary M. Mears</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"Set there and cry; it's so sensible; and I 'ain't said that a June +weddin' wouldn't be a little nicer. But what you goin' to live on? Joe +can't git his money that soon."</p> + +<p>"He—said he thought he could manage. But I won't be married at all if I +can't have it—right."</p> + +<p>"Well, you can have it right. All is, there are some folks in this town +that if they don't calculate doin' real well by you, I don't feel called +upon to invite."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean," sobbed the girl. She sat by the kitchen +table, her face hidden in her arms. Her mother stood looking at her +tenderly, and yet with a certain anger.</p> + +<p>"I mean about the presents. You've worked in the church, you've sung in +the choir for years, and now it's a chance for folks to show that they +appreciate it, and without they're goin' to—Boxes of cake<a name="Page_197"></a> would be +plenty if they wa'n't goin' to serve you any better than they did Ella +Plummet."</p> + +<p>Esther Robinson lifted her head. She was quite large, in a soft young +way, and her skin was as pure as a baby's. "But you can't know +beforehand how they're going to treat me!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I can know beforehand, too, and if you're set on next month, it's +none too soon to be seein' about it. I've a good mind to step over to +Mis' Lawrence's and Mis' Stetson's this afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Mother! You—wouldn't ask 'em anything?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Robinson hung away her dishtowel; then she faced Esther. "Of course +I wouldn't <i>ask</i> 'em; there's other ways of findin' out besides +<i>asking</i>. I'd bring the subject round by saying I hoped there wouldn't +be many duplicates, and I'd git out of 'em what they intended givin' +without seemin' to." Esther looked at her mother with a sort of +fascination. "Then we could give some idea about the refreshments; for I +ain't a-goin' to have no elaborate layout without I <i>do</i> know; and it +ain't because I grudge the money, either," she added, in swift +self-defence.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Robinson was a good manager of<a name="Page_198"></a> the moderate means her husband had +left her, but she was not parsimonious or inhospitable. Now she was +actuated by a fierce maternal jealousy. Esther, despite her pleasant +ways and her helpfulness, was often overlooked in a social way. This was +due to her mother. The more pretentious laughed about Mrs. Robinson, and +though the thrifty, contented housewife never missed the amenities which +might have been extended to her, she was keenly alive to any slights put +upon her daughter. And so it was now.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lawrence, a rich, childless old lady, lived next door, and about +four o'clock she went over there. The girl watched her departure +doubtfully, but the possibility of not having a large wedding kept her +from giving a full expression to her feelings.</p> + +<p>Esther had always dreamed of her wedding; she had looked forward to it +just as definitely before she met Joe Elsworth as after her engagement +to him. There would be flowers and guests and feasting, and she would be +the centre of it all in a white dress and veil.</p> + +<p>She had never thought about there being any presents. Now for the first +time she thought of them as an added glory, but her imagination did not +extend to the<a name="Page_199"></a> separate articles or to their givers. Esther never +pictured her uncle Jonas at the wedding, yet he would surely be in +attendance in his rough farmer clothes, his grizzled, keen old face +towering above the other guests. She did not picture her friends as she +really knew them; the young men would be fine gentlemen, and the girls +ladies in wonderful toilets. As for herself and Joe, hidden away in a +bureau drawer Esther had a poster of one of Frohman's plays. It +represented a bride and groom standing together in a drift of orange +blossoms.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Robinson did not return at supper-time, and Esther ate alone. At +eight o'clock Joe Elsworth came. She met him at the door, and they +kissed in the entry. Then Joe preceded her in, and hung up his cap on a +projecting knob of the what-not—that was where he always put it. He +glanced into the dining-room and took in the waiting table.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you had supper yet!"</p> + +<p>"Mother isn't home."</p> + +<p>He came towards her swiftly; his eyes shone with a sudden elated +tenderness. She raised her arms and turned away her face, but he swept +aside the ineffectual barrier. When he let her go she seated herself on +the farther side of the room.<a name="Page_200"></a> Her glance was full of a soft rebuke. He +met it, then looked down smilingly and awkwardly at his shoes.</p> + +<p>"Where did you say your ma had gone?"</p> + +<p>"She's gone to Mis' Lawrence's, and a few other places."</p> + +<p>"Oh, calling. Old Mis' Norton goes about twice a year, and I ask her +what it amounts to."</p> + +<p>"I guess you'll find ma's calls'll amount to something."</p> + +<p>"How's that?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"She's—going to try and find out what they intend giving."</p> + +<p>"What they intend giving?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. And without they intend giving something worth while, she says she +won't invite 'em, and maybe we won't have a big wedding at all," she +finished, pathetically.</p> + +<p>Joe did not answer. Esther stole an appealing glance at him.</p> + +<p>"Does it seem a queer thing to do?"</p> + +<p>"Well, yes, rather."</p> + +<p>Her face quivered. "She said I'd done so much for Mis' Lawrence—"</p> + +<p>"Well, you have, and I've wished a good many times that you wouldn't. +I'm sure I never knuckled to her, though she is my great-aunt."</p><a name="Page_201"></a> + +<p>"I never knuckled to her, either," protested Esther.</p> + +<p>"You've done a sight more for her than I would have done, fixin' her +dresses and things, and she with more money than anybody else in town. +But your mother ain't going to call on everybody, is she?" he asked, +anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Of course she ain't. Only she said, if it was going to be in June—but +I don't want it to be ever," she added, covering her face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's all right," said Joe, penitently. He went over and put his arm +around her. Nevertheless, his eyes held a worried look.</p> + +<p>Joe's father had bound him out to a farmer by the name of Norton until +his majority, when the sum of seven hundred dollars, all the little +fortune the father had left, together with three hundred more from +Norton, was to be turned over to him. But Joe would not be twenty-one +until October. It was going to be difficult for him to arrange for the +June wedding Esther desired. He was very much in love, however, and +presently he lifted his boyish cheek from her hair.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll take that cottage of Lanham's; it's the only vacant house +in the village, and he's promised to wait for the<a name="Page_202"></a> rent, so that +confounded old Norton needn't advance me a cent."</p> + +<p>Esther flushed. "What do you suppose makes him act so?" she questioned, +though she knew.</p> + +<p>Joe blushed too. "He don't like it because I'm going to work in the +factory when it opens. But Mis' Norton and Sarah have done everything +for me," he added, decidedly.</p> + +<p>Up to the time of his engagement Joe had been in the habit of showing +Sarah Norton an occasional brotherly attention, and he would have +continued to do so had not Esther and Mrs. Robinson interfered—Esther +from girlish jealousy, and her mother because she did not approve of the +family, she said. She could not say she did not approve of Sarah, for +there was not a more upright, self-respecting girl in the village. But +Sarah, because of her father's miserliness, often went out for extra +work when the neighbors needed help, and this was the real cause of Mrs. +Robinson's feeling. Unconsciously she made the same distinction between +Sarah Norton and Esther that some of the more ambitious of the village +mothers made between their girls and her own daughter. Then it was +common talk that old Jim Norton, for obvi<a name="Page_203"></a>ous reasons, was displeased +with Joe's matrimonial plans, but Mrs. Robinson professed to believe +that the wife and daughter were really the ones disappointed. Now Esther +began twisting a button of Joe's coat.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe mother'll ask either of 'em to the wedding," said she.</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Robinson entered, Esther stood expectant and fearful by the +table. Her mother drew up a chair and reached for the bread.</p> + +<p>"I didn't stop anywhere for supper. You've had yours, 'ain't you?"</p> + +<p>The girl nodded.</p> + +<p>"Joe come?"</p> + +<p>"He just left."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Robinson was not to be hurried into divulging the result of her +calls. She remained massively mysterious. Esther began to wish she had +not hurried Joe off so unceremoniously. After her first cup of tea, +however, her mother asked for a slip of paper and a pencil. "I want that +pencil in my machine drawer, that writes black, and any kind of paper'll +do," she said.</p> + +<p>Esther brought them; then she took up her sewing. She was not without a +certain self-restraint. Mrs. Robinson, between her sips of tea, wrote. +The soft<a name="Page_204"></a> gurgle of her drinking annoyed Esther, and she had a tingling +desire to snatch the paper. After a last misdirected placing of her cup +in her plate, however, her mother looked up and smiled triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"I guess we'll have to plan something different than boxes of cake. +Listen to this; Mis' Lawrence—No, I won't read that yet. Mis' +Manning—I went in there because I thought about her not inviting you +when she gave that library party—one salt and pepper with rose-buds +painted on 'em."</p> + +<p>Esther leaned forward; her face was crimson.</p> + +<p>"You needn't look so," remonstrated her mother. "It was all I could do +to keep from laughing at the way she acted. I just mentioned that we +were only goin' to invite those you were indebted to, and she went and +fetched out that salt and pepper. I believe she said they was intended +in the first place for some relative that didn't git married in the +end."</p> + +<p>The girl made an inarticulate noise in her throat. Her mother continued, +in a loud, impressive tone:</p> + +<p>"Mis' Stetson—something worked. She hasn't quite decided what, but +she's goin' to let me know about it. Jane Watson—"</p><a name="Page_205"></a> + +<p>"You didn't go <i>there</i>, mother!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Robinson treated her daughter to a contemptuous look. "I guess I've +got sense. Jane was at Mis' Stetson's, and when I came away she went +along with me, and insisted that I should stop and see some +lamp-lighters she'd got to copy from—those paper balls. She seemed +afraid a string of those wouldn't be enough, but I told her how pretty +they was, and how much you'd be pleased."</p> + +<p>"I guess I'll think a good deal more of 'em than I will of Mis' +Manning's salt and pepper." Esther was very near tears.</p> + +<p>"Next I went to the Rogerses, and they've about concluded to give you a +lamp; and they can afford to. Then that's all the places I've been, +except to Mis' Lawrence's, and she"—Mrs. Robinson paused for +emphasis—"she's goin' to give you a silver <i>tea-set</i>!"</p> + +<p>Esther looked at her mother, her red lips apart.</p> + +<p>"That was the first place I called, and I said pretty plain what I was +gittin' at; but after I knew about the water-set, that settled what kind +of weddin' we'd have."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>But the next morning the world looked different. Her rheumatic foot +ached, and that always affected her temper; but when<a name="Page_206"></a> they sat down to +sew, the real cause of her irascibleness came out.</p> + +<p>"Mis' Lawrence wa'n't any more civil than she need be," she remarked. "I +guess she'd decided she'd got to do something, being related to Joe. She +said she supposed you were expecting a good many presents; and I said +no, you didn't look for many, and there were some that you'd done a good +deal for that you knew better than to expect anything from. I was mad. +Then she turned kind of red, and mentioned about the water-set."</p> + +<p>And in the afternoon a young girl acquaintance added to Esther's +perturbation. "I just met Susan Rogers," she confided to the other, "and +she said they hated to give that lamp, but they supposed they were in +for it."</p> + +<p>Esther was not herself for some days. All her pretty dreams were blotted +out, and a morbid embarrassment took hold of her; but she was roused to +something like her old interest when the presents began to come in and +she saw her mother's active preparations for the wedding—the more so as +over the village seemed to have spread a pleasant excitement concerning +the event. Presents arrived from unexpected sources, so that +in<a name="Page_207"></a>vitations had to be sent afterwards to the givers. Women who had +never crossed the Robinson threshold came now like Hindoo gift-bearers +before some deity whom they wished to propitiate. Meeting there, they +exchanged droll, half-deprecating glances. Mrs. Robinson's calls had +formed the subject of much laughing comment; but weddings were not +common in Marshfield, and the desire to be bidden to this one was +universal; it spread like an epidemic.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Robinson was at first elated. She overlooked the matter of +duplicates, and accepted graciously every article that was +tendered—from a patch-work quilt to a hem-stitched handkerchief. "You +can't have too many of some things," she remarked to Esther. But later +she reversed this statement. Match-safes, photograph-frames, and pretty +nothings accumulated to an alarming extent.</p> + +<p>"Now that's the last pin-cushion you're goin' to take," she declared, as +she returned from answering a call at the door one evening. "There's +fourteen in the parlor now. Some folks seem to have gone crazy on +pin-cushions."</p> + +<p>She grew confused, and the next day she went into the parlor, which, +owing to the nature of the display, resembled a<a name="Page_208"></a> booth at a church fair, +and made an accurate list of the articles received. When she emerged, +her large, handsome face was quite flushed.</p> + +<p>"Little wabbly, fall-down things, most of 'em. It'll take you a week to +dust your house if you have all those things standin' round."</p> + +<p>"Well, I ain't goin' to put none of 'em away," declared Esther. "I like +ornaments."</p> + +<p>"Glad you do; you've got enough of 'em, land knows. <i>Ornaments!</i>" The +very word seemed to incense her. "I guess you'll find there's something +needed besides <i>ornaments</i> when you come right down to livin'. For one +thing, you're awful short of dishes and bedding, and you can't ever have +no company—unless," she added, with withering sarcasm, "you give 'em +little vases to drink out of, and put 'em to bed under a picture-drape, +with a pin-cushion or a scent-bag for a piller."</p> + +<p>And from that time Mrs. Robinson accepted no gift without first +consulting her list. It became known that she looked upon useful +articles with favor, and brooms and flat-irons and bright tinware +arrived constantly. Then it was that the heterogeneous collection began<a name="Page_209"></a> +to pall upon Esther. The water-set had not yet been presented, but its +magnificence grew upon her, and she persuaded Joe to get a +spindle-legged stand on which to place it, although he could not furnish +the cottage until October, and had gone in debt for the few necessary +things. She pictured the combination first in one corner of the little +parlor, then another, finally in a window where it could be seen, from +the road.</p> + +<p>Esther's standards did not vary greatly from her mother's, but she had a +bewildered sense that they were somehow stepping from the beaten track +of custom. On one or two points, however, she was firm. The few novels +that had come within her reach she had conned faithfully. Thus, even +before she had a lover, she had decided that the most impressive hour +for a wedding was sunrise, and had arranged the procession which was to +wend its way towards the church. And in these matters her mother, +respecting her superior judgment, stood stanchly by her.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, when the eventful morning arrived she was bitterly +disappointed. She had set her heart on having the church bell rung, and +overlooked the fact that the meeting-house bell was cracked,<a name="Page_210"></a> till Joe +reminded her. Then the weather was unexpectedly chilly. A damp fog, not +yet dispersed by the sun, hung over the barely awakened village, and the +little flower-girl shivered. She had a shawl pinned about her, and when +the procession was fairly started she tripped over it, and there was a +halt while she gathered up the roses and geraniums in her little +trembling hands and thrust them back into the basket. Celia Smith +tittered. Celia was the bridesmaid, and was accompanied by Joe's friend, +red-headed Harry Baker; and Mrs. Robinson and Uncle Jonas, who were far +behind, made the most of the delay. Mrs. Robinson often explained that +she was not a "good walker," and her brother-in-law tried jocularly to +help her along, although he used a cane himself. His weather-beaten old +face was beaming, but it was as though the smiles were set between the +wrinkles, for he kept his mouth sober. He had a flower in his +button-hole, which gave him a festive air, despite the fact that his +clothes were distinctly untidy. Several buttons were off: he had no wife +to keep them sewed on.</p> + +<p>Esther had given but one glance at him. Her head under its lace veil +bent lower and lower. The flounces of her<a name="Page_211"></a> skirt stood out about her +like the delicate bell of a hollyhock; she followed the way falteringly. +Joe, his young eyes radiant, inclined his curly head towards her, but +she did not heed him. The little procession was as an awkward garment +which hampered and abashed her; but just as they reached the church the +sun crept above the tree-tops, and from the bleakness of dawn the whole +scene warmed into the glorious beauty of a June day. The guests lost +their aspect of chilled waiting; Esther caught their admiring glances. +For one brief moment her triumph was complete; the next she had +overstepped its bounds. She went forward scarcely touching Joe's arm. +Her great desire became a definite purpose. She whispered to a member of +her Sunday-school class, a little fellow. He looked at her wonderingly +at first, then darted forward and grasped the rope which dangled down in +a corner of the vestibule. He pulled with a will, but even as the old +bell responded with a hoarse clank, his arms jerked upward, and with +curls flying and fat legs extended he ascended straight to the ceiling.</p> + +<p>"Oh, suz, the Lord's taking him right up!" shrieked an old woman, the +sepulchral explanation of the broken bell but<a name="Page_212"></a> serving to intensify her +terror; and there were others who refused to understand, even when his +sister caught him by the heels. She was very white, and she shook him +before she set him down. Too scared to realize where he was, he fought +her, his little face quite red, and his blouse strained up so that it +revealed the girth of his round little body in its knitted undershirt.</p> + +<p>"Le' me go," he whimpered; "she telled me to do it."</p> + +<p>His words broke through the general amazement like a stone through the +icy surface of a stream. The guests gave way to mirth. Some of the young +girls averted their faces; they could not look at Esther. The matrons +tilted their bonneted heads towards one another and shook softly. "I +thought at first it might be a part of the show," whispered one, "but I +guess it wasn't planned."</p> + +<p>Esther was conscious of every whisper and every glance; shame seemed to +engulf her, but she entered the church holding her head high. When they +emerged into the sunshine again, she would have been glad to run away, +but she was forced to pause while her mother made an announcement.</p> + +<p>"The refreshments will be ready by<a name="Page_213"></a> ten," she said, "and as we calculate +to keep the tables runnin' all day, those that can't come one time can +come another."</p> + +<p>After which there was a little rice-throwing, and the young couple +departed. The frolic partly revived Esther's spirits; but her mother, +toiling heavily along with a hard day's work before her, was inclined to +speak her mind. Her brother-in-law, however, restrained her.</p> + +<p>"Seems to me I never seen anything quite so cute as that little feller +a-ringin' that bell for the weddin'. Who put him up to it, anyhow?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Esther. She was so set on havin' a 'chime,' as she called it."</p> + +<p>"Well, it was a real good idee! A <i>real</i> good idee!" and he kept +repeating the phrase as though in a perfect ecstasy of appreciation.</p> + +<p>When Esther reached home, she and Joe arranged the tables in the side +yard, but when the first guest turned in at the gate her mother sent her +to the house. "Now you go into the parlor and rest. You can just as well +sit under that dove as stand under it," she said.</p> + +<p>The girl started listlessly to obey, but the next words revived her like +wine:</p> + +<p>"I declare it's Mis' Lawrence, and she's<a name="Page_214"></a> bringing that water-set; she +hung on to it till the last minit."</p> + +<p>Esther flew to her chamber and donned her veil, which she had laid +aside, then sped down-stairs; but when she passed through the parlor she +put her hands over her eyes: she wanted to look at the water-set first +with Joe. He was no longer helping her mother, and she fluttered about +looking for him. The rooms would soon be crowded, and then there would +be no opportunity to examine the wonderful gift.</p> + +<p>She darted down a foot-path that crossed the yard diagonally. It led to +a gap in the stone-wall which opened on a lane. Esther and Joe had been +in the habit of walking here of an evening. It was scarcely more than a +grassy way overhung by leaning branches of old fruit trees, but it was a +short-cut to the cottage Joe had rented. Now Esther's feet, of their own +volition, carried her here. She slid through the opening. "Joe!" she +called, and her voice had the tremulous cadence of a bird summoning its +mate; but it died away in a little smothered cry, for not a rod away was +Joe, and sitting on a large stone was Sarah Norton. They had their backs +towards her, and were engaged in such an earnest conver<a name="Page_215"></a>sation that they +did not hear her. Sarah's shoulders moved with her quick breathing; she +had a hand on Joe's arm. Esther stood staring, her thin draperies +circling about her, and her childish face pale. Then she turned, with a +swift impulse to escape, but again she paused, her eyes riveted in the +opposite direction. From where she stood the back door of her future +home was visible, and two men were carrying out furniture. Involuntarily +she opened her lips to call Joe, but no sound came. Yes, they had the +bureau; they would probably take the spindle-legged stand next. A strong +protective instinct is part of possession, and to Esther that sight was +as a magnet to steel. Down the grassy lane she sped, but so lightly that +the couple by the wall were as unobservant of her as they were of the +wind stirring the long grass.</p> + +<p>Sarah Norton rose. "I run every step of the way to get here in time. +Please, Joe!" she panted.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "It's real kind of you and your mother, Sarah, but I +guess I ain't going to touch any of the money you worked for and earned, +and I can't help but think, when I talk to Lanham—"</p> + +<p>"I tell you, you can't reason with him in his state!"</p><a name="Page_216"></a> + +<p>"Well, I'll raise it somehow."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to be quick about it, then," she returned, concisely. +"He'll be here in a few minutes, and it's cash down for the first three +months, or he'll let the other party have it."</p> + +<p>"But he promised—"</p> + +<p>"That don't make any difference. He's drunk, and he thought father'd +offer to make you an advance; but father just told him to come down +here, that you were being married, and say he'd poke all your things out +in the road without you paid."</p> + +<p>The young man turned. Sarah blocked his way. She was a tall, +good-looking girl, somewhat older than Joe, and she looked straight up +into his face.</p> + +<p>"See here, Joe; you know what makes father act so, and so do I, and so +does mother, and mother and I want you should take this money; it'll +make us feel better." Sarah flushed, but she looked at him as directly +as if she had been his sister.</p> + +<p>Joe felt an admiration for her that was almost reverence. It carried him +for the moment beyond the consideration of his own predicament.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't know what makes him act so either," he cried, hotly. "Oh<a name="Page_217"></a> +Lord, Sarah, you sha'n't say such a thing!"</p> + +<p>She interrupted him. "Won't you take it?"</p> + +<p>He turned again: "You're just as good as you can be, but I can manage +some way."</p> + +<p>"I'll watch for Lanham," she answered, quietly, "and keep him talking as +long as I can. He's just drunk enough to make a scene."</p> + +<p>Half-way to the house, Joe met Harry Barker.</p> + +<p>"What did she want?" he inquired, curiously.</p> + +<p>When Joe told him he plunged into his pocket and drew out two dollars, +then offered to go among the young fellows and collect the balance of +the amount, but Joe caught hold of him.</p> + +<p>"Think of something else."</p> + +<p>"I could explain to the boys—"</p> + +<p>"You go and ask Mrs. Lawrence if she won't step out on the porch," the +other commanded; "she's my great-aunt, and I never asked anything of her +before."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Lawrence was not sympathetic. She told Joe flatly that she +never lent money, and that the water-set was as much as she could afford +to give. "It ain't paid for, though," she added; "and<a name="Page_218"></a> if you'd rather +have the money, I suppose I can send it back. But seems to me I +shouldn't have been in such an awful hurry to git married; I should 'a' +waited a month or so, till I had something to git married on. But you're +just like your father—never had no calculation. Do you want I should +return that silver?"</p> + +<p>Joe hesitated. It was an easy way out of the difficulty. Then a vision +of Esther rose before him, and the innocent preparations she had been +making for the display of the gift; "No," he answered, shortly. And Mrs. +Lawrence, with a shake of the shoulders as though she threw off all +responsibility in her young relative's affairs, bustled away. "I'm going +to keep that water-set if everything else has to go," he declared to the +astonished Harry. "Let 'em set me out in the road; I guess I'll git +along." He had a humorous vision of himself and Esther trudging forth, +with the water-set between them, to seek their fortune.</p> + +<p>He flung himself from the porch, and was confronted by Jonas Ingram. The +old fellow emerged from behind a lilac-bush with a guilty yet excited +air.</p> + +<p>"Young man, I ain't given to eaves-dropping, but I was strollin' along +here and I heered it all; and as I was calcula<a name="Page_219"></a>tin' to give my niece a +present—" He broke off and laid a hand on Joe's arm. "Where is that +dod-blasted fool of a Lanham? I'll pay him; then I'll break every bone +in his dum body!" he exclaimed, waxing profane. "Come here disturbin' +decent folks' weddin's! Where is he?"</p> + +<p>He started off down the path, striking out savagely with his stick. Joe +watched him a moment, then put after him, and Harry Barker followed.</p> + +<p>"If this ain't the liveliest weddin'!"</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he was disappointed in his expectations of an encounter. +When the trio emerged through the gap in the wall they found only Sarah +Norton awaiting them.</p> + +<p>"Lanham's come and gone," she announced. "No, I didn't give him a thing, +except a piece of my mind," she answered, in response to a look from +Joe. "I told him that he was acting like a fool; that father was in for +a thousand dollars to you in the fall, and that you would pay then, as +you promised, and that he'd better clear out."</p> + +<p>"Oh, if I could jest git a holt of him!" muttered Jonas Ingram.</p> + +<p>"That seemed to sober him," continued the girl; "but he said he wasn't +the only<a name="Page_220"></a> one that had got scared; that Merrill was going for his tables +and chairs; but Lanham said he'd run up to the cottage, and if he was +there, he'd send him off. You see, father threw out as if he wasn't +owing you anything," she added, in a lower voice, "and that's what +stirred 'em up."</p> + +<p>Joe turned white, in a sudden heat of anger—the first he had shown, +"I'll stir him—" he began; then his eyes met hers. He reddened. "Oh, +Sarah, I'm ever so much obliged to you!"</p> + +<p>"It was nothing. I guess it was lucky I wasn't invited to the wedding, +though." She laughed, and started away, leaving Joe abashed. She glanced +back. "I hope none of this foolishness'll reach Mis' Elsworth's ears," +she called, in a friendly voice.</p> + +<p>"I hope it won't," muttered Joe, fervently, and stood watching her till +the old man pulled his sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Lanham may not keep his word to the girl. Best go down there, hadn't +we?"</p> + +<p>The young man made no answer, but turned and ran. He longed for some one +to wreak vengeance on. The other two had difficulty in keeping up with +him. The first object that attracted their attention was the bureau. It +was standing beside the back steps. Joe tried the door;<a name="Page_221"></a> it was +fastened. He drew forth the key and fitted it into the lock, but still +the door did not yield. He turned and faced the others. "<i>Some one's in +there!</i>"</p> + +<p>Jonas Ingram broke forth into an oath. He shook his cane at the house.</p> + +<p>"Some one's in there, and they've got the door bolted on the inside," +continued Joe. His voice had a strange sound even to himself. He seemed +to be looking on at his own wrath. He strode around to a window, but the +blinds were closed; the blinds were closed all over the house; every +door was barred. Whoever was inside was in utter darkness. Joe came back +and gave the door a violent shake; then they all listened, but only the +pecking of a hen along the walk broke the silence.</p> + +<p>"I'll get a crowbar," suggested Harry, scowling in the fierce sunlight. +Jonas Ingram stood with his hair blowing out from under his hat and his +stick grasped firmly in his gnarled old hand. He was all ready to +strike. His chin was thrust out rigidly. They both pressed close to Joe, +but he did not heed them. He put one shoulder against a panel; every +muscle was set.</p> + +<p>"Whoever you are, if I have to break this door down—"</p> + +<p>There was a soft commotion on the in<a name="Page_222"></a>side and the bolt was drawn. Joe, +with the other two at his heels, fairly burst into the darkened place, +just in time to see a white figure dart across the room and cast itself +in a corner. For an instant they could only blink. The figure wrapped +its white arms about some object.</p> + +<p>"You can have everything but this table; you can't have—this." The +words ended in a frightened sob.</p> + +<p>"<i>Esther!</i>"</p> + +<p>"<i>Oh, Joe!</i>" She struggled to her feet, then shrank back against the +wall. "Oh, I didn't know it was you. Go 'way! go 'way!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Esther, what do you mean?" He started towards her, but she turned +on him.</p> + +<p>"Where is she?"</p> + +<p>"Where's who?"</p> + +<p>She did not reply, but standing against the wall, she stared at him with +a passionate scorn.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean Sarah Norton?" asked Joe, slowly. Esther quivered. "Why, +she came to tell me of the trouble her father was trying to get me into. +But how did you come here, Esther? How did you know anything about it?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer. Her head sank.</p><a name="Page_223"></a> + +<p>"How did you, Esther?"</p> + +<p>"I saw—you in the lane," she faltered, then caught up her veil as +though it had been a pinafore. Joe went up to her, and Jonas Ingram took +hold of Harry Barker, and the two stepped outside, but not out of +ear-shot; they were still curious. They could hear Esther's sobbing +voice at intervals. "I tried to make 'em stop, but they wouldn't, and I +slipped in past 'em and bolted the door; and when you came, I thought it +was them—and, oh! ain't they our things, Joe?"</p> + +<p>The old man thrust his head in at the door. "Yes," he roared, then +withdrew.</p> + +<p>"And won't they take the table away?"</p> + +<p>"No," he roared again. "I'd just like to see 'em!"</p> + +<p>Esther wept harder. "Oh, I wish they would; I ought to give 'em up. I +didn't care for them after I thought—that. It was just that I had to +have something I wouldn't let go, and I tried to think only of saving +the table for the water-set."</p> + +<p>"Come mighty near bein' no water-set," muttered Jonas to himself; then +he turned to his companion. "Young man, I guess they don't need us no +more," he said.</p> + +<p>When he regained his sister-in-law's, he encountered that lady carrying +a steam<a name="Page_224"></a>ing dish. Guests stood about under the trees or sat at the long +tables.</p> + +<p>"For mercy sakes, Jonas, have you seen Esther? She made fuss enough +about havin' that dove fixed up in the parlor, and she and Joe ain't +stood under it a minit yet."</p> + +<p>"That's a fact," chuckled the old fellow. "They ain't stood under no +dove of peace yet; they're just about ready to now, I reckon."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>And up through the lane, all oblivious, the lovers were walking slowly. +Just before they reached the gap in the wall, they paused by common +consent. Cherry and apple trees drooped over the wall; these had ceased +blossoming, but a tangle of wild-rose bushes was all ablush. It dropped +a thick harvest of petals on the ground. Joe bent his head; and Esther, +resting against his shoulder, lifted her eyes to his face. All +unconsciously she took the pose of the woman in the Frohman poster. They +kissed, and then went on slowly.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<a name="Romance"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>Cordelia's Night of Romance<a name="Page_225"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by Julian Ralph</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Cordelia Angeline Mahoney was dressing, as she would say, "to keep a +date" with a beau, who would soon be waiting on the corner nearest her +home in the Big Barracks tenement-house. She smiled as she heard the +shrill catcall of a lad in Forsyth Street. She knew it was Dutch +Johnny's signal to Chrissie Bergen to come down and meet him at the +street doorway. Presently she heard another call—a birdlike +whistle—and she knew which boy's note it was, and which girl it called +out of her home for a sidewalk stroll. She smiled, a trifle sadly, and +yet triumphantly. She had enjoyed herself when she was no wiser and +looked no higher than the younger Barracks girls, who took up the boys +of the neighborhood as if there were no others.</p> + +<p>She was in her own little dark inner room, which she shared with only +two<a name="Page_226"></a> others of the family, arranging a careful toilet by kerosene-light. +The photograph of herself in trunks and tights, of which we heard in the +story of Elsa Muller's hopeless love, was before her, among several +portraits of actresses and salaried beauties. She had taken them out +from under the paper in the top drawer of the bureau. She always kept +them there, and always took them out and spread them in the lamp-light +when she was alone in her room. She glanced approvingly at the portrait +of herself as a picture of which she had said to more than one girlish +confidante that it showed as neat a figure and as perfectly shaped limbs +as any actress's she had ever seen. But the suggestion of a frown +flitted across her brow as she thought how silly she was to have once +been "stage-struck"—how foolish to have thought that mere beauty could +quickly raise a poor girl to a high place on the stage. Julia Fogarty's +case proved that. Julia and she were stage-struck together, and where +was Julia—or Corynne Belvedere, as she now called herself? She started +well as a figurante in a comic opera company up-town, but from that she +dropped to a female minstrel troupe in the Bowery, and now, Lewy Tusch +told Cordelia, she was "tooing ter skirt-tance<a name="Page_227"></a> in ter pickernic parks +for ter sick-baby fund, ant passin' ter hat arount afterwarts." And evil +was being whispered of her—a pretty high price to pay for such small +success; and it must be true, because she sometimes came home late at +night in cabs, which are devilish, except when used at funerals.</p> + +<p>It was Cordelia who attracted Elsa Muller's sweetheart, Yank Hurst, to +her side, and left Elsa to die yearning for his return. And it was +Cordelia who threw Hurst aside when he took to drink and stabbed the +young man who, during a mere walk from church, took his place beside +Cordelia. And yet Cordelia was only ambitious, not wicked. Few men live +who would not look twice at her. She was not of the stunted tenement +type, like her friends Rosie Mulvey and Minnie Bechman and Julia +Moriarty. She was tall and large and stately, and yet plump in every +outline. Moreover, she had the "style" of an American girl, and looked +as well in five dollars' worth of clothes—all home-made, except her +shoes and stockings—as almost any girl in richer circles. It was too +bad that she was called a flirt by the young men, and a stuck-up thing +by the girls, when in fact she was merely more shrewd and cal<a name="Page_228"></a>culating +than the others, who were content to drift out of the primary schools +into the shops, and out of the shops into haphazard matrimony. Cordelia +was not lovable, but not all of us are who may be better than she. She +was monopolized by the hope of getting a man; but a mere alliance with +trousers was not the sum of her hope; they must jingle with coin.</p> + +<p>It was strange, then, that she should be dressing to meet Jerry Donahue, +who was no better than gilly to the Commissioner of Public Works, +drawing a small salary from a clerkship he never filled, while he served +the Commissioner as a second left hand. But if we could see into +Cordelia's mind we would be surprised to discover that she did not +regard herself as flesh-and-blood Mahoney, but as romantic Clarice +Delamour, and she only thought of Jerry as James the butler. The +voracious reader of the novels of to-day will recall the story of +<i>Clarice, or Only a Lady's-Maid,</i> which many consider the best of the +several absorbing tales that Lulu Jane Tilley has written. Cordelia had +read it twenty times, and almost knew it by heart. Her constant dream +was that she could be another Clarice, and shape her life like<a name="Page_229"></a> hers. +The plot of the novel needs to be briefly told, since it guided +Cordelia's course.</p> + +<p>Clarice was maid to a wealthy society dowager. James the butler fell in +love with Clarice when she first entered the household, and she, hearing +the servants' gossip about James's savings and salary, had encouraged +his attentions. He pressed her to marry him. But young Nicholas +Stuyvesant came home from abroad to find his mother ill and Clarice +nursing her. Every day he noticed the modest rosy maid moving +noiselessly about like a sunbeam. Her physical perfection profoundly +impressed him. In her presence he constantly talked to his mother about +his admiration for healthy women. Each evening Clarice reported to him +the condition of the mother, and on one occasion mentioned that she had +never known ache, pain, or malady in her life. The young man often +chatted with her in the drawing-room, and James the butler got his +<i>congé</i>. Mr. Stuyvesant induced his mother to make Clarice her companion, +and then he met her at picture exhibitions, and in Central Park by +chance, and next—every one will recall the exciting scene—he paid +passionate court to her "in the pink sewing-room,<a name="Page_230"></a> where she had +reclined on soft silken sofa pillows, with her tiny slippers upon the +head of a lion whose skin formed a rug before her." Clarice thought him +unprincipled, and repulsed him. When the widow recovered her health and +went to Newport, the former maid met all society there. A gifted lawyer +fell a victim to Clarice's charms, and, on a moonlit porch overlooking +the sea, warned her against young Stuyvesant. On learning that the +<i>roué</i> had already attempted to weaken the girl's high principles, to +rescue her he made her his wife. He was soon afterward elected Mayor of +New York, but remained a suitor for his beautiful wife's approbation, +waiting upon her in gilded halls with the fidelity of a knight of old.</p> + +<p>Cordelia adored Clarice and fancied herself just like her—beautiful, +ambitious, poor, with a future of her own carving. Of course such a case +is phenomenal. No other young woman was ever so ridiculous.</p> + +<p>"You have on your besht dresh, Cordalia," said her mother. "It'll soon +be wore out, an' ye'll git no other, wid your father oidle, an' no wan +airnin' a pinny but you an' Johnny an' Sarah Rosabel. Fwhere are ye +goin'?"</p><a name="Page_231"></a> + +<p>"I won't be gone long," said Cordelia, half out of the hall door.</p> + +<p>"Cordalia Angeline, darlin'," said her mother, "mind, now, doan't let +them be talkin' about ye, fwherever ye go—shakin' yer shkirts an' +rollin' yer eyes. It doan't luk well for a gyurl to be makin' hersel' +attractive."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, I'm not attractive, and you know it."</p> + +<p>With her head full of meeting Jerry Donahue, Cordelia tripped down the +four flights of stairs to the street door. As Clarice, she thought of +Jerry as James the butler; in fact, all the beaux she had had of late +were so many repetitions of the unfortunate James in her mind. All the +other characters in her acquaintance were made to fit more or less +loosely into her romance life, and she thought of everything she did as +if it all happened in Lulu Jane Tilley's beautiful novel. Let the reader +fancy, if possible, what a feat that must have been for a tenement girl +who had never known what it was to have a parlor, in our sense of the +word, who had never known courtship to be carried on indoors, except in +a tenement hallway, and who had to imagine that the sidewalk flirtations +of actual life were meetings in private parks, that the<a name="Page_232"></a> wharves and +public squares and tenement roofs where she had seen all the young men +and women making love were heavily carpeted drawing-rooms, broad manor, +house verandas, and the fragrant conservatories of luxurious mansions! +But Cordelia managed all this mental necromancy easily, to her own +satisfaction. And now she was tripping down the bare wooden stairs +beside the dark greasy wall, and thinking of her future husband, the +rich Mayor, who must be either the bachelor police captain of the +precinct, or George Fletcher, the wealthy and unmarried factory-owner +near by, or, perhaps, Senator Eisenstone, the district leader, who, she +was forced to reflect, was an unlikely hero for a Catholic girl, since +he was a Hebrew. But just as she reached the street door and decided +that Jerry would do well enough as a mere temporary James the butler, +and while Jerry was waiting for her on the corner, she stepped from the +stoop directly in front of George Fletcher.</p> + +<p>"Good evening," said the wealthy, young employer.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Mr. Fletcher."</p> + +<p>"It's very embarrassing," said Mr. Fletcher: "I know your given +name—Cordelia, isn't it?—but your last na—<a name="Page_233"></a>Oh, thank you—Miss +Mahoney, of course. You know we met at that very queer wedding in the +home of my little apprentice, Joe—the line-man's wedding, you know."</p> + +<p>"Te he!" Cordelia giggled. "Wasn't that a terrible strange wedding? I +think it was just terrible."</p> + +<p>"Were you going somewhere?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all, Mr. Fletcher," with another nervous giggle or two. "I +have no plans on me mind, only to get out of doors. It's terrible hot, +ain't it?"</p> + +<p>"May I take a walk with you, Miss Mahoney?"</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that if he had called her Clarice the whole novel would +have come true then and there.</p> + +<p>"I can't be out very late, Mr. Fletcher," said she, with a giggle of +delight.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure I am not disarranging your plans? Had you no engagements?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no," said she; "I was only going out with me lonely."</p> + +<p>"Let us take just a short walk, then," said Fletcher; "only you must be +the man and take me in charge, Miss Mahoney, for I never walked with a +young lady in my life."</p> + +<p>"Oh, certainly not; you never did—I <i>don't</i> think."</p> + +<p>"Upon my honor, Miss Mahoney, I<a name="Page_234"></a> know only one woman in this city—Miss +Whitfield, the doctor's daughter, who lives in the same house with you; +and only one other in the world—my aunt, who brought me up, in +Vermont."</p> + +<p>Well indeed did Cordelia know this. All the neighborhood knew it, and +most of the other girls were conscious of a little flutter in their +breasts when his eyes fell upon them in the streets, for it was the +gossip of all who knew his workmen that the prosperous ladder-builder +lived in his factory, where his had spent the life of a monk, without +any society except of his canaries, his books, and his workmen.</p> + +<p>"Well, I declare!" sighed Cordelia. "How terrible cunning you men are, +to get up such a story to make all the girls think you're romantic!"</p> + +<p>But, oh, how happy Cordelia was! At last she had met her prince—the +future Mayor—her Sultan of the gilded halls. In that humid, sticky, +midsummer heat among the tenements, every other woman dragged along as +if she weighed a thousand pounds, but Cordelia felt like a feather +floating among clouds.</p> + +<p>The babel—did the reader ever walk up Forsyth Street on a hot night, +into Sec<a name="Page_235"></a>ond Avenue, and across to Avenue A, and up to Tompkins Park? +The noise of the tens of thousands on the pavements makes a babel that +drowns the racket of the carts and cars. The talking of so many persons, +the squalling of so many babies, the mothers scolding and slapping every +third child, the yelling of the children at play, the shouts and loud +repartee of the men and women—all these noises rolled together in the +air makes a steady hum and roar that not even the breakers on a hard +sea-beach can equal. You might say that the tenements were empty, as +only the very sick, who could not move, were in them. For miles and +miles they were bare of humanity, each flat unguarded and unlocked, with +the women on the sidewalks, with the youngest children in arms or in +perambulators, while those of the next sizes romped in the streets; with +the girls and boys of fourteen giggling in groups in the doorways (the +age and places where sex first asserts itself), and only the young men +and women missing; for they were in the parks, on the wharves, and on +the roofs, all frolicking and love-making.</p> + +<p>And every house front was like a Russian stove, expending the heat it +had sucked from the all-day sun. And<a name="Page_236"></a> every door and window breathed bad +air—air without oxygen, rich and rank and stifling.</p> + +<p>But Cordelia was Clarice, the future Mayoress. She did not know she was +picking a tiresome way around the boys at leap-frog, and the mothers and +babies and baby-carriages. She did not notice the smells, or feel the +bumps she got from those who ran against her. She thought she was in the +blue drawing-room at Newport, where a famous Hungarian count was +trilling the soft prelude to a <i>csárdás</i> on the piano, and Mr. +Stuyvesant had just introduced her to the future Mayor, who was +spellbound by her charms, and was by her side, a captive. She reached +out her hand, and it touched Mr. Fletcher's arm (just as a ragamuffin +propelled himself head first against her), and Mr. Fletcher bent his +elbow, and her wrist rested in the crook of his arm. Oh, her dream was +true; her dream was true!</p> + +<p>Mr. Fletcher, on the other hand, was hardly in a more natural relation. +He was trying to think how the men talked to women in all the literature +he had read. The myriad jokes about the fondness of girls for ice-cream +recurred to him, and he risked everything on their fidelity to fact.</p><a name="Page_237"></a> + +<p>"Are you fond of ice-cream?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Oh no; I <i>don't</i> think," said Cordelia. "What'll you ask next? What +girl ain't crushed on ice-cream, I'd like to know?"</p> + +<p>"Do you know of a nice place to get some?"</p> + +<p>"Do I? The Dutchman's, on the av'noo, another block up, is the finest in +the city. You get mo—that is, you get everything 'way up in G there, +with cakes on the side, and it don't cost no more than anywhere else."</p> + +<p>So to the German's they went, and Clarice fancied herself at the Casino +in Newport. All the girls around her, who seemed to be trying to swallow +the spoons, took on the guise of blue-blooded belles, while the noisy +boys and young men (calling out, "Hully gee, fellers! look at Nifty +gittin' out der winder widout payin'!" and, "Say, Tilly, what kind er +cream is dat you're feedin' your face wid?") seemed to her so many +millionaires and the exquisite sons thereof. To Mr. Fletcher the +German's back-yard saloon, with its green lattice walls, and its rusty +dead Christmas trees in painted butter-kegs, appeared uncommonly +brilliant and fine. The fact that whenever he took a<a name="Page_238"></a> swallow of water +the ice-cream turned to cold candle-grease in his mouth made no +difference. He was happy, and Cordelia was in an ecstasy by the time he +had paid a shock-headed, bare-armed German waiter, and they were again +on the avenue side by side. She put out her hand and rested it on his +arm again—to make sure she was Clarice.</p> + +<p>One would like to know whether, in the breasts of such as these, +familiar environment exerts any remarkable influence. If so, it could +have been in but one direction. For that part of town was one vast +nursery. Everywhere, on every side, were the swarming babies—a baby for +every flag-stone in the pavements. Babies and babies, and little besides +babies, except larger children and the mothers. Perambulators with two, +even three, baby passengers; mothers with as many as five children +trailing after them; babies in broad baggy laps, babies at the breast, +babies creeping, toppling, screaming, overflowing into the gutters. Such +was the unbroken scene from the Big Barracks to Tompkins Square; ay, to +Harlem and to the East River, and almost to Broadway. In the park, as if +the street scenes had been merely preliminary, the paths were alive, +wriggling, with babies<a name="Page_239"></a> of every age, from the new-born to the children +in pigtails and knickerbockers—and, lo! these were already paired and +practising at courtship. The walk that Cordelia was taking was amid a +fever, a delirium, of maternity—a rhapsody, a baby's opera, if one +considered its noise. In that vast region no one inquired whether +marriage was a failure. Nothing that is old and long-beloved and human +is a failure there.</p> + +<p>In Tompkins Park, while they dodged babies and stepped around babies and +over them, they saw many happy couples on the settees, and they noticed +that often the men held their arms around the waists of their +sweethearts. Girls, too, in other instances, leaned loving heads against +the young men's breasts, blissfully regardless of publicity. They passed +a young man and a woman kissing passionately, as kissing is described by +unmarried girl novelists. Cordelia thought it no harm to nudge Mr. +Fletcher and whisper:</p> + +<p>"Sakes alive! They're right in it, ain't they. 'It's funny when you feel +that way,' ain't it?"</p> + +<p>As many another man who does not know the frankness and simplicity of +the plain people might have done, Mr. Fletcher misjudged the girl. He +thought her<a name="Page_240"></a> the sort of girl he was far from seeking. He grew instantly +cold and reserved, and she knew, vaguely, that she had displeased him.</p> + +<p>"I think people who make love in public should be locked up," said he.</p> + +<p>"Some folks wants everybody put away that enjoys themselves," said +Cordelia. Then, lest she had spoken too strongly, she added, "Present +company not intended, Mr. Fletcher, but you said that like them mission +folks that come around praising themselves and tellin' us all we're +wicked."</p> + +<p>"And do you think a girl can be good who behaves so in public?"</p> + +<p>"I know plenty that's done it," said she; "and I don't know any girls +but what's good. They 'ain't got wings, maybe, but you don't want to +monkey with 'em, neither."</p> + +<p>He recollected her words for many a year afterward and pondered them, +and perhaps they enlarged his understanding. She also often thought of +his condemnation of love-making out-of-doors. Kissing in public, +especially promiscuous kissing, she knew to be a debatable pastime, but +she also knew that there was not a flat in the Big Barracks in which a +girl could carry on a courtship. Fancy her attempt<a name="Page_241"></a>ing it in her front +room, with the room choked with people, with the baby squalling, and her +little brothers and sisters quarrelling, with her mother entertaining +half a dozen women visitors with tea or beer, and with a man or two +dropping in to smoke with her father! Parlor courtship was to her, like +precise English, a thing only known in novels. The thought of novels +floated her soul back into the dream state.</p> + +<p>"I think Cordelia's a pretty name," said Fletcher, cold at heart but +struggling to be companionable.</p> + +<p>"I don't," said Cordelia. "I'm not at all crushed on it. Your name's +terrible pretty. I think my three names looks like a map of Ireland when +they're written down. I know a killin' name for a girl. It's Clarice. +Maybe some day I'll give you a dare. I'll double dare you, maybe, to +call me Clarice."</p> + +<p>Oh, if he only would, she thought—if he would only call her so now! But +she forgot how unelastic his strange routine of life must have left him, +and she did not dream how her behavior in the park had displeased him.</p> + +<p>"Cordelia is a pretty name," he repeated. "At any rate, I think we +should try to make the most and best of whatever<a name="Page_242"></a> name has come to us. I +wouldn't sail under false colors for a minute."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said she, with a giggle to hide her disappointment; "you're so +terrible wise! When you talk them big words you can pass me in a walk."</p> + +<p>Anxious to display her great conquest to the other girls of the Barracks +neighborhood, Cordelia persuaded Mr. Fletcher to go to what she called +"the dock," to enjoy the cool breath of the river. All the piers and +wharves are called "docks" by the people. Those which are semi-public +and are rented to miscellaneous excursion and river steamers are crowded +nightly.</p> + +<p>The wharf to which our couple strolled was a mere flooring above the +water, edged with a stout string-piece, which formed a bench for the +mothers. They were there in groups, some seated on the string-piece with +babes in arms or with perambulators before them, and others, facing +these, standing and joining in the gossip, and swaying to and fro to +soothe their little ones. Those who gave their offspring the breast did +so publicly, unembarrassed by a modesty they would have considered +false. A few youthful couples, boy by girl and girl by boy, sat on the +string-piece and whispered, or bandied fun with those other lovers who<a name="Page_243"></a> +patrolled the flooring of the wharf. A "gang" of rude young +men—toughs—walked up and down, teasing the girls, wrestling, +scuffling, and roaring out bad language. Troops of children played at +leap-frog, high-spy, jack-stones, bean-bag, hop-scotch, and tag. At the +far end of the pier some young men and women waltzed, while a lad on the +string-piece played for them on his mouth-organ. A steady, cool, +vivifying breeze from the bay swept across the wharf and fanned all the +idlers, and blew out of their heads almost all recollection of the +furnacelike heat of the town.</p> + +<p>Cordelia forgot her desire to display her conquest. She forgot her true +self. She likened the wharf to that "lordly veranda overlooking the +sea," where the future Mayor begged Clarice to be his bride. She knew +just what she would say when her prince spoke his lines. She and Mr. +Fletcher were just about to seat themselves on the great rim of the +wharf, when an uproar of the harsh, froglike voices of half-grown men +caused them to turn around. They saw Jerry Donahue striding towards +them, but with difficulty, because half a dozen lads and youths were +endeavoring to hold him back.</p> + +<p>"Dat's Mr. Fletcher," they said. "It<a name="Page_244"></a> ain't his fault, Jerry. He's dead +square; he's a gent, Jerry."</p> + +<p>The politician's gilly tore himself away from his friends. The gang of +toughs gathered behind the others. Jerry planted himself in front of +Cordelia. Evidently he did not know the submissive part he should have +played in Cordelia's romance. James the butler made no out-break, but +here was Jerry angry through and through.</p> + +<p>"You didn't keep de date wid me," he began.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jerry, I did—I tried to, but you—" Cordelia was red with shame.</p> + +<p>"The hell you did! Wasn't I—"</p> + +<p>"Here!" said Mr. Fletcher; "you can't swear at this lady."</p> + +<p>"Why wouldn't I?" Jerry asked. "What would you do?"</p> + +<p>"He's right, Jerry. Leave him be—see?" said the chorus of Jerry's +friends.</p> + +<p>"A-a-a-h!" snarled Jerry. "Let him leave me be, then. Cordelia, I heard +you was a dead fraud, an' now I know it, and I'm a-tellin' you so, +straight—see? I was a-waitin' 'cross der street, an' I seen you come +out an' meet dis mug, an' you never turned yer head to see was I on me +post. I seen dat, an' I'm a-tellin' yer friend just der kind of a racket +you give me, der<a name="Page_245"></a> same's you've give a hundred other fellers. Den, if he +likes it he knows what he's gittin'."</p> + +<p>Jerry was so angry that he all but pushed his distorted face against +that of the humiliated girl as he denounced her. Mr. Fletcher gently +moved her backward a step or two, and advanced to where she had stood.</p> + +<p>"That will do," he said to Jerry. "I want no trouble, but you've said +enough. If there's more, say it to me."</p> + +<p>"A-a-a-h!" exclaimed the gilly, expectorating theatrically over his +shoulder. "Me friends is on your side, an' I ain't pickin' no muss wid +you. But she's got der front of der City Hall to do me like she done. +And say, fellers, den she was goin' ter give me a song an' dance 'bout +lookin' fer me. Ba-a-a! She knows my 'pinion of her—see?"</p> + +<p>The crowd parted to let Mr. Fletcher finish his first evening's +gallantry to a lady by escorting Cordelia to her home. It was a chilly +and mainly a silent journey. Cordelia falteringly apologized for Jerry's +misbehavior, but she inferred from what Mr. Fletcher said that he did +not fully join her in blaming the angry youth. Mr. Fletcher touched her +fingertips in bidding her good-night, and noth<a name="Page_246"></a>ing was said of a meeting +in the future. Clarice was forgotten, and Cordelia was not only herself +again, but quite a miserable self, for her sobs awoke the little brother +and sister who shared her bed.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<a name="Prize_Fund"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>The Prize-Fund Beneficiary<a name="Page_247"></a></h2> + +<h3 class="sc2">by E.A. Alexander</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Miss Snell began to apologize for interrupting the work almost before +she came in. The Painter, who grudgingly opened one half of the +folding-door wide enough to let her pass into the studio, was annoyed to +observe that, in spite of her apologies, she was loosening the furs +about her throat as if in preparation for a lengthy visit. Then for the +first time, behind her tall, black-draped figure, he caught sight of her +companion, who was shorter, and whose draperies were of a less ample +character—for Miss Snell, being tall and thin, resorted to voluminous +garments to conceal her slimness of person. A large plumed hat +accentuated, her sallowness and sharpness of feature, and her dark eyes, +set under heavy black brows, intensified her look of unhealthy pallor.</p> + +<p>She was perfectly at her ease, and<a name="Page_248"></a> introduced her companion, Miss +Price, in a few words, explaining that the latter had come over for a +year or so to study, and was anxious to have the best advice about it.</p> + +<p>"So I brought her straight here," Miss Snell announced, triumphantly.</p> + +<p>Miss Price seemed a trifle overcome by the novelty of her surroundings, +but managed to say, in a high nasal voice, that she had already begun to +work at Julian's, but did not find it altogether satisfactory.</p> + +<p>The Painter, looking at her indifferently, was roused to a sudden +interest by her face. Her features and complexion were certainly +pleasing, but the untidy mass of straggling hair topped by a battered +straw sailor hat diverted the attention of a casual observer from her +really unusual delicacy of feature and coloring. She was tall and slim, +although now she was dwarfed by Miss Snell's gaunt figure. A worn dress +and shabby green cape fastened at the neck by a button hanging +precariously on its last thread completed her very unsuitable winter +attire. Outside the great studio window a cold December twilight was +settling down over roofs covered with snow and icicles, and<a name="Page_249"></a> the Painter +shivered involuntarily as he noticed the insufficiency of her wraps for +such weather, and got up to stir the fire which glowed in the big stove.</p> + +<p>In one corner his model waited patiently for the guests to depart, and +he now dismissed her for the day, eliciting faint protestations from +Miss Snell, who, however, was settling down comfortably in an easy-chair +by the fire, with an evident intention of staying indefinitely. Miss +Price's large, somewhat expressionless blue eyes were taking in the +whole studio, and the Painter could feel that she was distinctly +disappointed by her inspection. She had evidently anticipated something +much grander, and this bare room was not the ideal place she had fancied +the studio of a world-renowned painter would prove to be.</p> + +<p>Bare painted walls, a peaked roof with a window reaching far overhead, a +polished floor, one or two chairs and a divan, the few necessary +implements of his profession, and many canvases faced to the wall, but +little or no bric-à-brac or delightful studio properties. The Painter +was also conscious that her inspection included him personally, and was +painfully aware that she was regarding him with the same feeling of +disappointment; she<a name="Page_250"></a> quite evidently thought him too young and +insignificant looking for a person of his reputation.</p> + +<p>Miss Snell had not given him time to reply to Miss Price's remark about +her study at Julian's, but prattled on about her own work and the +unsurmountable difficulties that lay in the way of a woman's successful +career as a painter.</p> + +<p>"I have been studying for years under ——," said Miss Snell, "and +really I have no time to lose. It will end by my simply going to him and +saying, quite frankly: 'Now, Monsieur ——, I have been in your atelier +for four years, and I can't afford to waste another minute. There are no +two ways about it. You positively must tell me how to do it. You really +must not keep me waiting any longer. I insist upon it.' How discouraging +it is!" she sighed. "It seems quite impossible to find any one who is +willing to give the necessary information."</p> + +<p>Miss Price's wandering eyes had at last found a resting-place on a +large, half-finished canvas standing on an easel. Something attractive +in the pose and turn of her head made the Painter watch her as he lent a +feeble attention to Miss Snell's conversation.</p> + +<p>Miss Price's lips were very red, and the<a name="Page_251"></a> clear freshness of extreme +youth bloomed in her cheeks; she was certainly charming. During one of +Miss Snell's rare pauses she spoke, and her thin high voice came with +rather a shock from between her full lips.</p> + +<p>"May I look?" was her unnecessary question, for her eyes had never left +the canvas on the easel since they had first rested there. She rose as +she spoke, and went over to the painting.</p> + +<p>The Painter pulled himself out of the cushions on the divan where he had +been lounging, and went over to push the big canvas into a better light. +Then he stood, while the girl gazed at it, saying nothing, and +apparently oblivious to everything but the work before him.</p> + +<p>He was roused, not by Miss Price, who remained admiringly silent, but by +the enraptured Miss Snell, who had also risen, gathering furs and wraps +about her, and was now ecstatically voluble in her admiration. English +being insufficient for the occasion, she had to resort to French for the +expression of her enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>The Painter said nothing, but watched the younger girl, who turned away +at last with a sigh of approbation. He was standing under the window, +leaning against a table littered with paints and brushes.</p><a name="Page_252"></a> + +<p>"Stay where you are!" exclaimed Miss Snell, excitedly. "Is he not +charming, Cora, in that half-light? You must let me paint you just so +some day—you must indeed." She clutched Miss Price and turned her +forcibly in his direction.</p> + +<p>The Painter, confused by this unexpected onslaught, moved hastily away +and busied himself with a pretence of clearing the table.</p> + +<p>"I—I should be delighted," he stammered, in his embarrassment, and he +caught Miss Price's eye, in which he fancied a smile was lurking.</p> + +<p>"But you have not given Miss Price a word of advice about her work," +said Miss Snell, as she fastened her wraps preparatory to departure. She +seemed quite oblivious to the fact that she had monopolized all the +conversation herself.</p> + +<p>He turned politely to Miss Price, who murmured something about Julian's +being so badly ventilated, but gave him no clew as to her particular +branch of the profession. Miss Snell, however, supplied all details. It +seemed Miss Price was sharing Miss Snell's studio, having been sent over +by the Lynxville, Massachusetts, Sumner Prize Fund, for which she had +successfully competed, and which pro<a name="Page_253"></a>vided a meagre allowance for two +years' study abroad.</p> + +<p>"She wants to paint heads," said Miss Snell; and in reply to a remark +about the great amount of study required to accomplish this desire, +surprised him by saying, "Oh, she only wants to paint them well enough +to teach, not well enough to sell."</p> + +<p>"I'll drop in and see your work some afternoon," promised the Painter, +warmed by their evident intention of leaving; and he escorted them to +the landing, warning them against the dangerous steepness of his +stairway, which wound down in almost murky darkness.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later the centre panel of his door displayed a card bearing +these words: "At home only after six o'clock."</p> + +<p>"I wonder I never thought of doing this before," he reflected, as he lit +a cigarette and strolled off to a neighboring restaurant; "I am always +out by that hour."</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>Several weeks elapsed before he saw Miss Price again, for he promptly +forgot his promise to visit her studio and inspect her work. His own +work was very absorbing just then, and the short winter days all too +brief for its accomplishment. He was struggling to complete the large<a name="Page_254"></a> +canvas that Miss Snell had so volubly admired during her visit, and it +really seemed to be progressing. But the weather changed suddenly from +frost to thaw, and he woke one morning to find little runnels of dirty +water coursing down his window and dismally dripping into the muddy +street below. It made him feel blue, and his big picture, which had +seemed so promising the day before, looked hopelessly bad in this new +mood. So he determined to take a day off, and, after his coffee, +strolled out into the Luxembourg Gardens. There the statues were green +with mouldy dampness, and the paths had somewhat the consistency of very +thin oatmeal porridge. Suddenly the sun came out brightly, and he found +a partially dry bench, where he sat down to brood upon the utter +worthlessness of things in general and the Luxembourg statuary in +particular. The sunny façade of the palace glittered in the brightness. +One of his own pictures hung in its gallery. "It is bad," he said to +himself, "hopelessly bad," and he gloomily felt the strongest proof of +its worthlessness was its popularity with the public. He would probably +go on thinking this until the weather or his mood changed.</p> + +<p>As his eyes strayed from the palace, he<a name="Page_255"></a> glanced up a long vista between +leafless trees and muddy grass-plats. A familiar figure in a battered +straw hat and scanty green cloak was advancing in his direction; the +wind, blowing back the fringe of disfiguring short hair, disclosed a +pure unbroken line of delicate profile, strangely simple, and recalling +the profiles in Botticelli's lovely fresco in the Louvre. Miss Price, +for it was she, carried a painting-box, and under one arm a stretcher +that gave her infinite trouble whenever the wind caught it. As she +passed, the Painter half started up to join her, but she gave him such a +cold nod that his intention was nipped in the bud. He felt snubbed, and +sank back on his bench, taking a malicious pleasure in observing that, +womanlike, she ploughed through all the deepest puddles in her path, +making great splashes about the hem of her skirt, that fluttered out +behind her as she walked, for her hands were filled, and she had no +means of holding it up.</p> + +<p>The Painter resented his snubbing. He was used to the most humble +deference from the art students of the quarter, who hung upon his +slightest word, and were grateful for every stray crumb of his +attention.</p> + +<p>He now lost what little interest he had<a name="Page_256"></a> previously taken in his +surroundings. Just before him in a large open space reserved for the +boys to play handball was a broken sheet of glistening water reflecting +the blue sky, the trees rattled their branches about in the wind, and +now and then a tardy leaf fluttered down from where it had clung +desperately late into the winter. The gardens were almost deserted. It +was too early for the throng of beribboned nurses and howling infants +who usually haunt its benches. One or two pedestrians hurried across the +garden, evidently taking the route to make shortcuts to their +destinations, and not for the pleasure of lounging among its blustery +attractions.</p> + +<p>After idling an hour on his bench, he went to breakfast with a friend +who chanced to live conveniently near, and where he made himself very +disagreeable by commenting unfavorably on the work in progress and +painting in particular. Then he brushed himself up and started off for +the rue Notre Dame des Champs, where Miss Snell's studio was situated. +It was one of a number huddled together in an old and rather dilapidated +building, and the porter at the entrance gave him minute directions as +to its exact location, but after stumbling up three flights of<a name="Page_257"></a> dark +stairs he had no trouble in finding it, for Miss Snell's name, preceded +by a number of initials, shone out from a door directly in front of him +as he reached the landing.</p> + +<p>He knocked, and for several minutes there was a wild scurrying within +and a rattle and clash of crockery. Then Miss Snell appeared at the +door, and exclaimed, in delighted surprise:</p> + +<p>"How <i>do</i> you do? We had quite given you up."</p> + +<p>She looked taller and longer than ever swathed in a blue painting-apron +and grasping her palette and brushes. She had to apologize for not +shaking hands with him, because her fingers were covered with paint that +had been hastily but ineffectually wiped off on a rag before she +answered his knock.</p> + +<p>He murmured something about not coming before because of his work, but +she would not let him finish, saying, intensely,</p> + +<p>"We know how precious every minute is to you."</p> + +<p>Miss Price came reluctantly forward and shook hands; she had evidently +not been painting, for her fingers were quite clean. Short ragged hair +once more fell over her forehead, and the Painter felt a<a name="Page_258"></a> shock of +disappointment, and wondered why he had thought her so fine when she +passed him in the morning.</p> + +<p>"I was just going to paint Cora," announced Miss Snell. "She is taking a +holiday this afternoon, and we were hunting for a pose when you +knocked."</p> + +<p>"Don't let me interrupt you," he said, smiling. "Perhaps I can help."</p> + +<p>Miss Snell was in a flutter at once, and protested that she should be +almost afraid to work while he was there.</p> + +<p>"In that case I shall leave at once," he said; but his chair was +comfortable, and he made no motion to go.</p> + +<p>"What a queer little place it is!" he reflected, as he looked about. +"All sorts of odds and ends stuck about helter-skelter, and the +house-keeping things trying to masquerade as bric-à-brac."</p> + +<p>Cora Price looked decidedly sulky when she realized that the Painter +intended to stay, and seeing this he became rooted in his intention. He +wondered why she took this particular attitude towards him, and +concluded she was piqued because of his delay in calling. She acted like +a spoiled child, and caused Miss Snell, who was overcome by his +condescension in staying, no little embarrassment.</p> + +<p>It was quite evident from her behavior<a name="Page_259"></a> that Miss Price was impressed +with her own importance as the beneficiary of the Lynxville Prize Fund, +and would require the greatest deference from her acquaintances in +consequence.</p> + +<p>"Here, Cora, try this," said Miss Snell, planting a small three-legged +stool on a rickety model-stand.</p> + +<p>"Might I make a suggestion?" said the Painter, coolly. "I should push +back all the hair on her forehead; it gives a finer line."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course!" said Miss Snell. "I wonder we never thought of that +before. Cora dear, you are much better with your hair back."</p> + +<p>Cora said nothing, but the Botticelli profile glowered ominously against +a background of sage-green which Miss Snell was elaborately draping +behind it.</p> + +<p>"If I might advise again," the Painter said, "I would take that down and +paint her quite simply against the gray wall."</p> + +<p>Miss Snell was quite willing to adopt every suggestion. She produced her +materials and a fresh canvas, and began making a careful drawing, which, +as it progressed, filled the Painter's soul with awe.</p> + +<p>"I feel awfully like trying it myself,"<a name="Page_260"></a> he said, after watching her for +a few moments. "Can I have a bit of canvas?"</p> + +<p>"Take anything," exclaimed Miss Snell; and he helped himself, refusing +the easel which she wanted to force upon him, and propping his little +stretcher up on a chair. Miss Snell stopped her drawing to watch him +commence. It made her rather nervous to see how much paint he squeezed +out on the palette; it seemed to her a reckless prodigality.</p> + +<p>He eyed her assortment of brushes dubiously, selecting three from the +draggled limp collection.</p> + +<p>Cora was certainly a fine subject, in spite of her sulkiness, and he +grew absorbed in his work, and painted away, with Miss Snell at his +elbow making little staccato remarks of admiration as the sketch +progressed. Suddenly he jumped up, realizing how long he had kept the +young model.</p> + +<p>"Dear me," he cried, "you must be exhausted!" and he ran to help her +down from the model-stand.</p> + +<p>She did look tired, and Miss Snell suggested tea, which he stayed to +share. Cora became less and less sulky, and when at last he remembered +that he had come to see her work, she produced it with less +unwillingness than he had expected.</p><a name="Page_261"></a> + +<p>He was rather floored by her productions. As far as he could judge from +what she showed him, she was hopelessly without talent, and he could +only wonder which of these remarkably bad studies had won for her the +Lynxville Sumner Prize Fund.</p> + +<p>He tried to give her some advice, and was thanked when she put her +things away.</p> + +<p>Then they all looked at his sketch, which Miss Snell pronounced "too +charming," and Cora plainly thought did not do her justice.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would pose a few times for me, Miss Price," he said, before +leaving. "I should like very much to paint you, and it would be doing me +a great favor."</p> + +<p>The girl did not respond to this request with any eagerness. He fancied +he could see she was feeling huffy again at his meagre praise of her +work.</p> + +<p>Miss Snell, however, did not allow her to answer, but rapturously +promised that Cora should sit as often as he liked, and paid no +attention to the girl's protest that she had no time to spare.</p> + +<p>"This has been simply in-spiring!" said Miss Snell, as she bade him +good-bye, and he left very enthusiastic about Cora's<a name="Page_262"></a> profile, and with +his hand covered with paint from Miss Snell's door-knob.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>In spite of Miss Snell's assurance that Cora would pose, the Painter was +convinced that she would not, if a suitable excuse could be invented. +Feeling this, he wrote her a most civil note about it. The answer came +promptly, and did not surprise him.</p> + +<p>She was very sorry indeed, but she had no leisure hours at her disposal, +and although she felt honored, she really could not do it. This was +written on flimsy paper, in a big unformed handwriting, and it caused +him to betake himself once more to Miss Snell's studio, where he found +her alone—Cora was at Julian's.</p> + +<p>She promised to beg Cora to pose, and accepted an invitation for them to +breakfast with him in his studio on the following Sunday morning.</p> + +<p>He carefully explained to her that his whole winter's work depended upon +Cora's posing for him. He half meant it, having been seized with the +notion that her type was what he needed to realize a cherished ideal, +and he told this to Miss Snell, and enlarged upon it until he left her +rooted in the conviction that he was hopelessly in love with Cora—a +fact she<a name="Page_263"></a> imparted to that young woman on her return from Julian's.</p> + +<p>Cora listened very placidly, and expressed no astonishment. He was not +the first by any means; other people had been in love with her in +Lynxville, Massachusetts, and she confided the details of several of +these love-affairs to Miss Snell's sympathetic ears during the evening.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the Painter did nothing, and a fresh canvas stood on his +easel when the girls arrived for breakfast on Sunday morning. The big +unfinished painting was turned to the wall; he had lost all interest in +it.</p> + +<p>"When I fancy doing a thing I am good for nothing else," he explained to +Cora, after she had promised him a few sittings. "So you are really +saving me from idleness by posing."</p> + +<p>Cora laughed, and was silent. The Painter blessed her for not being +talkative; her nasal voice irritated him, although her beautiful +features were a constant delight.</p> + +<p>Miss Snell had succeeded in permanently eliminating the disfiguring +bang, and her charming profile was left unmarred.</p> + +<p>"I want to paint you just as you are," he said, and noticing that she +looked<a name="Page_264"></a> rather disdainfully at her shabby black cashmere, added, "The +black of your dress could not be better."</p> + +<p>"We thought," said Miss Snell, deprecatingly, "that you might like a +costume. We could easily arrange one."</p> + +<p>"Not in the least necessary," said the Painter. "I have set my heart on +painting her just as she is."</p> + +<p>The girls were disappointed in his want of taste. They had had visions +of a creation in which two Liberty scarfs and a velveteen table cover +were combined in a felicitous harmony of color.</p> + +<p>"When can I have the first sitting?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Tuesday, I think," said Miss Snell, reflectively.</p> + +<p>"Heavens!" thought the Painter. "Is Miss Snell coming with her?" And the +possibility kept him in a state of nervousness until Tuesday afternoon, +when Cora appeared, accompanied by the inevitable Miss Snell.</p> + +<p>It turned out, however, that the latter could not stay. She would call +for Cora later; just now her afternoons were occupied. She was doing a +pastel portrait in the Champs Elysées quarter, so she reluctantly left, +to the Painter's great relief.</p> + +<p>He did not make himself very agree<a name="Page_265"></a>able during the sittings which +followed. He was apt to get absorbed in his work and to forget to say +anything. Then Miss Snell would appear to fetch her friend, and he would +apologize for being so dull, and Cora would remark that she enjoyed +sitting quietly, it rested her after the noise and confusion at +Julian's.</p> + +<p>"If she talked much I could not paint her, her voice is so irritating," +he confided to a friend who was curious and asked all sorts of questions +about his new sitter.</p> + +<p>The work went well but slowly, for Cora sat only twice a week. She felt +obliged to devote the rest of her time to study, as she was living on +the prize fund, and she even had qualms of conscience about the two +afternoons she gave up to the sittings.</p> + +<p>During all this time Miss Snell continued to weave chapters of romance +about Cora and the Painter, and the girls talked things over after each +sitting when they were alone together.</p> + +<p>Spring had appeared very early in the year, and the public gardens and +boulevards were richly green. Chestnut-trees blossomed and gaudy +flower-beds bloomed in every square. The Salons opened, and were +thronged with an enthusiastic<a name="Page_266"></a> public, although the papers as usual +denounced them as being the poorest exhibitions ever given.</p> + +<p>The Painter had sent nothing, being completely absorbed in finishing +Cora's portrait, to the utter exclusion of everything else.</p> + +<p>Cora did the exhibitions faithfully. It was one of the duties she owed +to the Lynxville fund, and which she diligently carried out. The Painter +bothered and confused her by many things; he persistently admired all +the pictures she liked least, and praised all those she did not care +for. She turned pale with suppressed indignation when he differed from +her opinion, and resented his sweeping contempt of her criticisms.</p> + +<p>On the strength of a remittance from the prize fund, and in honor of the +season, she discarded the sailor hat for a vivid ready-made creation +smacking strongly of the Bon Marché. The weather was warm, and Cora wore +mitts, which the Painter thought unpardonable in a city where gloves are +particularly cheap. The mitts were probably fashionable in Lynxville, +Massachusetts. Miss Snell, who rustled about in stiff black silk and +bugles, seemed quite oblivious to her friend's want of taste; she was +all<a name="Page_267"></a> excitement, for her pastel portrait—by some hideous mistake—had +been accepted and hung in one of the exhibitions, and the girls went +together on varnishing-day to see it. There they met the Painter +prowling aimlessly about, and Miss Snell was delighted to note his +devotion to Cora. It was a strong proof of his attachment to her, she +thought. The truth was he felt obliged to be civil after her kindness in +posing. He wished he could repay her in some fashion, but since his +first visit to Miss Snell's she had never offered to show him her work +again, or asked his advice in any way, and he felt a delicacy about +offering his services as a teacher when she gave him so little +encouragement. He fancied, too, that she did not take much interest in +his work, and knew she did not appreciate his portrait of her, which was +by far the best thing he had ever done.</p> + +<p>Her lack of judgment vexed him, for he knew the value of his work, and +every day his fellow-painters trooped in to see it, and were loud in +their praises. It would certainly be the <i>clou</i> of any exhibition in +which it might be placed.</p> + +<p>During one sitting Cora ventured to remark that she thought it a pity he +did not intend to make the portrait more<a name="Page_268"></a> complete, and suggested the +addition of various accessories which in her opinion would very much +improve it.</p> + +<p>"It's by far the most complete thing I have ever done," he said. "I +sha'n't touch it again," and he flung down his brushes in a fit of +temper.</p> + +<p>She looked at him contemptuously, and putting on her hat, left the +studio without another word; and for several weeks he did not see her +again.</p> + +<p>Then he met her in the street, and begged her to come and pose for a +head in his big picture, which he had taken up once more. His apologies +were so abject that she consented, but she ceased to be punctual, and he +never could feel quite sure that she would keep her appointments.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he would wait a whole afternoon in vain, and one day when she +failed to appear at the promised hour he shut up his office and strolled +down to the Seine. There he caught sight of her with a gay party who +were about to embark on one of the little steamers that ply up and down +the river.</p> + +<p>He shook his fist at her from the quay where he stood, and watched her +and her party step into the boat from the pier.</p> + +<p>"She thinks little enough of the Lynx<a name="Page_269"></a>ville Prize Fund when she wants an +outing," he said to himself, scornfully.</p> + +<p>After fretting a little over his wasted afternoon, he forgot all about +her, and set to work with other models. Then he left Paris for the +summer.</p> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> + +<p>A few hours after his return, early in the fall, there came a knock at +his door. He had been admiring Cora's portrait, which to his fresh eye +looked exceptionally good.</p> + +<p>Miss Snell, with eyes red and tearful, stood on his door-mat when he +answered the tap.</p> + +<p>"Poor dear Cora," she said, had received a notice from the Lynxville +committee that they did not consider her work sufficiently promising to +continue the fund another year.</p> + +<p>"She will have to go home," sobbed Miss Snell, but said: "I am forced to +admit that Cora has wasted a good deal of time this summer. She is so +young, and needs a little distraction, now and then," and she appealed +to the Painter for confirmation of this undoubted fact.</p> + +<p>He was absent-minded, but assented to all she said. In his heart he +thought it a fortunate thing that the prize fund should<a name="Page_270"></a> be withdrawn. +One female art student the less: he grew pleased with the idea. Cora had +ceased to interest him as an individual, and he considered her only as +one of an obnoxious class.</p> + +<p>"I thought you ought to be the first to know about it," said Miss Snell, +confidentially, "because you might have some plan for keeping her over +here." Miss Snell looked unutterable things that she did not dare to put +into words.</p> + +<p>She made the Painter feel uncomfortable, she looked so knowing, and he +became loud in his advice to send Cora home at once.</p> + +<p>"Pack her off," he cried. "She is wasting time and money by staying. She +never had a particle of talent, and the sooner she goes back to +Lynxville the better."</p> + +<p>Miss Snell shrank from his vehemence, and wished she had not insisted +upon coming to consult him. She had assured Cora that the merest hint +would bring matters to a crisis. Cora would imagine that she had bungled +matters terribly, and she was mortified at the thought of returning with +the news of a repulse.</p> + +<p>As soon as she had gone, the Painter felt sorry he had been so hasty. He +had<a name="Page_271"></a> bundled her unceremoniously out of the studio, pleading important +work.</p> + +<p>He called twice in the rue Notre Dame des Champs, but the porter would +never let him pass her lodge, and he at last realized that she had been +given orders to that effect. A judicious tip extracted from her the fact +that Miss Price expected to leave for America the following Saturday, +and, armed with an immense bouquet, he betook himself to the St. Lazare +station at the hour for the departure of the Havre express.</p> + +<p>He arrived with only a minute to spare before the guard's whistle was +answered by the mosquitolike pipe that sets the train in motion.</p> + +<p>The Botticelli profile was very haughty and cold. Miss Snell was there, +of course, bathed in tears. He had just time enough to hand in his huge +bouquet through the open window before the train started. He caught one +glimpse of an angry face within, when suddenly his great nosegay came +flying out of the compartment, and striking him full in the face, spread +its shattered paper and loosened flowers all over the platform at his +feet.</p> + +<br /> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIFFERENT GIRLS***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 14744-h.txt or 14744-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/4/14744">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/7/4/14744</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/old/14744.txt b/old/14744.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9f38d6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14744.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6449 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Different Girls, by Various, Edited by +William Dean Howells and Henry Mills Alden + + +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: Different Girls + +Author: Various + +Release Date: January 20, 2005 [eBook #14744] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIFFERENT GIRLS*** + + +E-text prepared by David Garcia, Jeannie Howse, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +DIFFERENT GIRLS + +Harper's Novelettes + +Edited by + +WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS and HENRY MILLS ALDEN + +Harper & Brothers Publishers +New York and London + +1895, 1896, 1897, 1904, 1905, 1906 + + + + + + + +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE +"THE LITTLE JOYS OF MARGARET" + +ELIZABETH JORDAN +"KITTIE'S SISTER JOSEPHINE" + +ALICE BROWN +"THE WIZARD'S TOUCH" + +CHARLES B. DE CAMP +"THE BITTER CUP" + +MARY APPLEWHITE BACON +"HIS SISTER" + +ELEANOR A. HALLOWELL +"THE PERFECT YEAR" + +WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS +"EDITHA" + +OCTAVE THANET +"THE STOUT MISS HOPKINS'S BICYCLE" + +MARY M. MEARS +"THE MARRYING OF ESTHER" + +JULIAN RALPH +"CORDELIA'S NIGHT OF ROMANCE" + +E. A. ALEXANDER +"THE PRIZE-FUND BENEFICIARY" + + + + + +Introduction + + +It is many years now since the American Girl began to engage the +consciousness of the American novelist. Before the expansive period +following the Civil War, in the later eighteen-sixties and the earlier +eighteen-seventies, she had of course been his heroine, unless he went +abroad for one in court circles, or back for one in the feudal ages. +Until the time noted, she had been a heroine and then an American girl. +After that she was an American girl, and then a heroine; and she was +often studied against foreign backgrounds, in contrast with other +international figures, and her value ascertained in comparison with +their valuelessness, though sometimes she was portrayed in those poses +of flirtation of which she was born mistress. Even in these her +superiority to all other kinds of girls was insinuated if not asserted. + +The young ladies in the present collection are all American girls but +one, if we are to suppose Mr. Le Gallienne's winning type to be of the +same English origin as himself. We can be surer of him than of her, +however; but there is no question of the native Americanness of Mrs. +Alexander's girl, who is done so strikingly to the life, with courage to +grapple a character and a temperament as uncommon as it is true, which +we have rarely found among our fictionists. Having said this, we must +hedge in favor of Miss Jordan's most autochthonic Miss Kittie, so young +a girl as to be still almost a little girl, and with a head full of the +ideals of little-girlhood concerning young-girlhood. The pendant to her +pretty picture is the study of elderly girlhood by Octave Thanet, or +that by Miss Alice Brown, the one with its ideality, and the other with +its humor. The pathos of "The Perfect Year" is as true as either in its +truth to the girlhood which "never knew an earthly close," and yet had +its fill of rapture. Julian Ralph's strong and free sketch contributes a +fresh East Side flower, hollyhock-like in its gaudiness, to the garden +of American girls, Irish-American in this case, but destined to be +companioned hereafter by blossoms of our Italian-American, +Yiddish-American, and Russian-American civilization, as soon as our +nascent novelists shall have the eye to see and the art to show them. +Meantime, here are some of our Different Girls as far as they or their +photographers have got, and their acquaintance is worth having. + + W.D.H. + + + + + +The Little Joys of Margaret + +BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + +Margaret had seen her five sisters one by one leave the family nest, to +set up little nests of their own. Her brother, the eldest child of a +family of seven, had left the old home almost beyond memory, and settled +in London. Now and again he made a flying visit to the small provincial +town of his birth, and sometimes he sent two little daughters to +represent him--for he was already a widowed man, and relied occasionally +on the old roof-tree to replace the lost mother. Margaret had seen what +sympathetic spectators called her "fate" slowly approaching for some +time--particularly when, five years ago, she had broken off her +engagement with a worthless boy. She had loved him deeply, and, had she +loved him less, a refined girl in the provinces does not find it easy to +replace a discarded suitor--for the choice of young men is not +excessive. Her sisters had been more fortunate, and so, as I have said, +one by one they left their father's door in bridal veils. But Margaret +stayed on, and at length, as had been foreseen, became the sole nurse of +a beautiful old invalid mother, a kind of lay sister in the nunnery of +home. + +She came of a beautiful family. In all the big family of seven there was +not one without some kind of good looks. Two of her sisters were +acknowledged beauties, and there were those who considered Margaret the +most beautiful of all. It was all the harder, such sympathizers said, +that her youth should thus fade over an invalid's couch, the bloom of +her complexion be rubbed out by arduous vigils, and the lines +prematurely etched in her skin by the strain of a self-denial proper, no +doubt, to homely girls and professional nurses, but peculiarly wanton +and wasteful in the case of a girl so beautiful as Margaret. + +There are, alas! a considerable number of women predestined by their +lack of personal attractiveness for the humbler tasks of life. +Instinctively we associate them with household work, nursing, and the +general drudgery of existence. One never dreams of their having a life +of their own. They have no accomplishments, nor any of the feminine +charms. Women to whom an offer of marriage would seem as terrifying as a +comet, they belong to the neutrals of the human hive, and are, +practically speaking, only a little higher than the paid domestic. +Indeed, perhaps their one distinction is that they receive no wages. + +Now for so attractive a girl as Margaret to be merged in so dreary, +undistinguished a class was manifestly preposterous. It was a stupid +misapplication of human material. A plainer face and a more homespun +fibre would have served the purpose equally well. + +Margaret was by no means so much a saint of self-sacrifice as not to +have realized her situation with natural human pangs. Youth only comes +once--especially to a woman; and + + No hand can gather up the withered fallen + petals of the Rose of youth. + +Petal by petal, Margaret had watched the rose of her youth fading and +falling. More than all her sisters, she was endowed with a zest for +existence. Her superb physical constitution cried out for the joy of +life. She was made to be a great lover, a great mother; and to her, +more than most, the sunshine falling in muffled beams through the +lattices of her mother's sick-room came with a maddening summons +to--live. She was so supremely fitted to play a triumphant part in the +world outside there, so gay of heart, so victoriously vital. + +At first, therefore, the renunciation, accepted on the surface with so +kind a face, was a source of secret bitterness and hidden tears. But +time, with its mercy of compensation, had worked for her one of its many +mysterious transmutations, and shown her of what fine gold her +apparently leaden days were made. She was now thirty-three; though, for +all her nursing vigils, she did not look more than twenty-nine, and was +now more than resigned to the loss of the peculiar opportunities of +youth--if, indeed, they could be said to be lost already. "An old maid," +she would say, "who has cheerfully made up her mind to be an old maid, +is one of the happiest, and, indeed, most enviable, people in all the +world." + +Resent the law as we may, it is none the less true that renunciation +brings with it a mysterious initiation, a finer insight. Its discipline +would seem to refine and temper our organs of spiritual perception, and +thus make up for the commoner experience lost by a rarer experience +gained. By dedicating herself to her sick mother, Margaret undoubtedly +lost much of the average experience of her sex and age, but almost +imperceptibly it had been borne in upon her that she made some important +gains of a finer kind. She had been brought very close to the mystery of +human life, closer than those who have nothing to do beyond being +thoughtlessly happy can ever come. The nurse and the priest are +initiates of the same knowledge. Each alike is a sentinel on the +mysterious frontier between this world and the next. The nearer we +approach that frontier, the more we understand not only of that world on +the other side, but of the world on this. It is only when death throws +its shadow over the page of life that we realize the full significance +of what we are reading. Thus, by her mother's bedside, Margaret was +learning to read the page of life under the illuminating shadow of +death. + +But, apart from any such mystical compensation, Margaret's great reward +was that she knew her beautiful old mother better than any one else in +the world knew her. As a rule, and particularly in a large family, +parents remain half mythical to their children, awe-inspiring presences +in the home, colossal figures of antiquity, about whose knees the +younger generation crawls and gropes, but whose heads are hidden in the +mists of prehistoric legend. They are like personages in the Bible. They +impress our imagination, but we cannot think of them as being quite +real. Their histories smack of legend. And this, of course, is natural, +for they had been in the world, had loved and suffered, so long before +us that they seem a part of that antenatal mystery out of which we +sprang. When they speak of their old love-stories, it is as though we +were reading Homer. It sounds so long ago. We are surprised at the +vividness with which they recall happenings and personalities, past and +gone before, as they tell us, we were born. Before we were born! Yes! +They belong to that mysterious epoch of time--"before we were born"; and +unless we have a taste for history, or are drawn close to them by some +sympathetic human exigency, as Margaret had been drawn to her mother, we +are too apt, in the stress of making our own, to regard the history of +our parents as dry-as-dust. + +As the old mother sits there so quiet in her corner, her body worn to a +silver thread, and hardly anything left of her but her indomitable eyes, +it is hard, at least for a young thing of nineteen, all aflush and +aflurry with her new party gown, to realize that that old mother is +infinitely more romantic than herself. She has sat there so long, +perhaps, as to have come to seem part of the inanimate furniture of home +rather than a living being. Well! the young thing goes to her party, and +dances with some callow youth who pays her clumsy compliments, and +Margaret remains at home with the old mother in her corner. It is hard +on Margaret! Yes; and yet, as I have said, it is thus she comes to know +her old mother better than any one else knows her--society perhaps not +so poor an exchange for that of smart, immature young men of one's own +age. + +As the door closes behind the important rustle of youthful laces, and +Margaret and her mother are left alone, the mother's old eyes light up +with an almost mischievous smile. If age seems humorous to youth, youth +is even more humorous to age. + +"It is evidently a great occasion, Peg," the old voice says, with the +suspicion of a gentle mockery. "Don't you wish you were going?" + +"You naughty old mother!" answers Margaret, going over and kissing her. + +The two understand each other. + +"Well, shall we go on with our book?" says the mother, after a while. + +"Yes, dear, in a moment. I have first to get you your diet, and then we +can begin." + +"Bother the diet!" says the courageous old lady; "for two pins I'd go to +the ball myself. That old taffeta silk of mine is old enough to be in +fashion again. What do you say, Peg, if you and I go to the ball +together ..." + +"Oh, it's too much trouble dressing, mother. What do you think?" + +"Well, I suppose it is," answers the mother. "Besides, I want to hear +what happens next to those two beautiful young people in our book. So be +quick with my old diet, and come and read ..." + +There is perhaps nothing so lovely or so well worth having as the +gratitude of the old towards the young that care to give them more than +the perfunctory ministrations to which they have long since grown sadly +accustomed. There was no reward in the world that Margaret would have +exchanged for the sweet looks of her old mother, who, being no merely +selfish invalid, knew the value and the cost of the devotion her +daughter was giving her. + +"I can give you so little, my child, for all you are giving me," her +mother would sometimes say; and the tears would spring to Margaret's +eyes. + +Yes! Margaret had her reward in this alone--that she had cared to +decipher the lined old document of her mother's face. Her other sisters +had passed it by more or less impatiently. It was like some ancient +manuscript in a museum, which only a loving and patient scholar takes +the trouble to read. But the moment you begin to pick out the words, how +its crabbed text blossoms with beautiful meanings and fascinating +messages! It is as though you threw a dried rose into some magic water, +and saw it unfold and take on bloom, and fill with perfume, and bring +back the nightingale that sang to it so many years ago. So Margaret +loved her mother's old face, and learned to know the meaning of every +line on it. Privileged to see that old face in all its private moments +of feeling, under the transient revivification of deathless memories, +she was able, so to say, to reconstruct its perished beauty, and +realize the romance of which it was once the alluring candle. For her +mother had been a very great beauty, and if, like Margaret, you are able +to see it, there is no history so fascinating as the bygone love-affairs +of old people. How much more fascinating to read one's mother's +love-letters than one's own! + +Even in the history of the heart recent events have a certain crudity, +and love itself seems the more romantic for having lain in lavender for +fifty years. A certain style, a certain distinction, beyond question, go +with antiquity, and to spend your days with a refined old mother is no +less an education in style and distinction than to spend them in the air +of old cities, under the shadow of august architecture and in the sunset +of classic paintings. + +The longer Margaret lived with her old mother, the less she valued the +so-called "opportunities" she had missed. Coming out of her mother's +world of memories, there seemed something small, even common, about the +younger generation to which she belonged,--something lacking in +significance and dignity. + +For example, it had been her dream, as it is the dream of every true +woman, to be a mother herself: and yet, somehow--though she would not +admit it in so many words--when her young married sisters came with +their babies, there was something about their bustling and complacent +domesticity that seemed to make maternity bourgeois. She had not dreamed +of being a mother like that. She was convinced that her old mother had +never been a mother like that. "They seem more like wet-nurses than +mothers," she said to herself, with her wicked wit. + +Was there, she asked herself, something in realization that inevitably +lost you the dream? Was to incarnate an ideal to materialize it? Did the +finer spirit of love necessarily evaporate like some volatile essence +with marriage? Was it better to remain on idealistic spectator such as +she--than to run the risks of realization? + +She was far too beautiful, and had declined too many offers of +commonplace marriage, for such questioning to seem the philosophy of +disappointment. Indeed, the more she realized her own situation, the +more she came to regard what others considered her sacrifice to her +mother as a safeguard against the risk of a mediocre domesticity. +Indeed, she began to feel a certain pride, as of a priestess, in the +conservation of the dignity of her nature. It is better to be a vestal +virgin than--some mothers. + +And, after all, the maternal instinct of her nature found an ideal +outlet in her brother's children--the two little motherless girls who +came every year to spend their holidays with their grandmother and their +aunt Margaret. + +Margaret had seen but little of their mother, but her occasional +glimpses of her had left her with a haloed image of a delicate, +spiritual face that grew more and more Madonna-like with memory. The +nimbus of the Divine Mother, as she herself had dreamed of her, had +seemed indeed to illumine that grave young face. + +It pleased her imagination to take the place of that phantom mother, +herself--a phantom mother. And who knows but that such dream-children, +as she called those two little girls, were more satisfactory in the end +than real children? They represented, so to say, the poetry of children. +Had Margaret been a real mother, there would have been the prose of +children as well. But here, as in so much else, Margaret's seclusion +from the responsible activities of the outside world enabled her to +gather the fine flower of existence without losing the sense of it in +the cares of its cultivation. I think that she comprehended the wonder +and joy of children more than if she had been a real mother. + +Seclusion and renunciation are great sharpeners and refiners of the +sense of joy, chiefly because they encourage the habit of attentiveness. + +"Our excitements are very tiny," once said the old mother to Margaret, +"therefore we make the most of them." + +"I don't agree with you, mother," Margaret had answered. "I think it is +theirs that are tiny--trivial indeed, and ours that are great. People in +the world lose the values of life by having too much choice; too much +choice--of things not worth having. This makes them miss the real +things--just as any one living in a city cannot see the stars for the +electric lights. But we, sitting quiet in our corner, have time to watch +and listen, when the others must hurry by. We have time, for instance, +to watch that sunset yonder, whereas some of our worldly friends would +be busy dressing to go out to a bad play. We can sit here and listen to +that bird singing his vespers, as long as he will sing--and personally I +wouldn't exchange him for a prima donna. Far from being poor in +excitements, I think we have quite as many as are good for us, and those +we have are very beautiful and real." + +"You are a brave child," answered her mother. "Come and kiss me," and +she took the beautiful gold head into her hands and kissed her daughter +with her sweet old mouth, so lost among wrinkles that it was sometimes +hard to find it. + +"But am I not right, mother?" said Margaret. + +"Yes! you are right, dear, but you seem too young to know such wisdom." + +"I have to thank you for it, darling," answered Margaret, bending down +and kissing her mother's beautiful gray hair. + +"Ah! little one," replied the mother, "it is well to be wise, but it is +good to be foolish when we are young--and I fear I have robbed you of +your foolishness." + +"I shall believe you have if you talk like that," retorted Margaret, +laughingly taking her mother into her arms and gently shaking her, as +she sometimes did When the old lady was supposed to have been "naughty." + + * * * * * + +So for Margaret and her mother the days pass, and at first, as we have +said, it may seem a dull life, and even a hard one, for Margaret. But +she herself has long ceased to think so, and she dreads the inevitable +moment when the divine friendship between her and her old mother must +come to an end. She knows, of course, that it must come, and that the +day cannot be far off when the weary old limbs will refuse to make the +tiny journeys from bedroom to rocking-chair, which have long been all +that has been demanded of them; when the brave, humorous old eyes will +be so weary that they cannot keep open any more in this world. The +thought is one that is insupportably lonely, and sometimes she looks at +the invalid-chair, at the cup and saucer in which she serves her +mother's simple food, at the medicine-bottle and the measuring-glass, at +the knitted shawl which protects the frail old form against draughts, +and at all such sad furniture of an invalid's life, and pictures the day +when the homely, affectionate use of all these things will be gone +forever; for so poignant is humanity that it sanctifies with endearing +associations even objects in themselves so painful and prosaic. And it +seems to Margaret that when that day comes it would be most natural for +her to go on the same journey with her mother. + +For who shall fill for her her mother's place on earth--and what +occupation will be left for Margaret when her "beautiful old _raison +d'etre_," as she sometimes calls her mother, has entered into the sleep +of the blessed? She seldom thinks of that, for the thought is too +lonely, and, meanwhile, she uses all her love and care to make this +earth so attractive and cozy that the beautiful mother-spirit who has +been so long prepared for her short journey to heaven may be tempted to +linger here yet a little while longer. These ministrations, which began +as a kind of renunciation, have now turned into an unselfish +selfishness. Margaret began by feeling herself necessary to her mother; +now her mother becomes more and more necessary to Margaret. Sometimes +when she leaves her alone for a few moments in her chair, she laughingly +bends over and says, "Promise me that you won't run away to heaven while +my back is turned." + +And the old mother smiles one of those transfigured smiles which seem +only to light up the faces of those that are already half over the +border of the spiritual world. + +Winter is, of course, Margaret's time of chief anxiety, and then her +loving efforts are redoubled to detain her beloved spirit in an +inclement world. Each winter passed in safety seems a personal victory +over death. How anxiously she watches for the first sign of the +returning spring, how eagerly she brings the news of early blade and +bud, and with the first violet she feels that the danger is over for +another year. When the spring is so afire that she is able to fill her +mother's lap with a fragrant heap of crocus and daffodil, she dares at +last to laugh and say, + +"Now confess, mother, that you won't find sweeter flowers even in +heaven." + +And when the thrush is on the apple bough outside the window, Margaret +will sometimes employ the same gentle raillery. + +"Do you think, mother," she will say, "that an angel could sing sweeter +than that thrush?" + +"You seem very sure, Margaret, that I am going to heaven," the old +mother will sometimes say, with one of her arch old smiles; "but do you +know that I stole two peppermints yesterday?" + +"You did!" says Margaret. + +"I did indeed! and they have been on my conscience ever since." + +"Really, mother! I don't know what to say," answers Margaret. "I had no +idea that you are so wicked." + +Many such little games the two play together, as the days go by; and +often at bedtime, as Margaret tucks her mother into bed, she asks her: + +"Are you comfortable, dear? Do you really think you would be much more +comfortable in heaven?" + +Or sometimes she will draw aside the window-curtains and say: + +"Look at the stars, mother.... Don't you think we get the best view of +them down here?" + +So it is that Margaret persuades her mother to delay her journey a +little while. + + + + +Kittie's Sister Josephine + +BY ELIZABETH JORDAN + + +Kittie James told me this story about her sister Josephine, and when she +saw my eye light up the way the true artist's does when he hears a good +plot, she said I might use it, if I liked, the next time I "practised +literature." + +I don't think that was a very nice way to say it, especially when one +remembers that Sister Irmingarde read three of my stories to the class +in four months; and as I only write one every week, you can see yourself +what a good average that was. But it takes noble souls to be humble in +the presence of the gifted, and enthusiastic over their success, so only +two of my classmates seemed really happy when Sister Irmingarde read my +third story aloud. It is hardly necessary to mention the names of these +beautiful natures, already so well known to my readers, but I will do +it. They were Maudie Joyce and Mabel Blossom, and they are my dearest +friends at St. Catharine's. And some day, when I am a real writer and +the name of May Iverson shines in gold letters on the tablets of fame, +I'll write a book and dedicate it to them. Then, indeed, they will be +glad they knew me in my schoolgirl days, and recognized real merit when +they saw it, and did not mind the queer things my artistic temperament +often makes me do. Oh, what a slave is one to this artistic, emotional +nature, and how unhappy, how misunderstood! I don't mean that I am +unhappy all the time, of course, but I have Moods. And when I have them +life seems so hollow, so empty, so terrible! At such times natures that +do not understand me are apt to make mistakes, the way Sister Irmingarde +did when she thought I had nervous dyspepsia and made me walk three +miles every day, when it was just Soul that was the matter with me. +Still, I must admit the exercise helped me. It is so soothing, so +restful, so calming to walk on dear nature's breast. Maudie Joyce and +Mabel Blossom always know the minute an attack of artistic temperament +begins in me. Then they go away quietly and reverently, and I write a +story and feel better. + +So this time I am going to tell about Kittie James's sister Josephine. +In the very beginning I must explain that Josephine James used to be a +pupil at St. Catharine's herself, ages and ages ago, and finally she +graduated and left, and began to go into society and look around and +decide what her life-work should be. That was long, long before our +time--as much as ten years, I should think, and poor Josephine must be +twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old now. But Kittie says she is just +as nice as she can be, and not a bit poky, and so active and interested +in life you'd think she was young. Of course I know such things can be, +for my own sister Grace, Mrs. George E. Verbeck, is perfectly lovely and +the most popular woman in the society of our city. But Grace is married, +and perhaps that makes a difference. It is said that love keeps the +spirit young. However, perhaps I'd better go on about Josephine and not +dwell on that. Experienced as we girls are, and drinking of life in deep +draughts though we do, we still admit--Maudie, Mabel, and I--that we do +not yet know much about love. But one cannot know everything at fifteen, +and, as Mabel Blossom always says, "there is yet time." We all know +just the kind of men they're going to be, though. Mine will be a brave +young officer, of course, for a general's daughter should not marry out +of the army, and he will die for his country, leaving me with a broken +heart. Maudie Joyce says hers must be a man who will rule her with a rod +of iron and break her will and win her respect, and then be gentle and +loving and tender. And Mabel Blossom says she's perfectly sure hers will +be fat and have a blond mustache and laugh a great deal. Once she said +maybe none of us would ever get _any_; but the look Maudie Joyce and I +turned upon her checked her thoughtless words. Life is bitter enough as +it is without thinking of dreadful things in the future. I sometimes +fear that underneath her girlish gayety Mabel Blossom conceals a morbid +nature. But I am forgetting Josephine James. This story will tell why, +with all her advantages of wealth and education and beauty, she remained +a maiden lady till she was twenty-eight; and she might have kept on, +too, if Kittie had not taken matters in hand and settled them for her. + +Kittie says Josephine was always romantic and spent long hours of her +young life in girlish reveries and dreams. Of course that isn't the way +Kittie said it, but if I should tell this story in her crude, unformed +fashion, you wouldn't read very far. What Kittie really said was that +Josephine used to "moon around the grounds a lot and bawl, and even try +to write poetry." I understand Josephine's nature, so I will go on and +tell this story in my own way, but you must remember that some of the +credit belongs to Kittie and Mabel Blossom; and if Sister Irmingarde +reads it in class, they can stand right up with me when the author is +called for. + +Well, when Josephine James graduated she got a lot of prizes and things, +for she was a clever girl, and had not spent all her time writing poetry +and thinking deep thoughts about life. She realized the priceless +advantages of a broad and thorough education and of association with the +most cultivated minds. That sentence comes out of our prospectus. Then +she went home and went out a good deal, and was very popular and stopped +writing poetry, and her dear parents began to feel happy and hopeful +about her, and think she would marry and have a nice family, which is +indeed woman's highest, noblest mission in life. But Josephine cherished +an ideal. + +A great many young men came to see her, and Kittie liked one of them +very much indeed--better than all the others. He was handsome, and he +laughed and joked a good deal, and always brought Kittie big boxes of +candy and called her his little sister. He said she was going to be that +in the end, anyhow, and there was no use waiting to give her the title +that his heart dictated. He said it just that way. When he took +Josephine out in his automobile he'd say, "Let's take the kid, too," and +they would, and it did not take Kittie long to understand how things +were between George Morgan--for that was indeed his name--and her +sister. Little do grown-up people realize how intelligent are the minds +of the young, and how keen and penetrating their youthful gaze! Clearly +do I recall some things that happened at home, and it would startle papa +and mamma to know I know them, but I will not reveal them here. Once I +would have done so, in the beginning of my art; but now I have learned +to finish one story before I begin another. + +Little did Mr. Morgan and Josephine wot that every time she refused him +Kittie's young heart burned beneath its sense of wrong, for she did +refuse him almost every time they went out together, and yet she kept +right on going. You would think she wouldn't, but women's natures are +indeed inscrutable. Some authors would stop here and tell what was in +Josephine's heart, but this is not that kind of a story. Kittie was only +twelve then, and they used big words and talked in a queer way they +thought she would not understand; but she did, every time, and she never +missed a single word they said. Of course she wasn't _listening_ +exactly, you see, because they knew she was there. That makes it +different and quite proper. For if Kittie was more intelligent than her +elders it was not the poor child's fault. + +Things went on like that and got worse and worse, and they had been +going on that way for five years. One day Kittie was playing tennis with +George at the Country Club, and he had been very kind to her, and all of +a sudden Kittie told him she knew all, and how sorry she was for him, +and that if he would wait till she grew up she would marry him herself. +The poor child was so young, you see, that she did not know how +unmaidenly this was. And of course at St. Catharine's when they taught +us how to enter and leave rooms and how to act in society and at the +table, they didn't think to tell us not to ask young men to marry us. I +can add with confidence that Kittie James was the only girl who ever +did. I asked the rest afterwards, and they were deeply shocked at the +idea. + +Well, anyhow, Kittie did it, and she said George was just as nice as he +could be. He told her he had "never listened to a more alluring +proposition" (she remembered just the words he used), and that she was +"a little trump"; and then he said he feared, alas! it was impossible, +as even his strong manhood could not face the prospect of the long and +dragging years that lay between. Besides, he said, his heart was already +given, and he guessed he'd better stick to Josephine, and would his +little sister help him to get her? Kittie wiped her eyes and said she +would. She had been crying. It must indeed be a bitter experience to +have one's young heart spurned! But George took her into the club-house +and gave her tea and lots of English muffins and jam, and somehow Kittie +cheered up, for she couldn't help feeling there were still some things +in life that were nice. + +Of course after that she wanted dreadfully to help George, but there +didn't seem to be much she could do. Besides, she had to go right back +to school in September, and being a studious child, I need hardly add +that her entire mind was then given to her studies. When she went home +for the Christmas holidays she took Mabel Blossom with her. Mabel was +more than a year older, but Kittie looked up to her, as it is well the +young should do to us older girls. Besides, Kittie had had her +thirteenth birthday in November, and she was letting down her skirts a +little and beginning to think of putting up her hair. She said when she +remembered that she asked George to wait till she grew up it made her +blush, so you see she was developing very fast. + +As I said before, she took Mabel Blossom home for Christmas, and Mr. and +Mrs. James were lovely to her, and she had a beautiful time. But +Josephine was the best of all. She was just fine. Mabel told me with her +own lips that if she hadn't seen Josephine James's name on the catalogue +as a graduate in '93, she never would have believed she was so old. +Josephine took the two girls to matinees and gave a little tea for them, +and George Morgan was as nice as she was. He was always bringing them +candy and violets, exactly as if they were young ladies, and he treated +them both with the greatest respect, and stopped calling them the kids +when he found they didn't like it. Mabel got as fond of him as Kittie +was, and they were both wild to help him to get Josephine to marry him; +but she wouldn't, though Kittie finally talked to her long and +seriously. I asked Kittie what Josephine said when she did that, and she +confessed that Josephine had laughed so she couldn't say anything. That +hurt the sensitive child, of course, but grown-ups are all too +frequently thoughtless of such things. Had Josephine but listened to +Kittie's words on that occasion, it would have saved Kittie a lot of +trouble. + +Now I am getting to the exciting part of the story. I am always so glad +when I get to that. I asked Sister Irmingarde why one couldn't just make +the story out of the exciting part, and she took a good deal of time to +explain why, but she did not convince me; for besides having the +artistic temperament I am strangely logical for one so young. Some day I +shall write a story that is all climax from beginning to end. That will +show her! But at present I must write according to the severe and +cramping rules which she and literature have laid down. + +One night Mrs. James gave a large party for Josephine, and of course +Mabel and Kittie, being thirteen and fourteen, had to go to bed. It is +such things as this that embitter the lives of schoolgirls. But they +were allowed to go down and see all the lights and flowers and +decorations before people began to come, and they went into the +conservatory because that was fixed up with little nooks and things. +They got away in and off in a kind of wing of it, and they talked and +pretended they were _debutantes_ at the ball, so they stayed longer than +they knew. Then they heard voices, and they looked and saw Josephine and +Mr. Morgan sitting by the fountain. Before they could move or say they +were there, they heard him say this--Kittie remembers just what it was: + +"I have spent six years following you, and you've treated me as if I +were a dog at the end of a string. This thing must end. I must have you, +or I must learn to live without you, and I must know now which it is to +be. Josephine, you must give me my final answer to-night." + +Wasn't it embarrassing for Kittie and Mabel? They did not want to +listen, but some instinct told them Josephine and George might not be +glad to see them then, so they crept behind a lot of tall palms, and +Mabel put her fingers in her ears so she wouldn't hear. Kittie didn't. +She explained to me afterwards that she thought it being her sister made +things kind of different. It was all in the family, anyhow. So Kittie +heard Josephine tell Mr. Morgan that the reason she did not marry him +was because he was an idler and without an ambition or a purpose in +life. And she said she must respect the man she married as well as love +him. Then George jumped up quickly and asked if she loved him, and she +cried and said she did, but that she would never, never marry him until +he did something to win her admiration and prove he was a man. You can +imagine how exciting it was for Kittie to see with her own innocent eyes +how grown-up people manage such things. She said she was so afraid she'd +miss something that she opened them so wide they hurt her afterwards. +But she didn't miss anything. She saw him kiss Josephine, too, and then +Josephine got up, and he argued and tried to make her change her mind, +and she wouldn't, and finally they left the conservatory. After that +Kittie and Mabel crept out and rushed up-stairs. + +The next morning Kittie turned to Mabel with a look on her face which +Mabel had never seen there before. It was grim and determined. She said +she had a plan and wanted Mabel to help her, and not ask any questions, +but get her skates and come out. Mabel did, and they went straight to +George Morgan's house, which was only a few blocks away. He was very +rich and had a beautiful house. An English butler came to the door. +Mabel said she was so frightened her teeth chattered, but he smiled when +he saw Kittie, and said yes, Mr. Morgan was home and at breakfast, and +invited them in. When George came in he had a smoking-jacket on, and +looked very pale and sad and romantic, Mabel thought, but he smiled, +too, when he saw them, and shook hands and asked them if they had +breakfasted. + +Kittie said yes, but they had come to ask him to take them skating, and +they were all ready and had brought their skates. His face fell, as real +writers say, and he hesitated a little, but at last he said he'd go, and +he excused himself, just as if they had been grown up, and went off to +get ready. + +When they were left alone a terrible doubt assailed Mabel, and she asked +Kittie if she was going to ask George again to marry her. Kittie +blushed and said she was not, of course, and that she knew better now. +For it is indeed true that the human heart is not so easily turned from +its dear object. We know that if once one truly loves it lasts forever +and ever and ever, and then one dies and is buried with things the loved +one wore. + +Kittie said she had a plan to help George, and all Mabel had to do was +to watch and keep on breathing. Mabel felt better then, and said she +guessed she could do that. George came back all ready, and they started +off. Kittie acted rather dark and mysterious, but Mabel conversed with +George in the easy and pleasant fashion young men love. She told him all +about school and how bad she was in mathematics; and he said he had been +a duffer at it too, but that he had learned to shun it while there was +yet time. And he advised her very earnestly to have nothing to do with +it. Mabel didn't, either, after she came back to St. Catharine's; and +when Sister Irmingarde reproached her, Mabel said she was leaning on the +judgment of a strong man, as woman should do. But Sister Irmingarde made +her go on with the arithmetic just the same. + +By and by they came to the river, and it was so early not many people +were skating there. When George had fastened on their skates--he did it +in the nicest way, exactly as if they were grown up--Kittie looked more +mysterious than ever, and she started off as fast as she could skate +toward a little inlet where there was no one at all. George and Mabel +followed her. George said he didn't know whether the ice was smooth in +there, but Kittie kept right on, and George did not say any more. I +guess he did not care much where he went. I suppose it disappoints a man +when he wants to marry a woman and she won't. Now that I am beginning to +study deeply this question of love, many things are clear to me. + +Kittie kept far ahead, and all of a sudden Mabel saw that a little +distance further on, and just ahead, there was a big black hole in the +ice, and Kittie was skating straight toward it. Mabel tried to scream, +but she says the sound froze on her pallid lips. Then George saw the +hole, too, and rushed toward Kittie, and quicker than I can write it +Kittie went in that hole and down. + +Mabel says George was there almost as soon, calling to Mabel to keep +back out of danger. Usually when people have to rescue others, +especially in stories, they call to some one to bring a board, and some +one does, and it is easy. But very often in real life there isn't any +board or any one to bring it, and this was indeed the desperate +situation that confronted my hero. There was nothing to do but plunge in +after Kittie, and he plunged, skates and all. Then Mabel heard him gasp +and laugh a little, and he called out: "It's all right, by Jove! The +water isn't much above my knees." And even as he spoke Mabel saw Kittie +rise in the water and sort of hurl herself at him and pull him down into +the water, head and all. When they came up they were both half +strangled, and Mabel was terribly frightened; for she thought George was +mistaken about the depth, and they would both drown before her eyes; and +then she would see that picture all her life, as they do in stories, and +her hair would turn gray. She began to run up and down on the ice and +scream; but even as she did so she heard these extraordinary words come +from between Kittie James's chattering teeth: + +"_Now you are good and wet_!" + +George did not say a word. He confessed to Mabel afterwards that he +thought poor Kittie had lost her mind through fear. But he tried the ice +till he found a place that would hold him, and he got out and pulled +Kittie out. As soon as Kittie was out she opened her mouth and uttered +more remarkable words. + +"Now," she said, "I'll skate till we get near the club-house. Then you +must pick me up and carry me, and I'll shut my eyes and let my head hang +down. And Mabel must cry--good and hard. Then you must send for +Josephine and let her see how you've saved the life of her precious +little sister." + +Mabel said she was sure that Kittie was crazy, and next she thought +George was crazy, too. For he bent and stared hard into Kittie's eyes +for a minute, and then he began to laugh, and he laughed till he cried. +He tried to speak, but he couldn't at first; and when he did the words +came out between his shouts of boyish glee. + +"Do you mean to say, you young monkey," he said, "that this is a put-up +job?" + +Kittie nodded as solemnly as a fair young girl can nod when her clothes +are dripping and her nose is blue with cold. When she did that, George +roared again; then, as if he had remembered something, he caught her +hands and began to skate very fast toward the club-house. He was a +thoughtful young man, you see, and he wanted her to get warm. Perhaps he +wanted to get warm, too. Anyhow, they started off, and as they went, +Kittie opened still further the closed flower of her girlish heart. I +heard that expression once, and I've always wanted to get it into one of +my stories. I think this is a good place. + +She told George she knew the hole in the ice, and that it wasn't deep; +and she said she had done it all to make Josephine admire him and marry +him. + +"She will, too," she said. "Her dear little sister--the only one she's +got." And Kittie went on to say what a terrible thing it would have been +if she had died in the promise of her young life, till Mabel said she +almost felt sure herself that George had saved her. But George +hesitated. He said it wasn't "a square deal," whatever that means, but +Kittie said no one need tell any lies. She had gone into the hole and +George had pulled her out. She thought they needn't explain how deep it +was, and George admitted thoughtfully that "no truly loving family +should hunger for statistics at such a moment." Finally he said: "By +Jove! I'll do it. All's fair in love and war." Then he asked Mabel if +she thought she could "lend intelligent support to the star performers," +and she said she could. So George picked Kittie up in his arms, and +Mabel cried--she was so excited it was easy, and she wanted to do it all +the time--and the sad little procession "homeward wended its weary way," +as the poet says. + +Mabel told me Kittie did her part like a real actress. She shut her eyes +and her head hung over George's arm, and her long, wet braid dripped as +it trailed behind them. George laughed to himself every few minutes till +they got near the club-house. Then he looked very sober, and Mabel +Blossom knew her cue had come, the way it does to actresses, and she let +out a wail that almost made Kittie sit up. It was 'most too much of a +one, and Mr. Morgan advised her to "tone it down a little," because, he +said, if she didn't they'd probably have Kittie buried before she could +explain. But of course Mabel had not been prepared and had not had any +practice. She muffled her sobs after that, and they sounded lots better. +People began to rush from the club-house, and get blankets and whiskey, +and telephone for doctors and for Kittie's family, and things got so +exciting that nobody paid any attention to Mabel. All she had to do was +to mop her eyes occasionally and keep a sharp lookout for Josephine; for +of course, being an ardent student of life, like Maudie and me, she did +not want to miss what came next. + +Pretty soon a horse galloped up, all foaming at the mouth, and he was +pulled back on his haunches, and Josephine and Mr. James jumped out of +the buggy and rushed in, and there was more excitement. When George saw +them coming he turned pale, Mabel said, and hurried off to change his +clothes. One woman looked after him and said, "As modest as he is +brave," and cried over it. When Josephine and Mr. James came in there +was more excitement, and Kittie opened one eye and shut it again right +off, and the doctor said she was all right except for the shock, and her +father and Josephine cried, so Mabel didn't have to any more. She was +glad, too, I can tell you. + +They put Kittie to bed in a room at the club, for the doctor said she +was such a high-strung child it would be wise to keep her perfectly +quiet for a few hours and take precautions against pneumonia. Then +Josephine went around asking for Mr. Morgan. + +By and by he came down, in dry clothes but looking dreadfully +uncomfortable. Mabel said she could imagine how he felt. Josephine was +standing by the open fire when he entered the room, and no one else was +there but Mabel. Josephine went right to him and put her arms around his +neck. + +"Dearest, dearest!" she said. "How can I ever thank you?" Her voice was +very low, but Mabel heard it. George said right off, "There is a way." +That shows how quick and clever he is, for some men might not think of +it. Then Mabel Blossom left the room, with slow, reluctant feet, and +went up-stairs to Kittie. + +That's why Mabel has just gone to Kittie's home for a few days. She and +Kittie are to be flower-maids at Josephine's wedding. I hope it is not +necessary for me to explain to my intelligent readers that her husband +will be George Morgan. Kittie says he confessed the whole thing to +Josephine, and she forgave him, and said she would marry him anyhow; but +she explained that she only did it on Kittie's account. She said she did +not know to what lengths the child might go next. + +So my young friends have gone to mingle in scenes of worldly gayety, +and I sit here in the twilight looking at the evening star and writing +about love. How true it is that the pen is mightier than the sword! +Gayety is well in its place, but the soul of the artist finds its +happiness in work and solitude. I hope Josephine will realize, though, +why I cannot describe her wedding. Of course no artist of delicate +sensibilities could describe a wedding when she hadn't been asked to it. + +Poor Josephine! It seems very, very sad to me that she is marrying thus +late in life and only on Kittie's account. Why, oh, why could she not +have wed when she was young and love was in her heart! + + + + +The Wizard's Touch + +BY ALICE BROWN + + +Jerome Wilmer sat in the garden, painting in a background, with the +carelessness of ease. He seemed to be dabbing little touches at the +canvas, as a spontaneous kind of fun not likely to result in anything +serious, save, perhaps, the necessity of scrubbing them off afterwards, +like a too adventurous child. Mary Brinsley, in her lilac print, stood a +few paces away, the sun on her hair, and watched him. + +"Paris is very becoming to you," she said at last. + +"What do you mean?" asked Wilmer, glancing up, and then beginning to +consider her so particularly that she stepped aside, her brows knitted, +with an admonishing, + +"Look out! you'll get me into the landscape." + +"You're always in the landscape. What do you mean about Paris?" + +"You look so--so travelled, so equal to any place, and Paris in +particular because it's the finest." + +Other people also had said that, in their various ways. He had the +distinction set by nature upon a muscular body and a rather small head, +well poised. His hair, now turning gray, grew delightfully about the +temples, and though it was brushed back in the style of a man who never +looks at himself twice when once will do, it had a way of seeming +entirely right. His brows were firm, his mouth determined, and the close +pointed beard brought his face to a delicate finish. Even his clothes, +of the kind that never look new, had fallen into lines of easy use. + +"You needn't guy me," he said, and went on painting. But he flashed his +sudden smile at her. "Isn't New England becoming to me, too?" + +"Yes, for the summer. It's over-powered. In the winter Aunt Celia calls +you 'Jerry Wilmer.' She's quite topping then. But the minute you appear +with European labels on your trunks and that air of speaking foreign +lingo, she gives out completely. Every time she sees your name in the +paper she forgets you went to school at the Academy and built the fires. +She calls you 'our boarder' then, for as much as a week and a half." + +"Quit it, Mary," said he, smiling at her again. + +"Well," said Mary, yet without turning, "I must go and weed a while." + +"No," put in Wilmer, innocently; "he won't be over yet. He had a big +mail. I brought it to him." + +Mary blushed, and made as if to go. She was a woman of thirty-five, well +poised, and sweet through wholesomeness. Her face had been cut on a +regular pattern, and then some natural influence had touched it up +beguilingly with contradictions. She swung back, after her one tentative +step, and sobered. + +"How do you think he is looking?" she asked. + +"Prime." + +"Not so--" + +"Not so morbid as when I was here last summer," he helped her out. "Not +by any means. Are you going to marry him, Mary?" The question had only a +civil emphasis, but a warmer tone informed it. Mary grew pink under the +morning light, and Jerome went on: "Yes, I have a perfect right to talk +about it, I don't travel three thousand miles every summer to ask you to +marry me without earning some claim to frankness. I mentioned that to +Marshby himself. We met at the station, you remember, the day I came. We +walked down together. He spoke about my sketching, and I told him I had +come on my annual pilgrimage, to ask Mary Brinsley to marry me." + +"Jerome!" + +"Yes, I did. This is my tenth pilgrimage. Mary, will you marry me?" + +"No," said Mary, softly, but as if she liked him very much. "No, +Jerome." + +Wilmer squeezed a tube on his palette and regarded the color frowningly. +"Might as well, Mary," said he. "You'd have an awfully good time in +Paris." + +She was perfectly still, watching him, and he went on: + +"Now you're thinking if Marshby gets the consulate you'll be across the +water anyway, and you could run down to Paris and see the sights. But it +wouldn't be the same thing. It's Marshby you like, but you'd have a +better time with me." + +"It's a foregone conclusion that the consulship will be offered him," +said Mary. Her eyes were now on the path leading through the garden and +over the wall to the neighboring house where Marshby lived. + +"Then you will marry and go with him. Ah, well, that's finished. I +needn't come another summer. When you are in Paris, I can show you the +boulevards and cafes." + +"It is more than probable he won't accept the consulship." + +"Why?" He held his palette arrested in mid-air and stared at her. + +"He is doubtful of himself--doubtful whether he is equal to so +responsible a place." + +"Bah! it's not an embassy." + +"No; but he fancies he has not the address, the social gifts--in fact, +he shrinks from it." Her face had taken on a soft distress; her eyes +appealed to him. She seemed to be confessing, for the other man, +something that might well be misunderstood. Jerome, ignoring the flag of +her discomfort, went on painting, to give her room for confidence. + +"Is it that old plague-spot?" he asked. "Just what aspect does it bear +to him? Why not talk freely about it?" + +"It is the old remorse. He misunderstood his brother when they two were +left alone in the world. He forced the boy out of evil associations when +he ought to have led him. You know the rest of it. The boy was +desperate. He killed himself." + +"When he was drunk. Marshby wasn't responsible." + +"No, not directly. But you know that kind of mind. It follows hidden +causes. That's why his essays are so good. Anyway, it has crippled him. +It came when he was too young, and it marked him for life. He has an +inveterate self-distrust." + +"Ah, well," said Winner, including the summer landscape in a wave of his +brush, "give up the consulship. Let him give it up. It isn't as if he +hadn't a roof. Settle down in his house there, you two, and let him +write his essays, and you--just be happy." + +She ignored her own part in the prophecy completely and finally. "It +isn't the consulship as the consulship," she responded. "It is the life +abroad I want for him. It would give him--well, it would give him what +it has given you. His work would show it." She spoke hotly, and at once +Jerome saw himself envied for his brilliant cosmopolitan life, the +bounty of his success fairly coveted for the other man. It gave him a +curious pang. He felt, somehow, impoverished, and drew his breath more +meagrely. But the actual thought in his mind grew too big to be +suppressed, and he stayed his hand to look at her. + +"That's not all," he said. + +"All what?" + +"That's not the main reason why you want him to go. You think if he +really asserted himself, really knocked down the spectre of his old +distrust and stamped on it, he would be a different man. If he had once +proved himself, as we say of younger chaps, he could go on proving." + +"No," she declared, in nervous loyalty. She was like a bird fluttering +to save her nest. "No! You are wrong. I ought not to have talked about +him at all. I shouldn't to anybody else. Only, you are so kind." + +"It's easy to be kind," said Jerome, gently, "when there's nothing else +left us." + +She stood wilfully swaying a branch of the tendrilled arbor, and, he +subtly felt, so dissatisfied with herself for her temporary disloyalty +that she felt alien to them both: Marshby because she had wronged him by +admitting another man to this intimate knowledge of him, and the other +man for being her accomplice. + +"Don't be sorry," he said, softly. "You haven't been naughty." + +But she had swung round to some comprehension of what he had a right to +feel. + +"It makes one selfish," she said, "to want--to want things to come out +right." + +"I know. Well, can't we make them come out right? He is sure of the +consulship?" + +"Practically." + +"You want to be assured of his taking it." + +She did not answer; but her face lighted, as if to a new appeal. Jerome +followed her look along the path. Marshby himself was coming. He was no +weakling. He swung along easily with the stride of a man accustomed to +using his body well. He had not, perhaps, the urban air, and yet there +was nothing about him which would not have responded at once to a more +exacting civilization. Jerome knew his face,--knew it from their college +days together and through these annual visits of his own; but now, as +Marshby approached, the artist rated him not so much by the friendly as +the professional eye. He saw a man who looked the scholar and the +gentleman, keen though not imperious of glance. His visage, mature even +for its years, had suffered more from emotion than from deeds or the +assaults of fortune. Marshby had lived the life of thought, and, +exaggerating action, had failed to fit himself to any form of it. Wilmer +glanced at his hands, too, as they swung with his walk, and then +remembered that the professional eye had already noted them and laid +their lines away for some suggestive use. As he looked, Marshby stopped +in his approach, caught by the singularity of a gnarled tree limb. It +awoke in him a cognizance of nature's processes, and his face lighted +with the pleasure of it. + +"So you won't marry me?" asked Wilmer, softly, in that pause. + +"Don't!" said Mary. + +"Why not, when you won't tell whether you're engaged to him or not? Why +not, anyway? If I were sure you'd be happier with me, I'd snatch you out +of his very maw. Yes, I would. Are you sure you like him, Mary?" + +The girl did not answer, for Marshby had started again. Jerome got the +look in her face, and smiled a little, sadly. + +"Yes," he said, "you're sure." + +Mary immediately felt unable to encounter them together. She gave +Marshby a good-morning, and, to his bewilderment, made some excuse about +her weeding and flitted past him on the path. His eyes followed her, and +when they came back to Wilmer the artist nodded brightly. + +"I've just asked her," he said. + +"Asked her?" Marshby was about to pass him, pulling out his glasses and +at the same time peering at the picture with the impatience of his +near-sighted look. + +"There, don't you do that!" cried Jerome, stopping, with his brush in +air. "Don't you come round and stare over my shoulder. It makes me +nervous ad the devil. Step back there--there by that mullein. So! I've +got to face my protagonist. Yes, I've been asking her to marry me." + +Marshby stiffened. His head went up, his jaw tightened. He looked the +jealous ire of the male. + +"What do you want me to stand here for?" he asked, irritably. + +"But she refused me," said Wilmer, cheerfully. "Stand still, that's a +good fellow. I'm using you." + +Marshby had by an effort pulled himself together. He dismissed Mary from +his mind, as he wished to drive her from the other man's speech. + +"I've been reading the morning paper on your exhibition," he said, +bringing out the journal from his pocket. "They can't say enough about +you." + +"Oh, can't they! Well, the better for me. What are they pleased to +discover?" + +"They say you see round corners and through deal boards. Listen." He +struck open the paper and read: "'A man with a hidden crime upon his +soul will do well to elude this greatest of modern magicians. The man +with a secret tells it the instant he sits down before Jerome Wilmer. +Wilmer does not paint faces, brows, hands. He paints hopes, fears, and +longings. If we could, in our turn, get to the heart of his mystery! If +we could learn whether he says to himself: "I see hate in that face, +hypocrisy, greed. I will paint them. That man is not man, but cur. He +shall fawn on my canvas." Or does he paint through a kind of inspired +carelessness, and as the line obeys the eye and hand, so does the +emotion live in the line?'" + +"Oh, gammon!" snapped Wilmer. + +"Well, do you?" said Marshby, tossing the paper to the little table +where Mary's work-box stood. + +"Do I what? Spy and then paint, or paint and find I've spied? Oh, I +guess I plug along like any other decent workman. When it comes to that, +how do you write your essays?" + +"I! Oh! That's another pair of sleeves. Your work is colossal. I'm still +on cherry-stones." + +"Well," said Wilmer, with slow incisiveness, "you've accomplished one +thing I'd sell my name for. You've got Mary Brinsley bound to you so +fast that neither lure nor lash can stir her. I've tried it--tried Paris +even, the crudest bribe there is. No good! She won't have me." + +At her name, Marshby straightened again, and there was fire in his eye. +Wilmer, sketching him in, seemed to gain distinct impulse from the pose, +and worked the faster. + +"Don't move," he ordered. "There, that's right. So, you see, you're the +successful chap. I'm the failure. She won't have me." There was such +feeling in his tone that Marshby's expression softened comprehendingly. +He understood a pain that prompted even such a man to rash avowal. + +"I don't believe we'd better speak of her," he said, in awkward +kindliness. + +"I want to," returned Wilmer. "I want to tell you how lucky you are." + +Again that shade of introspective bitterness clouded Marshby's face. +"Yes," said he, involuntarily. "But how about her? Is _she_ lucky?" + +"Yes," replied Jerome, steadily. "She's got what she wants. She won't +worship you any the less because you don't worship yourself. That's the +mad way they have--women. It's an awful challenge. You've got a fight +before you, if you don't refuse it.". + +"God!" groaned Marshby to himself, "it is a fight. I can't refuse it." + +Wilmer put his question without mercy. "Do you want to?" + +"I want her to be happy," said Marshby, with a simple humility afar from +cowardice. "I want her to be safe. I don't see how anybody could be +safe--with me." + +"Well," pursued Wilmer, recklessly, "would she be safe with me?" + +"I think so," said Marshby, keeping an unblemished dignity. "I have +thought that for a good many years." + +"But not happy?" + +"No, not happy. She would--We have been together so long." + +"Yes, she'd miss you. She'd die of homesickness. Well!" He sat +contemplating Marshby with his professional stare; but really his mind +was opened for the first time to the full reason for Mary's unchanging +love. Marshby stood there so quiet, so oblivious of himself in +comparison with unseen things, so much a man from head to foot, that he +justified the woman's loyal passion as nothing had before. "Shall you +accept the consulate?" Wilmer asked, abruptly. + +Brought face to face with fact, Marshby's pose slackened. He drooped +perceptibly. "Probably not," he said. "No, decidedly not." + +Wilmer swore under his breath, and sat, brows bent, marvelling at the +change in him. The man's infirmity of will had blighted him. He was so +truly another creature that not even a woman's unreasoning championship +could pull him into shape again. + +Mary Brinsley came swiftly down the path, trowel in one hand and her +basket of weeds in the other. Wilmer wondered if she had been glancing +up from some flowery screen and read the story of that altered posture. +She looked sharply anxious, like a mother whose child is threatened. +Jerome shrewdly knew that Marshby's telltale attitude was no unfamiliar +one. + +"What have you been saying?" she asked, in laughing challenge, yet with +a note of anxiety underneath. + +"I'm painting him in," said Wilmer; but as she came toward him he turned +the canvas dexterously. "No," said he, "no. I've got my idea from this. +To-morrow Marshby's going to sit." + +That was all he would say, and Mary put it aside as one of his +pleasantries made to fit the hour. But next day he set up a big canvas +in the barn that served him as workroom, and summoned Marshby from his +books. He came dressed exactly right, in his every-day clothes that had +comfortable wrinkles in them, and easily took his pose. For all his +concern over the inefficiency of his life, as a life, he was entirely +without self-consciousness in his personal habit. Jerome liked that, and +began to like him better as he knew him more. A strange illuminative +process went on in his mind toward the man as Mary saw him, and more and +more he nursed a fretful sympathy with her desire to see Marshby tuned +up to some pitch that should make him livable to himself. It seemed a +cruelty of nature that any man should so scorn his own company and yet +be forced to keep it through an allotted span. In that sitting Marshby +was at first serious and absent-minded. Though his body was obediently +there, the spirit seemed to be busy somewhere else. + +"Head up!" cried Jerome at last, brutally. "Heavens, man, don't skulk!" + +Marshby straightened under the blow. It hit harder, as Jerome meant it +should, than any verbal rallying. It sent the man back over his own +life to the first stumble in it. + +"I want you to look as if you heard drums and fife," Jerome explained, +with one of his quick smiles, that always wiped out former injury. + +But the flush was not yet out of Marshby's face, and he answered, +bitterly, "I might run." + +"I don't mind your looking as if you'd like to run and knew you +couldn't," said Jerome, dashing in strokes now in a happy certainty. + +"Why couldn't I?" asked Marshby, still from that abiding scorn of his +own ways. + +"Because you can't, that's all. Partly because you get the habit of +facing the music. I should like--" Wilmer had an unconsidered way of +entertaining his sitters, without much expenditure to himself; he +pursued a fantastic habit of talk to keep their blood moving, and did it +with the eye of the mind unswervingly on his work. "If I were you, I'd +do it. I'd write an essay on the muscular habit of courage. Your coward +is born weak-kneed. He shouldn't spill himself all over the place trying +to put on the spiritual make-up of a hero. He must simply strengthen +his knees. When they'll take him anywhere he requests, without buckling, +he wakes up and finds himself a field-marshal. _Voila!_" + +"It isn't bad," said Marshby, unconsciously straightening. "Go ahead, +Jerome. Turn us all into field-marshals." + +"Not all," objected Wilmer, seeming to dash his brush at the canvas with +the large carelessness that promised his best work. "The jobs wouldn't +go round. But I don't feel the worse for it when I see the recruity +stepping out, promotion in his eye." + +After the sitting, Wilmer went yawning forward, and with a hand on +Marshby's shoulder, took him to the door. + +"Can't let you look at the thing," he said, as Marshby gave one backward +glance. "That's against the code. Till it's done, no eye touches it but +mine and the light of heaven." + +Marshby had no curiosity. He smiled, and thereafter let the picture +alone, even to the extent of interested speculation. Mary had +scrupulously absented herself from that first sitting; but after it was +over and Marshby had gone home, Wilmer found her in the garden, under an +apple-tree, shelling pease. He lay down on the ground, at a little +distance, and watched her. He noted the quick, capable turn of her +wrist and the dexterous motion of the brown hands as they snapped out +the pease, and he thought how eminently sweet and comfortable it would +be to take this bit of his youth back to France with him, or even to +give up France and grow old with her at home. + +"Mary," said he, "I sha'n't paint any picture of you this summer." + +Mary laughed, and brushed back a yellow lock with the back of her hand. +"No," said she, "I suppose not. Aunt Celia spoke of it yesterday. She +told me the reason." + +"What is Aunt Celia's most excellent theory?" + +"She said I'm not so likely as I used to be." + +"No," said Jerome, not answering her smile in the community of mirth +they always had over Aunt Celia's simple speech. He rolled over on the +grass and began to make a dandelion curl. "No, that's not it. You're a +good deal likelier than you used to be. You're all possibilities now. I +could make a Madonna out of you, quick as a wink. No, it's because I've +decided to paint Marshby instead." + +Mary's hands stilled themselves, and she looked at him anxiously. "Why +are you doing that?" she asked. + +"Don't you want the picture?" + +"What are you going to do with it?" + +"Give it to you, I guess. For a wedding-present, Mary." + +"You mustn't say those things," said Mary, gravely. She went on working, +but her face was serious. + +"It's queer, isn't it," remarked Wilmer, after a pause, "this notion +you've got that Marshby's the only one that could possibly do? I began +asking you first." + +"Please!" said Mary. Her eyes were full of tears. That was rare for her, +and Wilmer saw it meant a shaken poise. She was less certain to-day of +her own fate. It made her more responsively tender toward his. He sat up +and looked at her. + +"No," he said. "No. I won't ask you again. I never meant to. Only I have +to speak of it once in a while. We should have such a tremendously good +time together." + +"We have a tremendously good time now," said Mary, the smile coming +while she again put up the back of her hand and brushed her eyes. "When +you're good." + +"When I help all the other little boys at the table, and don't look at +the nice heart-shaped cake I want myself? It's frosted, and got little +pink things all over the top. There! don't drop the corners of your +mouth. If I were asked what kind of a world I'd like to live in, I'd say +one where the corners of Mary's mouth keep quirked up all the time. +Let's talk about Marshby's picture. It's going to be your Marshby." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Not Marshby's Marshby--yours." + +"You're not going to play some dreadful joke on him?" Her eyes were +blazing under knotted brows. + +"Mary!" Wilmer spoke gently, and though the tone recalled her, she could +not forbear at once, in her hurt pride and loyalty. + +"You're not going to put him into any masquerade?--to make him anything +but what he is?" + +"Mary, don't you think that's a little hard on an old chum?" + +"I can't help it." Her cheeks were hot, though now it was with shame. +"Yes, I am mean, jealous, envious. I see you with everything at your +feet--" + +"Not quite everything," said Jerome. "I know it makes you hate me." + +"No! no!" The real woman had awakened in her, and she turned to him in a +whole-hearted honesty. "Only, they say you do such wizard things when +you paint. I never saw any of your pictures, you know, except the ones +you did of me. And they're not _me_. They're lovely--angels with women's +clothes on. Aunt Celia says if I looked like that I'd carry all before +me. But, you see, you've always been--partial to me." + +"And you think I'm not partial to Marshby?" + +"It isn't that. It's only that they say you look inside people and drag +out what is there. And inside him--oh, you'd see his hatred of himself!" +The tears were rolling unregarded down her face. + +"This is dreadful," said Wilmer, chiefly to himself. "Dreadful." + +"There!" said Mary, drearily, emptying the pods from her apron into the +basket at her side. "I suppose I've done it now. I've spoiled the +picture." + +"No," returned Jerome, thoughtfully, "you haven't spoiled the picture. +Really I began it with a very definite conception of what I was going to +do. It will be done in that way or not at all." + +"You're very kind," said Mary, humbly. "I didn't mean to act like +this." + +"No,"--he spoke out of a maze of reflection, not looking at her. "You +have an idea he's under the microscope with me. It makes you nervous." + +She nodded, and then caught herself up. + +"There's nothing you mightn't see," she said, proudly, ignoring her +previous outburst. "You or anybody else, even with a microscope." + +"No, of course not. Only you'd say microscopes aren't fair. Well, +perhaps they're not. And portrait-painting is a very simple matter. It's +not the black art. But if I go on with this, you are to let me do it in +my own way. You're not to look at it." + +"Not even when you're not at work?" + +"Not once, morning, noon, or night, till I invite you to. You were +always a good fellow, Mary. You'll keep your word." + +"No, I won't look at it," said Mary. + +Thereafter she stayed away from the barn, not only when he was painting, +but at other times, and Wilmer missed her. He worked very fast, and made +his plans for sailing, and Aunt Celia loudly bemoaned his stinginess in +cutting short the summer. One day, after breakfast, he sought out Mary +again in the garden. She was snipping Coreopsis for the dinner table, +but she did it absently, and Jerome noted the heaviness of her eyes. + +"What's the trouble?" he asked, abruptly, and she was shaken out of her +late constraint. She looked up at him with a piteous smile. + +"Nothing much," she said. "It doesn't matter. I suppose it's fate. He +has written his letter." + +"Marshby?" + +"You knew he got his appointment?" + +"No; I saw something had him by the heels, but he's been still as a +fish." + +"It came three days ago. He has decided not to take it. And it will +break his heart." + +"It will break your heart," Wilmer opened his lips to say; but he dared +not jostle her mood of unconsidered frankness. + +"I suppose I expected it," she went on. "I did expect it. Yet he's been +so different lately, it gave me a kind of hope." + +Jerome started. "How has he been different?" he asked. + +"More confident, less doubtful of himself. It's not anything he has +said. It's in his speech, his walk. He even carries his head +differently, as if he had a right to. Well, we talked half the night +last night, and he went home to write the letter. He promised me not to +mail it till he'd seen me once more; but nothing will make any +difference." + +"You won't beseech him?" + +"No. He is a man. He must decide." + +"You won't tell him what depends on it!" + +"Nothing depends on it," said Mary, calmly. "Nothing except his own +happiness. I shall find mine in letting him accept his life according to +his own free will." + +There was something majestic in her mental attitude. Wilmer felt how +noble her maturity was to be, and told himself, with a thrill of pride, +that he had done well to love her. + +"Marshby is coming," he said. "I want to show you both the picture." + +Mary shook her head. "Not this morning," she told him, and he could see +how meagre canvas and paint must seem to her after her vision of the +body of life. But he took her hand. + +"Come," he said, gently; "you must." + +Still holding her flowers, she went with him, though her mind abode with +her lost cause. Marshby halted when he saw them coming, and Jerome had +time to look at him. The man held himself wilfully erect, but his face +betrayed him. It was haggard, smitten. He had not only met defeat; he +had accepted it. Jerome nodded to him and went on before them to the +barn. The picture stood there in a favoring light. Mary caught her +breath sharply, and then all three were silent. Jerome stood there +forgetful of them, his eyes on his completed work, and for the moment he +had in it the triumph of one who sees intention, brought to fruitage +under perfect auspices. It meant more to him, that recognition, than any +glowing moment of his youth. The scroll of his life unrolled before him, +and he saw his past, as other men acclaimed it, running into the future +ready for his hand to make. A great illumination touched the days to +come. Brilliant in promise, they were yet barren of hope. For as surely +as he had been able to set this seal on Mary's present, he saw how the +thing itself would separate them. He had painted her ideal of Marshby; +but whenever in the future she should nurse the man through the mental +sickness bound always to delay his march, she would remember this moment +with a pang, as something Jerome had dowered him with, not something he +had attained unaided. Marshby faced them from the canvas, erect, +undaunted, a soldier fronting the dawn, expectant of battle, yet with no +dread of its event. He was not in any sense alien to himself. He +dominated, not by crude force, but through the sustained inward strength +of him. It was not youth Jerome had given him. There was maturity in the +face. It had its lines--the lines that are the scars of battle; but +somehow not one suggested, even to the doubtful mind, a battle lost. +Jerome turned from the picture to the man himself, and had his own +surprise. Marshby was transfigured. He breathed humility and hope. He +stirred at Wilmer's motion. + +"Am I"--he glowed--"could I have looked like that?" Then in the +poignancy of the moment he saw how disloyal to the moment it was even to +hint at what should have been, without snapping the link now into the +welding present. He straightened himself and spoke brusquely, but to +Mary: + +"I'll go back and write that letter. Here is the one I wrote last +night." + +He took it from his pocket, tore it in two, and gave it to her. Then he +turned away and walked with the soldier's step home. Jerome could not +look at her. He began moving back the picture. + +"There!" he said, "it's finished. Better make up your mind where you'll +have it put. I shall be picking up my traps this morning." + +Then Mary gave him his other surprise. Her hands were on his shoulders. +Her eyes, full of the welling gratitude that is one kind of love, spoke +like her lips. + +"Oh!" said she, "do you think I don't know what you've done? I couldn't +take it from anybody else. I couldn't let him take it. It's like +standing beside him in battle; like lending him your horse, your sword. +It's being a comrade. It's helping him fight. And he _will_ fight. +That's the glory of it!" + + + + +The Bitter Cup + +BY CHARLES B. DE CAMP + + +Clara Leeds sat by the open window of her sitting-room with her fancy +work. Her hair was done up in an irreproachable style, and her +finger-nails were carefully manicured and pink like little shells. She +had a slender waist, and looked down at it from time to time with +satisfied eyes. At the back of her collar was a little burst of chiffon; +for chiffon so arranged was the fashion. She cast idle glances at the +prospect from the window. It was not an alluring one--a row of brick +houses with an annoying irregularity of open and closed shutters. + +There was the quiet rumble of a carriage in the street, and Clara Leeds +leaned forward, her eyes following the vehicle until to look further +would have necessitated leaning out of the window. There were two women +in the carriage, both young and soberly dressed. To certain eyes they +might have appeared out of place in a carriage, and yet, somehow, it was +obvious that it was their own. Clara Leeds resumed her work, making +quick, jerky stitches. + +"Clara Leeds," she murmured, as if irritated. She frowned and then +sighed. "If only--if only it was something else; if it only had two +syllables...." She put aside her work and went and stood before the +mirror of her dresser. She looked long at her face. It was fresh and +pretty, and her blue eyes, in spite of their unhappy look, were clear +and shining. She fingered a strand of hair, and then cast critical +sidelong glances at her profile. She smoothed her waist-line with a +movement peculiar to women. Then she tilted the glass and regarded the +reflection from head to foot. + +"Oh, what is it?" she demanded, distressed, of herself in the glass. She +took up her work again. + +"They don't seem to care how they look and ... they do wear shabby +gloves and shoes." So her thoughts ran. "But they are the Rockwoods and +they don't have to care. It must be so easy for them; they only have to +visit the Day Nursery, and the Home for Incurables, and some old, poor, +sick people. They never have to meet them and ask them to dinner. They +just say a few words and leave some money or things in a nice way, and +they can go home and do what they please." Clara Leeds's eyes rested +unseeingly on the house opposite. "It must be nice to have a rector ... +he is such an intellectual-looking man, so quiet and dignified; just the +way a minister should be, instead of like Mr. Copple, who tries to be +jolly and get up sociables and parlor meetings." There were tears in the +girl's eyes. + +A tea-bell rang, and Clara went down-stairs to eat dinner with her +father. He had just come in and was putting on a short linen coat. +Clara's mother was dead. She was the only child at home, and kept house +for her father. + +"I suppose you are all ready for the lawn-tennis match this afternoon?" +said Mr. Leeds to his daughter. "Mr. Copple said you were going to play +with him. My! that young man is up to date. Think of a preacher getting +up a lawn-tennis club! Why, when I was a young man that would have +shocked people out of their boots. But it's broad-minded, it's +broad-minded," with a wave of the hand. "I like to see a man with ideas, +and if lawn-tennis will help to keep our boys out of sin's pathway, +why, then, lawn-tennis is a strong, worthy means of doing the Lord's +work." + +"Yes," said Clara. "Did Mr. Copple say he would call for me? It isn't +necessary." + +"Oh yes, yes," said her father; "he said to tell you he would be around +here at two o'clock. I guess I'll have to go over myself and see part of +the athletics. We older folks ain't quite up to taking a hand in the +game, but we can give Copple our support by looking in on you and +cheering on the good work." + +After dinner Mr. Leeds changed the linen coat for a cutaway and started +back to his business. Clara went up-stairs and put on a short skirt and +tennis shoes. She again surveyed herself in the mirror. The skirt +certainly hung just like the model. She sighed and got out her +tennis-racquet. Then she sat down and read in a book of poems that she +was very fond of. + +At two o'clock the bell jangled, and Clara opened the door for Mr. +Copple herself. The clergyman was of slight build, and had let the hair +in front of his ears grow down a little way on his cheeks. He wore a +blue yachting-cap, and white duck trousers which were rolled up and +displayed a good deal of red and black sock. For a moment Clara imaged a +clear-cut face with grave eyes above a length of clerical waistcoat, on +which gleamed a tiny gold cross suspended from a black cord. + +"I guess we might as well go over," she said. "I'm all ready." + +The clergyman insisted on carrying Clara's racquet. "You are looking +very well," he said, somewhat timidly, but with admiring eyes. "But +perhaps you don't feel as much like playing as you look." + +"Oh yes, I do indeed," replied Clara, inwardly resenting the solicitude +in his tone. + +They set out, and the clergyman appeared to shake his mind free of a +preoccupation. + +"I hope all the boys will be around," he said, with something of +anxiety. "They need the exercise. All young, active fellows ought to +have it. I spoke to Mr. Goodloe and Mr. Sharp and urged them to let Tom +and Fred Martin off this afternoon. I think they will do it. Ralph +Carpenter, I'm afraid, can't get away from the freight-office, but I am +in hopes that Mr. Stiggins can take his place. Did you know that Mrs. +Thompson has promised to donate some lemonade?" + +"That's very nice," said Clara. "It's a lovely day for the match." She +was thinking, "What short steps he takes!" + +After some silent walking the clergyman said: "I don't believe you know, +Miss Leeds, how much I appreciate your taking part in these tennis +matches. Somehow I feel that it is asking a great deal of you, for I +know that you have--er--so many interests of your own--that is, you are +different in many ways from most of our people. I want you to know that +I am grateful for the influence--your cooperation, you know--" + +"Please, Mr. Copple, don't mention it," said Clara, hurriedly. "I +haven't so many interests as you imagine, and I am not any different +from the rest of the people. Not at all." If there was any hardness in +the girl's tone the clergyman did not appear to notice it. They had +reached their destination. + +The tennis-court was on the main street just beyond the end of the +business section. It was laid out on a vacant lot between two brick +houses. A wooden sign to one side of the court announced, "First ---- +Church Tennis Club." When Clara and Mr. Copple arrived at the court +there were a number of young people gathered in the lot. Most of them +had tennis-racquets, those of the girls being decorated with bows of +yellow, black, and lavender ribbon. Mr. Copple shook hands with +everybody, and ran over the court several times, testing the consistency +of the earth. + +"Everything is capital!" he cried. + +Clara Leeds bowed to the others, shaking hands with only one or two. +They appeared to be afraid of her. The finals in the men's singles were +between Mr. Copple and Elbert Dunklethorn, who was called "Ellie." He +wore a very high collar, and as his shoes had heels, he ran about the +court on his toes. + +Clara, watching him, recalled her father's words at dinner. "How will +this save that boy from sin's pathway?" she thought. She regarded the +clergyman; she recognized his zeal. But why, why must she be a part of +this--what was it?--this system of saving people and this kind of +people? If she could only go and be good to poor and unfortunate people +whom she wouldn't have to know. Clara glanced toward the street. "I hope +they won't come past," she said to herself. + +The set in which Clara and the clergyman were partners was the most +exciting of the afternoon. The space on either side of the court was +quite filled with spectators. Some of the older people who had come with +the lengthening shadows sat on chairs brought from the kitchens of the +adjoining houses. Among them was Mr. Leeds, his face animated. Whenever +a ball went very high up or very far down the lot, he cried, "Hooray!" +Clara was at the net facing the street, when the carriage she had +observed in the morning stopped in view, and the two soberly dressed +women leaned forward to watch the play. Clara felt her face burn, and +when they cried "game," she could not remember whether the clergyman and +she had won it or lost it. She was chiefly conscious of her father's +loud "hoorays." With the end of the play the carriage was driven on. + +Shortly before supper-time that evening Clara went to the drug-store to +buy some stamps. One of the Misses Rockwood was standing by the +show-case waiting for the clerk to wrap up a bottle. Clara noted the +scantily trimmed hat and the scuffed gloves. She nodded in response to +Miss Rockwood's bow. They had met but once. + +"That was a glorious game of tennis you were having this afternoon," +said Miss Rockwood, with a warm smile. "My sister and I should like to +have seen more of it. You all seemed to be having such a good time." + +"_You all_--" + +Clara fumbled her change. "It's--it's good exercise," she said. That +night she cried herself to sleep. + + +II + +The rector married the younger Miss Rockwood. To Clara Leeds the match +afforded painfully pleasurable feeling. It was so eminently fitting; and +yet it was hard to believe that any man could see anything in Miss +Rockwood. His courtship had been in keeping with the man, dignified and +yet bold. Clara had met them several times together. She always hurried +past. The rector bowed quietly. He seemed to say to all the world, "I +have chosen me a woman." His manner defied gossip; there was none that +Clara heard. This immunity of theirs distilled the more bitterness in +her heart because gossip was now at the heels of her and Mr. Copple, +following them as chickens do the feed-box. She knew it from such +transmissions as, "But doubtless Mr. Copple has already told you," or, +"You ought to know, if any one does." + +It had been some time apparent to Clara that the minister held her in a +different regard from the other members of his congregation. His talks +with her were more personal; his manner was bashfully eager. He sought +to present the congeniality of their minds. Mr. Copple had a nice taste +in poetry, but somehow Clara, in after-reading, skipped those poems that +he had read aloud to her. On several occasions she knew that a +declaration was imminent. She extricated herself with a feeling of +unspeakable relief. It would not be a simple matter to refuse him. Their +relations had been peculiar, and to tell him that she did not love him +would not suffice in bringing them to an end. Mr. Copple was odious to +her. She could not have explained why clearly, yet she knew. And she +would have blushed in the attempt to explain why; it would have revealed +a detestation of her lot. Clara had lately discovered the meaning of the +word "plebeian"; more, she believed she comprehended its applicableness. +The word was a burr in her thoughts. Mr. Copple was the personification +of the word. Clara had not repulsed him. You do not do that sort of +thing in a small town. She knew intuitively that the clergyman would +not be satisfied with the statement that he was not loved. She also knew +that he would extract part, at least, of the real reason from her. It is +more painful for a lover to learn that he is not liked than that he is +not loved. Clara did not wish to cause him pain. + +She was spared the necessity. The minister fell from a scaffolding on +the new church and was picked up dead. + +Clara's position was pitiful. Sudden death does not grow less shocking +because of its frequency. Clara shared the common shock, but not the +common grief. Fortunately, as hers was supposed to be a peculiar grief, +she could manifest it in a peculiar way. She chose silence. The shock +had bereft her of much thought. Death had laid a hand over the mouth of +her mind. But deep down a feeling of relief swam in her heart. She gave +it no welcome, but it would take no dismissal. + +About a week after the funeral, Clara, who walked out much alone, was +returning home near the outskirts of town. The houses were far apart, +and between them stretched deep lots fringed with flowered weeds +man-high. A level sun shot long golden needles through the blanched +maple-trees, and the street beneath them was filled with lemon-colored +light. The roll of a light vehicle approaching from behind grew distinct +enough to attract Clara's attention. "It is Mrs. Custer coming back from +the Poor Farm," she thought. It was Mrs. Everett Custer, who was +formerly the younger Miss Rockwood, and she was coming from the Poor +Farm. The phaeton came into Clara's sight beside her at the curb. As she +remarked it, Mrs. Custer said, in her thin, sympathetic voice, "Miss +Leeds, won't you drive with me back to town? I wish you would." + +An excuse rose instinctively to Clara's lips. She was walking for +exercise. But suddenly a thought came to her, and after a moment's +hesitation, she said: "You are very kind. I am a little tired." She got +into the phaeton, and the sober horse resumed his trot down the yellow +street. + +Clara's thought was: "Why shouldn't I accept? She is too well bred to +sympathize with me, and perhaps, now that I am free, I can get to know +her and show her that I am not just the same as all the rest, and +perhaps I'll get to going with her sort of people." + +She listened to the rhythm of the horse's hoof-beats, and was not a +little uneasy. Mrs. Custer remarked the beauty of the late afternoon, +the glorious symphonies of color in sky and tree, in response to which +Clara said, "Yes, indeed," and, "Isn't it?" between long breaths. She +was about to essay a question concerning the Poor Farm, when Mrs. Custer +began to speak, at first faltering, in a tone that sent the blood out of +Clara's face and drew a sudden catching pain down her breast. + +"I--really, Miss Leeds, I want to say something to you and I don't quite +know how to say it, and yet it is something I want very much for you to +know." Mrs. Custer's eyes looked the embarrassment of unencouraged +frankness. "I know it is presumptuous for me, almost a stranger, to +speak to you, but I feel so deeply on the matter--Everett--Mr. Custer +feels so deeply--My dear Miss Leeds, I want you to know what a grief his +loss was to us. Oh, believe me, I am not trying to sympathize with you. +I have no right to do that. But if you could know how Mr. Custer always +regarded Mr. Copple! It might mean something to you to know that. I +don't think there was a man for whom he expressed greater +admiration--than what, I mean, he expressed to me. He saw in him all +that he lacked himself. I am telling you a great deal. It is difficult +for my husband to go among men in that way--in the way _he_ did. And +yet he firmly believes that the Kingdom of God can only be brought to +men by the ministers of God going among them and being of them. He +envied Mr. Copple his ability to do that, to know his people as one of +them, to take part in their--their sports and all that. You don't know +how he envied him and admired him. And his admiration was my admiration. +He brought me to see it. I envied you, too--your opportunity to help +your people in an intimate, real way which seemed so much better than +mine. I don't know why it is my way, but I mean going about as I do, as +I did to-day to the Poor Farm. It seems so perfunctory. + +"Don't misunderstand me, Miss Leeds," and Mrs. Custer laid a hand on +Clara's arm. "There is no reason why you should care what Mr. Custer and +I think about your--about our--all our very great loss. But I felt that +it must be some comfort for you to know that we, my husband and I, who +might seem indifferent--not that--say unaffected by what has +happened,--feel it very, very deeply; and to know that his life, which I +can't conceive of as finished, has left a deep, deep print on ours." + +The phaeton was rolling through frequented streets. It turned a corner +as Mrs. Custer ceased speaking. + +"I--I must get out here," said Clara Leeds. "You needn't drive me. It is +only a block to walk." + +"Miss Leeds, forgive me--" Mrs. Custer's lips trembled with compassion. + +"Oh, there isn't anything--it isn't that--good night." Clara backed down +to the street and hurried off through the dusk. And as she went tears +dropped slowly to her cheeks--cold, wretched tears. + + + + +His Sister + +BY MARY APPLEWHITE BACON + + +"But you couldn't see me leave, mother, anyway, unless I was there to +go." + +It was characteristic of the girl adjusting her new travelling-hat +before the dim little looking-glass that, while her heart was beating +with excitement which was strangely like grief, she could give herself +at once to her stepmother's inquietude and turn it aside with a jest. + +Mrs. Morgan, arrested in her anxious movement towards the door, stood +for a moment taking in the reasonableness of Stella's proposition, and +then sank back to the edge of her chair. "The train gets here at two +o'clock," she argued. + +Lindsay Cowart came into the room, his head bent over the satchel he had +been mending. "You had better say good-by to Stella here at the house, +mother," he suggested; "there's no use for you to walk down to the depot +in the hot sun." And then he noticed that his stepmother had on her +bonnet with the veil to it--she had married since his father's death and +was again a widow,--and, in extreme disregard of the September heat, was +dressed in the black worsted of a diagonal weave which she wore only on +occasions which demanded some special tribute to their importance. + +She began smoothing out on her knees the black gloves which, in her +nervous haste to be going, she had been holding squeezed in a tight ball +in her left hand. "I can get there, I reckon," she answered with mild +brevity, and as if the young man's words had barely grazed her +consciousness. + +A moment later she went to the window and, with her back to Lindsay, +poured the contents of a small leather purse into one hand and began to +count them softly. + +He looked up again. "I am going to pay for Stella's ticket, mother. You +must not do it," he said. + +She replaced the money immediately, but without impatience, and as +acquiescing in his assumption of his sister's future. "You have done so +much already," he apologized; but he knew that she was hurt, and chafed +to feel that only the irrational thing on his part would have seemed to +her the kind one. + +Stella turned from the verdict of the dim looking-glass upon her +appearance to that of her brother's face. As she stood there in that +moment of pause, she might have been the type of all innocent and +budding life. The delicacy of floral bloom was in the fine texture of +her skin, the purple of dewy violets in her soft eyes; and this new +access of sadness, which was as yet hardly conscious of itself, had +thrown over the natural gayety of her young girlhood something akin to +the pathetic tenderness which veils the earth in the dawn of a summer +morning. + +He felt it to be so, but dimly; and, young himself and already strained +by the exactions of personal desires, he answered only the look of +inquiry in her face,--"Will the merchants here never learn any taste in +dry-goods?" + +Instantly he was sick with regret. Of what consequence was the too +pronounced blue of her dress in comparison with the light of happiness +in her dear face? How impossible for him to be here for even these few +hours without running counter to some cherished illusion or dear habit +of speech or manner. + +"I tell you it's time we were going," Mrs. Morgan appealed, her anxiety +returning. + +"We have thirty-five minutes yet," Lindsay said, looking at his watch; +but he gathered up the bags and umbrellas and followed as she moved +ponderously to the door. + +Stella waited until they were out in the hall, and then looked around +the room, a poignant tenderness in her eyes. There was nothing congruous +between its shabby walls and cheap worn furniture and her own beautiful +young life; but the heart establishes its own relations, and tears rose +suddenly to her eyes and fell in quick succession. Even so brief a +farewell was broken in upon by her stepmother's call, and pressing her +wet cheek for a moment against the discolored door-facing, she hurried +out to join her. + +Lindsay did not at first connect the unusual crowd in and around the +little station with his sister's departure; but the young people at once +formed a circle around her, into which one and another older person +entered and retired again with about the same expressions of +affectionate regret and good wishes. He had known them all so long! But, +except for the growing up of the younger boys and girls during his five +years of absence, they were to him still what they had been since he was +a child, affecting him still with the old depressing sense of distance +and dislike. The grammarless speech of the men, the black-rimmed nails +of Stella's schoolmaster--a good classical scholar, but heedless as he +was good-hearted,--jarred upon him, indeed, with the discomfort of a new +experience. Upon his own slender, erect figure, clothed in poor but +well-fitting garments, gentleman was written as plainly as in words, +just as idealist was written on his forehead and the other features +which thought had chiselled perhaps too finely for his years. + +The brightness had come back to Stella's face, and he could not but feel +grateful to the men who had left their shops and dingy little stores to +bid her good-by, and to the placid, kindly-faced women ranged along the +settees against the wall and conversing in low tones about how she would +be missed; but the noisy flock of young people, who with their chorus of +expostulations, assurances, and prophecies seemed to make her one of +themselves, filled him with strong displeasure. He knew how foolish it +would be for him to show it, but he could get no further in his effort +at concealment than a cold silence which was itself significant enough. +A tall youth with bold and handsome features and a pretty girl in a +showy red muslin ignored him altogether, with a pride which really quite +overmatched his own; but the rest shrank back a little as he passed +looking after the checks and tickets, either cutting short their +sentences at his approach or missing the point of what they had to say. +The train seemed to him long in coming. + +His stepmother moved to the end of the settee and made a place for him +at her side. "Lindsay," she said, under cover of the talk and laughter, +and speaking with some difficulty, "I hope you will be able to carry out +all your plans for yourself and Stella; but while you're making the +money, she will have to make the friends. Don't you ever interfere with +her doing it. From what little I have seen of the world, it's going to +take both to carry you through." + +His face flushed a little, but he recognized her faithfulness and did it +honor. "That is true, mother, and I will remember what you say. But I +have some friends," he added, in enforced self-vindication, "in Vaucluse +if not here." + +A whistle sounded up the road. She caught his hand with a swift +accession of tenderness towards his youth. "You've done the best you +could, Lindsay," she said. "I wish you well, my son, I wish you well." +There were tears in her eyes. + +George Morrow and the girl in red followed Stella into the car, not at +all disconcerted at having to get off after the train was in motion. +"Don't forget me, Stella," the girl called back. "Don't you ever forget +Ida Brand!" + +There was a waving of hands and handkerchiefs from the little station, +aglare in the early afternoon sun. A few moments later the train had +rounded a curve, shutting the meagre village from sight, and, to Lindsay +Cowart's thought, shutting it into a remote past as well. + +He arose and began rearranging their luggage. "Do you want these?" he +inquired, holding up a bouquet of dahlias, scarlet sage, and purple +petunias, and thinking of only one answer as possible. + +"I will take them," she said, as he stood waiting her formal consent to +drop them from the car window. Her voice was quite as usual, but +something in her face suggested to him that this going away from her +childhood's home might be a different thing to her from what he had +conceived it to be. He caught the touch of tender vindication in her +manner as she untied the cheap red ribbon which held the flowers +together and rearranged them into two bunches so that the jarring colors +might no longer offend, and felt that the really natural thing for her +to do was to weep, and that she only restrained her tears for his sake. +Sixteen was so young! His heart grew warm and brotherly towards her +youth and inexperience; but, after all, how infinitely better that she +should have cause for this passing sorrow. + +He left her alone, but not for long. He was eager to talk with her of +the plans about which he had been writing her the two years since he +himself had been a student at Vaucluse, of the future which they should +achieve together. It seemed to him only necessary for him to show her +his point of view to have her adopt it as her own; and he believed, +building on her buoyancy and responsiveness of disposition, that nothing +he might propose would be beyond the scope of her courage. + +"It may be a little lonely for you at first," he told her. "There are +only a handful of women students at the college, and all of them much +older than you; but it is your studies at last that are the really +important thing, and I will help you with them all I can. Mrs. Bancroft +will have no other lodgers and there will be nothing to interrupt our +work." + +"And the money, Lindsay?" she asked, a little anxiously. + +"What I have will carry us through this year. Next summer we can teach +and make almost enough for the year after. The trustees are planning to +establish a fellowship in Greek, and if they do and I can secure it--and +Professor Wayland thinks I can,--that will make us safe the next two +years until you are through." + +"And then?" + +He straightened up buoyantly. "Then your two years at Vassar and mine at +Harvard, with some teaching thrown in along the way, of course. And then +Europe--Greece--all the great things!" + +She smiled with him in his enthusiasm. "You are used to such bold +thoughts. It is too high a flight for me all at once." + +"It will not be, a year from now," he declared, confidently. + +A silence fell between them, and the noise of the train made a pleasant +accompaniment to his thoughts as he sketched in detail the work of the +coming months. But always as a background to his hopes was that +honorable social position which he meant eventually to achieve, the +passion for which was a part of his Southern inheritance. Little as he +had yet participated in any interests outside his daily tasks, he had +perceived in the old college town its deeply grained traditions of birth +and custom, perceived and respected them, and discounted the more their +absence in the sorry village he had left. Sometime when he should assail +it, the exclusiveness of his new environment might beat him back +cruelly, but thus far it existed for him only as a barrier to what was +ultimately precious and desirable. One day the gates would open at his +touch, and he and the sister of his heart should enter their rightful +heritage. + +The afternoon waned. He pointed outside the car window. "See how +different all this is from the part of the State which we have left," he +said. "The landscape is still rural, but what mellowness it has; because +it has been enriched by a larger, more generous human life. One can +imagine what this whole section must have been in those old days, before +the coming of war and desolation. And Vaucluse was the flower, the +centre of it all!" His eye kindled. "Some day external prosperity will +return, and then Vaucluse and her ideals will be needed more than ever; +it is she who must hold in check the commercial spirit, and dominate, as +she has always done, the material with the intellectual." There was a +noble emotion in his face, reflecting itself in the younger countenance +beside his own. Poor, young, unknown, their hearts thrilled with pride +in their State, with the possibility that they also should give to her +of their best when the opportunity should be theirs. + +"It is a wonderful old town," Lindsay went on again. "Even Wayland says +so,--our Greek professor, you know." His voice thrilled with the +devotion of the hero-worshipper as he spoke the name. "He is a Harvard +man, and has seen the best of everything, and even he has felt the charm +of the place; he told me so. You will feel it, too. It is just as if the +little town and the college together had preserved in amber all that was +finest in our Southern life. And now to think you and I are to share in +all its riches!" + +His early consecration to such a purpose, the toil and sacrifice by +which it had been achieved, came movingly before her; yet, mingled with +her pride in him, something within her pleaded for the things which he +rated so low. "It used to be hard for you at home, Lindsay," she said, +softly. + +"Yes, it was hard." His face flushed. "I never really lived till I left +there. I was like an animal caught in a net, like a man struggling for +air. You can't know what it is to me now to be with people who are +thinking of something else than of how to make a few dollars in a +miserable country store." + +"But they were good people in Bowersville, Lindsay," she urged, with +gentle loyalty. + +"I am sure they were, if you say so," he agreed. "But at any rate we are +done with it all now." He laid his hand over hers. "At last I am going +to take you into our own dear world." + +It was, after all, a very small world as to its actual dimensions, but +to the brother it had the largeness of opportunity, and to Stella it +seemed infinitely complex. She found security at first only in following +minutely the programme which Lindsay had laid out for her. It was his +own as well, and simple enough. Study was the supreme thing; exercise +came in as a necessity, pleasure only as the rarest incident. She took +all things cheerfully, after her nature, but after two or three months +the color began to go from her cheeks, the elasticity from her step; nor +was her class standing, though creditable, quite what her brother had +expected it to be. + +Wayland detained him one day in his class-room. "Do you think your +sister is quite happy here, Cowart?" he asked. + +The boy thrilled, as he always did at any special evidence of interest +from such a source, but he had never put this particular question to +himself and had no reply at hand. + +"I have never thought this absolute surrender to books the wisest thing +for you," Wayland went on; "but for your sister it is impossible. She +was formed for companionship, for happiness, not for the isolation of +the scholar. Why did you not put her into one of the girls' schools of +the State, where she would have had associations more suited to her +years?" he asked, bluntly. + +Lindsay could scarcely believe that he was listening to the young +professor whose scholarly attainments seemed to him the sum of what was +most desirable in life. "Our girls' colleges are very superficial," he +answered; "and even if they were not, she could get no Greek in any of +them." + +"My dear boy," Wayland said, "the amount of Greek which your sister +knows or doesn't know will always be a very unimportant matter; she has +things that are so infinitely more valuable to give to the world. And +deserves so much better things for herself," he added, drawing together +his texts for the next recitation. + +Lindsay returned to Mrs. Bancroft's quiet, old-fashioned house in a sort +of daze. "Stella," he said, "do you think you enter enough into the +social side of our college life?" + +"No," she answered. "But I think neither of us does." + +"Well, leave me out of the count. If I get through my Junior year as I +ought, I am obliged to grind; and when there is any time left, I feel +that I must have it for reading in the library. But it needn't be so +with you. Didn't an invitation come to you for the reception Friday +evening?" + +Her face grew wistful. "I don't care to go to things, Lindsay, unless +you will go with me," she said. + +Nevertheless, he had his way, and when once she made it possible, +opportunities for social pleasures poured in upon her. As Wayland had +said, she was formed for friendship, for joy; and that which was her own +came to her unsought. She was by nature too simple and sweet to be +spoiled by the attention she received; the danger perhaps was the less +because she missed in it all the comradeship of her brother, without +which in her eyes the best things lost something of their charm. It was +not merely personal ambition which kept him at his books; the passion of +the scholar was upon him and made him count all moments lost that were +spent away from them. Sometimes Stella sought him as he pored over them +alone, and putting her arm shyly about him, would beg that he would go +with her for a walk, or a ride on the river; but almost always his +answer was the same: "I am so busy, Stella dear; if you knew how much I +have to do you would not even ask me." + +There was one interruption, indeed, which the young student never +refused. Sometimes their Greek professor dropped in at Mrs. Bancroft's +to bring or to ask for a book; sometimes, with the lovely coming of the +spring, he would join them as they were leaving the college grounds, and +lead them away into some of the woodland walks, rich in wild flowers, +that environed the little town. Such hours seemed to both brother and +sister to have a flavor, a brightness, quite beyond what ordinary life +could give. Wayland, too, must have found in them his own share of +pleasure, for he made them more frequent as the months went by. + + * * * * * + +It was in the early spring of her second year at Vaucluse that the +accident occurred. The poor lad who had taken her out in the boat was +almost beside himself with grief and remorse. + +"We had enjoyed the afternoon so much," he said, trying to tell how it +had happened. "I thought I had never seen her so happy, so gay,--but you +know she was that always. It was nearly sunset, and I remember how she +spoke of the light as we saw it through the open spaces of the woods and +as it slanted across the water. Farther down the river the yellow +jasmine was beginning to open. A beech-tree that leaned out over the +water was hung with it. She wanted some, and I guided the boat under the +branches. I meant to get it for her myself, but she was reaching up +after it almost before I knew it. The bough that had the finest blossoms +on it was just beyond her reach, and while I steadied the boat, she +pulled it towards her by one of the vines hanging from it. She must have +put too much weight on it-- + +"It all happened so quickly. I called to her to be careful, but while I +was saying the words the vine snapped and she fell back with such force +that the boat tipped, and in a second we were both in the water. I knew +I could not swim, but I hoped that the water so near the bank would be +shallow; and it was, but there was a deep hole under the roots of the +tree." + +He could get no further. Poor lad! the wonder was that he had not been +drowned himself. A negro ploughing in the field near by saw the accident +and ran to his help, catching him as he was sinking for the third time. +Stella never rose after she went down; her clothing had been entangled +in the roots of the beech. + +Sorrow for the young life cut off so untimely was deep and universal, +and sought to manifest itself in tender ministrations to the brother so +cruelly bereaved. But Lindsay shrank from all offices of sympathy, and +except for seeking now and then Wayland's silent companionship, bore his +grief alone. + +The college was too poor to establish the fellowship in Greek, but the +adjunct professor in mathematics resigned, and young Cowart was elected +to his place, with the proviso that he give two months further study to +the subject in the summer school of some university. Wayland decided +which by taking him back with him to Cambridge, where he showed the boy +an admirable friendship. + +Lindsay applied himself to his special studies with the utmost +diligence. It was impossible, moreover, that his new surroundings should +not appeal to his tastes in many directions; but in spite of his +response to these larger opportunities, his friend discerned that the +wound which the young man kept so carefully hidden had not, after all +these weeks, begun even slightly to heal. + +Late on an August night, impelled as he often was to share the solitude +which Lindsay affected, he sought him at his lodgings, and not finding +him, followed what he knew was a favorite walk with the boy, and came +upon him half hidden under the shadows of an elm in the woods that +skirted Mount Auburn. "I thought you might be here," he said, taking the +place that Lindsay made for him on the seat. Many words were never +necessary between them. + +The moon was full and the sky cloudless, and for some time they sat in +silence, yielding to the tranquil loveliness of the scene and to that +inner experience of the soul brooding over each, and more inscrutable +than the fathomless vault above them. + +"I suppose we shall never get used to a midnight that is still and at +the same time lustrous, as this is to-night," Wayland said. "The sense +of its uniqueness is as fresh whenever it is spread before us as if we +had never seen it before." + +It was but a part of what he meant. He was thinking how sorrow, the wide +sense of personal loss, was in some way like the pervasiveness, the +voiceless speech, of this shadowed radiance around them. + +He drew a little nearer the relaxed and slender figure beside his own. +"It is of _her_ you are thinking, Lindsay," he said, gently, and +mentioning for the first time the young man's loss. "All that you see +seems saturated with her memory. I think it will always be so--scenes of +exceptional beauty, moments of high emotion, will always bring her +back." + +The boy's response came with difficulty: "Perhaps so. I do not know. I +think the thought of her is always with me." + +"If so, it should be for strength, for comfort," his friend pleaded. +"She herself brought only gladness wherever she came." + +There was something unusual in his voice, something that for a moment +raised a vague questioning in Lindsay's mind; but absorbed as he was in +his own sadness, it eluded his feeble inquiry. To what Wayland had said +he could make no reply. + +"Perhaps it is the apparent waste of a life so beautiful that seems to +you so intolerable--" He felt the strong man's impulse to arrest an +irrational grief, and groped for the assurance he desired. "Yet, +Lindsay, we know things are not wasted; not in the natural world, not in +the world of the spirit." But on the last words his voice lapsed +miserably, and he half rose to go. + +Lindsay caught his arm and drew him back. "Don't go yet," he said, +brokenly. "I know you think it would help me if I would talk +about--Stella; if I should tell it all out to you. I thank you for being +willing to listen. Perhaps it will help me." + +He paused, seeking for some words in which to express the sense of +poverty which scourged him. Of all who had loved his sister, he himself +was left poorest! Others had taken freely of her friendship, had +delighted themselves in her face, her words, her smile, had all these +things for memories. He had been separated from her, in part by the hard +conditions of their youth, and at the last, when they had been together, +by his own will. Oh, what had been her inner life during these last two +years, when it had gone on beside his own, while he was too busy to +attend? + +But the self-reproach was too bitter for utterance to even the kindest +of friends. "I thought I could tell you," he said at last, "but I can't. +Oh, Professor Wayland," he cried, "there is an element in my grief that +is peculiar to itself, that no one else in sorrow ever had!" + +"I think every mourner on earth would say that, Lindsay." Again the +younger man discerned the approach of a mystery, but again he left it +unchallenged. + +The professor rose to his feet. "Good night," he said; "unless you will +go back with me. Even with such moonlight as this, one must sleep." He +had dropped to that kind level of the commonplace by which we spare +ourselves and one another. + + "'Where the love light never, never dies,'" + +The boy's voice ringing out blithely through the drip and dampness of +the winter evening marked his winding route across the college grounds. +Lindsay Cowart, busy at his study table, listened without definite +effort and placed the singer as the lad newly come from the country. He +could have identified any other of the Vaucluse students by connections +as slight--Marchman by his whistling, tender, elusive sounds, flute +notes sublimated, heard only when the night was late and the campus +still; others by tricks of voice, fragments of laughter, by their +footfalls, even, on the narrow brick walk below his study window. Such +the easy proficiency of affection. + +Attention to the lad's singing suddenly was lifted above the +subconscious. The simple melody had entangled itself in some forgotten +association of the professor's boyhood, seeking to marshal which before +him, he received the full force of the single line sung in direct +ear-shot. Like the tune, the words also became a challenge; pricked +through the unregarded heaviness in which he was plying his familiar +task, and demanded that he should name its cause. + +For him the love light of his marriage had been dead so long! No, not +dead; nothing so dignified, so tragic. Burnt down, smoldered; +suffocated by the hateful dust of the commonplace. There was a touch of +contempt in the effort with which he dismissed the matter from his mind +and turned back to his work. And yet, he stopped a moment longer to +think, for him life without the light of love fell so far below its best +achievement! + +The front of his desk was covered with the papers in mathematics over +which he had spent his evenings for more than a week. Most of them had +been corrected and graded, with the somewhat full comment or elucidation +here and there which had made his progress slow. He examined a +half-dozen more, and then in sheer mental revolt against the subject, +slipped them under the rubber bands with others of their kind and +dropped the neat packages out of his sight into one of the drawers of +the desk. Wayland's book on Greece, the fruit of eighteen months' +sojourn there, had come through the mail on the same day when the +calculus papers had been handed in, and he had read it through at once, +not to be teased intolerably by its invitation. He had mastered the +text, avid through the long winter night, but he picked it up again now, +and for a little while studied the sumptuous illustrations. How long +Wayland had been away from Vaucluse, how much of enrichment had come to +him in the years since he had left! He himself might have gone also, to +larger opportunities--he had chosen to remain, held by a sentiment! The +professor closed the book with a little sigh, and taking it to a small +shelf on the opposite side of the room, stood it with a half-dozen +others worthy of such association. + +Returning, he got together before him the few Greek authors habitually +in hand's reach, whether handled or not, and from a compartment of his +desk took out several sheets of manuscript, metrical translations from +favorite passages in the tragedists or the short poems of the Anthology. +Like the rest of the Vaucluse professors--a mere handful they were,--he +was straitened by the hard exactions of class-room work, and the book +which he hoped sometime to publish grew slowly. How far he was in actual +miles from the men who were getting their thoughts into print, how much +farther in environment! Things which to them were the commonplaces of a +scholar's life were to him impossible luxuries; few even of their books +found their way to his shelves. At least the original sources of +inspiration were his, and sometimes he felt that his verses were not +without spirit, flavor. + +He took up a little volume of Theocritus, which opened easily at the +Seventh Idyl, and began to read aloud. Half-way through the poem the +door opened and his wife entered. He did not immediately adjust himself +to the interruption, and she remained standing a few moments in the +centre of the room. + +"Thank you; I believe I will be seated," she said, the sarcasm in her +words carefully excluded from her voice. + +He wondered that she should find interest in so sorry a game. "I thought +you felt enough at home in here to sit down without being asked," he +said, rising, and trying to speak lightly. + +She took the rocking-chair he brought for her and leaned back in it +without speaking. Her maroon-colored evening gown suggested that whoever +planned it had been somewhat straitened by economy, but it did well by +her rich complexion and creditable figure. Her features were creditable +too, the dark hair a little too heavy, perhaps, and the expression, +defined as it is apt to be when one is thirty-five, not wholly +satisfying. In truth, the countenance, like the gown, suffered a little +from economy, a sparseness of the things one loves best in a woman's +face. Half the sensitiveness belonging to her husband's eyes and mouth +would have made her beautiful. + +"It is a pity the Barkers have such a bad night for their party," Cowart +said. + +"The reception is at the Fieldings';" and again he felt himself rebuked. + +"I'm afraid I didn't think much about the matter after you told me the +Dillinghams were coming by for you in their carriage. Fortunately +neither family holds us college people to very strict social account." + +"They have their virtues, even if they are so vulgar as to be rich." + +"Why, I believe I had just been thinking, before you came in, that it is +only the rich who have any virtues at all." He managed to speak +genially, but the consciousness that she was waiting for him to make +conversation, as she had waited for the chair, stiffened upon him like +frost. + +He cast about for something to say, but the one interest which he would +have preferred to keep to himself was all that presented itself to his +grasp. "I have often thought," he suggested, "that if only we were in +sight of the Gulf, our landscape in early summer might not be very +unlike that of ancient Greece." She looked at him a little blankly, and +he drew one of his books nearer and began turning its leaves. + +"I thought you were correcting your mathematics papers." + +"I am, or have been; but I am reading Theocritus, too." + +"Well, I don't see anything in a day like this to make anybody think of +summer. The dampness goes to your very marrow." + +"It isn't the day; it's the poetry. That's the good of there being +poetry." + +She skipped his parenthesis. "And you keep this room as cold as a +vault." Not faultfinding, but a somewhat irritating concern for his +comfort was in the complaint. + +She went to the hearth and in her efficient way shook down the ashes +from the grate and heaped it with coal. A cabinet photograph of a girl +in her early teens, which had the appearance of having just been put +there, was supported against a slender glass vase. Mrs. Cowart took it +up and examined it critically. "I don't think this picture does +Arnoldina justice," she said. "One of the eyes seems to droop a little, +and the mouth looks sad. Arnoldina never did look sad." + +They were on common ground now, and he could speak without constraint. +"I hadn't observed that it looked sad. She seems somehow to have got a +good deal older since September." + +"She is maturing, of course." All a mother's pride and approbation, were +in the reserve of the speech. To have put more definitely her estimate +of the sweet young face would have been a clumsy thing in comparison. + +Lindsay's countenance lighted up. He arose, and standing by his wife, +looked over her shoulder as she held the photograph to the light. "Do +you know, Gertrude," he said, "there is something in her face that +reminds me of Stella?" + +"I don't know that I see it," she answered, indifferently, replacing the +photograph and returning to her chair. The purpose which had brought her +to the room rose to her face. "I stopped at the warehouse this +afternoon," she said, "and had a talk with father. Jamieson really goes +to Mobile--the first of next month. The place is open to you if you want +it." + +"But, Gertrude, how should I possibly want it?" he expostulated. + +"You would be a member of the firm. You might as well be making money as +the rest of them." + +He offered no comment. + +"It is not now like it was when you were made professor. The town has +become a commercial centre and its educational interests have declined. +The professors will always have their social position, of course, but +they cannot hope for anything more." + +"It is not merely Vaucluse, but the South, that is passing into this +phase. But economic independence has become a necessity. When once it is +achieved, our people will turn to higher things." + +"Not soon enough to benefit you and me." + +"Probably not." + +"Then why waste your talents on the college, when the best years of your +life are still before you?" + +"I am not teaching for money, Gertrude." He hated putting into the bald +phrase his consecration to his ideals for the young men of his State; he +hated putting it into words at all; but something in his voice told her +that the argument was finished. + +There was a sound of carriage wheels on the drive. He arose and began to +assist her with her wraps. "It is too bad for you to be dependent on +even such nice escorts as the Dillinghams are," he solaced, recovering +himself. "We college folk are a sorry lot." + +But when she was gone, the mood for composition which an hour before had +seemed so near had escaped him, and he put away his books and +manuscript, standing for a while, a little chilled in mind and body, +before the grate and looking at the photograph on the mantel. While he +did so the haunting likeness he had seen grew more distinct and by +degrees another face overspread that of his young daughter, the face of +the sister he had loved and lost. + +With a sudden impulse he crossed the room to an old-fashioned mahogany +secretary, opened its slanting lid, and unlocking with some difficulty a +small inner drawer, returned with it to his desk. Several packages of +letters tied with faded ribbon filled the small receptacle, but they +struck upon him with the strangeness of something utterly forgotten. The +pieces of ribbon had once held for him each its own association of time +or place; now he could only remember, looking down upon them with tender +gaze, that they had been Stella's, worn in her hair, or at her throat or +waist. Simple and inexpensive he saw they were. Arnoldina would not have +looked at them. + +Overcoming something of reluctance, he took one of the packages from its +place. It contained the letters he had found in her writing-table after +her death, most of them written after she had come to Vaucluse by her +stepmother and the friends she had left in the village. He knew there +was nothing in any of them she would have withheld from him; in reading +them he was merely taking back something from the vanished years which, +if not looked at now, would perish utterly from earth. How affecting +they were--these utterances of true and humble hearts, written to one +equally true and good! His youth and hers in the remote country village +rose before him; not now, as once, pinched and narrow, but as salutary, +even gracious. He could but feel how changed his standards had become +since then, how different his measure of the great and the small of +life. + +Suddenly, as he was thus borne back into the past, the old sorrow sprang +upon him, and he bowed before it. The old bitter cry which he had been +able to utter to no human consoler swept once more to his lips: "Oh, +Stella, Stella, you died before I really knew you; your brother, who +should have known and loved you best! And now it is too late, too +late." + +He sent out as of old his voiceless call to one afar off, in some land +where her whiteness, her budding soul, had found their rightful place; +but even as he did so, his thought of her seemed to be growing clearer. +From that far, reverenced, but unimagined sphere she was coming back to +the range of his apprehension, to comradeship in the life which they +once had shared together. + +He trembled with the hope of a fuller attainment, lifting his bowed head +and taking another package of the letters from their place. Her letters! +He had begged them of her friends in his desperate sense of ignorance, +his longing to make good something of all that he had lost in those last +two years of her life. What an innocent life it was that was spread +before him; and how young,--oh, how young! And it was a happy life. He +was astonished, after all his self-reproach, to realize how happy; to +find himself smiling with her in some girlish drollery such as used to +come so readily to her lips. He could detect, too, how the note of +gladness, how her whole life, indeed, had grown richer in the larger +existence of Vaucluse. At last he could be comforted that, however it +had ended, it was he who had made it hers. + +He had been feeding eagerly, too eagerly, and under the pressure of +emotion was constrained to rise and walk the floor, sinking at last into +his armchair and gazing with unseeing eyes upon the ruddy coals in the +grate. That lovely life, which he had thought could never in its +completeness be his, was rebuilt before his vision from the materials +which she herself had left. What he had believed to be loss, bitter, +unspeakable even to himself, had in these few hours of the night become +wealth. + +His quickened thought moved on from plane to plane. He scanned the +present conditions of his life, and saw with clarified vision how good +they were. What it was given him to do for his students, at least what +he was trying to do for them; the preciousness of their regard; the long +friendship with his colleagues; the associations with the little +community in which his lot was cast, limited in some directions as they +might be; the fair demesne of Greek literature in which his feet were so +much at home; his own literary gift, even if a slender one; his dear, +dear child. + +And Gertrude? Under the invigoration of his mood a situation which had +long seemed unamenable to change resolved itself into new and simpler +proportions. The worthier aspects of his home life, the finer traits of +his wife's character, stood before him as proofs of what might yet be. +His memory had kept no record of the fact that when in the first year of +his youthful sorrow, sick for comfort and believing her all tenderness, +he had married her, to find her impatient of his grief, nor of the many +times since when she had appeared almost wilfully blind to his ideals +and purposes. His judgment held only this, that she had never understood +him. For this he had seldom blamed her; but to-night he blamed himself. +Instead of shrinking away sensitively, keeping the vital part of his +life to himself and making what he could of it alone, he should have set +himself steadily to create a place for it in her understanding and +sympathy. Was not a perfect married love worth the minor sacrifices as +well as the supreme surrender from which he believed that neither of +them would have shrunk? + +He returned to his desk and began to rearrange the contents of the +little drawer. Among them was a small sandalwood box which had been +their mother's, and which Stella had prized with special fondness. He +had never opened it since her death, but as he lifted it now the frail +clasp gave way, the lid fell back, and the contents slipped upon the +desk. They were few: a ring, a thin gold locket containing the +miniatures of their father and mother, a small tintype of himself taken +when he first left home, and two or three notes addressed in a +handwriting which he recognized as Wayland's. He replaced them with +reverent touch, turning away even in thought from what he had never +meant to see. + +By and by he heard in the distance the roll of carriages returning from +the Fieldings' reception. He replenished the fire generously, found a +long cloak in the closet at the end of the hall, and waited the sound of +wheels before his own door. "The rain has grown heavier," he said, +drawing the cloak around his wife as she descended from the carriage. +Something in his manner seemed to envelop her. He brought her into the +study and seated her before the fire. She had expected to find the house +silent; the glow and warmth of the room were grateful after the chill +and darkness outside, her husband's presence after that vague sense of +futility which the evening's gayety had left upon her. + +"I suppose I ought to tell you about the party," she said, a little +wearily; "but if you don't mind, I will wait till breakfast. Everybody +was there, of course, and it was all very fine, as we all knew it would +be. I hope you've enjoyed your Latin poets more." + +"They are Greek, dear," he said. "I have been making translations from +some of them now and then. Some day we will take a day off and then I'll +read them to you. But neither the party nor the poets to-night. See, it +is almost two o'clock." + +"I knew it must be late. But you look as fresh as a child that has just +waked from sleep." + +"Perhaps I have just waked." + +They rose to go up-stairs. "I will go in front and make a light in our +room while you turn off the gas in the hall." + +He paused for a moment after she had gone out and turned to a page in +the Greek Anthology for a single stanza. Shelley's translation was +written in pencil beside it: + + Thou wert the morning star among the living, + Ere thy fair light had fled; + Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus giving + New splendor to the dead. + + + + +The Perfect Year + +BY ELEANOR A. HALLOWELL + + +When Dolly Leonard died, on the night of my _debutante_ party, our +little community was aghast. If I live to be a thousand, I shall never +outgrow the paralyzing shock of that disaster. I think that the girls in +our younger set never fully recovered from it. + +It was six o'clock when we got the news. Things had been jolly and +bustling all the afternoon. The house was filled with florists and +caterers, and I had gone to my room to escape the final responsibilities +of the occasion. There were seven of us girl chums dressing in my room, +and we were lolling round in various stages of lace and ruffles when the +door-bell rang. Partly out of consideration for the tired servants, and +partly out of nervous curiosity incited by the day's influx of presents +and bouquets, I slipped into my pink eider-down wrapper and ran down to +the door. The hall was startlingly sweet with roses. Indeed, the whole +house was a perfect bower of leaf and blossom, and I suppose I did look +elfish as I ran, for a gruff old workman peered up at me and smiled, and +muttered something about "pinky-posy"--and I know it did not seem +impertinent to me at the time. + +At the door, in the chill blast of the night, stood our little old gray +postman with some letters in his hand. "Oh!" I said, disappointed, "just +letters." + +The postman looked at me a trifle queerly--I thought it was my pink +wrapper,--and he said, "Don't worry about 'just letters'; Dolly Leonard +is dead!" + +"Dead?" I gasped. "Dead?" and I remember how I reeled back against the +open door and stared out with horror-stricken eyes across the common to +Dolly Leonard's house, where every window was blazing with calamity. + +"Dead?" I gasped again. "Dead? What happened?" + +The postman eyed me with quizzical fatherliness. "Ask your mother," he +answered, reluctantly, and I turned and groped my way leaden-footed up +the stairs, muttering, "Oh, mother, mother, I don't _need_ to ask you." + +When I got back to my room at last through a tortuous maze of gaping +workmen and sickening flowers, three startled girls jumped up to catch +me as I staggered across the threshold. I did not faint, I did not cry +out. I just sat huddled on the floor rocking myself to and fro, and +mumbling, as through a mouthful of sawdust: "Dolly Leonard is dead. +Dolly Leonard is dead. Dolly Leonard is dead." + +I will not attempt to describe too fully the scene that followed. There +were seven of us, you know, and we were only eighteen, and no young +person of our acquaintance had ever died before. Indeed, only one aged +death had ever disturbed our personal life history, and even that remote +catastrophe had sent us scampering to each other's beds a whole winter +long, for the individual fear of "seeing things at night." + +"Dolly Leonard is dead." I can feel myself yet in that huddled news-heap +on the floor. A girl at the mirror dropped her hand-glass with a +shivering crash. Some one on the sofa screamed. The only one of us who +was dressed began automatically to unfasten her lace collar and strip +off her silken gown, and I can hear yet the soft lush sound of a folded +sash, and the strident click of the little French stays that pressed too +close on a heaving breast. + +Then some one threw wood on the fire with a great bang, and then more +wood and more wood, and we crowded round the hearth and scorched our +faces and hands, but we could not get warm enough. + +Dolly Leonard was not even in our set. She was an older girl by several +years. But she was the belle of the village. Dolly Leonard's gowns, +Dolly Leonard's parties, Dolly Leonard's lovers, were the envy of all +womankind. And Dolly Leonard's courtship and marriage were to us the +fitting culmination of her wonderful career. She was our ideal of +everything that a girl should be. She was good, she was beautiful, she +was irresistibly fascinating. She was, in fact, everything that we +girlishly longed to be in the revel of a ballroom or the white sanctity +of a church. + +And now she, the bright, the joyous, the warm, was colder than we were, +and _would never be warm again_. Never again ... And there were garish +flowers down-stairs, and music and favors and ices--nasty shivery +ices,--and pretty soon a brawling crowd of people would come and +_dance_ because I was eighteen--and still alive. + +Into our hideous brooding broke a husky little voice that had not yet +spoken: + +"Dolly Leonard told my big sister a month ago that she wasn't a bit +frightened,--that she had had one perfect year, and a perfect year was +well worth dying for--if one had to. Of course she hoped she wouldn't +die, but if she did, it was a wonderful thing to die happy. Dolly was +queer about it; I heard my big sister telling mother. Dolly said, 'Life +couldn't always be at high tide--there was only one high tide in any +one's life, and she thought it was beautiful to go in the full flush +before the tide turned.'" + +The speaker ended with a harsh sob. + +Then suddenly into our awed silence broke my mother in full evening +dress. She was a very handsome mother. + +As she looked down on our huddled group there were tears in her eyes, +but there was no shock. I noticed distinctly that there was no shock. +"Why, girls," she exclaimed, with a certain terse brightness, "aren't +you dressed yet? It's eight o'clock and people are beginning to arrive." +She seemed so frivolous to me. I remember that I felt a little ashamed +of her. + +"We don't want any party," I answered, glumly. "The girls are going +home." + +"Nonsense!" said my mother, catching me by the hand and pulling me +almost roughly to my feet. "Go quickly and call one of the maids to come +and help you dress. Angeline, I'll do your hair. Bertha, where are your +shoes? Gertrude, that's a beautiful gown--just your color. Hurry into +it. There goes the bell. Hark! the orchestra is beginning." + +And so, with a word here, a touch there, a searching look everywhere, +mother marshalled us into line. I had never heard her voice raised +before. + +The color came back to our cheeks, the light to our eyes. We bubbled +over with spirits--nervous spirits, to be sure, but none the less +vivacious ones. + +When the last hook was fastened, the last glove buttoned, the last curl +fluffed into place, mother stood for an instant tapping her foot on the +floor. She looked like a little general. + +"Girls," she said, "there are five hundred people coming to-night from +all over the State, and fully two-thirds of them never heard of Dolly +Leonard. We must never spoil other people's pleasures by flaunting our +own personal griefs. I expect my daughter to conduct herself this +evening with perfect cheerfulness and grace. She owes it to her guests; +and"--mother's chin went high up in the air--"I refuse to receive in my +house again any one of you girls who mars my daughter's _debutante_ +party by tears or hysterics. You may go now." + +We went, silently berating the brutal harshness of grown people. We +went, airily, flutteringly, luminously, like a bunch of butterflies. At +the head of the stairs the music caught us up in a maelstrom of +excitement and whirled us down into the throng of pleasure. And when we +reached the drawing-room and found mother we felt as though we were +walking on air. We thought it was self-control. We were not old enough +to know it was mostly "youth." + +My _debutante_ party was the gayest party ever given in our town. We +seven girls were like sprites gone mad. We were like fairy torches that +kindled the whole throng. We flitted among the palms like +will-o'-the-wisps. We danced the toes out of our satin slippers. We led +our old boy-friends a wild chase of young love and laughter, and +because our hearts were like frozen lead within us we sought, as it +were, "to warm both hands at the fires of life." We trifled with older +men. We flirted, as it were, with our fathers. + +My _debutante_ party turned out a revel. I have often wondered if my +mother was frightened. I don't know what went on in the other girls' +brains, but mine were seared with the old-world recklessness--"Eat, +drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die." _We_ die! + +I had a lover--a boy lover. His name was Gordon. He was twenty-one years +old, and he had courted me with boyish seriousness for three years. +Mother had always pooh-poohed his love-story and said: "Wait, wait. Why, +my daughter isn't even _out_ yet. Wait till she's out." + +And Gordon had narrowed his near-sighted eyes ominously and shut his +lips tight. "Very well," he had answered, "I will wait till she is +out--but no longer." + +He was rich, he was handsome, he was well-born, he was strong, but more +than all that he held my fancy with a certain thrilling tenacity that +frightened me while it lured me. And I had always looked forward to my +_debutante_ party on my eighteenth birthday with the tingling +realization, half joy, half fear, that on that day I should have to +settle once and forever with--_man_. + +I had often wondered how Gordon would propose. He was a proud, +high-strung boy. If he was humble, and pleaded and pleaded with the hurt +look in his eyes that I knew so well, I thought I would accept him; and +if we could get to mother in the crowd, perhaps we could announce the +engagement at supper-time. It seemed to me that it would be a very +wonderful thing to be engaged on one's eighteenth birthday. So many +girls were not engaged till nineteen or even twenty. But if he was +masterful and high-stepping, as he knew so well how to be, I had decided +to refuse him scornfully with a toss of my head and a laugh. I could +break his heart with the sort of laugh I had practised before my mirror. + +It is a terrible thing to have a long-anticipated event finally overtake +you. It is the most terrible thing of all to have to settle once and +forever with _man_. + +Gordon came for me at eleven o'clock. I was flirting airily at the time +with our village Beau Brummel, who was old enough to be my grandfather. + +Gordon slipped my little hand through his arm and carried me off to a +lonely place in the conservatory. For a second it seemed a beautiful +relief to be out of the noise and the glare--and alone with Gordon. But +instantly my realization of the potential moment rushed over me like a +flood, and I began to tremble violently. All the nervous strain of the +evening reacted suddenly on me. + +"What's the matter with you to-night?" asked Gordon, a little sternly. +"What makes you so wild?" he persisted, with a grim little attempt at a +laugh. + +At his words, my heart seemed to turn over within me and settle heavily. +It was before the days when we discussed life's tragedies with our best +men friends. Indeed, it was so long before that I sickened and grew +faint at the very thought of the sorrowful knowledge which I kept secret +from him. + +Again he repeated, "What's the matter with you?" but I could find no +answer. I just sat shivering, with my lace scarf drawn close across my +bare shoulders. + +Gordon took hold of a white ruffle on my gown and began to fidget with +it. I could see the fine thoughts go flitting through his eyes, but when +he spoke again it was quite commonplacely. + +"Will you do me a favor?" he asked. "Will you do me the favor of +marrying me?" And he laughed. Good God! he _laughed_! + +"A favor" to marry him! And he asked it as he might have asked for a +posie or a dance. So flippantly--with a laugh. "_A favor!_" And Dolly +Leonard lay dead of _her_ favor! + +I jumped to my feet--I was half mad with fear and sex and sorrow and +excitement. Something in my brain snapped. And I struck Gordon--struck +him across the face with my open hand. And he turned as white as the +dead Dolly Leonard, and went away--oh, very far away. + +Then I ran back alone to the hall and stumbled into my father's arms. + +"Are you having a good time?" asked my father, pointing playfully at my +blazing cheeks. + +I went to my answer like an arrow to its mark. "I am having the most +wonderful time in the world," I cried; "_I have settled with man_." + +My father put back his head and shouted. He thought it was a fine joke. +He laughed about it long after my party was over. He thought my head was +turned. He laughed about it long after other people had stopped +wondering why Gordon went away. + +I never told any one why Gordon went away. I might under certain +circumstances have told a girl, but it was not the sort of thing one +could have told one's mother. This is the first time I have ever told +the story of Dolly Leonard's death and my _debutante_ party. + +Dolly Leonard left a little son behind her--a joyous, rollicking little +son. His name is Paul Yardley. We girls were pleased with the +initials--P.Y. They stand to us for "Perfect Year." + +Dolly Leonard's husband has married again, and his wife has borne him +safely three daughters and a son. Each one of my six girl chums is the +mother of a family. Now and again in my experience some woman has +shirked a duty. But I have never yet met a woman who dared to shirk a +happiness. Duties repeat themselves. There is no duplicate of happiness. + +I am fifty-eight years old. I have never married. I do not say whether I +am glad or sorry. I only know that I have never had a Perfect Year. I +only know that I have never been warm since the night that Dolly Leonard +died. + + + + +Editha + +BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS + + +The air was thick with the war I feeling, like the electricity of a +storm which has not yet burst. Editha sat looking out into the hot +spring afternoon, with her lips parted, and panting with the intensity +of the question whether she could let him go. She had decided that she +could not let him stay, when she saw him at the end of the still +leafless avenue, making slowly up toward the house, with his head down, +and his figure relaxed. She ran impatiently out on the veranda, to the +edge of the steps, and imperatively demanded greater haste of him with +her will before she called aloud to him, "George!" + +He had quickened his pace in mystical response to her mystical urgence, +before he could have heard her; now he looked up and answered, "Well?" + +"Oh, how united we are!" she exulted, and then she swooped down the +steps to him. "What is it?" she cried. + +"It's war," he said, and he pulled her up to him, and kissed her. + +She kissed him back intensely, but irrelevantly, as to their passion, +and uttered from deep in her throat, "How glorious!" + +"It's war," he repeated, without consenting to her sense of it; and she +did not know just what to think at first. She never knew what to think +of him; that made his mystery, his charm. All through their courtship, +which was contemporaneous with the growth of the war feeling, she had +been puzzled by his want of seriousness about it. He seemed to despise +it even more than he abhorred it. She could have understood his +abhorring any sort of bloodshed; that would have been a survival of his +old life when he thought he would be a minister, and before he changed +and took up the law. But making light of a cause so high and noble +seemed to show a want of earnestness at the core of his being. Not but +that she felt herself able to cope with a congenital defect of that +sort, and make his love for her save him from himself. Now perhaps the +miracle was already wrought in him, In the presence of the tremendous +fact that he announced, all triviality seemed to have gone out of him; +she began to feel that. He sank down on the top step, and wiped his +forehead with his handkerchief, while she poured out upon him her +question of the origin and authenticity of his news. + +All the while, in her duplex emotioning, she was aware that now at the +very beginning she must put a guard upon herself against urging him, by +any word or act, to take the part that her whole soul willed him to +take, for the completion of her ideal of him. He was very nearly perfect +as he was, and he must be allowed to perfect himself. But he was +peculiar, and he might very well be reasoned out of his peculiarity. +Before her reasoning went her emotioning: her nature pulling upon his +nature, her womanhood upon his manhood, without her knowing the means +she was using to the end she was willing. She had always supposed that +the man who won her would have done something to win her; she did not +know what, but something. George Gearson had simply asked her for her +love, on the way home from a concert, and she gave her love to him, +without, as it were, thinking. But now, it flashed upon her, if he could +do something worthy to _have_ won her--be a hero, _her_ hero--it would +be even better than if he had done it before asking her; it would be +grander. Besides, she had believed in the war from the beginning. + +"But don't you see, dearest," she said, "that it wouldn't have come to +this, if it hadn't been in the order of Providence? And I call any war +glorious that is for the liberation of people who have been struggling +for years against the cruelest oppression. Don't you think so too?" + +"I suppose so," he returned, languidly. "But war! Is it glorious to +break the peace of the world?" + +"That ignoble peace! It was no peace at all, with that crime and shame +at our very gates." She was conscious of parroting the current phrases +of the newspapers, but it was no time to pick and choose her words. She +must sacrifice anything to the high ideal she had for him, and after a +good deal of rapid argument she ended with the climax: "But now it +doesn't matter about the how or why. Since the war has come, all that is +gone. There are no two sides, any more. There is nothing now but our +country." + +He sat with his eyes closed and his head leant back against the veranda, +and he said with a vague smile, as if musing aloud, "Our country--right +or wrong." + +"Yes, right or wrong!" she returned fervidly. "I'll go and get you some +lemonade." She rose rustling, and whisked away; when she came back with +two tall glasses of clouded liquid, on a tray, and the ice clucking in +them, he still sat as she had left him, and she said as if there had +been no interruption: "But there is no question of wrong in this case. I +call it a sacred war. A war for liberty, and humanity, if ever there was +one. And I know you will see it just as I do, yet." + +He took half the lemonade at a gulp, and he answered as he set the glass +down: "I know you always have the highest ideal. When I differ from you, +I ought to doubt myself." + +A generous sob rose in Editha's throat for the humility of a man, so +very nearly perfect, who was willing to put himself below her. + +Besides, she felt that he was never so near slipping through her fingers +as when he took that meek way. + +"You shall not say that! Only, for once I happen to be right." She +seized his hand in her two hands, and poured her soul from her eyes into +his. "Don't you think so?" she entreated him. + +He released his hand and drank the rest of his lemonade, and she added, +"Have mine, too," but he shook his head in answering, "I've no business +to think so, unless I act so, too." + +Her heart stopped a beat before it pulsed on with leaps that she felt in +her neck. She had noticed that strange thing in men; they seemed to feel +bound to do what they believed, and not think a thing was finished when +they said it, as girls did. She knew what was in his mind, but she +pretended not, and she said, "Oh, I am not sure." + +He went on as if to himself without apparently heeding her. "There's +only one way of proving one's faith in a thing like this." + +She could not say that she understood, but she did understand. + +He went on again. "If I believed--if I felt as you do about this war--Do +you wish me to feel as you do?" + +Now she was really not sure; so she said, "George, I don't know what you +mean." + +He seemed to muse away from her as before. "There is a sort of +fascination in it. I suppose that at the bottom of his heart every man +would like at times to have his courage tested; to see how he would +act." + +"How can you talk in that ghastly way!" + +"It _is_ rather morbid. Still, that's what it comes to, unless you're +swept away by ambition, or driven by conviction. I haven't the +conviction or the ambition, and the other thing is what it comes to with +me. I ought to have been a preacher, after all; then I couldn't have +asked it of myself, as I must, now I'm a lawyer. And you believe it's a +holy war, Editha?" he suddenly addressed her. "Or, I know you do! But +you wish me to believe so, too?" + +She hardly knew whether he was mocking or not, in the ironical way he +always had with her plainer mind. But the only thing was to be outspoken +with him. + +"George, I wish you to believe whatever you think is true, at any and +every cost. If I've tried to talk you into anything, I take it all +back." + +"Oh, I know that, Editha. I know how sincere you are, and how--I wish I +had your undoubting spirit! I'll think it over; I'd like to believe as +you do. But I don't, now; I don't, indeed. It isn't this war alone; +though this seems peculiarly wanton and needless; but it's every war--so +stupid; it makes me sick. Why shouldn't this thing have been settled +reasonably?" + +"Because," she said, very throatily again, "God meant it to be war." + +"You think it was God? Yes, I suppose that is what people will say." + +"Do you suppose it would have been war if God hadn't meant it?" + +"I don't know. Sometimes it seems as if God had put this world into +men's keeping to work it as they pleased." + +"Now, George, that is blasphemy." + +"Well, I won't blaspheme. I'll try to believe in your pocket +Providence," he said, and then he rose to go. + +"Why don't you stay to dinner?" Dinner at Balcom's Works was at one +o'clock. + +"I'll come back to supper, if you'll let me. Perhaps I shall bring you a +convert." + +"Well, you may come back, on that condition." + +"All right. If I don't come, you'll understand?" + +He went away without kissing her, and she felt it a suspension of their +engagement. It all interested her intensely; she was undergoing a +tremendous experience, and she was being equal to it. While she stood +looking after him, her mother came out through one of the long windows, +on to the veranda, with a catlike softness and vagueness. + +"Why didn't he stay to dinner?" + +"Because--because--war has been declared," Editha pronounced, without +turning. + +Her mother said, "Oh, my!" and then said nothing more until she had sat +down in one of the large Shaker chairs, and rocked herself for some +time. Then she closed whatever tacit passage of thought there had been +in her mind with the spoken words, "Well, I hope _he_ won't go." + +"And _I_ hope he _will_" the girl said, and confronted her mother with a +stormy exaltation that would have frightened any creature less +unimpressionable than a cat. + +Her mother rocked herself again for an interval of cogitation. What she +arrived at in speech was, "Well, I guess you've done a wicked thing, +Editha Balcom." + +The girl said, as she passed indoors through the same window her mother +had come out by, "I haven't done anything--yet." + + * * * * * + +In her room, she put together all her letters and gifts from Gearson, +down to the withered petals of the first flower he had offered, with +that timidity of his veiled in that irony of his. In the heart of the +packet she enshrined her engagement ring which she had restored to the +pretty box he had brought it her in. Then she sat down, if not calmly +yet strongly, and wrote: + + "GEORGE: I understood--when you left me. But I think we had + better emphasize your meaning that if we cannot be one in + everything we had better be one in nothing. So I am sending + these things for your keeping till you have made up your mind. + + "I shall always love you, and therefore I shall never marry any + one else. But the man I marry must love his country first of + all, and be able to say to me, + + "'I could not love thee, dear, so much, + Loved I not honor more.' + + "There is no honor above America with me. In this great hour + there is no other honor. + + "Your heart will make my words clear to you. I had never + expected to say so much, but it has come upon me that I must + say the utmost. + + "EDITHA." + +She thought she had worded her letter well, worded it in a way that +could not be bettered; all had been implied and nothing expressed. + +She had it ready to send with the packet she had tied with red, white, +and blue ribbon, when it occurred to her that she was not just to him, +that she was not giving him a fair chance. He had said he would go and +think it over, and she was not waiting. She was pushing, threatening, +compelling. That was not a woman's part. She must leave him free, free, +free. She could not accept for her country or herself a forced +sacrifice. + +In writing her letter she had satisfied the impulse from which it +sprang; she could well afford to wait till he had thought it over. She +put the packet and the letter by, and rested serene in the consciousness +of having done what was laid upon her by her love itself to do, and yet +used patience, mercy, justice. + +She had her reward. Gearson did not come to tea, but she had given him +till morning, when, late at night there came up from the village the +sound of a fife and drum with a tumult of voices, in shouting, singing, +and laughing. The noise drew nearer and nearer; it reached the Street +end of the avenue; there it silenced itself, and one voice, the voice +she knew best, rose over the silence. It fell; the air was filled with +cheers; the fife and drum struck up, with the shouting, singing, and +laughing again, but now retreating; and a single figure came hurrying up +the avenue. + +She ran down to meet her lover and clung to him. He was very gay, and he +put his arm round her with a boisterous laugh. "Well, you must call me +Captain, now; or Cap, if you prefer; that's what the boys call me. Yes, +we've had a meeting at the town hall, and everybody has volunteered; and +they selected me for captain, and I'm going to the war, the big war, the +glorious war, the holy war ordained by the pocket Providence that +blesses butchery. Come along; let's tell the whole family about it. Call +them from their downy beds, father, mother, Aunt Hitty, and all the +folks!" + +But when they mounted the veranda steps he did not wait for a larger +audience; he poured the story out upon Editha alone. + +"There was a lot of speaking, and then some of the fools set up a shout +for me. It was all going one way, and I thought it would be a good joke +to sprinkle a little cold water on them. But you can't do that with a +crowd that adores you. The first thing I knew I was sprinkling hell-fire +on them, 'Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.' That was the style. +Now that it had come to the fight, there were no two parties; there was +one country, and the thing was to fight the fight to a finish as quick +as possible. I suggested volunteering then and there, and I wrote my +name first of all on the roster. Then they elected me--that's all. I +wish I had some ice-water!" + +She left him walking up and down the veranda, while she ran for the +ice-pitcher and a goblet, and when she came back he was still walking up +and down, shouting the story he had told her to her father and mother, +who had come out more sketchily dressed than they commonly were by day. +He drank goblet after goblet of the ice-water without noticing who was +giving it, and kept on talking, and laughing through his talk wildly. +"It's astonishing," he said, "how well the worse reason looks when you +try to make it appear the better. Why, I believe I was the first convert +to the war in that crowd to-night! I never thought I should like to kill +a man; but now, I shouldn't care; and the smokeless powder lets you see +the man drop that you kill. It's all for the country! What a thing it is +to have a country that _can't_ be wrong, but if it is, is right anyway!" + +Editha had a great, vital thought, an inspiration. She set down the +ice-pitcher on the veranda floor, and ran up-stairs and got the letter +she had written him. When at last he noisily bade her father and mother, +"Well, good night. I forgot I woke you up; I sha'n't want any sleep +myself," she followed him down the avenue to the gate. There, after the +whirling words that seemed to fly away from her thoughts and refuse to +serve them, she made a last effort to solemnize the moment that seemed +so crazy, and pressed the letter she had written upon him. + +"What's this?" he said. "Want me to mail it?" + +"No, no. It's for you. I wrote it after you went this morning. Keep +it--keep it--and read it sometime--" She thought, and then her +inspiration came: "Read it if ever you doubt what you've done, or fear +that I regret your having done it. Read it after you've started." + +They strained each other in embraces that seemed as ineffective as their +words, and he kissed her face with quick, hot breaths that were so +unlike him, that made her feel as if she had lost her old lover and +found a stranger in his place. The stranger said, "What a gorgeous +flower you are, with your red hair, and your blue eyes that look black +now, and your face with the color painted out by the white moonshine! +Let me hold you under my chin, to see whether I love blood, you +tiger-lily!" Then he laughed Gearson's laugh, and released her, scared +and giddy. Within her wilfulness she had been frightened by a sense of +subtler force in him, and mystically mastered as she had never been +before. + +She ran all the way back to the house, and mounted the steps panting. +Her mother and father were talking of the great affair. Her mother said: +"Wa'n't Mr. Gearson in rather of an excited state of mind? Didn't you +think he acted curious?" + +"Well, not for a man who'd just been elected captain and had to set 'em +up for the whole of Company A," her father chuckled back. + +"What in the world do you mean, Mr. Balcom? Oh! There's Editha!" She +offered to follow the girl indoors. + +"Don't come, mother!" Editha called, vanishing. + +Mrs. Balcom remained to reproach her husband. "I don't see much of +anything to laugh at." + +"Well, it's catching. Caught it from Gearson. I guess it won't be much +of a war, and I guess Gearson don't think so, either. The other fellows +will back down as soon as they see we mean it. I wouldn't lose any sleep +over it. I'm going back to bed, myself." + + * * * * * + +Gearson came again next afternoon, looking pale, and rather sick, but +quite himself, even to his languid irony. "I guess I'd better tell you, +Editha, that I consecrated myself to your god of battles last night by +pouring too many libations to him down my own throat. But I'm all right, +now. One has to carry off the excitement, somehow." + +"Promise me," she commanded, "that you'll never touch it again!" + +"What! Not let the cannikin clink? Not let the soldier drink? Well, I +promise." + +"You don't belong to yourself now; you don't even belong to _me_. You +belong to your country, and you have a sacred charge to keep yourself +strong and well for your country's sake. I have been thinking, thinking +all night and all day long." + +"You look as if you had been crying a little, too," he said with his +queer smile. + +"That's all past. I've been thinking, and worshipping _you_. Don't you +suppose I know all that you've been through, to come to this? I've +followed you every step from your old theories and opinions." + +"Well, you've had a long row to hoe." + +"And I know you've done this from the highest motives--" + +"Oh, there won't be much pettifogging to do till this cruel war is--" + +"And you haven't simply done it for my sake. I couldn't respect you if +you had." + +"Well, then we'll say I haven't. A man that hasn't got his own respect +intact wants the respect of all the other people he can corner. But we +won't go into that. I'm in for the thing now, and we've got to face our +future. My idea is that this isn't going to be a very protracted +struggle; we shall just scare the enemy to death before it conies to a +fight at all. But we must provide for contingencies, Editha. If anything +happens to me--" + +"Oh, George!" She clung to him sobbing. + +"I don't want you to feel foolishly bound to my memory. I should hate +that, wherever I happened to be." + +"I am yours, for time and eternity--time and eternity." She liked the +words; they satisfied her famine for phrases. + +"Well, say eternity; that's all right; but time's another thing; and I'm +talking about time. But there is something! My mother! If anything +happens--" + +She winced, and he laughed. "You're not the bold soldier-girl of +yesterday!" Then he sobered. "If anything happens, I want you to help my +mother out. She won't like my doing this thing. She brought me up to +think war a fool thing as well as a bad thing. My father was in the +civil war; all through it; lost his arm in it." She thrilled with the +sense of the arm round her; what if that should be lost? He laughed as +if divining her: "Oh, it doesn't run in the family, as far as I know!" +Then he added, gravely, "He came home with misgivings about war, and +they grew on him. I guess he and mother agreed between them that I was +to be brought up in his final mind about it; but that was before my +time. I only knew him from my mother's report of him and his opinions; I +don't know whether they were hers first; but they were hers last. This +will be a blow to her. I shall have to write and tell her--" + +He stopped, and she asked, "Would you like me to write too, George?" + +"I don't believe that would do. No, I'll do the writing. She'll +understand a little if I say that I thought the way to minimize it was +to make war on the largest possible scale at once--that I felt I must +have been helping on the war somehow if I hadn't helped keep it from +coming, and I knew I hadn't; when it came, I had no right to stay out of +it." + +Whether his sophistries satisfied him or not, they satisfied her. She +clung to his breast, and whispered, with closed eyes and quivering lips, +"Yes, yes, yes!" + +"But if anything should happen, you might go to her, and see what you +could do for her. You know? It's rather far off; she can't leave her +chair--" + +"Oh, I'll go, if it's the ends of the earth! But nothing will happen! +Nothing _can_! I--" + +She felt herself lifted with his rising, and Gearson was saying, with +his arm still round her, to her father: "Well, we're off at once, Mr. +Balcom. We're to be formally accepted at the capital, and then bunched +up with the rest somehow; and sent into camp somewhere, and got to the +front as soon as possible. We all want to be in the van, of course; +we're the first company to report to the Governor. I came to tell +Editha, but I hadn't got round to it." + + * * * * * + +She saw him again for a moment at the capital, in the station, just +before the train started southward with his regiment. He looked well, in +his uniform, and very soldierly, but somehow girlish, too, with his +clean-shaven face and slim figure. The manly eyes and the strong voice +satisfied her, and his preoccupation with some unexpected details of +duty flattered her. Other girls were weeping, but she felt a sort of +noble distinction in the abstraction with which they parted. Only at the +last moment he said, "Don't forget my mother. It mayn't be such a +walk-over as I supposed," and he laughed at the notion. + +He waved his hand to her, as the train moved off--she knew it among a +score of hands that were waved to other girls from the platform of the +car, for it held a letter which she knew was hers. Then he went inside +the car to read it, doubtless, and she did not see him again. But she +felt safe for him through the strength of what she called her love. What +she called her God, always speaking the name in a deep voice and with +the implication of a mutual understanding, would watch over him and keep +him and bring him back to her. If with an empty sleeve, then he should +have three arms instead of two, for both of hers should be his for life. +She did not see, though, why she should always be thinking of the arm +his father had lost. + +There were not many letters from him, but they were such as she could +have wished, and she put her whole strength into making hers such as she +imagined he could have wished, glorifying and supporting him. She wrote +to his mother, but the brief answer she got was merely to the effect +that Mrs. Gearson was not well enough to write herself, and thanking her +for her letter by the hand of some one who called herself "Yrs truly, +Mrs. W.J. Andrews." + +Editha determined not to be hurt, but to write again quite as if the +answer had been all she expected. But before it seemed as if she could +have written, there came news of the first skirmish, and in the list of +the killed which was telegraphed as a trifling loss on our side, was +Gearson's name. There was a frantic time of trying to make out that it +might be, must be, some other Gearson; but the name, and the company and +the regiment, and the State were too definitely given. + +Then there was a lapse into depths out of which it seemed as if she +never could rise again; then a lift into clouds far above all grief, +black clouds, that blotted out the sun, but where she soared with him, +with George, George! She had the fever that she expected of herself, but +she did not die in it; she was not even delirious, and it did not last +long. When she was well enough to leave her bed, her one thought was of +George's mother, of his strangely worded wish that she should go to her +and see what she could do for her. In the exaltation of the duty laid +upon her--it buoyed her up instead of burdening her--she rapidly +recovered. + +Her father went with her on the long railroad journey from northern New +York to western Iowa; he had business out at Davenport, and he said he +could just as well go then as any other time; and he went with her to +the little country town where George's mother lived in a little house on +the edge of illimitable corn-fields, under trees pushed to a top of the +rolling prairie. George's father had settled there after the civil war, +as so many other old soldiers had done; but they were Eastern people, +and Editha fancied touches of the East in the June rose overhanging the +front door, and the garden with early summer flowers stretching from the +gate of the paling fence. + +It was very low inside the house, and so dim, with the closed blinds, +that they could scarcely see one another: Editha tall and black in her +crapes which filled the air with the smell of their dyes; her father +standing decorously apart with his hat on his forearm, as at funerals; a +woman rested in a deep armchair, and the woman who had let the strangers +in stood behind the chair. + +The seated woman turned her head round and up, and asked the woman +behind her chair, "_Who_ did you say?" + +Editha, if she had done what she expected of herself, would have gone +down on her knees at the feet of the seated figure and said, "I am +George's Editha," for answer. + +But instead of her own voice she heard that other woman's voice, saying, +"Well, I don't know as I _did_ get the name just right. I guess I'll +have to make a little more light in here," and she went and pushed two +of the shutters ajar. + +Then Editha's father said in his public will-now-address-a-few-remarks +tone, "My name is Balcom, ma'am; Junius H. Balcom, of Balcom's Works, +New York; my daughter--" + +"Oh!" The seated woman broke in, with a powerful voice, the voice that +always surprised Editha from Gearson's slender frame. "Let me see you! +Stand round where the light can strike on your face," and Editha dumbly +obeyed. "So, you're Editha Balcom," she sighed. + +"Yes," Editha said, more like a culprit than a comforter. + +"What did you come for?" + +Editha's face quivered, and her knees shook. "I came--because--because +George--" She could go no farther. + +"Yes," the mother said, "he told me he had asked you to come if he got +killed. You didn't expect that, I suppose, when you sent him." + +"I would rather have died myself than done it!" Editha said with more +truth in her deep voice than she ordinarily found in it. "I tried to +leave him free--" + +"Yes, that letter of yours, that came back with his other things, left +him free." + +Editha saw now where George's irony came from. + +"It was not to be read before--unless--until--I told him so," she +faltered. + +"Of course, he wouldn't read a letter of yours, under the circumstances, +till he thought you wanted him to. Been sick?" the woman abruptly +demanded. + +"Very sick," Editha said, with self-pity. + +"Daughter's life," her father interposed, "was almost despaired of, at +one time." + +Mrs. Gearson gave him no heed. "I suppose you would have been glad to +die, such a brave person as you! I don't believe _he_ was glad to die. +He was always a timid boy, that way; he was afraid of a good many +things; but if he was afraid he did what he made up his mind to. I +suppose he made up his mind to go, but I knew what it cost him, by what +it cost me when I heard of it. I had been through _one_ war before. When +you sent him you didn't expect he would get killed." + +The voice seemed to compassionate Editha, and it was time. "No," she +huskily murmured. + +"No, girls don't; women don't, when they give their men up to their +country. They think they'll come marching back, somehow, just as gay as +they went, or if it's an empty sleeve, or even an empty pantaloon, it's +all the more glory, and they're so much the prouder of them, poor +things." + +The tears began to run down Editha's face; she had not wept till then; +but it was now such a relief to be understood that the tears came. + +"No, you didn't expect him to get killed," Mrs. Gearson repeated in a +voice which was startlingly like George's again. "You just expected him +to kill some one else, some of those foreigners, that weren't there +because they had any say about it, but because they had to be there, +poor wretches--conscripts, or whatever they call 'em. You thought it +would be all right for my George, _your_ George, to kill the sons of +those miserable mothers and the husbands of those girls that you would +never see the faces of." The woman lifted her powerful voice in a +psalmlike note. "I thank my God he didn't live to do it! I thank my God +they killed him first, and that he ain't livin' with their blood on his +hands!" She dropped her eyes which she had raised with her voice, and +glared at Editha. "What you got that black on for?" She lifted herself +by her powerful arms so high that her helpless body seemed to hang limp +its full length. "Take it off, take it off, before I tear it from your +back!" + + * * * * * + +The lady who was passing the summer near Balcom's Works was sketching +Editha's beauty, which lent itself wonderfully to the effects of a +colorist. It had come to that confidence which is rather apt to grow +between artist and sitter, and Editha had told her everything. + +"To think of your having such a tragedy in your life!" the lady said. +She added: "I suppose there are people who feel that way about war. But +when you consider how much this war has done for the country! I can't +understand such people, for my part. And when you had come all the way +out there to console her--got up out of a sick bed! Well!" + +"I think," Editha said, magnanimously, "she wasn't quite in her right +mind; and so did papa." + +"Yes," the lady said, looking at Editha's lips in nature and then at her +lips in art, and giving an empirical touch to them in the picture. "But +how dreadful of her! How perfectly--excuse me--how _vulgar_!" + +A light broke upon Editha in the darkness which she felt had been +without a gleam of brightness for weeks and months. The mystery that had +bewildered her was solved by the word; and from that moment she rose +from grovelling in shame and self-pity, and began to live again in the +ideal. + + + + +The Stout Miss Hopkins's Bicycle + +BY OCTAVE THANET + + +There was a skeleton in Mrs. Margaret Ellis's closet; the same skeleton +abode also in the closet of Miss Lorania Hopkins. + +The skeleton--which really does not seem a proper word--was the dread of +growing stout. They were more afraid of flesh than of sin. Yet they were +both good women. Mrs. Ellis regularly attended church, and could always +be depended on to show hospitality to convention delegates, whether +clerical or lay; she was a liberal subscriber to every good work; she +was almost the only woman in the church aid society that never lost her +temper at the soul-vexing time of the church fair; and she had a larger +clientele of regular pensioners than any one in town, unless it were her +friend Miss Hopkins, who was "so good to the poor" that never a tramp +slighted her kitchen. Miss Hopkins was as amiable as Mrs. Ellis, and +always put her name under that of Mrs. Ellis, with exactly the same +amount, on the subscription papers. She could have given more, for she +had the larger income; but she had no desire to outshine her friend, +whom she admired as the most charming of women. + +Mrs. Ellis, indeed, was agreeable as well as good, and a pretty woman to +the bargain, if she did not choose to be weighed before people. Miss +Hopkins often told her that she was not really stout; she merely had a +plump, trig little figure. Miss Hopkins, alas! was really stout. The two +waged a warfare against the flesh equal to the apostle's in vigor, +although so much less deserving of praise. + +Mrs. Ellis drove her cook to distraction with divers dieting systems, +from Banting's and Dr. Salisbury's to the latest exhortations of some +unknown newspaper prophet. She bought elaborate gymnastic appliances, +and swung dumb-bells and rode imaginary horses and propelled imaginary +boats. She ran races with a professional trainer, and she studied the +principles of Delsarte, and solemnly whirled on one foot and swayed her +body and rolled her head and hopped and kicked and genuflected in +company with eleven other stout and earnest matrons and one slim and +giggling girl who almost choked at every lesson. In all these exercises +Miss Hopkins faithfully kept her company, which was the easier as Miss +Hopkins lived in the next house, a conscientious Colonial mansion with +all the modern conveniences hidden beneath the old-fashioned pomp. + +And yet, despite these struggles and self-denials, it must be told that +Margaret Ellis and Lorania Hopkins were little thinner for their +warfare. Still, as Shuey Cardigan, the trainer, told Mrs. Ellis, there +was no knowing what they might have weighed had they not struggled. + +"It ain't only the fat that's _on_ ye, moind ye," says Shuey, with a +confidential sympathy of mien; "it's what ye'd naturally be getting in +addition. And first ye've got to peel off that, and then ye come down to +the other." + +Shuey was so much the most successful of Mrs. Ellis's reducers that his +words were weighty. And when at last Shuey said, "I got what you need," +Mrs. Ellis listened. "You need a bike, no less," says Shuey. + +"But I never could ride one!" said Margaret, opening her pretty brown +eyes and wrinkling her Grecian forehead. + +"You'd ride in six lessons." + +"But how would I _look_, Cardigan?" + +"You'd look noble, ma'am!" + +"What do you consider the best wheel, Cardigan?" + +The advertising rules of magazines prevent my giving Cardigan's answer; +it is enough that the wheel glittered at Mrs. Ellis's door the very next +day, and that a large pasteboard box was delivered by the expressman the +very next week. He went on to Miss Hopkins's, and delivered the twin of +the box, with a similar yellow printed card bearing the impress of the +same great firm on the inside of the box cover. + +For Margaret had hied her to Lorania Hopkins the instant Shuey was gone. +She presented herself breathless, a little to the embarrassment of +Lorania, who was sitting with her niece before a large box of +cracker-jack. + +"It's a new kind of candy; I was just _tasting_ it, Maggie," faltered +she, while the niece, a girl of nineteen, with the inhuman spirits of +her age, laughed aloud. + +"You needn't mind me," said Mrs. Ellis, cheerfully; "I'm eating +potatoes now!" + +"Oh, Maggie!" Miss Hopkins breathed the words between envy and +disapproval. + +Mrs. Ellis tossed her brown head airily, not a whit abashed. "And I had +beer for luncheon, and I'm going to have champagne for dinner." + +"Maggie, how do you dare? Did they--did they taste good?" + +"They tasted _heavenly_, Lorania. Pass me the candy. I am going to try +something new--the thinningest thing there is. I read in the paper of +one woman who lost forty pounds in three months, and is losing still!" + +"If it is obesity pills, I--" + +"It isn't; it's a bicycle. Lorania, you and I must ride! Sibyl Hopkins, +you heartless child, what are you laughing at?" + +Lorania rose; in the glass over the mantel her figure returned her gaze. +There was no mistake (except that, as is often the case with stout +people, _that_ glass always increased her size), she was a stout lady. +She was taller than the average of women, and well proportioned, and +still light on her feet; but she could not blink away the records; she +was heavy on the scales. Did she stand looking at herself squarely, her +form was shapely enough, although larger than she could wish; but the +full force of the revelation fell when she allowed herself a profile +view, she having what is called "a round waist," and being almost as +large one way as another. Yet Lorania was only thirty-three years old, +and was of no mind to retire from society, and have a special phaeton +built for her use, and hear from her mother's friends how much her +mother weighed before her death. + +"How should _I_ look on a wheel?" she asked, even as Mrs. Ellis had +asked before; and Mrs. Ellis stoutly answered, "You'd look _noble_!" + +"Shuey will teach us," she went on, "and we can have a track made in +your pasture, where nobody can see us learning. Lorania, there's nothing +like it. Let me bring you the bicycle edition of _Harper's Bazar_." + +Miss Hopkins capitulated at once, and sat down to order her costume, +while Sibyl, the niece, revelled silently in visions of a new bicycle +which should presently revert to her. "For it's ridiculous, auntie's +thinking of riding!" Miss Sibyl considered. "She would be a figure of +fun on a wheel; besides, she can never learn in this world!" + +Yet Sibyl was attached to her aunt, and enjoyed visiting Hopkins Manor, +as Lorania had named her new house, into which she moved on the same day +that she joined the Colonial Dames, by right of her ancestor the great +and good divine commemorated by Mrs. Stowe. Lorania's friends were all +fond of her, she was so good-natured and tolerant, with a touch of dry +humor in her vision of things, and not the least a Puritan in her frank +enjoyment of ease and luxury. Nevertheless, Lorania had a good, +able-bodied, New England conscience, capable of staying awake nights +without flinching; and perhaps from her stanch old Puritan forefathers +she inherited her simple integrity so that she neither lied nor +cheated--even in the small, whitewashed manner of her sex--and valued +loyalty above most of the virtues. She had an innocent pride in her +godly and martial ancestry, which was quite on the surface, and led +people who did not know her to consider her haughty. + +For fifteen years she had been an orphan, the mistress of a very large +estate. No doubt she had been sought often in marriage, but never until +lately had Lorania seriously thought of marrying. Sibyl said that she +was too unsentimental to marry. Really she was too romantic. She had a +longing to be loved, not in the quiet, matter-of-fact manner of her +suitors, but with the passion of the poets. Therefore the presence of +another skeleton in Mrs. Ellis's closet, because she knew about a +certain handsome Italian marquis who at this period was conducting an +impassioned wooing by mail. Margaret did not fancy the marquis. He was +not an American. He would take Lorania away. She thought his very virtue +florid, and suspected that he had learned his love-making in a bad +school. She dropped dark hints that frightened Lorania, who would +sometimes piteously demand, "Don't you think he _could_ care for +me--for--for myself?" Margaret knew that she had an overweening distrust +of her own appearance. How many tears she had shed first and last over +her unhappy plumpness it would be hard to reckon. She made no account of +her satin skin, or her glossy black hair, or her lustrous violet eyes +with their long, black lashes, or her flashing white teeth; she glanced +dismally at her shape and scornfully at her features, good, honest, +irregular American features, that might not satisfy a Greek critic, but +suited each other and pleased her countrymen. And then she would sigh +heavily over her figure. Her friend had not the heart to impute the +marquis's beautiful, artless compliments to mercenary motives. After +all, the Italian was a good fellow, according to the point of view of +his own race, if he did intend to live on his wife's money, and had a +very varied assortment of memories of women. + +But Margaret dreaded and disliked him all the more for his good +qualities. To-day this secret apprehension flung a cloud over the +bicycle enthusiasm. She could not help wondering whether at this moment +Lorania was not thinking of the marquis, who rode a wheel and a horse +admirably. + +"Aunt Lorania," said Sibyl, "there comes Mr. Winslow. Shall I run out +and ask him about those cloth-of-gold roses? The aphides are eating them +all up." + +"Yes, to be sure, dear; but don't let Ferguson suspect what you are +talking of; he might feel hurt." + +Ferguson was the gardener. Miss Hopkins left her note to go to the +window. Below she saw a mettled horse, with tossing head and silken +skin, restlessly fretting on his bit and pawing the dust in front of +the fence, while his rider, hat in hand, talked with the young girl. He +was a little man, a very little man, in a gray business suit of the best +cut and material. An air of careful and dainty neatness was diffused +about both horse and rider. He bent towards Miss Sibyl's charming person +a thin, alert, fair face. His head was finely shaped, the brown hair +worn away a little on the temples. He smiled gravely at intervals; the +smile told that he had a dimple in his cheek. + +"I wonder," said Mrs. Ellis, "whether Mr. Winslow can have a penchant +for Sibyl?" + +Lorania opened her eyes. At this moment Mr. Winslow had caught sight of +her at the window, and he bowed almost to his saddle-bow; Sibyl was +saying something at which she laughed, and he visibly reddened. It was a +peculiarity of his that his color turned easily. In a second his hat was +on his head and his horse bounded half across the road. + +"Hardly, I think," said Lorania. "How well he rides! I never knew any +one ride better--in this country." + +"I suppose Sibyl would ridicule such a thing," said Mrs. Ellis, +continuing her own train of thought, and yet vaguely disturbed by the +last sentence. + +"Why should she?" + +"Well, he is so little, for one thing, and she is so tall. And then +Sibyl thinks a great deal of social position." + +"He is a Winslow," said Lorania, archin her neck unconsciously--"a +lineal descendant from Kenelm Winslow, who came over in the _May_--" + +"But his mother--" + +"I don't know anything about his mother before she came here. Oh, of +course I know the gossip that she was a niece of the overseer at a +village poor-house, and that her husband quarrelled with all his family +and married her in the poor-house, and I know that when he died here she +would not take a cent from the Winslows, nor let them have the boy. She +is the meekest-looking little woman, but she must have an iron streak in +her somewhere, for she was left without enough money to pay the funeral +expenses, and she educated the boy and accumulated money enough to pay +for this place they have. + +"She used to run a laundry, and made money; but when Cyril got a place +in the bank she sold out the laundry and went into chickens and +vegetables; she told somebody that it wasn't so profitable as the +laundry, but it was more genteel, and Cyril being now in a position of +trust at the bank, she must consider _him_. Cyril swept out the bank. +People laughed about it, but, do you know, I rather liked Mrs. Winslow +for it. She isn't in the least an assertive woman. How long have we been +up here, Maggie? Isn't it four years? And they have been our next-door +neighbors, and she has never been inside the house. Nor he either, for +that matter, except once when it took fire, you know, and he came in +with that funny little chemical engine tucked under his arm, and took +off his hat in the same prim, polite way that he takes it off when he +talks to Sibyl, and said, 'If you'll excuse me offering advice, Miss +Hopkins, it is not necessary to move anything; it mars furniture very +much to move it at a fire. I think, if you will allow me, I can +extinguish this.' And he did, too, didn't he, as neatly and as coolly as +if it were only adding up a column of figures. And offered me the engine +as a souvenir." + +"Lorania, you never told me that!" + +"It seemed like making fun of him, when he had been so kind. I declined +as civilly as I could. I hope I didn't hurt his feelings. I meant to pay +a visit to his mother and ask them to dinner, but you know I went to +England that week, and somehow when I came back it was difficult. It +seems a little odd we never have seen more of the Winslows, but I fancy +they don't want either to intrude or to be intruded on. But he is +certainly very obliging about the garden. Think of all the slips and +flowers he has given us, and the advice--" + +"All passed over the fence. It is funny our neighborly good offices +which we render at arm's-length. How long have you known him?" + +"Oh, a long time. He is cashier of my bank, you know. First he was +teller, then assistant cashier, and now for five years he has been +cashier. The president wants to resign and let him be president, but he +hardly has enough stock for that. But Oliver says" (Oliver was Miss +Hopkins's brother) "that there isn't a shrewder or straighter banker in +the state. Oliver knows him. He says he is a sandy little fellow." + +"Well, he is," assented Mrs. Ellis. "It isn't many cashiers would let +robbers stab them and shoot them and leave them for dead rather than +give up the combination of the safe!" + +"He wouldn't take a cent for it, either, and he saved ever so many +thousand dollars. Yes, he _is_ brave. I went to the same school with him +once, and saw him fight a big boy twice his size--such a nasty boy, who +called me 'Fatty,' and made a kissing noise with his lips just to scare +me--and poor little Cyril Winslow got awfully beaten, and when I saw him +on the ground, with his nose bleeding and that big brute pounding him, I +ran to the water-bucket, and poured the whole bucket on that big, +bullying boy and stopped the fight, just as the teacher got on the +scene. I cried over little Cyril Winslow. He was crying himself. 'I +ain't crying because he hurt me,' he sobbed; 'I'm crying because I'm so +mad I didn't lick him!' I wonder if he remembers that episode?" + +"Perhaps," said Mrs. Ellis. + +"Maggie, what makes you think he is falling in love with Sibyl?" + +Mrs. Ellis laughed. "I dare say he _isn't_ in love with Sibyl," said +she. "I think the main reason was his always riding by here instead of +taking the shorter road down the other street." + +"Does he always ride by here? I hadn't noticed." + +"Always!" said Mrs. Ellis. "_I_ have noticed." + +"I am sorry for him," said Lorania, musingly. "I think Sibyl is very +much taken with that young Captain Carr at the Arsenal. Young girls +always affect the army. He is a nice fellow, but I don't think he is +the man Winslow is. Now, Maggie, advise me about the suit. I don't want +to look like the escaped fat lady of a museum." + +Lorania thought no more of Sibyl's love-affairs. If she thought of the +Winslows, it was to wish that Mrs. Winslow would sell or rent her +pasture, which, in addition to her own and Mrs. Ellis's pastures thrown +into one, would make such a delightful bicycle-track. + +The Winslow house was very different from the two villas that were the +pride of Fairport. A little story-and-a-half cottage peeped out on the +road behind the tall maples that were planted when Winslow was a boy. +But there was a wonderful green velvet lawn, and the tulips and +sweet-peas and pansies that blazed softly nearer the house were as +beautiful as those over which Miss Lorania's gardener toiled and +worried. + +Mrs. Winslow was a little woman who showed the fierce struggle of her +early life only in the deeper lines between her delicate eyebrows and +the expression of melancholy patience in her brown eyes. + +She always wore a widow's cap and a black gown. In the mornings she +donned a blue figured apron of stout and serviceable stuff; in the +afternoon an apron of that sheer white lawn used by bishops and smart +young waitresses. Of an afternoon, in warm weather, she was accustomed +to sit on the eastern piazza, next to the Hopkins place, and rock as she +sewed. She was thus sitting and sewing when she beheld an extraordinary +procession cross the Hopkins lawn. First marched the tall trainer, Shuey +Cardigan, who worked by day in the Lossing furniture-factory, and gave +bicycle lessons at the armory evenings. He was clad in a white sweater +and buff leggings, and was wheeling a lady's bicycle. Behind him walked +Miss Hopkins in a gray suit, the skirt of which only came to her +ankles--she always so dignified in her toilets. + +"Land's sakes!" gasped Mrs. Winslow, "if she ain't going to ride a bike! +Well, what next?" + +What really happened next was the sneaking (for no other word does +justice to the cautious and circuitous movements of her) of Mrs. Winslow +to the stable, which had one window facing the Hopkins pasture. No cows +were grazing in the pasture. All around the grassy plateau twinkled a +broad brownish-yellow track. At one side of this track a bench had been +placed, and a table, pleasing to the eye, with jugs and glasses. Mrs. +Ellis, in a suit of the same undignified brevity and ease as Miss +Hopkins's, sat on the bench supporting her own wheel. Shuey Cardigan was +drawn up to his full six feet of strength, and, one arm in the air, was +explaining the theory of the balance of power. It was an uncanny moment +to Lorania. She eyed the glistening, restless thing that slipped beneath +her hand, and her fingers trembled. If she could have fled in secret she +would. But since flight was not possible, she assumed a firm expression. +Mrs. Ellis wore a smile of studied and sickly cheerfulness. + +"Don't you think it very _high_?" said Lorania. "I can _never_ get up on +it!" + +"It will be by the block at first," said Shuey, in the soothing tones of +a jockey to a nervous horse; "it's easy by the block. And I'll be +steadying it, of course." + +"Don't they have any with larger saddles? It is a _very_ small saddle." + +"They're all of a size. It wouldn't look sporty larger; it would look +like a special make. Yous wouldn't want a special make." + +Lorania thought that she would be thankful for a special make, but she +suppressed the unsportsmanlike thought. "The pedals are very small too, +Cardigan. Are you _sure_ they can hold me?" + +"They would hold two of ye, Miss Hopkins. Now sit aisy and graceful as +ye would on your chair at home, hold the shoulders back, and toe in a +bit on the pedals--ye won't be skinning your ankles so much then--and +hold your foot up ready to get the other pedal. Hold light on the +steering-bar. Push off hard. _Now!_" + +"Will you hold me? I am going--Oh, it's like riding an earthquake!" + +Here Shuey made a run, letting the wheel have its own wild way--to reach +the balance. "Keep the front wheel under you!" he cried, cheerfully. +"Niver mind _where_ you go. Keep a-pedalling; whatever you do, keep +a-pedalling!" + +"But I haven't got but one pedal!" gasped the rider. + +"Ye lost it?" + +"No; I _never had_ but one! Oh, don't let me fall!" + +"Oh, ye lost it in the beginning; now, then, I'll hold it steady, and +you get both feet right. Here we go!" + +Swaying frightfully from side to side, and wrenched from capsizing the +wheel by the full exercise of Shuey's great muscles, Miss Hopkins reeled +over the track. At short intervals she lost her pedals, and her feet, +for some strange reason, instead of seeking the lost, simply curled up +as if afraid of being hit. She gripped the steering-handles with an iron +grasp, and her turns were such as an engine makes. Nevertheless, Shuey +got her up the track for some hundred feet, and then by a herculean +sweep turned her round and rolled her back to the block. It was at this +painful moment, when her whole being was concentrated on the effort to +keep from toppling against Shuey, and even more to keep from toppling +away from him, that Lorania's strained gaze suddenly fell on the +frightened and sympathetic face of Mrs. Winslow. The good woman saw no +fun in the spectacle, but rather an awful risk to life and limb. Their +eyes met. Not a change passed over Miss Hopkins's features; but she +looked up as soon as she was safe on the ground, and smiled. In a +moment, before Mrs. Winslow could decide whether to run or to stand her +ground, she saw the cyclist approaching--on foot. + +"Won't you come in and sit down?" she said, smiling. "We are trying our +new wheels." + +And because she did not know how to refuse, Mrs. Winslow suffered +herself to be handed over the fence. She sat on the bench beside Miss +Hopkins in the prim attitude which had pertained to gentility in her +youth, her hands loosely clasping each other, her feet crossed at the +ankles. + +"It's an awful sight, ain't it?" she breathed, "those little shiny +things; I don't see how you ever git on them." + +"I don't get on them," said Miss Hopkins. "The only way I shall ever +learn to start off is to start without the pedals. Does your son ride, +Mrs. Winslow?" + +"No, ma'am," said Mrs. Winslow; "but he knows how. When he was a boy +nothing would do but he must have a bicycle, one of those things most as +big as a mill wheel, and if you fell off you broke yourself somewhere, +sure. I always expected he'd be brought home in pieces. So I don't think +he'd have any manner of difficulty. Why, look at your friend; she's +'most riding alone!" + +"She could always do everything better than I," cried Lorania, with +ungrudging admiration. "See how she jumps off! Now I can't jump off any +more than I can jump on. It seems so ridiculous to be told to press hard +on the pedal on the side where you want to jump, and swing your further +leg over first, and cut a kind of a figure eight with your legs, and +turn your wheel the way you don't want to go--all at once. While I'm +trying to think of all those directions I always fall off. I got that +wheel only yesterday, and fell before I even got away from the block. +One of my arms looks like a Persian ribbon." + +Mrs. Winslow cried out in unfeigned sympathy. She wished Miss Hopkins +would use her liniment that she used for Cyril when he was hurt by the +burglars at the bank; he was bruised "terrible." + +"That must have been an awful time to you," said Lorania, looking with +more interest than she had ever felt on the meek little woman; and she +noticed the tremble in the decorously clasped hands. + +"Yes, ma'am," was all she said. + +"I've often looked over at you on the piazza, and thought how cosey you +looked. Mr. Winslow always seems to be at home evenings." + +"Yes, ma'am. We sit a great deal on the piazza. Cyril's a good boy; he +wa'n't nine when his father died; and he's been like a man helping me. +There never was a boy had such willing little feet. And he'd set right +there on the steps and pat my slipper and say what he'd git me when he +got to earning money; and he's got me every last thing, foolish and all, +that he said. There's that black satin gown, a sin and a shame for a +plain body like me, but he would git it. Cyril's got a beautiful +disposition too, jest like his pa's, and he's a handy man about the +house, and prompt at his meals. I wonder sometimes if Cyril was to git +married if his wife would mind his running over now and then and setting +with me awhile." + +She was speaking more rapidly, and her eyes strayed wistfully over to +the Hopkins piazza, where Sibyl was sitting with the young soldier. +Lorania looked at her pityingly. + +"Why, surely," said she. + +"Mothers have kinder selfish feelings," said Mrs. Winslow, moistening +her lips and drawing a quick breath, still watching the girl on the +piazza. "It's so sweet and peaceful for them, they forget their sons may +want something more. But it's kinder hard giving all your little +comforts up at once when you've had him right with you so long, and +could cook just what he liked, and go right into his room nights if he +coughed. It's all right, all right, but it's kinder hard. And beautiful +young ladies that have had everything all their lives might--might not +understand that a homespun old mother isn't wanting to force herself on +them at all when they have company, and they have no call to fear it." + +There was no doubt, however obscure the words seemed, that Mrs. Winslow +had a clear purpose in her mind, nor that she was tremendously in +earnest. Little blotches of red dabbled her cheeks, her breath came more +quickly, and she swallowed between her words. Lorania could see the +quiver in the muscles of her throat. She clasped her hands tight lest +they should shake. "He's in love with Sibyl," thought Lorania. "The poor +woman!" She felt sorry for her, and she spoke gently and reassuringly: + +"No girl with a good heart can help feeling tenderly towards her +husband's mother." + +Mrs. Winslow nodded. "You're real comforting," said she. She was silent +a moment, and then said, in a different tone: "You 'ain't got a large +enough track. Wouldn't you like to have our pasture too?" + +Lorania expressed her gratitude, and invited the Winslows to see the +practice. + +"My niece will come out to-morrow," she said, graciously. + +"Yes? She's a real fine-appearing young lady," said Mrs. Winslow. + +Both the cyclists exulted. Neither of them, however, was prepared to +behold the track made and the fence down the very next morning when +they came out, about ten o'clock, to the west side of Miss Hopkins's +boundaries. + +"As sure as you live, Maggie," exclaimed Lorania, eagerly, "he's got it +all done! Now that is something like a lover. I only hope his heart +won't be bruised as black and blue as I am with the wheel!" + +"Shuey says the only harm your falls do you is to take away your +confidence," said Mrs. Ellis. + +"He wouldn't say so if he could see my _knees_!" retorted Miss Hopkins. + +Mrs. Ellis, it will be observed, sheered away from the love-affairs of +Mr. Cyril Winslow. She had not yet made up her mind. And Mrs. Ellis, who +had been married, did not jump at conclusions regarding the heart of man +so rapidly as her spinster friend. She preferred to talk of the bicycle. +Nor did Miss Hopkins refuse the subject. To her at this moment the most +important object on the globe was the shining machine which she would +allow no hand but hers to oil and dust. Both Mrs. Ellis and she were +simply prostrated (as to their mental powers) by this new sport. They +could not think nor talk nor read of anything but _the wheel_. This is a +peculiarity of the bicyclist. No other sport appears to make such havoc +with the mind. + +One can learn to swim without describing his sensations to every casual +acquaintance or hunting up the natatorial columns in the newspapers. One +may enjoy riding a horse and yet go about his ordinary business with an +equal mind. One learns to play golf and still remains a peaceful citizen +who can discuss politics with interest. But the cyclist, man or woman, +is soaked in every pore with the delight and the perils of wheeling. He +talks of it (as he thinks of it) incessantly. For this fatuous passion +there is one excuse. Other sports have the fearful delight of danger and +the pleasure of the consciousness of dexterity and the dogged +Anglo-Saxon joy of combat and victory; but no other sport restores to +middle age the pure, exultant, muscular intoxication of childhood. Only +on the wheel can an elderly woman feel as she felt when she ran and +leaped and frolicked amid the flowers as a child. + +Lorania, of course, no longer jumped or ran; she kicked in the Delsarte +exercises, but it was a measured, calculated, one may say cold-blooded +kick, which limbered her muscles but did not restore her youthful glow +of soul. Her legs and not her spirits pranced. The same thing may be +said for Margaret Ellis. Now, between their accidents, they obtained +glimpses of an exquisite exhilaration. And there was also to be counted +the approval of their consciences, for they felt that no Turkish bath +could wring out moisture from their systems like half an hour's pumping +at the bicycle treadles. Lorania during the month had ridden through one +bottle of liniment and two of witch-hazel, and by the end of the second +bottle could ride a short distance alone. But Lorania could not yet +dismount unassisted, and several times she had felled poor Winslow to +the earth when he rashly adventured to stop her. Captain Carr had a +peculiar, graceful fling of the arm, catching the saddle-bar with one +hand while he steadied the handles with the other. He did not hesitate +in the least to grab Lorania's belt if necessary. But poor modest +Winslow, who fell upon the wheel and dared not touch the hem of a lady's +bicycle skirt, was as one in the path of a cyclone, and appeared daily +in a fresh pair of white trousers. + +"Yous have now," Shuey remarked, impressively, one day--"yous have now +arrived at the most difficult and dangerous period in learning the +wheel. It's similar to a baby when it's first learned to walk but +'ain't yet got sense in walking. When it was little it would stay put +wherever ye put it, and it didn't know enough to go by itself, which is +similar to you. When I was holding ye you couldn't fall, but now you're +off alone depindent on yourself, object-struck by every tree, taking +most of the pasture to turn in, and not able to git off save by +falling--" + +"Oh, couldn't you go with her somehow?" exclaimed Mrs. Winslow, appalled +at the picture. "Wouldn't a rope round her be some help? I used to put +it round Cyril when he was learning to walk." + +"Well, no, ma'am," said Shuey, patiently. "Don't you be scared; the +riding will come; she's getting on grandly. And ye should see Mr. +Winslow. 'Tis a pleasure to teach him. He rode in one lesson. I ain't +learning him nothing but tricks now." + +"But, Mr. Winslow, why don't you ride here--with us?" said Sibyl, with +her coquettish and flattering smile. "We're always hearing of your +beautiful riding. Are we never to see it?" + +"I think Mr. Winslow is waiting for that swell English cycle suit that I +hear about," said the captain, grinning; and Winslow grew red to his +eyelids. + +Lorania gave an indignant side glance at Sibyl. Why need the girl make +game of an honest man who loved her? Sibyl was biting her lips and +darting side glances at the captain. She called the pasture practice +slow, but she seemed, nevertheless, to enjoy herself sitting on the +bench, the captain on one side and Winslow on the other, rattling off +her girlish jokes, while her aunt and Mrs. Ellis, with the anxious, set +faces of the beginner, were pedalling frantically after Cardigan. +Lorania began to pity Winslow, for it was growing plain to her that +Sibyl and the captain understood each other. She thought that even if +Sibyl did care for the soldier, she need not be so careless of Winslow's +feelings. She talked with the cashier herself, trying to make amends for +Sibyl's absorption in the other man, and she admired the fortitude that +concealed the pain that he must feel. It became quite the expected thing +for the Winslows to be present at the practice; but Winslow had not yet +appeared on his wheel. He used to bring a box of candy with him, or +rather three boxes--one for each lady, he said--and a box of peppermints +for his mother. He was always very attentive to his mother. + +"And fancy, Aunt Margaret," laughed Sibyl, "he has asked both auntie +and me to the theatre. He is not going to compromise himself by singling +one of us out. He's a careful soul. By the way, Aunt Margaret, Mrs. +Winslow was telling me yesterday that I am the image of auntie at my +age. Am I? Do I look like her? Was she as slender as I?" + +"Almost," said Mrs. Ellis, who was not so inflexibly truthful as her +friend. + +"No, Sibyl," said Lorania, with a deep, deep sigh, "I was always plump; +I was a chubby _child_! And oh, what do you think I heard in the crowd +at Manly's once? One woman said to another, 'Miss Hopkins has got a +wheel.' 'Miss Sibyl?' said the other. 'No; the stout Miss Hopkins,' said +the first creature; and the second--" Lorania groaned. + +"What _did_ she say to make you feel that way?" + +"She said--she said, 'Oh my!'" answered Lorania, with a dying look. + +"Well, she was horrid," said Mrs. Ellis; "but you know you have grown +thin. Come on; let's ride!" + +"I _never_ shall be able to ride," said Lorania, gloomily. "I can get +on, but I can't get off. And they've taken off the brake, so I can't +stop. And I'm object-struck by everything I look at. Some day I shall +look down-hill. Well, my will's in the lower drawer of the mahogany +desk." + +Perhaps Lorania had an occult inkling of the future. For this is what +happened: That evening Winslow rode on to the track in his new English +bicycle suit, which had just come. He hoped that he didn't look like a +fool in those queer clothes. But the instant he entered the pasture he +saw something that drove everything else out of his head, and made him +bend over the steering-bar and race madly across the green; Miss +Hopkins's bicycle was running away down-hill! Cardigan, on foot, was +pelting obliquely, in the hopeless thought to intercept her, while Mrs. +Ellis, who was reeling over the ground with her own bicycle, wheeled as +rapidly as she could to the brow of the hill, where she tumbled off, and +abandoning the wheel, rushed on foot to her friend's rescue. + +She was only in time to see a flash of silver and ebony and a streak of +brown dart before her vision and swim down the hill like a bird. Lorania +was still in the saddle, pedalling from sheer force of habit, and +clinging to the handle bars. Below the hill was a stone wall, and +farther was a creek. There was a narrow opening in the wall where the +cattle went down to drink; if she could steer through that she would +have nothing worse than soft water and mud; but there was not one chance +in a thousand that she could pass that narrow space. Mrs. Winslow, +horror-stricken, watched the rescuer, who evidently was cutting across +to catch the bicycle. + +"He's riding out of sight!" thought Shuey, in the rear. He himself did +not slacken his speed, although he could not be in time for the +catastrophe. Suddenly he stiffened; Winslow was close to the runaway +wheel. + +"Grab her!" yelled Shuey. "Grab her by the belt! _Oh, Lord!_" + +The exclamation exploded like the groan of a shell. For while Winslow's +bicycling was all that could be wished, and he flung himself in the path +of the on-coming wheel with marvellous celerity and precision, he had +not the power to withstand the never yet revealed number of pounds +carried by Miss Lorania, impelled by the rapid descent and gathering +momentum at every whirl. They met; he caught her; but instantly he was +rolling down the steep incline and she was doubled up on the grass. He +crashed sickeningly against the stone wall; she lay stunned and still +on the sod; and their friends, with beating hearts, slid down to them. +Mrs. Winslow was on the brow of the hill. She blesses Shuey to this day +for the shout he sent up, "Nobody killed, and I guess no bones broken." + +When Margaret went home that evening, having seen her friend safely in +bed, not much the worse for her fall, she was told that Cardigan wished +to see her. Shuey produced something from his pocket, saying: "I picked +this up on the hill, ma'am, after the accident. It maybe belongs to him, +or it maybe belongs to her; I'm thinking the safest way is to just give +it to you." He handed Mrs. Ellis a tiny gold-framed miniature of Lorania +in a red leather case. + + * * * * * + +The morning was a sparkling June morning, dewy and fragrant, and the +sunlight burnished handle and pedal of the friends' bicycles standing on +the piazza unheeded. It was the hour for morning practice, but Miss +Hopkins slept in her chamber, and Mrs. Ellis sat in the little parlor +adjoining, and thought. + +She did not look surprised at the maid's announcement that Mrs. Winslow +begged to see her for a few moments. Mrs. Winslow was pale. She was a +good sketch of discomfort on the very edge of her chair, clad in the +black silk which she wore Sundays, her head crowned with her bonnet of +state, and her hands stiff in a pair of new gloves. + +"I hope you'll excuse me not sending up a card," she began. "Cyril got +me some going on a year ago, and I _thought_ I could lay my hand right +on 'em, but I'm so nervous this morning I hunted all over, and they +wasn't anywhere. I won't keep you. I just wanted to ask if you picked up +anything--a little red Russia-leather case--" + +"Was it a miniature--a miniature of my friend Miss Hopkins?" + +"I thought it all over, and I came to explain. You no doubt think it +strange; and I can assure you that my son never let any human being look +at that picture. I never knew about it myself till it was lost and he +got out of his bed--he ain't hardly able to walk--and staggered over +here to look for it, and I followed him; and so he _had_ to tell me. He +had it painted from a picture that came out in the papers. He felt it +was an awful liberty. But--you don't know how my boy feels, Mrs. Ellis; +he has worshipped that woman for years. He 'ain't never had a thought +of anybody but her since they was children in school; and yet he's been +so modest and so shy of pushing himself forward that he didn't do a +thing until I put him on to help you with this bicycle." + +Margaret Ellis did not know what to say. She thought of the marquis; and +Mrs. Winslow poured out her story: "He 'ain't never said a word to me +till this morning. But don't I _know_? Don't I know who looked out so +careful for her investments? Don't I know who was always looking out for +her interest, silent, and always keeping himself in the background? Why, +she couldn't even buy a cow that he wa'n't looking round to see that she +got a good one! 'Twas him saw the gardener, and kept him from buying +that cow with tuberculosis, 'cause he knew about the herd. He knew by +finding out. He worshipped the very cows she owned, you may say, and +I've seen him patting and feeding up her dogs; it's to our house that +big mastiff always goes every night. Mrs. Ellis, it ain't often that a +woman gits love such as my son is offering, only he da'sn't offer it, +and it ain't often a woman is loved by such a good man as my son. He +'ain't got any bad habits; he'll die before he wrongs anybody; and he +has got the sweetest temper you ever see; and he's the tidiest man +about the house you could ask, and the promptest about meals." + +Mrs. Ellis looked at her flushed face, and sent another flood of color +into it, for she said, "Mrs. Winslow, I don't know how much good I may +be able to do, but I am on your side." + +Her eyes followed the little black figure when it crossed the lawn. She +wondered whether her advice was good, for she had counselled that +Winslow come over in the evening. + +"Maggie," said a voice. Lorania was in the doorway. "Maggie," she said, +"I ought to tell you that I heard every word." + +"Then _I_ can tell _you_," cried Mrs. Ellis, "that he is fifty times +more of a man than the marquis, and loves you fifty thousand times +better!" + +Lorania made no answer, not even by a look. What she felt, Mrs. Ellis +could not guess. Nor was she any wiser when Winslow appeared at her +gate, just as the sun was setting. + +"I didn't think I would better intrude on Miss Hopkins," said he, "but +perhaps you could tell me how she is this evening. My mother told me how +kind you were, and perhaps you--you would advise if I might venture to +send Miss Hopkins some flowers." + +Out of the kindness of her heart Mrs. Ellis averted her eyes from his +face; thus she was able to perceive Lorania saunter out of the Hopkins +gate. So changed was she by the bicycle practice that, wrapped in her +niece's shawl, she made Margaret think of the girl. An inspiration +flashed to her; she knew the cashier's dependence on his eye-glasses, +and he was not wearing them. + +"If you want to know how Miss Hopkins is, why not speak to her niece +now?" said she. + +He started. He saw Miss Sibyl, as he supposed, and he went swiftly down +the street. "Miss Sibyl!" he began, "may I ask how is your aunt?"--and +then she turned. + +She blushed, then she laughed aloud. "Has the bicycle done so much for +me?" said she. + +"The bicycle didn't need to do _anything_ for you!" he cried, warmly. + +Mrs. Ellis, a little distance in the rear, heard, turned, and walked +thoughtfully away. "They're off," said she--she had acquired a sporting +tinge of thought from Shuey Cardigan. "If with that start he can't make +the running, it's a wonder." + +"I have invited Mr. Winslow and his mother to dinner," said Miss +Hopkins, in the morning. "Will you come too, Maggie?" + +"I'll back him against the marquis," thought Margaret, gleefully. + +A week later Lorania said: "I really think I must be getting thinner. +Fancy Mr. Winslow, who is so clear-sighted, mistaking me for Sibyl! He +says--I told him how I had suffered from my figure--he says it can't be +what he has suffered from his. Do you think him so very short, Maggie? +Of course he isn't tall, but he has an elegant figure, I think, and I +never saw anywhere such a rider!" + +Mrs. Ellis answered, heartily, "He isn't very small, and he is a +beautiful figure on the wheel!" And added to herself, "I know what was +in that letter she sent yesterday to the marquis! But to think of its +all being due to the bicycle!" + + + + +The Marrying of Esther + +BY MARY M. MEARS + + +"Set there and cry; it's so sensible; and I 'ain't said that a June +weddin' wouldn't be a little nicer. But what you goin' to live on? Joe +can't git his money that soon." + +"He--said he thought he could manage. But I won't be married at all if I +can't have it--right." + +"Well, you can have it right. All is, there are some folks in this town +that if they don't calculate doin' real well by you, I don't feel called +upon to invite." + +"I don't know what you mean," sobbed the girl. She sat by the kitchen +table, her face hidden in her arms. Her mother stood looking at her +tenderly, and yet with a certain anger. + +"I mean about the presents. You've worked in the church, you've sung in +the choir for years, and now it's a chance for folks to show that they +appreciate it, and without they're goin' to--Boxes of cake would be +plenty if they wa'n't goin' to serve you any better than they did Ella +Plummet." + +Esther Robinson lifted her head. She was quite large, in a soft young +way, and her skin was as pure as a baby's. "But you can't know +beforehand how they're going to treat me!" + +"Yes, I can know beforehand, too, and if you're set on next month, it's +none too soon to be seein' about it. I've a good mind to step over to +Mis' Lawrence's and Mis' Stetson's this afternoon." + +"Mother! You--wouldn't ask 'em anything?" + +Mrs. Robinson hung away her dishtowel; then she faced Esther. "Of course +I wouldn't _ask_ 'em; there's other ways of findin' out besides +_asking_. I'd bring the subject round by saying I hoped there wouldn't +be many duplicates, and I'd git out of 'em what they intended givin' +without seemin' to." Esther looked at her mother with a sort of +fascination. "Then we could give some idea about the refreshments; for I +ain't a-goin' to have no elaborate layout without I _do_ know; and it +ain't because I grudge the money, either," she added, in swift +self-defence. + +Mrs. Robinson was a good manager of the moderate means her husband had +left her, but she was not parsimonious or inhospitable. Now she was +actuated by a fierce maternal jealousy. Esther, despite her pleasant +ways and her helpfulness, was often overlooked in a social way. This was +due to her mother. The more pretentious laughed about Mrs. Robinson, and +though the thrifty, contented housewife never missed the amenities which +might have been extended to her, she was keenly alive to any slights put +upon her daughter. And so it was now. + +Mrs. Lawrence, a rich, childless old lady, lived next door, and about +four o'clock she went over there. The girl watched her departure +doubtfully, but the possibility of not having a large wedding kept her +from giving a full expression to her feelings. + +Esther had always dreamed of her wedding; she had looked forward to it +just as definitely before she met Joe Elsworth as after her engagement +to him. There would be flowers and guests and feasting, and she would be +the centre of it all in a white dress and veil. + +She had never thought about there being any presents. Now for the first +time she thought of them as an added glory, but her imagination did not +extend to the separate articles or to their givers. Esther never +pictured her uncle Jonas at the wedding, yet he would surely be in +attendance in his rough farmer clothes, his grizzled, keen old face +towering above the other guests. She did not picture her friends as she +really knew them; the young men would be fine gentlemen, and the girls +ladies in wonderful toilets. As for herself and Joe, hidden away in a +bureau drawer Esther had a poster of one of Frohman's plays. It +represented a bride and groom standing together in a drift of orange +blossoms. + +Mrs. Robinson did not return at supper-time, and Esther ate alone. At +eight o'clock Joe Elsworth came. She met him at the door, and they +kissed in the entry. Then Joe preceded her in, and hung up his cap on a +projecting knob of the what-not--that was where he always put it. He +glanced into the dining-room and took in the waiting table. + +"Haven't you had supper yet!" + +"Mother isn't home." + +He came towards her swiftly; his eyes shone with a sudden elated +tenderness. She raised her arms and turned away her face, but he swept +aside the ineffectual barrier. When he let her go she seated herself on +the farther side of the room. Her glance was full of a soft rebuke. He +met it, then looked down smilingly and awkwardly at his shoes. + +"Where did you say your ma had gone?" + +"She's gone to Mis' Lawrence's, and a few other places." + +"Oh, calling. Old Mis' Norton goes about twice a year, and I ask her +what it amounts to." + +"I guess you'll find ma's calls'll amount to something." + +"How's that?" he demanded. + +"She's--going to try and find out what they intend giving." + +"What they intend giving?" + +"Yes. And without they intend giving something worth while, she says she +won't invite 'em, and maybe we won't have a big wedding at all," she +finished, pathetically. + +Joe did not answer. Esther stole an appealing glance at him. + +"Does it seem a queer thing to do?" + +"Well, yes, rather." + +Her face quivered. "She said I'd done so much for Mis' Lawrence--" + +"Well, you have, and I've wished a good many times that you wouldn't. +I'm sure I never knuckled to her, though she is my great-aunt." + +"I never knuckled to her, either," protested Esther. + +"You've done a sight more for her than I would have done, fixin' her +dresses and things, and she with more money than anybody else in town. +But your mother ain't going to call on everybody, is she?" he asked, +anxiously. + +"Of course she ain't. Only she said, if it was going to be in June--but +I don't want it to be ever," she added, covering her face. + +"Oh, it's all right," said Joe, penitently. He went over and put his arm +around her. Nevertheless, his eyes held a worried look. + +Joe's father had bound him out to a farmer by the name of Norton until +his majority, when the sum of seven hundred dollars, all the little +fortune the father had left, together with three hundred more from +Norton, was to be turned over to him. But Joe would not be twenty-one +until October. It was going to be difficult for him to arrange for the +June wedding Esther desired. He was very much in love, however, and +presently he lifted his boyish cheek from her hair. + +"I think I'll take that cottage of Lanham's; it's the only vacant house +in the village, and he's promised to wait for the rent, so that +confounded old Norton needn't advance me a cent." + +Esther flushed. "What do you suppose makes him act so?" she questioned, +though she knew. + +Joe blushed too. "He don't like it because I'm going to work in the +factory when it opens. But Mis' Norton and Sarah have done everything +for me," he added, decidedly. + +Up to the time of his engagement Joe had been in the habit of showing +Sarah Norton an occasional brotherly attention, and he would have +continued to do so had not Esther and Mrs. Robinson interfered--Esther +from girlish jealousy, and her mother because she did not approve of the +family, she said. She could not say she did not approve of Sarah, for +there was not a more upright, self-respecting girl in the village. But +Sarah, because of her father's miserliness, often went out for extra +work when the neighbors needed help, and this was the real cause of Mrs. +Robinson's feeling. Unconsciously she made the same distinction between +Sarah Norton and Esther that some of the more ambitious of the village +mothers made between their girls and her own daughter. Then it was +common talk that old Jim Norton, for obvious reasons, was displeased +with Joe's matrimonial plans, but Mrs. Robinson professed to believe +that the wife and daughter were really the ones disappointed. Now Esther +began twisting a button of Joe's coat. + +"I don't believe mother'll ask either of 'em to the wedding," said she. + +When Mrs. Robinson entered, Esther stood expectant and fearful by the +table. Her mother drew up a chair and reached for the bread. + +"I didn't stop anywhere for supper. You've had yours, 'ain't you?" + +The girl nodded. + +"Joe come?" + +"He just left." + +But Mrs. Robinson was not to be hurried into divulging the result of her +calls. She remained massively mysterious. Esther began to wish she had +not hurried Joe off so unceremoniously. After her first cup of tea, +however, her mother asked for a slip of paper and a pencil. "I want that +pencil in my machine drawer, that writes black, and any kind of paper'll +do," she said. + +Esther brought them; then she took up her sewing. She was not without a +certain self-restraint. Mrs. Robinson, between her sips of tea, wrote. +The soft gurgle of her drinking annoyed Esther, and she had a tingling +desire to snatch the paper. After a last misdirected placing of her cup +in her plate, however, her mother looked up and smiled triumphantly. + +"I guess we'll have to plan something different than boxes of cake. +Listen to this; Mis' Lawrence--No, I won't read that yet. Mis' +Manning--I went in there because I thought about her not inviting you +when she gave that library party--one salt and pepper with rose-buds +painted on 'em." + +Esther leaned forward; her face was crimson. + +"You needn't look so," remonstrated her mother. "It was all I could do +to keep from laughing at the way she acted. I just mentioned that we +were only goin' to invite those you were indebted to, and she went and +fetched out that salt and pepper. I believe she said they was intended +in the first place for some relative that didn't git married in the +end." + +The girl made an inarticulate noise in her throat. Her mother continued, +in a loud, impressive tone: + +"Mis' Stetson--something worked. She hasn't quite decided what, but +she's goin' to let me know about it. Jane Watson--" + +"You didn't go _there_, mother!" + +Mrs. Robinson treated her daughter to a contemptuous look. "I guess I've +got sense. Jane was at Mis' Stetson's, and when I came away she went +along with me, and insisted that I should stop and see some +lamp-lighters she'd got to copy from--those paper balls. She seemed +afraid a string of those wouldn't be enough, but I told her how pretty +they was, and how much you'd be pleased." + +"I guess I'll think a good deal more of 'em than I will of Mis' +Manning's salt and pepper." Esther was very near tears. + +"Next I went to the Rogerses, and they've about concluded to give you a +lamp; and they can afford to. Then that's all the places I've been, +except to Mis' Lawrence's, and she"--Mrs. Robinson paused for +emphasis--"she's goin' to give you a silver _tea-set_!" + +Esther looked at her mother, her red lips apart. + +"That was the first place I called, and I said pretty plain what I was +gittin' at; but after I knew about the water-set, that settled what kind +of weddin' we'd have." + + * * * * * + +But the next morning the world looked different. Her rheumatic foot +ached, and that always affected her temper; but when they sat down to +sew, the real cause of her irascibleness came out. + +"Mis' Lawrence wa'n't any more civil than she need be," she remarked. "I +guess she'd decided she'd got to do something, being related to Joe. She +said she supposed you were expecting a good many presents; and I said +no, you didn't look for many, and there were some that you'd done a good +deal for that you knew better than to expect anything from. I was mad. +Then she turned kind of red, and mentioned about the water-set." + +And in the afternoon a young girl acquaintance added to Esther's +perturbation. "I just met Susan Rogers," she confided to the other, "and +she said they hated to give that lamp, but they supposed they were in +for it." + +Esther was not herself for some days. All her pretty dreams were blotted +out, and a morbid embarrassment took hold of her; but she was roused to +something like her old interest when the presents began to come in and +she saw her mother's active preparations for the wedding--the more so as +over the village seemed to have spread a pleasant excitement concerning +the event. Presents arrived from unexpected sources, so that +invitations had to be sent afterwards to the givers. Women who had +never crossed the Robinson threshold came now like Hindoo gift-bearers +before some deity whom they wished to propitiate. Meeting there, they +exchanged droll, half-deprecating glances. Mrs. Robinson's calls had +formed the subject of much laughing comment; but weddings were not +common in Marshfield, and the desire to be bidden to this one was +universal; it spread like an epidemic. + +Mrs. Robinson was at first elated. She overlooked the matter of +duplicates, and accepted graciously every article that was +tendered--from a patch-work quilt to a hem-stitched handkerchief. "You +can't have too many of some things," she remarked to Esther. But later +she reversed this statement. Match-safes, photograph-frames, and pretty +nothings accumulated to an alarming extent. + +"Now that's the last pin-cushion you're goin' to take," she declared, as +she returned from answering a call at the door one evening. "There's +fourteen in the parlor now. Some folks seem to have gone crazy on +pin-cushions." + +She grew confused, and the next day she went into the parlor, which, +owing to the nature of the display, resembled a booth at a church fair, +and made an accurate list of the articles received. When she emerged, +her large, handsome face was quite flushed. + +"Little wabbly, fall-down things, most of 'em. It'll take you a week to +dust your house if you have all those things standin' round." + +"Well, I ain't goin' to put none of 'em away," declared Esther. "I like +ornaments." + +"Glad you do; you've got enough of 'em, land knows. _Ornaments!_" The +very word seemed to incense her. "I guess you'll find there's something +needed besides _ornaments_ when you come right down to livin'. For one +thing, you're awful short of dishes and bedding, and you can't ever have +no company--unless," she added, with withering sarcasm, "you give 'em +little vases to drink out of, and put 'em to bed under a picture-drape, +with a pin-cushion or a scent-bag for a piller." + +And from that time Mrs. Robinson accepted no gift without first +consulting her list. It became known that she looked upon useful +articles with favor, and brooms and flat-irons and bright tinware +arrived constantly. Then it was that the heterogeneous collection began +to pall upon Esther. The water-set had not yet been presented, but its +magnificence grew upon her, and she persuaded Joe to get a +spindle-legged stand on which to place it, although he could not furnish +the cottage until October, and had gone in debt for the few necessary +things. She pictured the combination first in one corner of the little +parlor, then another, finally in a window where it could be seen, from +the road. + +Esther's standards did not vary greatly from her mother's, but she had a +bewildered sense that they were somehow stepping from the beaten track +of custom. On one or two points, however, she was firm. The few novels +that had come within her reach she had conned faithfully. Thus, even +before she had a lover, she had decided that the most impressive hour +for a wedding was sunrise, and had arranged the procession which was to +wend its way towards the church. And in these matters her mother, +respecting her superior judgment, stood stanchly by her. + +Nevertheless, when the eventful morning arrived she was bitterly +disappointed. She had set her heart on having the church bell rung, and +overlooked the fact that the meeting-house bell was cracked, till Joe +reminded her. Then the weather was unexpectedly chilly. A damp fog, not +yet dispersed by the sun, hung over the barely awakened village, and the +little flower-girl shivered. She had a shawl pinned about her, and when +the procession was fairly started she tripped over it, and there was a +halt while she gathered up the roses and geraniums in her little +trembling hands and thrust them back into the basket. Celia Smith +tittered. Celia was the bridesmaid, and was accompanied by Joe's friend, +red-headed Harry Baker; and Mrs. Robinson and Uncle Jonas, who were far +behind, made the most of the delay. Mrs. Robinson often explained that +she was not a "good walker," and her brother-in-law tried jocularly to +help her along, although he used a cane himself. His weather-beaten old +face was beaming, but it was as though the smiles were set between the +wrinkles, for he kept his mouth sober. He had a flower in his +button-hole, which gave him a festive air, despite the fact that his +clothes were distinctly untidy. Several buttons were off: he had no wife +to keep them sewed on. + +Esther had given but one glance at him. Her head under its lace veil +bent lower and lower. The flounces of her skirt stood out about her +like the delicate bell of a hollyhock; she followed the way falteringly. +Joe, his young eyes radiant, inclined his curly head towards her, but +she did not heed him. The little procession was as an awkward garment +which hampered and abashed her; but just as they reached the church the +sun crept above the tree-tops, and from the bleakness of dawn the whole +scene warmed into the glorious beauty of a June day. The guests lost +their aspect of chilled waiting; Esther caught their admiring glances. +For one brief moment her triumph was complete; the next she had +overstepped its bounds. She went forward scarcely touching Joe's arm. +Her great desire became a definite purpose. She whispered to a member of +her Sunday-school class, a little fellow. He looked at her wonderingly +at first, then darted forward and grasped the rope which dangled down in +a corner of the vestibule. He pulled with a will, but even as the old +bell responded with a hoarse clank, his arms jerked upward, and with +curls flying and fat legs extended he ascended straight to the ceiling. + +"Oh, suz, the Lord's taking him right up!" shrieked an old woman, the +sepulchral explanation of the broken bell but serving to intensify her +terror; and there were others who refused to understand, even when his +sister caught him by the heels. She was very white, and she shook him +before she set him down. Too scared to realize where he was, he fought +her, his little face quite red, and his blouse strained up so that it +revealed the girth of his round little body in its knitted undershirt. + +"Le' me go," he whimpered; "she telled me to do it." + +His words broke through the general amazement like a stone through the +icy surface of a stream. The guests gave way to mirth. Some of the young +girls averted their faces; they could not look at Esther. The matrons +tilted their bonneted heads towards one another and shook softly. "I +thought at first it might be a part of the show," whispered one, "but I +guess it wasn't planned." + +Esther was conscious of every whisper and every glance; shame seemed to +engulf her, but she entered the church holding her head high. When they +emerged into the sunshine again, she would have been glad to run away, +but she was forced to pause while her mother made an announcement. + +"The refreshments will be ready by ten," she said, "and as we calculate +to keep the tables runnin' all day, those that can't come one time can +come another." + +After which there was a little rice-throwing, and the young couple +departed. The frolic partly revived Esther's spirits; but her mother, +toiling heavily along with a hard day's work before her, was inclined to +speak her mind. Her brother-in-law, however, restrained her. + +"Seems to me I never seen anything quite so cute as that little feller +a-ringin' that bell for the weddin'. Who put him up to it, anyhow?" + +"Why, Esther. She was so set on havin' a 'chime,' as she called it." + +"Well, it was a real good idee! A _real_ good idee!" and he kept +repeating the phrase as though in a perfect ecstasy of appreciation. + +When Esther reached home, she and Joe arranged the tables in the side +yard, but when the first guest turned in at the gate her mother sent her +to the house. "Now you go into the parlor and rest. You can just as well +sit under that dove as stand under it," she said. + +The girl started listlessly to obey, but the next words revived her like +wine: + +"I declare it's Mis' Lawrence, and she's bringing that water-set; she +hung on to it till the last minit." + +Esther flew to her chamber and donned her veil, which she had laid +aside, then sped down-stairs; but when she passed through the parlor she +put her hands over her eyes: she wanted to look at the water-set first +with Joe. He was no longer helping her mother, and she fluttered about +looking for him. The rooms would soon be crowded, and then there would +be no opportunity to examine the wonderful gift. + +She darted down a foot-path that crossed the yard diagonally. It led to +a gap in the stone-wall which opened on a lane. Esther and Joe had been +in the habit of walking here of an evening. It was scarcely more than a +grassy way overhung by leaning branches of old fruit trees, but it was a +short-cut to the cottage Joe had rented. Now Esther's feet, of their own +volition, carried her here. She slid through the opening. "Joe!" she +called, and her voice had the tremulous cadence of a bird summoning its +mate; but it died away in a little smothered cry, for not a rod away was +Joe, and sitting on a large stone was Sarah Norton. They had their backs +towards her, and were engaged in such an earnest conversation that they +did not hear her. Sarah's shoulders moved with her quick breathing; she +had a hand on Joe's arm. Esther stood staring, her thin draperies +circling about her, and her childish face pale. Then she turned, with a +swift impulse to escape, but again she paused, her eyes riveted in the +opposite direction. From where she stood the back door of her future +home was visible, and two men were carrying out furniture. Involuntarily +she opened her lips to call Joe, but no sound came. Yes, they had the +bureau; they would probably take the spindle-legged stand next. A strong +protective instinct is part of possession, and to Esther that sight was +as a magnet to steel. Down the grassy lane she sped, but so lightly that +the couple by the wall were as unobservant of her as they were of the +wind stirring the long grass. + +Sarah Norton rose. "I run every step of the way to get here in time. +Please, Joe!" she panted. + +He shook his head. "It's real kind of you and your mother, Sarah, but I +guess I ain't going to touch any of the money you worked for and earned, +and I can't help but think, when I talk to Lanham--" + +"I tell you, you can't reason with him in his state!" + +"Well, I'll raise it somehow." + +"You'll have to be quick about it, then," she returned, concisely. +"He'll be here in a few minutes, and it's cash down for the first three +months, or he'll let the other party have it." + +"But he promised--" + +"That don't make any difference. He's drunk, and he thought father'd +offer to make you an advance; but father just told him to come down +here, that you were being married, and say he'd poke all your things out +in the road without you paid." + +The young man turned. Sarah blocked his way. She was a tall, +good-looking girl, somewhat older than Joe, and she looked straight up +into his face. + +"See here, Joe; you know what makes father act so, and so do I, and so +does mother, and mother and I want you should take this money; it'll +make us feel better." Sarah flushed, but she looked at him as directly +as if she had been his sister. + +Joe felt an admiration for her that was almost reverence. It carried him +for the moment beyond the consideration of his own predicament. + +"No, I don't know what makes him act so either," he cried, hotly. "Oh +Lord, Sarah, you sha'n't say such a thing!" + +She interrupted him. "Won't you take it?" + +He turned again: "You're just as good as you can be, but I can manage +some way." + +"I'll watch for Lanham," she answered, quietly, "and keep him talking as +long as I can. He's just drunk enough to make a scene." + +Half-way to the house, Joe met Harry Barker. + +"What did she want?" he inquired, curiously. + +When Joe told him he plunged into his pocket and drew out two dollars, +then offered to go among the young fellows and collect the balance of +the amount, but Joe caught hold of him. + +"Think of something else." + +"I could explain to the boys--" + +"You go and ask Mrs. Lawrence if she won't step out on the porch," the +other commanded; "she's my great-aunt, and I never asked anything of her +before." + +But Mrs. Lawrence was not sympathetic. She told Joe flatly that she +never lent money, and that the water-set was as much as she could afford +to give. "It ain't paid for, though," she added; "and if you'd rather +have the money, I suppose I can send it back. But seems to me I +shouldn't have been in such an awful hurry to git married; I should 'a' +waited a month or so, till I had something to git married on. But you're +just like your father--never had no calculation. Do you want I should +return that silver?" + +Joe hesitated. It was an easy way out of the difficulty. Then a vision +of Esther rose before him, and the innocent preparations she had been +making for the display of the gift; "No," he answered, shortly. And Mrs. +Lawrence, with a shake of the shoulders as though she threw off all +responsibility in her young relative's affairs, bustled away. "I'm going +to keep that water-set if everything else has to go," he declared to the +astonished Harry. "Let 'em set me out in the road; I guess I'll git +along." He had a humorous vision of himself and Esther trudging forth, +with the water-set between them, to seek their fortune. + +He flung himself from the porch, and was confronted by Jonas Ingram. The +old fellow emerged from behind a lilac-bush with a guilty yet excited +air. + +"Young man, I ain't given to eaves-dropping, but I was strollin' along +here and I heered it all; and as I was calculatin' to give my niece a +present--" He broke off and laid a hand on Joe's arm. "Where is that +dod-blasted fool of a Lanham? I'll pay him; then I'll break every bone +in his dum body!" he exclaimed, waxing profane. "Come here disturbin' +decent folks' weddin's! Where is he?" + +He started off down the path, striking out savagely with his stick. Joe +watched him a moment, then put after him, and Harry Barker followed. + +"If this ain't the liveliest weddin'!" + +Nevertheless, he was disappointed in his expectations of an encounter. +When the trio emerged through the gap in the wall they found only Sarah +Norton awaiting them. + +"Lanham's come and gone," she announced. "No, I didn't give him a thing, +except a piece of my mind," she answered, in response to a look from +Joe. "I told him that he was acting like a fool; that father was in for +a thousand dollars to you in the fall, and that you would pay then, as +you promised, and that he'd better clear out." + +"Oh, if I could jest git a holt of him!" muttered Jonas Ingram. + +"That seemed to sober him," continued the girl; "but he said he wasn't +the only one that had got scared; that Merrill was going for his tables +and chairs; but Lanham said he'd run up to the cottage, and if he was +there, he'd send him off. You see, father threw out as if he wasn't +owing you anything," she added, in a lower voice, "and that's what +stirred 'em up." + +Joe turned white, in a sudden heat of anger--the first he had shown, +"I'll stir him--" he began; then his eyes met hers. He reddened. "Oh, +Sarah, I'm ever so much obliged to you!" + +"It was nothing. I guess it was lucky I wasn't invited to the wedding, +though." She laughed, and started away, leaving Joe abashed. She glanced +back. "I hope none of this foolishness'll reach Mis' Elsworth's ears," +she called, in a friendly voice. + +"I hope it won't," muttered Joe, fervently, and stood watching her till +the old man pulled his sleeve. + +"Lanham may not keep his word to the girl. Best go down there, hadn't +we?" + +The young man made no answer, but turned and ran. He longed for some one +to wreak vengeance on. The other two had difficulty in keeping up with +him. The first object that attracted their attention was the bureau. It +was standing beside the back steps. Joe tried the door; it was +fastened. He drew forth the key and fitted it into the lock, but still +the door did not yield. He turned and faced the others. "_Some one's in +there!_" + +Jonas Ingram broke forth into an oath. He shook his cane at the house. + +"Some one's in there, and they've got the door bolted on the inside," +continued Joe. His voice had a strange sound even to himself. He seemed +to be looking on at his own wrath. He strode around to a window, but the +blinds were closed; the blinds were closed all over the house; every +door was barred. Whoever was inside was in utter darkness. Joe came back +and gave the door a violent shake; then they all listened, but only the +pecking of a hen along the walk broke the silence. + +"I'll get a crowbar," suggested Harry, scowling in the fierce sunlight. +Jonas Ingram stood with his hair blowing out from under his hat and his +stick grasped firmly in his gnarled old hand. He was all ready to +strike. His chin was thrust out rigidly. They both pressed close to Joe, +but he did not heed them. He put one shoulder against a panel; every +muscle was set. + +"Whoever you are, if I have to break this door down--" + +There was a soft commotion on the inside and the bolt was drawn. Joe, +with the other two at his heels, fairly burst into the darkened place, +just in time to see a white figure dart across the room and cast itself +in a corner. For an instant they could only blink. The figure wrapped +its white arms about some object. + +"You can have everything but this table; you can't have--this." The +words ended in a frightened sob. + +"_Esther!_" + +"_Oh, Joe!_" She struggled to her feet, then shrank back against the +wall. "Oh, I didn't know it was you. Go 'way! go 'way!" + +"Why, Esther, what do you mean?" He started towards her, but she turned +on him. + +"Where is she?" + +"Where's who?" + +She did not reply, but standing against the wall, she stared at him with +a passionate scorn. + +"You don't mean Sarah Norton?" asked Joe, slowly. Esther quivered. "Why, +she came to tell me of the trouble her father was trying to get me into. +But how did you come here, Esther? How did you know anything about it?" + +She did not answer. Her head sank. + +"How did you, Esther?" + +"I saw--you in the lane," she faltered, then caught up her veil as +though it had been a pinafore. Joe went up to her, and Jonas Ingram took +hold of Harry Barker, and the two stepped outside, but not out of +ear-shot; they were still curious. They could hear Esther's sobbing +voice at intervals. "I tried to make 'em stop, but they wouldn't, and I +slipped in past 'em and bolted the door; and when you came, I thought it +was them--and, oh! ain't they our things, Joe?" + +The old man thrust his head in at the door. "Yes," he roared, then +withdrew. + +"And won't they take the table away?" + +"No," he roared again. "I'd just like to see 'em!" + +Esther wept harder. "Oh, I wish they would; I ought to give 'em up. I +didn't care for them after I thought--that. It was just that I had to +have something I wouldn't let go, and I tried to think only of saving +the table for the water-set." + +"Come mighty near bein' no water-set," muttered Jonas to himself; then +he turned to his companion. "Young man, I guess they don't need us no +more," he said. + +When he regained his sister-in-law's, he encountered that lady carrying +a steaming dish. Guests stood about under the trees or sat at the long +tables. + +"For mercy sakes, Jonas, have you seen Esther? She made fuss enough +about havin' that dove fixed up in the parlor, and she and Joe ain't +stood under it a minit yet." + +"That's a fact," chuckled the old fellow. "They ain't stood under no +dove of peace yet; they're just about ready to now, I reckon." + + * * * * * + +And up through the lane, all oblivious, the lovers were walking slowly. +Just before they reached the gap in the wall, they paused by common +consent. Cherry and apple trees drooped over the wall; these had ceased +blossoming, but a tangle of wild-rose bushes was all ablush. It dropped +a thick harvest of petals on the ground. Joe bent his head; and Esther, +resting against his shoulder, lifted her eyes to his face. All +unconsciously she took the pose of the woman in the Frohman poster. They +kissed, and then went on slowly. + + + + +Cordelia's Night of Romance + +BY JULIAN RALPH + + +Cordelia Angeline Mahoney was dressing, as she would say, "to keep a +date" with a beau, who would soon be waiting on the corner nearest her +home in the Big Barracks tenement-house. She smiled as she heard the +shrill catcall of a lad in Forsyth Street. She knew it was Dutch +Johnny's signal to Chrissie Bergen to come down and meet him at the +street doorway. Presently she heard another call--a birdlike +whistle--and she knew which boy's note it was, and which girl it called +out of her home for a sidewalk stroll. She smiled, a trifle sadly, and +yet triumphantly. She had enjoyed herself when she was no wiser and +looked no higher than the younger Barracks girls, who took up the boys +of the neighborhood as if there were no others. + +She was in her own little dark inner room, which she shared with only +two others of the family, arranging a careful toilet by kerosene-light. +The photograph of herself in trunks and tights, of which we heard in the +story of Elsa Muller's hopeless love, was before her, among several +portraits of actresses and salaried beauties. She had taken them out +from under the paper in the top drawer of the bureau. She always kept +them there, and always took them out and spread them in the lamp-light +when she was alone in her room. She glanced approvingly at the portrait +of herself as a picture of which she had said to more than one girlish +confidante that it showed as neat a figure and as perfectly shaped limbs +as any actress's she had ever seen. But the suggestion of a frown +flitted across her brow as she thought how silly she was to have once +been "stage-struck"--how foolish to have thought that mere beauty could +quickly raise a poor girl to a high place on the stage. Julia Fogarty's +case proved that. Julia and she were stage-struck together, and where +was Julia--or Corynne Belvedere, as she now called herself? She started +well as a figurante in a comic opera company up-town, but from that she +dropped to a female minstrel troupe in the Bowery, and now, Lewy Tusch +told Cordelia, she was "tooing ter skirt-tance in ter pickernic parks +for ter sick-baby fund, ant passin' ter hat arount afterwarts." And evil +was being whispered of her--a pretty high price to pay for such small +success; and it must be true, because she sometimes came home late at +night in cabs, which are devilish, except when used at funerals. + +It was Cordelia who attracted Elsa Muller's sweetheart, Yank Hurst, to +her side, and left Elsa to die yearning for his return. And it was +Cordelia who threw Hurst aside when he took to drink and stabbed the +young man who, during a mere walk from church, took his place beside +Cordelia. And yet Cordelia was only ambitious, not wicked. Few men live +who would not look twice at her. She was not of the stunted tenement +type, like her friends Rosie Mulvey and Minnie Bechman and Julia +Moriarty. She was tall and large and stately, and yet plump in every +outline. Moreover, she had the "style" of an American girl, and looked +as well in five dollars' worth of clothes--all home-made, except her +shoes and stockings--as almost any girl in richer circles. It was too +bad that she was called a flirt by the young men, and a stuck-up thing +by the girls, when in fact she was merely more shrewd and calculating +than the others, who were content to drift out of the primary schools +into the shops, and out of the shops into haphazard matrimony. Cordelia +was not lovable, but not all of us are who may be better than she. She +was monopolized by the hope of getting a man; but a mere alliance with +trousers was not the sum of her hope; they must jingle with coin. + +It was strange, then, that she should be dressing to meet Jerry Donahue, +who was no better than gilly to the Commissioner of Public Works, +drawing a small salary from a clerkship he never filled, while he served +the Commissioner as a second left hand. But if we could see into +Cordelia's mind we would be surprised to discover that she did not +regard herself as flesh-and-blood Mahoney, but as romantic Clarice +Delamour, and she only thought of Jerry as James the butler. The +voracious reader of the novels of to-day will recall the story of +_Clarice, or Only a Lady's-Maid,_ which many consider the best of the +several absorbing tales that Lulu Jane Tilley has written. Cordelia had +read it twenty times, and almost knew it by heart. Her constant dream +was that she could be another Clarice, and shape her life like hers. +The plot of the novel needs to be briefly told, since it guided +Cordelia's course. + +Clarice was maid to a wealthy society dowager. James the butler fell in +love with Clarice when she first entered the household, and she, hearing +the servants' gossip about James's savings and salary, had encouraged +his attentions. He pressed her to marry him. But young Nicholas +Stuyvesant came home from abroad to find his mother ill and Clarice +nursing her. Every day he noticed the modest rosy maid moving +noiselessly about like a sunbeam. Her physical perfection profoundly +impressed him. In her presence he constantly talked to his mother about +his admiration for healthy women. Each evening Clarice reported to him +the condition of the mother, and on one occasion mentioned that she had +never known ache, pain, or malady in her life. The young man often +chatted with her in the drawing-room, and James the butler got his +_conge_. Mr. Stuyvesant induced his mother to make Clarice her companion, +and then he met her at picture exhibitions, and in Central Park by +chance, and next--every one will recall the exciting scene--he paid +passionate court to her "in the pink sewing-room, where she had +reclined on soft silken sofa pillows, with her tiny slippers upon the +head of a lion whose skin formed a rug before her." Clarice thought him +unprincipled, and repulsed him. When the widow recovered her health and +went to Newport, the former maid met all society there. A gifted lawyer +fell a victim to Clarice's charms, and, on a moonlit porch overlooking +the sea, warned her against young Stuyvesant. On learning that the +_roue_ had already attempted to weaken the girl's high principles, to +rescue her he made her his wife. He was soon afterward elected Mayor of +New York, but remained a suitor for his beautiful wife's approbation, +waiting upon her in gilded halls with the fidelity of a knight of old. + +Cordelia adored Clarice and fancied herself just like her--beautiful, +ambitious, poor, with a future of her own carving. Of course such a case +is phenomenal. No other young woman was ever so ridiculous. + +"You have on your besht dresh, Cordalia," said her mother. "It'll soon +be wore out, an' ye'll git no other, wid your father oidle, an' no wan +airnin' a pinny but you an' Johnny an' Sarah Rosabel. Fwhere are ye +goin'?" + +"I won't be gone long," said Cordelia, half out of the hall door. + +"Cordalia Angeline, darlin'," said her mother, "mind, now, doan't let +them be talkin' about ye, fwherever ye go--shakin' yer shkirts an' +rollin' yer eyes. It doan't luk well for a gyurl to be makin' hersel' +attractive." + +"Oh, mother, I'm not attractive, and you know it." + +With her head full of meeting Jerry Donahue, Cordelia tripped down the +four flights of stairs to the street door. As Clarice, she thought of +Jerry as James the butler; in fact, all the beaux she had had of late +were so many repetitions of the unfortunate James in her mind. All the +other characters in her acquaintance were made to fit more or less +loosely into her romance life, and she thought of everything she did as +if it all happened in Lulu Jane Tilley's beautiful novel. Let the reader +fancy, if possible, what a feat that must have been for a tenement girl +who had never known what it was to have a parlor, in our sense of the +word, who had never known courtship to be carried on indoors, except in +a tenement hallway, and who had to imagine that the sidewalk flirtations +of actual life were meetings in private parks, that the wharves and +public squares and tenement roofs where she had seen all the young men +and women making love were heavily carpeted drawing-rooms, broad manor, +house verandas, and the fragrant conservatories of luxurious mansions! +But Cordelia managed all this mental necromancy easily, to her own +satisfaction. And now she was tripping down the bare wooden stairs +beside the dark greasy wall, and thinking of her future husband, the +rich Mayor, who must be either the bachelor police captain of the +precinct, or George Fletcher, the wealthy and unmarried factory-owner +near by, or, perhaps, Senator Eisenstone, the district leader, who, she +was forced to reflect, was an unlikely hero for a Catholic girl, since +he was a Hebrew. But just as she reached the street door and decided +that Jerry would do well enough as a mere temporary James the butler, +and while Jerry was waiting for her on the corner, she stepped from the +stoop directly in front of George Fletcher. + +"Good evening," said the wealthy, young employer. + +"Good evening, Mr. Fletcher." + +"It's very embarrassing," said Mr. Fletcher: "I know your given +name--Cordelia, isn't it?--but your last na--Oh, thank you--Miss +Mahoney, of course. You know we met at that very queer wedding in the +home of my little apprentice, Joe--the line-man's wedding, you know." + +"Te he!" Cordelia giggled. "Wasn't that a terrible strange wedding? I +think it was just terrible." + +"Were you going somewhere?" + +"Oh, not at all, Mr. Fletcher," with another nervous giggle or two. "I +have no plans on me mind, only to get out of doors. It's terrible hot, +ain't it?" + +"May I take a walk with you, Miss Mahoney?" + +It seemed to her that if he had called her Clarice the whole novel would +have come true then and there. + +"I can't be out very late, Mr. Fletcher," said she, with a giggle of +delight. + +"Are you sure I am not disarranging your plans? Had you no engagements?" + +"Oh no," said she; "I was only going out with me lonely." + +"Let us take just a short walk, then," said Fletcher; "only you must be +the man and take me in charge, Miss Mahoney, for I never walked with a +young lady in my life." + +"Oh, certainly not; you never did--I _don't_ think." + +"Upon my honor, Miss Mahoney, I know only one woman in this city--Miss +Whitfield, the doctor's daughter, who lives in the same house with you; +and only one other in the world--my aunt, who brought me up, in +Vermont." + +Well indeed did Cordelia know this. All the neighborhood knew it, and +most of the other girls were conscious of a little flutter in their +breasts when his eyes fell upon them in the streets, for it was the +gossip of all who knew his workmen that the prosperous ladder-builder +lived in his factory, where his had spent the life of a monk, without +any society except of his canaries, his books, and his workmen. + +"Well, I declare!" sighed Cordelia. "How terrible cunning you men are, +to get up such a story to make all the girls think you're romantic!" + +But, oh, how happy Cordelia was! At last she had met her prince--the +future Mayor--her Sultan of the gilded halls. In that humid, sticky, +midsummer heat among the tenements, every other woman dragged along as +if she weighed a thousand pounds, but Cordelia felt like a feather +floating among clouds. + +The babel--did the reader ever walk up Forsyth Street on a hot night, +into Second Avenue, and across to Avenue A, and up to Tompkins Park? +The noise of the tens of thousands on the pavements makes a babel that +drowns the racket of the carts and cars. The talking of so many persons, +the squalling of so many babies, the mothers scolding and slapping every +third child, the yelling of the children at play, the shouts and loud +repartee of the men and women--all these noises rolled together in the +air makes a steady hum and roar that not even the breakers on a hard +sea-beach can equal. You might say that the tenements were empty, as +only the very sick, who could not move, were in them. For miles and +miles they were bare of humanity, each flat unguarded and unlocked, with +the women on the sidewalks, with the youngest children in arms or in +perambulators, while those of the next sizes romped in the streets; with +the girls and boys of fourteen giggling in groups in the doorways (the +age and places where sex first asserts itself), and only the young men +and women missing; for they were in the parks, on the wharves, and on +the roofs, all frolicking and love-making. + +And every house front was like a Russian stove, expending the heat it +had sucked from the all-day sun. And every door and window breathed bad +air--air without oxygen, rich and rank and stifling. + +But Cordelia was Clarice, the future Mayoress. She did not know she was +picking a tiresome way around the boys at leap-frog, and the mothers and +babies and baby-carriages. She did not notice the smells, or feel the +bumps she got from those who ran against her. She thought she was in the +blue drawing-room at Newport, where a famous Hungarian count was +trilling the soft prelude to a _csardas_ on the piano, and Mr. +Stuyvesant had just introduced her to the future Mayor, who was +spellbound by her charms, and was by her side, a captive. She reached +out her hand, and it touched Mr. Fletcher's arm (just as a ragamuffin +propelled himself head first against her), and Mr. Fletcher bent his +elbow, and her wrist rested in the crook of his arm. Oh, her dream was +true; her dream was true! + +Mr. Fletcher, on the other hand, was hardly in a more natural relation. +He was trying to think how the men talked to women in all the literature +he had read. The myriad jokes about the fondness of girls for ice-cream +recurred to him, and he risked everything on their fidelity to fact. + +"Are you fond of ice-cream?" he inquired. + +"Oh no; I _don't_ think," said Cordelia. "What'll you ask next? What +girl ain't crushed on ice-cream, I'd like to know?" + +"Do you know of a nice place to get some?" + +"Do I? The Dutchman's, on the av'noo, another block up, is the finest in +the city. You get mo--that is, you get everything 'way up in G there, +with cakes on the side, and it don't cost no more than anywhere else." + +So to the German's they went, and Clarice fancied herself at the Casino +in Newport. All the girls around her, who seemed to be trying to swallow +the spoons, took on the guise of blue-blooded belles, while the noisy +boys and young men (calling out, "Hully gee, fellers! look at Nifty +gittin' out der winder widout payin'!" and, "Say, Tilly, what kind er +cream is dat you're feedin' your face wid?") seemed to her so many +millionaires and the exquisite sons thereof. To Mr. Fletcher the +German's back-yard saloon, with its green lattice walls, and its rusty +dead Christmas trees in painted butter-kegs, appeared uncommonly +brilliant and fine. The fact that whenever he took a swallow of water +the ice-cream turned to cold candle-grease in his mouth made no +difference. He was happy, and Cordelia was in an ecstasy by the time he +had paid a shock-headed, bare-armed German waiter, and they were again +on the avenue side by side. She put out her hand and rested it on his +arm again--to make sure she was Clarice. + +One would like to know whether, in the breasts of such as these, +familiar environment exerts any remarkable influence. If so, it could +have been in but one direction. For that part of town was one vast +nursery. Everywhere, on every side, were the swarming babies--a baby for +every flag-stone in the pavements. Babies and babies, and little besides +babies, except larger children and the mothers. Perambulators with two, +even three, baby passengers; mothers with as many as five children +trailing after them; babies in broad baggy laps, babies at the breast, +babies creeping, toppling, screaming, overflowing into the gutters. Such +was the unbroken scene from the Big Barracks to Tompkins Square; ay, to +Harlem and to the East River, and almost to Broadway. In the park, as if +the street scenes had been merely preliminary, the paths were alive, +wriggling, with babies of every age, from the new-born to the children +in pigtails and knickerbockers--and, lo! these were already paired and +practising at courtship. The walk that Cordelia was taking was amid a +fever, a delirium, of maternity--a rhapsody, a baby's opera, if one +considered its noise. In that vast region no one inquired whether +marriage was a failure. Nothing that is old and long-beloved and human +is a failure there. + +In Tompkins Park, while they dodged babies and stepped around babies and +over them, they saw many happy couples on the settees, and they noticed +that often the men held their arms around the waists of their +sweethearts. Girls, too, in other instances, leaned loving heads against +the young men's breasts, blissfully regardless of publicity. They passed +a young man and a woman kissing passionately, as kissing is described by +unmarried girl novelists. Cordelia thought it no harm to nudge Mr. +Fletcher and whisper: + +"Sakes alive! They're right in it, ain't they. 'It's funny when you feel +that way,' ain't it?" + +As many another man who does not know the frankness and simplicity of +the plain people might have done, Mr. Fletcher misjudged the girl. He +thought her the sort of girl he was far from seeking. He grew instantly +cold and reserved, and she knew, vaguely, that she had displeased him. + +"I think people who make love in public should be locked up," said he. + +"Some folks wants everybody put away that enjoys themselves," said +Cordelia. Then, lest she had spoken too strongly, she added, "Present +company not intended, Mr. Fletcher, but you said that like them mission +folks that come around praising themselves and tellin' us all we're +wicked." + +"And do you think a girl can be good who behaves so in public?" + +"I know plenty that's done it," said she; "and I don't know any girls +but what's good. They 'ain't got wings, maybe, but you don't want to +monkey with 'em, neither." + +He recollected her words for many a year afterward and pondered them, +and perhaps they enlarged his understanding. She also often thought of +his condemnation of love-making out-of-doors. Kissing in public, +especially promiscuous kissing, she knew to be a debatable pastime, but +she also knew that there was not a flat in the Big Barracks in which a +girl could carry on a courtship. Fancy her attempting it in her front +room, with the room choked with people, with the baby squalling, and her +little brothers and sisters quarrelling, with her mother entertaining +half a dozen women visitors with tea or beer, and with a man or two +dropping in to smoke with her father! Parlor courtship was to her, like +precise English, a thing only known in novels. The thought of novels +floated her soul back into the dream state. + +"I think Cordelia's a pretty name," said Fletcher, cold at heart but +struggling to be companionable. + +"I don't," said Cordelia. "I'm not at all crushed on it. Your name's +terrible pretty. I think my three names looks like a map of Ireland when +they're written down. I know a killin' name for a girl. It's Clarice. +Maybe some day I'll give you a dare. I'll double dare you, maybe, to +call me Clarice." + +Oh, if he only would, she thought--if he would only call her so now! But +she forgot how unelastic his strange routine of life must have left him, +and she did not dream how her behavior in the park had displeased him. + +"Cordelia is a pretty name," he repeated. "At any rate, I think we +should try to make the most and best of whatever name has come to us. I +wouldn't sail under false colors for a minute." + +"Oh!" said she, with a giggle to hide her disappointment; "you're so +terrible wise! When you talk them big words you can pass me in a walk." + +Anxious to display her great conquest to the other girls of the Barracks +neighborhood, Cordelia persuaded Mr. Fletcher to go to what she called +"the dock," to enjoy the cool breath of the river. All the piers and +wharves are called "docks" by the people. Those which are semi-public +and are rented to miscellaneous excursion and river steamers are crowded +nightly. + +The wharf to which our couple strolled was a mere flooring above the +water, edged with a stout string-piece, which formed a bench for the +mothers. They were there in groups, some seated on the string-piece with +babes in arms or with perambulators before them, and others, facing +these, standing and joining in the gossip, and swaying to and fro to +soothe their little ones. Those who gave their offspring the breast did +so publicly, unembarrassed by a modesty they would have considered +false. A few youthful couples, boy by girl and girl by boy, sat on the +string-piece and whispered, or bandied fun with those other lovers who +patrolled the flooring of the wharf. A "gang" of rude young +men--toughs--walked up and down, teasing the girls, wrestling, +scuffling, and roaring out bad language. Troops of children played at +leap-frog, high-spy, jack-stones, bean-bag, hop-scotch, and tag. At the +far end of the pier some young men and women waltzed, while a lad on the +string-piece played for them on his mouth-organ. A steady, cool, +vivifying breeze from the bay swept across the wharf and fanned all the +idlers, and blew out of their heads almost all recollection of the +furnacelike heat of the town. + +Cordelia forgot her desire to display her conquest. She forgot her true +self. She likened the wharf to that "lordly veranda overlooking the +sea," where the future Mayor begged Clarice to be his bride. She knew +just what she would say when her prince spoke his lines. She and Mr. +Fletcher were just about to seat themselves on the great rim of the +wharf, when an uproar of the harsh, froglike voices of half-grown men +caused them to turn around. They saw Jerry Donahue striding towards +them, but with difficulty, because half a dozen lads and youths were +endeavoring to hold him back. + +"Dat's Mr. Fletcher," they said. "It ain't his fault, Jerry. He's dead +square; he's a gent, Jerry." + +The politician's gilly tore himself away from his friends. The gang of +toughs gathered behind the others. Jerry planted himself in front of +Cordelia. Evidently he did not know the submissive part he should have +played in Cordelia's romance. James the butler made no out-break, but +here was Jerry angry through and through. + +"You didn't keep de date wid me," he began. + +"Oh, Jerry, I did--I tried to, but you--" Cordelia was red with shame. + +"The hell you did! Wasn't I--" + +"Here!" said Mr. Fletcher; "you can't swear at this lady." + +"Why wouldn't I?" Jerry asked. "What would you do?" + +"He's right, Jerry. Leave him be--see?" said the chorus of Jerry's +friends. + +"A-a-a-h!" snarled Jerry. "Let him leave me be, then. Cordelia, I heard +you was a dead fraud, an' now I know it, and I'm a-tellin' you so, +straight--see? I was a-waitin' 'cross der street, an' I seen you come +out an' meet dis mug, an' you never turned yer head to see was I on me +post. I seen dat, an' I'm a-tellin' yer friend just der kind of a racket +you give me, der same's you've give a hundred other fellers. Den, if he +likes it he knows what he's gittin'." + +Jerry was so angry that he all but pushed his distorted face against +that of the humiliated girl as he denounced her. Mr. Fletcher gently +moved her backward a step or two, and advanced to where she had stood. + +"That will do," he said to Jerry. "I want no trouble, but you've said +enough. If there's more, say it to me." + +"A-a-a-h!" exclaimed the gilly, expectorating theatrically over his +shoulder. "Me friends is on your side, an' I ain't pickin' no muss wid +you. But she's got der front of der City Hall to do me like she done. +And say, fellers, den she was goin' ter give me a song an' dance 'bout +lookin' fer me. Ba-a-a! She knows my 'pinion of her--see?" + +The crowd parted to let Mr. Fletcher finish his first evening's +gallantry to a lady by escorting Cordelia to her home. It was a chilly +and mainly a silent journey. Cordelia falteringly apologized for Jerry's +misbehavior, but she inferred from what Mr. Fletcher said that he did +not fully join her in blaming the angry youth. Mr. Fletcher touched her +fingertips in bidding her good-night, and nothing was said of a meeting +in the future. Clarice was forgotten, and Cordelia was not only herself +again, but quite a miserable self, for her sobs awoke the little brother +and sister who shared her bed. + + + + +The Prize-Fund Beneficiary + +BY E.A. ALEXANDER + + +Miss Snell began to apologize for interrupting the work almost before +she came in. The Painter, who grudgingly opened one half of the +folding-door wide enough to let her pass into the studio, was annoyed to +observe that, in spite of her apologies, she was loosening the furs +about her throat as if in preparation for a lengthy visit. Then for the +first time, behind her tall, black-draped figure, he caught sight of her +companion, who was shorter, and whose draperies were of a less ample +character--for Miss Snell, being tall and thin, resorted to voluminous +garments to conceal her slimness of person. A large plumed hat +accentuated, her sallowness and sharpness of feature, and her dark eyes, +set under heavy black brows, intensified her look of unhealthy pallor. + +She was perfectly at her ease, and introduced her companion, Miss +Price, in a few words, explaining that the latter had come over for a +year or so to study, and was anxious to have the best advice about it. + +"So I brought her straight here," Miss Snell announced, triumphantly. + +Miss Price seemed a trifle overcome by the novelty of her surroundings, +but managed to say, in a high nasal voice, that she had already begun to +work at Julian's, but did not find it altogether satisfactory. + +The Painter, looking at her indifferently, was roused to a sudden +interest by her face. Her features and complexion were certainly +pleasing, but the untidy mass of straggling hair topped by a battered +straw sailor hat diverted the attention of a casual observer from her +really unusual delicacy of feature and coloring. She was tall and slim, +although now she was dwarfed by Miss Snell's gaunt figure. A worn dress +and shabby green cape fastened at the neck by a button hanging +precariously on its last thread completed her very unsuitable winter +attire. Outside the great studio window a cold December twilight was +settling down over roofs covered with snow and icicles, and the Painter +shivered involuntarily as he noticed the insufficiency of her wraps for +such weather, and got up to stir the fire which glowed in the big stove. + +In one corner his model waited patiently for the guests to depart, and +he now dismissed her for the day, eliciting faint protestations from +Miss Snell, who, however, was settling down comfortably in an easy-chair +by the fire, with an evident intention of staying indefinitely. Miss +Price's large, somewhat expressionless blue eyes were taking in the +whole studio, and the Painter could feel that she was distinctly +disappointed by her inspection. She had evidently anticipated something +much grander, and this bare room was not the ideal place she had fancied +the studio of a world-renowned painter would prove to be. + +Bare painted walls, a peaked roof with a window reaching far overhead, a +polished floor, one or two chairs and a divan, the few necessary +implements of his profession, and many canvases faced to the wall, but +little or no bric-a-brac or delightful studio properties. The Painter +was also conscious that her inspection included him personally, and was +painfully aware that she was regarding him with the same feeling of +disappointment; she quite evidently thought him too young and +insignificant looking for a person of his reputation. + +Miss Snell had not given him time to reply to Miss Price's remark about +her study at Julian's, but prattled on about her own work and the +unsurmountable difficulties that lay in the way of a woman's successful +career as a painter. + +"I have been studying for years under ----," said Miss Snell, "and +really I have no time to lose. It will end by my simply going to him and +saying, quite frankly: 'Now, Monsieur ----, I have been in your atelier +for four years, and I can't afford to waste another minute. There are no +two ways about it. You positively must tell me how to do it. You really +must not keep me waiting any longer. I insist upon it.' How discouraging +it is!" she sighed. "It seems quite impossible to find any one who is +willing to give the necessary information." + +Miss Price's wandering eyes had at last found a resting-place on a +large, half-finished canvas standing on an easel. Something attractive +in the pose and turn of her head made the Painter watch her as he lent a +feeble attention to Miss Snell's conversation. + +Miss Price's lips were very red, and the clear freshness of extreme +youth bloomed in her cheeks; she was certainly charming. During one of +Miss Snell's rare pauses she spoke, and her thin high voice came with +rather a shock from between her full lips. + +"May I look?" was her unnecessary question, for her eyes had never left +the canvas on the easel since they had first rested there. She rose as +she spoke, and went over to the painting. + +The Painter pulled himself out of the cushions on the divan where he had +been lounging, and went over to push the big canvas into a better light. +Then he stood, while the girl gazed at it, saying nothing, and +apparently oblivious to everything but the work before him. + +He was roused, not by Miss Price, who remained admiringly silent, but by +the enraptured Miss Snell, who had also risen, gathering furs and wraps +about her, and was now ecstatically voluble in her admiration. English +being insufficient for the occasion, she had to resort to French for the +expression of her enthusiasm. + +The Painter said nothing, but watched the younger girl, who turned away +at last with a sigh of approbation. He was standing under the window, +leaning against a table littered with paints and brushes. + +"Stay where you are!" exclaimed Miss Snell, excitedly. "Is he not +charming, Cora, in that half-light? You must let me paint you just so +some day--you must indeed." She clutched Miss Price and turned her +forcibly in his direction. + +The Painter, confused by this unexpected onslaught, moved hastily away +and busied himself with a pretence of clearing the table. + +"I--I should be delighted," he stammered, in his embarrassment, and he +caught Miss Price's eye, in which he fancied a smile was lurking. + +"But you have not given Miss Price a word of advice about her work," +said Miss Snell, as she fastened her wraps preparatory to departure. She +seemed quite oblivious to the fact that she had monopolized all the +conversation herself. + +He turned politely to Miss Price, who murmured something about Julian's +being so badly ventilated, but gave him no clew as to her particular +branch of the profession. Miss Snell, however, supplied all details. It +seemed Miss Price was sharing Miss Snell's studio, having been sent over +by the Lynxville, Massachusetts, Sumner Prize Fund, for which she had +successfully competed, and which provided a meagre allowance for two +years' study abroad. + +"She wants to paint heads," said Miss Snell; and in reply to a remark +about the great amount of study required to accomplish this desire, +surprised him by saying, "Oh, she only wants to paint them well enough +to teach, not well enough to sell." + +"I'll drop in and see your work some afternoon," promised the Painter, +warmed by their evident intention of leaving; and he escorted them to +the landing, warning them against the dangerous steepness of his +stairway, which wound down in almost murky darkness. + +Ten minutes later the centre panel of his door displayed a card bearing +these words: "At home only after six o'clock." + +"I wonder I never thought of doing this before," he reflected, as he lit +a cigarette and strolled off to a neighboring restaurant; "I am always +out by that hour." + + * * * * * + +Several weeks elapsed before he saw Miss Price again, for he promptly +forgot his promise to visit her studio and inspect her work. His own +work was very absorbing just then, and the short winter days all too +brief for its accomplishment. He was struggling to complete the large +canvas that Miss Snell had so volubly admired during her visit, and it +really seemed to be progressing. But the weather changed suddenly from +frost to thaw, and he woke one morning to find little runnels of dirty +water coursing down his window and dismally dripping into the muddy +street below. It made him feel blue, and his big picture, which had +seemed so promising the day before, looked hopelessly bad in this new +mood. So he determined to take a day off, and, after his coffee, +strolled out into the Luxembourg Gardens. There the statues were green +with mouldy dampness, and the paths had somewhat the consistency of very +thin oatmeal porridge. Suddenly the sun came out brightly, and he found +a partially dry bench, where he sat down to brood upon the utter +worthlessness of things in general and the Luxembourg statuary in +particular. The sunny facade of the palace glittered in the brightness. +One of his own pictures hung in its gallery. "It is bad," he said to +himself, "hopelessly bad," and he gloomily felt the strongest proof of +its worthlessness was its popularity with the public. He would probably +go on thinking this until the weather or his mood changed. + +As his eyes strayed from the palace, he glanced up a long vista between +leafless trees and muddy grass-plats. A familiar figure in a battered +straw hat and scanty green cloak was advancing in his direction; the +wind, blowing back the fringe of disfiguring short hair, disclosed a +pure unbroken line of delicate profile, strangely simple, and recalling +the profiles in Botticelli's lovely fresco in the Louvre. Miss Price, +for it was she, carried a painting-box, and under one arm a stretcher +that gave her infinite trouble whenever the wind caught it. As she +passed, the Painter half started up to join her, but she gave him such a +cold nod that his intention was nipped in the bud. He felt snubbed, and +sank back on his bench, taking a malicious pleasure in observing that, +womanlike, she ploughed through all the deepest puddles in her path, +making great splashes about the hem of her skirt, that fluttered out +behind her as she walked, for her hands were filled, and she had no +means of holding it up. + +The Painter resented his snubbing. He was used to the most humble +deference from the art students of the quarter, who hung upon his +slightest word, and were grateful for every stray crumb of his +attention. + +He now lost what little interest he had previously taken in his +surroundings. Just before him in a large open space reserved for the +boys to play handball was a broken sheet of glistening water reflecting +the blue sky, the trees rattled their branches about in the wind, and +now and then a tardy leaf fluttered down from where it had clung +desperately late into the winter. The gardens were almost deserted. It +was too early for the throng of beribboned nurses and howling infants +who usually haunt its benches. One or two pedestrians hurried across the +garden, evidently taking the route to make shortcuts to their +destinations, and not for the pleasure of lounging among its blustery +attractions. + +After idling an hour on his bench, he went to breakfast with a friend +who chanced to live conveniently near, and where he made himself very +disagreeable by commenting unfavorably on the work in progress and +painting in particular. Then he brushed himself up and started off for +the rue Notre Dame des Champs, where Miss Snell's studio was situated. +It was one of a number huddled together in an old and rather dilapidated +building, and the porter at the entrance gave him minute directions as +to its exact location, but after stumbling up three flights of dark +stairs he had no trouble in finding it, for Miss Snell's name, preceded +by a number of initials, shone out from a door directly in front of him +as he reached the landing. + +He knocked, and for several minutes there was a wild scurrying within +and a rattle and clash of crockery. Then Miss Snell appeared at the +door, and exclaimed, in delighted surprise: + +"How _do_ you do? We had quite given you up." + +She looked taller and longer than ever swathed in a blue painting-apron +and grasping her palette and brushes. She had to apologize for not +shaking hands with him, because her fingers were covered with paint that +had been hastily but ineffectually wiped off on a rag before she +answered his knock. + +He murmured something about not coming before because of his work, but +she would not let him finish, saying, intensely, + +"We know how precious every minute is to you." + +Miss Price came reluctantly forward and shook hands; she had evidently +not been painting, for her fingers were quite clean. Short ragged hair +once more fell over her forehead, and the Painter felt a shock of +disappointment, and wondered why he had thought her so fine when she +passed him in the morning. + +"I was just going to paint Cora," announced Miss Snell. "She is taking a +holiday this afternoon, and we were hunting for a pose when you +knocked." + +"Don't let me interrupt you," he said, smiling. "Perhaps I can help." + +Miss Snell was in a flutter at once, and protested that she should be +almost afraid to work while he was there. + +"In that case I shall leave at once," he said; but his chair was +comfortable, and he made no motion to go. + +"What a queer little place it is!" he reflected, as he looked about. +"All sorts of odds and ends stuck about helter-skelter, and the +house-keeping things trying to masquerade as bric-a-brac." + +Cora Price looked decidedly sulky when she realized that the Painter +intended to stay, and seeing this he became rooted in his intention. He +wondered why she took this particular attitude towards him, and +concluded she was piqued because of his delay in calling. She acted like +a spoiled child, and caused Miss Snell, who was overcome by his +condescension in staying, no little embarrassment. + +It was quite evident from her behavior that Miss Price was impressed +with her own importance as the beneficiary of the Lynxville Prize Fund, +and would require the greatest deference from her acquaintances in +consequence. + +"Here, Cora, try this," said Miss Snell, planting a small three-legged +stool on a rickety model-stand. + +"Might I make a suggestion?" said the Painter, coolly. "I should push +back all the hair on her forehead; it gives a finer line." + +"Why, of course!" said Miss Snell. "I wonder we never thought of that +before. Cora dear, you are much better with your hair back." + +Cora said nothing, but the Botticelli profile glowered ominously against +a background of sage-green which Miss Snell was elaborately draping +behind it. + +"If I might advise again," the Painter said, "I would take that down and +paint her quite simply against the gray wall." + +Miss Snell was quite willing to adopt every suggestion. She produced her +materials and a fresh canvas, and began making a careful drawing, which, +as it progressed, filled the Painter's soul with awe. + +"I feel awfully like trying it myself," he said, after watching her for +a few moments. "Can I have a bit of canvas?" + +"Take anything," exclaimed Miss Snell; and he helped himself, refusing +the easel which she wanted to force upon him, and propping his little +stretcher up on a chair. Miss Snell stopped her drawing to watch him +commence. It made her rather nervous to see how much paint he squeezed +out on the palette; it seemed to her a reckless prodigality. + +He eyed her assortment of brushes dubiously, selecting three from the +draggled limp collection. + +Cora was certainly a fine subject, in spite of her sulkiness, and he +grew absorbed in his work, and painted away, with Miss Snell at his +elbow making little staccato remarks of admiration as the sketch +progressed. Suddenly he jumped up, realizing how long he had kept the +young model. + +"Dear me," he cried, "you must be exhausted!" and he ran to help her +down from the model-stand. + +She did look tired, and Miss Snell suggested tea, which he stayed to +share. Cora became less and less sulky, and when at last he remembered +that he had come to see her work, she produced it with less +unwillingness than he had expected. + +He was rather floored by her productions. As far as he could judge from +what she showed him, she was hopelessly without talent, and he could +only wonder which of these remarkably bad studies had won for her the +Lynxville Sumner Prize Fund. + +He tried to give her some advice, and was thanked when she put her +things away. + +Then they all looked at his sketch, which Miss Snell pronounced "too +charming," and Cora plainly thought did not do her justice. + +"I wish you would pose a few times for me, Miss Price," he said, before +leaving. "I should like very much to paint you, and it would be doing me +a great favor." + +The girl did not respond to this request with any eagerness. He fancied +he could see she was feeling huffy again at his meagre praise of her +work. + +Miss Snell, however, did not allow her to answer, but rapturously +promised that Cora should sit as often as he liked, and paid no +attention to the girl's protest that she had no time to spare. + +"This has been simply in-spiring!" said Miss Snell, as she bade him +good-bye, and he left very enthusiastic about Cora's profile, and with +his hand covered with paint from Miss Snell's door-knob. + + * * * * * + +In spite of Miss Snell's assurance that Cora would pose, the Painter was +convinced that she would not, if a suitable excuse could be invented. +Feeling this, he wrote her a most civil note about it. The answer came +promptly, and did not surprise him. + +She was very sorry indeed, but she had no leisure hours at her disposal, +and although she felt honored, she really could not do it. This was +written on flimsy paper, in a big unformed handwriting, and it caused +him to betake himself once more to Miss Snell's studio, where he found +her alone--Cora was at Julian's. + +She promised to beg Cora to pose, and accepted an invitation for them to +breakfast with him in his studio on the following Sunday morning. + +He carefully explained to her that his whole winter's work depended upon +Cora's posing for him. He half meant it, having been seized with the +notion that her type was what he needed to realize a cherished ideal, +and he told this to Miss Snell, and enlarged upon it until he left her +rooted in the conviction that he was hopelessly in love with Cora--a +fact she imparted to that young woman on her return from Julian's. + +Cora listened very placidly, and expressed no astonishment. He was not +the first by any means; other people had been in love with her in +Lynxville, Massachusetts, and she confided the details of several of +these love-affairs to Miss Snell's sympathetic ears during the evening. + +Meanwhile, the Painter did nothing, and a fresh canvas stood on his +easel when the girls arrived for breakfast on Sunday morning. The big +unfinished painting was turned to the wall; he had lost all interest in +it. + +"When I fancy doing a thing I am good for nothing else," he explained to +Cora, after she had promised him a few sittings. "So you are really +saving me from idleness by posing." + +Cora laughed, and was silent. The Painter blessed her for not being +talkative; her nasal voice irritated him, although her beautiful +features were a constant delight. + +Miss Snell had succeeded in permanently eliminating the disfiguring +bang, and her charming profile was left unmarred. + +"I want to paint you just as you are," he said, and noticing that she +looked rather disdainfully at her shabby black cashmere, added, "The +black of your dress could not be better." + +"We thought," said Miss Snell, deprecatingly, "that you might like a +costume. We could easily arrange one." + +"Not in the least necessary," said the Painter. "I have set my heart on +painting her just as she is." + +The girls were disappointed in his want of taste. They had had visions +of a creation in which two Liberty scarfs and a velveteen table cover +were combined in a felicitous harmony of color. + +"When can I have the first sitting?" he asked. + +"Tuesday, I think," said Miss Snell, reflectively. + +"Heavens!" thought the Painter. "Is Miss Snell coming with her?" And the +possibility kept him in a state of nervousness until Tuesday afternoon, +when Cora appeared, accompanied by the inevitable Miss Snell. + +It turned out, however, that the latter could not stay. She would call +for Cora later; just now her afternoons were occupied. She was doing a +pastel portrait in the Champs Elysees quarter, so she reluctantly left, +to the Painter's great relief. + +He did not make himself very agreeable during the sittings which +followed. He was apt to get absorbed in his work and to forget to say +anything. Then Miss Snell would appear to fetch her friend, and he would +apologize for being so dull, and Cora would remark that she enjoyed +sitting quietly, it rested her after the noise and confusion at +Julian's. + +"If she talked much I could not paint her, her voice is so irritating," +he confided to a friend who was curious and asked all sorts of questions +about his new sitter. + +The work went well but slowly, for Cora sat only twice a week. She felt +obliged to devote the rest of her time to study, as she was living on +the prize fund, and she even had qualms of conscience about the two +afternoons she gave up to the sittings. + +During all this time Miss Snell continued to weave chapters of romance +about Cora and the Painter, and the girls talked things over after each +sitting when they were alone together. + +Spring had appeared very early in the year, and the public gardens and +boulevards were richly green. Chestnut-trees blossomed and gaudy +flower-beds bloomed in every square. The Salons opened, and were +thronged with an enthusiastic public, although the papers as usual +denounced them as being the poorest exhibitions ever given. + +The Painter had sent nothing, being completely absorbed in finishing +Cora's portrait, to the utter exclusion of everything else. + +Cora did the exhibitions faithfully. It was one of the duties she owed +to the Lynxville fund, and which she diligently carried out. The Painter +bothered and confused her by many things; he persistently admired all +the pictures she liked least, and praised all those she did not care +for. She turned pale with suppressed indignation when he differed from +her opinion, and resented his sweeping contempt of her criticisms. + +On the strength of a remittance from the prize fund, and in honor of the +season, she discarded the sailor hat for a vivid ready-made creation +smacking strongly of the Bon Marche. The weather was warm, and Cora wore +mitts, which the Painter thought unpardonable in a city where gloves are +particularly cheap. The mitts were probably fashionable in Lynxville, +Massachusetts. Miss Snell, who rustled about in stiff black silk and +bugles, seemed quite oblivious to her friend's want of taste; she was +all excitement, for her pastel portrait--by some hideous mistake--had +been accepted and hung in one of the exhibitions, and the girls went +together on varnishing-day to see it. There they met the Painter +prowling aimlessly about, and Miss Snell was delighted to note his +devotion to Cora. It was a strong proof of his attachment to her, she +thought. The truth was he felt obliged to be civil after her kindness in +posing. He wished he could repay her in some fashion, but since his +first visit to Miss Snell's she had never offered to show him her work +again, or asked his advice in any way, and he felt a delicacy about +offering his services as a teacher when she gave him so little +encouragement. He fancied, too, that she did not take much interest in +his work, and knew she did not appreciate his portrait of her, which was +by far the best thing he had ever done. + +Her lack of judgment vexed him, for he knew the value of his work, and +every day his fellow-painters trooped in to see it, and were loud in +their praises. It would certainly be the _clou_ of any exhibition in +which it might be placed. + +During one sitting Cora ventured to remark that she thought it a pity he +did not intend to make the portrait more complete, and suggested the +addition of various accessories which in her opinion would very much +improve it. + +"It's by far the most complete thing I have ever done," he said. "I +sha'n't touch it again," and he flung down his brushes in a fit of +temper. + +She looked at him contemptuously, and putting on her hat, left the +studio without another word; and for several weeks he did not see her +again. + +Then he met her in the street, and begged her to come and pose for a +head in his big picture, which he had taken up once more. His apologies +were so abject that she consented, but she ceased to be punctual, and he +never could feel quite sure that she would keep her appointments. + +Sometimes he would wait a whole afternoon in vain, and one day when she +failed to appear at the promised hour he shut up his office and strolled +down to the Seine. There he caught sight of her with a gay party who +were about to embark on one of the little steamers that ply up and down +the river. + +He shook his fist at her from the quay where he stood, and watched her +and her party step into the boat from the pier. + +"She thinks little enough of the Lynxville Prize Fund when she wants an +outing," he said to himself, scornfully. + +After fretting a little over his wasted afternoon, he forgot all about +her, and set to work with other models. Then he left Paris for the +summer. + + * * * * * + +A few hours after his return, early in the fall, there came a knock at +his door. He had been admiring Cora's portrait, which to his fresh eye +looked exceptionally good. + +Miss Snell, with eyes red and tearful, stood on his door-mat when he +answered the tap. + +"Poor dear Cora," she said, had received a notice from the Lynxville +committee that they did not consider her work sufficiently promising to +continue the fund another year. + +"She will have to go home," sobbed Miss Snell, but said: "I am forced to +admit that Cora has wasted a good deal of time this summer. She is so +young, and needs a little distraction, now and then," and she appealed +to the Painter for confirmation of this undoubted fact. + +He was absent-minded, but assented to all she said. In his heart he +thought it a fortunate thing that the prize fund should be withdrawn. +One female art student the less: he grew pleased with the idea. Cora had +ceased to interest him as an individual, and he considered her only as +one of an obnoxious class. + +"I thought you ought to be the first to know about it," said Miss Snell, +confidentially, "because you might have some plan for keeping her over +here." Miss Snell looked unutterable things that she did not dare to put +into words. + +She made the Painter feel uncomfortable, she looked so knowing, and he +became loud in his advice to send Cora home at once. + +"Pack her off," he cried. "She is wasting time and money by staying. She +never had a particle of talent, and the sooner she goes back to +Lynxville the better." + +Miss Snell shrank from his vehemence, and wished she had not insisted +upon coming to consult him. She had assured Cora that the merest hint +would bring matters to a crisis. Cora would imagine that she had bungled +matters terribly, and she was mortified at the thought of returning with +the news of a repulse. + +As soon as she had gone, the Painter felt sorry he had been so hasty. He +had bundled her unceremoniously out of the studio, pleading important +work. + +He called twice in the rue Notre Dame des Champs, but the porter would +never let him pass her lodge, and he at last realized that she had been +given orders to that effect. A judicious tip extracted from her the fact +that Miss Price expected to leave for America the following Saturday, +and, armed with an immense bouquet, he betook himself to the St. Lazare +station at the hour for the departure of the Havre express. + +He arrived with only a minute to spare before the guard's whistle was +answered by the mosquitolike pipe that sets the train in motion. + +The Botticelli profile was very haughty and cold. Miss Snell was there, +of course, bathed in tears. He had just time enough to hand in his huge +bouquet through the open window before the train started. He caught one +glimpse of an angry face within, when suddenly his great nosegay came +flying out of the compartment, and striking him full in the face, spread +its shattered paper and loosened flowers all over the platform at his +feet. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIFFERENT GIRLS*** + + +******* This file should be named 14744.txt or 14744.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/7/4/14744 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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